What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Other duties as assigned. I can do my job – the heavy analytical lifting – or I can do the other duties as assigned – issuing keys, setting up new employees with laptops, filing, hole punching, and flipping slides. However, I lack the gift of being in two places at once so you’re going to have to pick between those so I know what you actually want me to spend time tending. I’m good either way, but choose one and you’ll get a seriously good analyst, close the other and you have a spectacularly overpriced secretary. The choice is utterly yours.

2. Being other than on time. Although I’ve been doing it nearly every working day since January 2003, people always seem surprised when I shutdown and head for the doors on time. You may work for love. You may work for pride. You may even work to give your short time on this rock a sense of purpose. I’m a simpler animal. I work for money because I know my time isn’t free or limitless. Think of it what you will, but you can always be assured that when I’m “on,” you’ll get the best product I can manage, but I will be equally dedicated to preserving my personal time at almost any cost.

3. Free stuff. My news feeds and the media channels have been filled with talk of everyone who wants “free” stuff these last few days. They want a $15/hour paycheck guarantee for entry-level unskilled labor – essentially a request for “free” money since their economic activity doesn’t command such price in the marketplace already. They want “free” higher education. They want “free” healthcare. They want “free” housing and “free” food and maybe even a “free” phone. I may be a poor simple hillbilly from Western Maryland, but it strikes me that what the most recent round of protestors really mean is they want the stuff and they want other people to pay the bill. Precious little in life comes for “free.” Someone, somewhere, has to pick up the check. It’s not presently the popular thing to say, but in my mind being a grown ass adult mostly means being able to make your own way in the world, paying your bills, and being a responsible and productive member of society… or maybe I missed a memo somewhere. In that case, where’s my free shit?

One Day Only…

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The niceties of Veteran’s Day aside, it’s placement this year smack in the middle of the week is just bloody inconvenient. Just as I found myself getting settled in for the evening I remembered that this isn’t the weekend and there are still two more days to slog through between us and Saturday. That’s hardly the end of the world, but it still doesn’t do much to improve my opinion of these “floating” holidays that are tied to a date instead of attached in lockstep to a weekend.

Now, please don’t take that as any criticism of the holiday itself. Anyone who knows me will tell you that my absolute favorite kind of time is time off and that I’ll take it wherever I can find it. If I had a little more leave in the bank this year, I would have proactively resolved the issue on my own. Alas, the home buying and repair have eaten up way more vacation time than I would have spent in any normal year.

Today was an anomaly, an irregularity, a one day only special. I’ll take it. Gladly. But don’t for a minute think that’ll keep me from bitching about it.

Things not do do…

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So let’s say you’re the boss. You’re going to be out of the office for a few days and you have to pick between your underlings to tag someone to be the “responsible adult” in your absence. There are any number of ways you can go about making the selection – by seniority, but lack of seniority, by drawing lots, or even by throwing a dart at a list of names. All are sort of a pot luck approach to section that all but guarantees someone who doesn’t want to be in charge ends up, albeit temporarily, making the decisions.

If I can offer up a pro tip to those of you who ever find yourself needing to designate your own temporary replacement, the guy not to pick is the one who has been eyeball deep on a single project for the last three weeks and who has no earthly idea what anyone else is doing, what their project status is, or really anything beyond how many emails have piled into their inbox since the last time they were at their desk. When you do that, all you’re really going to accomplish is to leave everyone even more confused than when they started the day.

Sometimes the vagaries of staffing and coverage mean you can’t avoid the unprepared leading the unwilling towards the unforeseen, but it’s not going to be what you might call a best practice. If history has taught me nothing it’s that I’ll gladly make decisions regardless of how ill-informed I happen to be on the subject. As always, in the absence of clear guidance, I will create my own… and that course of action has nothing if not a truly mixed bag of results.

Regularly scheduled broadcast…

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With the heavy lifting of last week over, I’m fairly certain that we’re now returning to your regularly scheduled broadcasts around here. Mercifully, the coming week will largely be about administrative minutia and doctoring up the aftermath to make sure everyone comes out looking good. Being a master bureaucrat of long experience, thats the kind of work I can churn out all day long without calling on too much brain power. It’s for the best really, because I’m still not sure how deep reserve of that I have, even after the long weekend of making no decision more challenging than when to eat and what to watch.

Our great bureaucracy is in the midst of that magical time of year when just about everyone’s thoughts are turning to the two month “holiday season,” those eight or nine weeks of the year between Veteran’s Day and New Years that are punctuated by 4 federal holidays and everyone trying to burn off the last of their use-or-lose vacation time. It’s not quite a “slow” season, as the beast always needs fed, but the pace does ease – if only because at any time it’s likely one or more of the people you need to talk to to get anything accomplished will be elsewhere.

In no way should that be interpreted as a complaint. In fact I’m counting on the schedule taking a few stutter steps if I’m ever going to catch up on email and all the other stuff I’ve been largely ignoring over the last few weeks. When I was last at my desk, the unread message count stood somewhere around 300+. If Thursday and Friday kept up the pace, I could have a personal best 500 messages waiting for me to read, file, delete, or continue to ignore indefinitely.

While in an of itself that all seems pretty bad, I can tell you this is the least angst-filled Sunday night I’ve passed in quite some time. I’m counting it as a win.

What Annoys Jeff this Week (Conferences and Events Edition)

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1. No means no. Yes there are empty seats. No you can’t fill them. If I’m going to risk my career that $50 bribe you offered isn’t going to get it done. Asshat.

2. Closing time. If you’re sitting in a venue and the lights go out, that’s a good sign it’s time to leave. You can go to the local tavern, grab a bit to eat, or finger bang each other out in the parking lot for all I care. But you can’t stay here.

3. Q&A. All your questions are answered on the agenda. Read the agenda. Don’t be the douchebag who asks the 100th time where the bathrooms are or what time someone is presenting. Asked and answers. Actually, we answered before you asked.

4. You look tired. There’s a reason for that. That reson involves the alarm clock ringing at 0330 the last 4 mornings so I can get here at least an hour before you do and being here an hour or two after you’re (supposed to) leave. Want to help me look less tired, go sit in your seat quietly and try not to say anything stupid.

Early starts…

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I’ve got a couple of ridiculously early start times coming this week. Not by choice, but of necessity. I know I’m supposed to look on the bright side and think this year’s Big Group of People Who are Going to Want All Sorts of Stupid Shit Done at The Last Minute is going to be the best one yet – but in all seriousness, my inner introvert is already exhausted before anyone even sets foot through the door tomorrow.

The very best thing I can say about this event is that by Thursday night it will be over… and remind myself that no matter how bad it gets, at least I’m not the guy who lost the blimp. He’s going to be having a far worse week then I am. 

I’m going to try to keep the posts coming, because jackassery in the face of a thousand “guests” is nearly inevitable. If I miss a day, I hope you’ll all understand that nothing coming out of my mouth in the moment is in any way fit for print.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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I’m starting to wonder if perhaps I’ve reached the end of having interesting things to say. These posts get harder and harder to finish. In truth they get harder and harder to start too. For a guy who generally likes to use his words, that’s something of a problem.

Fact is, you’d probably be surprised by the sheer amount of energy that goes into dreaming up a fresh new post five times a week, trying to be at least marginally entertaining (or at least informative), and do it before my eyes go hopelessly crossed from too much staring at a monitor over the course of a typical weekday. Add in the mostly undeniable fact that I’ve been mentally and intellectual bankrupt by the time I back up the driveway these last few weeks and you’ve got a healthy part of the recipe for really bad writing… or at least really forced writing. Those two things don’t always arrive together, but they’re often found as two sides of the same coin.

I take great solace in the fact that the shitshow at the center of my current state of mental decrepitude will be at an end by this time next week. At which time I’m quite confident I’ll “lay me down and bleed a while, and then rise up to fight again.” Until then, I’m almost certain to remain nearly unable to string two reasonably coherent sentences together or really make a decent point of any kind.

And that, friends, is What Annoys Jeff this Week.

Adventures of a half assed event planner (Part 3 of ?)…

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Just down the road from my office, two government-owned aerostats (we’ll call them blimps for simplicity from here on out), were tethered as part of air defense test program. I say “were” because around mid-day, there was only one… mostly because the other one slipped it’s leash and was rushing due north with the prevailing wind and trailing 6,500 feet of inch-thick kevlar tail behind it.

CmdsJlens1How does this relate to the further adventures of a half assed event planner, you may ask? Well, in all honesty it really doesn’t. Not directly anyway… Except that when a $175 million, 7,000 pound, 242 foot long unmanned airship jumps out of harness to threaten air traffic and the electrical grid in the northeast corridor, every ounce of available attention is radically shifted away from your little party and violently focused elsewhere.

Usually I’d feel bad for the poor bastard who lost his radar platform, but that noble fool bought me some breathing room today. He will know far worse suffering than could be mustered against me, no matter how badly bungled my event becomes. In fact, I’d probably half to walk naked into the middle of a packed house and then proceed to set the building on fire to even garner a fraction of the angst and gnashing of teeth those unfortunates are enduring tonight.

The lesson here tonight is that sometimes bad things happen… and when those bad things are happening to someone else you should always be prepared to use them to your advantage while everyone is looking the other way.

Lest anyone grow suspicious, I have a room full of people who can vouch for my whereabouts from 10:00-12:00 today, so I’m fully alibied.

Adventures of a half assed event planner (Part 2 of ?)…

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Fifty weeks our of the year the right high and right mighty redoubtable right noble lords of our realm don’t know I exist. I like it that way. In fact I sought out anonymity and willingly stepped away from a track likely bound for leadership. If I ever wanted that life for myself it’s a notion I lost quickly, much preferring a role as simply one of Eye-of-Sauron_612x380_0many.

Two weeks out of the year, usually sometime between October and November, those mighty lords turn their eyes upon me… and it’s a terrible thing to behold. It’s a little like having the Eye of Sauron taking a good long look at you. That eye. That unwavering, soul crushing eye turns on you. God help you then. “Leadership” and helpful “recommendations” will fall from the sky like hammer blows. You’ll get executive level “assistance” until it’s oozing our your ears.

When you’re a half assed event planner the very first thing you learn is that nothing you’re doing is important to anyone above your immediate boss until about a week before whatever it is you’re planning is supposed to happen. Guidance, intent, guests, and outcomes are all helpful things that could be given well in advance, but they won’t be. You don’t have a prayer of getting those until it’s too late to matter – so you muddle through making up your own guidance for lack of any better until someone tells you to stop.

Under the circumstances, the very best outcome you can hope for is to avoid having a heart attack, a stroke, or saying something to get yourself fired. Beyond that, your two weeks basking in the withering glare of Sauron’s unblinking eye are simply something to be endured. You can’t measure success or failure in conventional terms. Just surviving is all that matters.