Crate…

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I worked from home half a day today (the other half given over to Jorah’s first vet visit). Most of the work today consisted of cleaning three days of backlog email out of my inbox, so it wasn’t exactly heavy lifting. It did, however, mean that I had to do some reading for comprehension… and that trying to keep one eye on that and one on a creature who’s still trying to learn the house rules was going to end in badness on both sides.

Enter the crate. It’s a big crate. Probably sized for something more like a great dane than a 35 pound puppy. I was determined to let our new boy ride out the four hours unassisted – but next to a very relaxed lab who loves sleeping all day while I’m at the office. Aside from the a few short bouts of whining about 90 minutes in, Jorah took to the experience as well as anyone could expect.

It’s going to be harder – on both me and him – when I actually head back to the office and he’s left to his own devices for the entire day. I know that means housebreaking is most likely going to take a giant step backwards… but balanced against having an entire room chewed to hell by a pup who has no problem vaulting gates or scaling exercise pens, it’s just going to have to be what it is.

I’ll be able to check in during the day with the laundry / dog room camera, but I’m really not sure if knowing I can follow along the entire day live on camera is something that will make the whole experience worse or better. Worse, I assume, since it means being able to see everything but do absolutely nothing about it. That level of voyeurism is decidedly not one of my favorite things.

Dog people of the internet…

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So I was reading things on the internet. Yeah, I know I should just stop right there. For all the good that it can provide, the loudest voices on the internet seem to be those of judgmental twats who have nothing better to do than tell everyone exactly how they should be living and why they’re wrong if they don’t.

Hell, maybe I’m one of them, but at least I’m polite enough to keep my judgements safely locked up here so that people have to make an effort to get to them instead of just spewing myself all over Reddit.

It’s been over a decade since I had a puppy in the house. Most care and feeding issues are falling-off-a-log kind of things, but I wanted to get a better feel for how working adults take care of their new canine friends when they, you know, have to go to the job that pays the bills and buys the kibble.

According to a never ending list of sanctimonious asshats on Reddit, the only acceptable things for someone employed to do is to 1) Quit your job and stay home 24/7; 2) Move in with someone who is willing to stay home 24/7; 3) Hire a dog walker to come to your house twice a day for 30 minutes while you’re at work; or 4) Enroll your new dog in day care.

Any deviation from one of those four approved courses of action will find you condemned as a heretic and only slightly better than someone who raises fighting dogs for a living.

But, look, here’s the thing… I’m old enough to remember a time when dog wakers were a thing that only the rare city yuppies and the occasional actor or actress had. I’m old enough to remember a time when there was no such thing as “doggy daycare.” And I’m certainly old and experienced enough to know that having a job and having a dog is not mutually exclusive, regardless of what the dog people of the internet tell you.

There’s very little that I won’t do for my animals and I agree that in an ideal world, dogs would have their people with them all day every day and be able to come and go as they please. We, of course, live in the real world, where on average the dog who has to spend a little more time between bathroom breaks indoors instead of out is still far ahead of the one who spends months or years sitting in a shelter. The dog people of the internet, though, do seem to have an unhealthy fixation with the ideal.

It’s one of many cases where I am happy to invite the people of the internet to bugger right off.

Minutes and feet…

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I’ve missed a couple of regularly scheduled posts this week. I’d feel badly about that, but at least in part it stems from the introduction of a new puppy here on the homestead. To be honest, after a decade of having grown dogs, I’d forgotten (or perhaps mentally blocked out) just how much work goes in to sharing your space with a young dog.

The nice people at the Delaware SPCA put Jorah’s (formerly Sonny’s) age at about 4 months. He’s old enough to have his adult teeth, so he’s not a “puppy puppy,” but still young – even if he’s not quite full of energy. Actually, the opposite is mostly true. The boy like’s his sleep… and for that I am very thankful.

We survived the first 36 hours together – no accidents, no problems interacting with Maggie or Hershel, and he took to the crate like a dog who has spent a lot of his young life in cages of one sort or another. Being a shelter dog, I don’t guess that should come as a surprise, really.

We had out first “moment” this morning, though, with me trying to get through the normal Saturday morning routine of opening the mail, paying bills, and basically tending the behind the scenes items that keep the household running. Jorah, tethered to the desk and only a few feet away was determined to chew my chair, the desk, his leash, the bed, and generally anything except the small mountain of toys assembled to distract him so I could get in a few minutes of work.

That’s all the long way of saying Jorah is now getting some quality time back in his crate while I write this.

I’m not complaining here. Given the start he had in life, I’m amazed he’s as good a dog as he is. He’s got all the potential in the world and now I need to keep reminding myself that this is a process where success is measured in minutes and feet, not hours and miles.

In which I oppose mandatory fun…

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Mandatory fun is bad. I don’t mean it’s badly intentioned. I’m sure whatever powers that be inflict mandatory fun on the rest of us probably think they’re doing something positive, if not exactly something wonderful. It just seems to me that the forced joviality of people who work together pretending to be the best of friends feels awful in just about every possible way. Consider, if you will, when was the last time you had an unadulterated good time at the office Christmas party or the company picnic? For the record, I don’t consider going because you need to “make an appearance” or because it’s slightly better than spending those hours at your desk to qualify as fun in this instance.

Most people make at least some small effort to have a firewall between what they do for fun and what they do to make a living. Maybe there was a time long ago, before everyone was an easily offended, uptight stick in the mud, when these official organizational celebrations were good times. Today they mostly feel like a formality – just a small nod to that bygone era. Most people will go along with it, of course, because making waves is rarely the best tactic to endear yourself to whatever bosses you serve. Go along. Get along. It’s one of the oldest stories in the working world. 

If you insist on mandatory fun, my recommendation is to keep it simple. Make sure there’s lots of food, back up a beer truck, and maybe hire a band. Let people self-select with what and who they choose to engage. That’s probably about as good a situation as you’re likely to manufacture. There are ways to screw that up, though. You could overlay the lukewarm pay as you go food with several mandatory training events and dispense with the beer truck, thus ensuring that even the illusion of a “fun day away from the office” is shattered completely. 

It’s easy in cases like this to blame the planners… but I can reasonably assure you that they want to deliver a better product than the specified and implied guidance allows. Experience tells me that the real fault in these cases lies in the realm of leadership and the good idea fairies that dwell with them. I mean if someone really was all that interested in boosting my morale, all they’d have to do was give me a couple of hours off and point me towards the closest used book shop. I don’t expect there would be a line for that, but then again I don’t subscribe to the idea that a good time necessarily has to be a team activity. 

I’ll never be that guy…

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It’s fair to assume that my outlook on most things runs somewhere between cynical and completely jaded. I like to think it comes from a lifetime of watching the world around me… or more spificially, the people who inhabit that world. I’ve rarely been disappointed when I ratchet my expectations for them way, way down.

Still, as much of a cynic as I am, I can’t help but understand the allure of finding yourself inside the orbit of the local chieftain or other center of power. Power, even petty power, or someone else’s power, can be intoxicating. I’d be lying if I told you I couldn’t see what might make people give up their personal life and join the cult of personality.

Look, I’m admitting I can see the draw. The attraction is understandable. I’m also 100% sure that there are no circumstances where I’d ever be that guy. Subsuming my own ideas and ways of doing things in the name of some great and powerful Oz-like figure just isn’t me. It isn’t me, but there are occasional moments where I feel the pull and realize how easy it might be to fall into that trap if conditions were otherwise.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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One of the issues I have with Large Important Events is that they tend to take months to pull together properly. By the time they arrive, you’re running flat out just to keep from falling behind. They chew up months and it feels like you should be entitled to a big ending.

Independence Day ends with fireworks. A public execution ends with a hanging on the courthouse lawn. There’s a final moment of something that marks the definitive end point.

With us, though, it’s just a whole lot of build up with no pay off. There’s no money shot. The end just kind of dribbles out… and those who endured it limp home with whatever you call the event planning version blue balls.

Tales of a marginally talented amateur…

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Now it’s important to remember that when it comes to event planning at the very best I am nothing more than a marginally talented amateur. I’m reasonably good at establishing requirements and subcontracting them out to people who can do that actual work. What I lack in any meaningful way is the patience requisite to answering the same five questions 437 times after providing that information in a read ahead packet that clearly no one bothered to read.

The real problem, though, isn’t necessarily who did or didn’t read what… it’s that although I’m tolerable good at identifying requirements, I really have no actual control over them. In the parlance of my employer, I’m not a “decision maker,” and frankly, as I’ve said loudly and often, I don’t want to be one of those. The most significant “wheels coming off” moments I find at an event of any size aren’t actually a result of poor planning or staff work so much as they’re the result of one of the deciders being visited by the Good Idea Fairy twelve hours or so before the damned thing starts.

The result is that plans are made, flyers are printed, and advertising is done… and the new thing that’s being injected starts looking a lot like an after-thought instead of something that was carefully considered and added because it created value in the week’s proceedings.

But since I’m just a guy sitting here, what the hell do I know?

The waiting is (almost) the hardest part…

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For me, the waiting is just about the worst. Sitting in a quiet place knowing in an hour or less it will be swarming with hundreds of people who talk for a living and are yelling to be heard over one another is really just like a descent into madness. Or maybe a decent into hell. Possibly both. 

Business developers, sales execs… as far as the eye can see its people who want to talk and want you to talk with them. I’d very nearly rather set myself on fire. I’m sure they are all very fine human beings, but their innate mode of operation exhausts me at a very base level.

Waiting for this barely controlled chaos to start is awful… but pretending to be engaged, polite, and vaguely interested for hours on end in what several hundred complete strangers are saying is really just about the very worst thing you can ask me to do in terms of mental health and wellbeing.

Frankly I’m amazed that year after year I get through it without completely withdrawing into my own head and slipping quietly into psychiatric emergency.

The sin of pride…

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I can say ” I don’t give a shit” a thousand times, but the reality is that when my name is attached to something, I actually do give a shit. I give a shit not really because I have any particular use or affection for the thing itself, but because I care deeply that the thing in some way has my name attached to it… and I prefer that my name not be attached to a big steaming pile of shit. 

Sure, it’s the sin of pride or something, but I’ve just never particularly liked the idea of doing half-assed work. You’d think by now it would be an operating condition I would be use to – particularly when people who should know better seem utterly oblivious to the size of the wrenches they regularly throw into the machinery at the last possible moment. Of course then they have the audacity to ask accusingly why the goddamned machinery broke down. 

It’s probably for the best that sixteen years of hard won lessons learned have largely tempered my mouth. I can usually manage to choke off the inclination to tell uncomfortable truths to powerful people because I know it won’t do a damned bit of good. Now if I could just learn to control the “you’ve got to be shitting me” look on my face maybe all would be well… but just now, I’m having an awfully hard time disguising the look of complete disgust at knowing that this is really how we do things.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. “Free” college. Almost a decade ago, the federal government stepped in and allowed people to refinance their mortgages during the housing crisis – but only if you let your payments fall behind. If you took your word as your bond and paid on time even though it was hard, well fuck you sucker. That’s why it took me $30,000 out of pocket to close the sale on my Tennessee house. I played by the rules and got properly fucked for the trouble. Now Senator Warren comes along and wants to push student loan “forgiveness” as the brave new way ahead. If she gets away with it, once more I’m a sucker for playing by the rules, doing the hard work, and being responsible for paying my own debts. I really do despise the 21st century. 

2. Morale. Apparently as a moral boosting endeavor we’ve installed a wall-sized mural with my organization’s name blazed across 30-feet of graphics and some fancy new signage in our bit of cubicle hell. I’m sure someone thought it would be a good idea and that everyone was sure to find it inspirational. I’m just not one of them. I’m probably too jaded and cynical at this point to ever be bought off by new signage. That’s just the kind of guy I am. Want to improve my morale? Throw me a step increase in recognition of the work I’ve done. Hit me with a time off award – that one is my personal favorite. Order up some office chairs that aren’t low bidder junk or computers that aren’t crippled right out of the box. If you’re going to spend the money, spend it on something that matters… because new wallpaper doesn’t get it done.

3. 5PM. Being a creature of habit, there’s not much I value more on any given weekday than leaving the office on time. I value arriving on time, too… because getting to work on time is a reasonable employer expectation. The converse should also be true – leaving on time should be a reasonable employee expectation. Except the average office is full of subtle signs and symbols that it isn’t the case. No one will come right out and say it, but you’re supposed to just understand and not mention that someone at echelons higher than reality has scheduled a meeting to start an hour or two after you’re supposed to have departed the area for the day – and that’s assuming that the meeting will accidentally start on time, which of course it won’t… The not so subtle message being that anything you have outside the office walls couldn’t possibly be as important as what’s happening inside them. Then again, this is often driven by the same people who think they can fix morale problems with wallpaper, so it’s whatever I guess.