Tag Archives: balance

House call…

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It seems a lot of people working in my office live in a master-planned enclave not far from work. I’m sure it’s nice if you’re into jogging trails, tot lots, and clubhouse where they have a monthly movie night. Lawns are mowed and flowers planted by the Home Owners Association and there’s even a gate to keep out the riffraff. I can’t say I’m philosophically opposed to any of those things, really.

What does make my blood run cold was talking to the new boss a few days ago and him saying “Oh yeah, Mr. Bigwig stopped by the house after dinner last night and we went over some new ideas for Big Fancy Project.” Huh? He came to your house? And then he had the audacity to want to talk about work? Not cool.

I think we’ve established now that I’m not a social climber and there’s a pretty slim chance that I’ll ever get invited to a leadership retreat. I get my work done on time and within tolerance, consistently, and with minimal oversight. I do it for eight hours and then when I leave I don’t think about it until I get back the next morning. It’s a time honored system and it works for me. One of the bosses randomly showing up on my doorstep at 7 o’clock wanting to talk shop is way, way beyond the pale. Sometimes it’s good to be reminded why I live way out off the beaten path rather than in town. It seems physical distance from the office is at least as important as mental distance.

Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of posts previously available on a now defunct website. They are appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.

Criminal stupidity…

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Last week, one of my mortgage payments went down. Thinking I would do the prudent thing and reallocate the surplus to paying down the another that’s at a higher rate, I logged into the online banking center and changed my autopay settings on both accounts. At least that’s what I thought I did. In reality, I set a brand-spanking-new automatic payment for each of the two mortgages in question. That wouldn’t be so bad, of course, if you caught your mistake right away. It turns into a bit more of an issue when you miss the mistake for a few days and the bank deducts twice the normal payment from your account and leaves you with a balance of $4.37.

Since almost every bill I have is set up to automatically pay every month, I rarely look at the actual accounts any more. Which helps explain the near-epileptic fit I launched into when the bank sent me a friendly “low balance” email this morning. I’m glad to say that the bank was more than accommodating at getting the situation resolved, but that didn’t really help me feel like any less of a tool. Although I’m still glad I found out today and now three days from now when I stop by to pay the rent. Since I spend most says ranting about it, I thought it was only fair to call out my own bout of criminal stupidity. And now you know the rest of the story.

Dedication…

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One of the people I work with loves her job. I’m making that assumption anyway because most days she seems to always stick around until 6:00 or 7:00 when end-of-tour is closer to 4:30. According to her, there’s always something “hot” that comes up after the rest of us pull up stakes for the day that needs done and just can’t wait for the next morning. I suppose it’s theoretically possible that this is true, but based on my own observation of daily workload around here, I’m somewhat skeptical.

I guess someone might look at her and think the late hours were a sign of dedication. The fact is, though, we’re not a life-or-death operation. It’s probably not politic to say in a world of 9.2% unemployment and a collapsing stock market, but sometimes a job is just a job. As much as an escort sells her body for cold hard cash, I whore out my big beautiful brain for the same consideration. Maybe some people do it for the love, but me, I do it for money. I do it so I can afford to pay the bills, eat nice meals, and occasionally travel to new and interesting places. I don’t do it out of a misplaced sense of loyalty as I’m quite certain the powers that be would have no qualms about throwing me over the gunwale during a reduction in force.

Sure, there was a time when I was young and idealistic and my sense of self derived directly from my position title and placement on the org chart. I got a little older and a little more jaded and discovered that no matter how cushy, the job is pretty much just a set of handcuffs keeping you from doing the things you really want to do because you’ve got bills to pay. And we should have bills to pay. We should have to work for our supper. But we shouldn’t be working instead of eating our supper.

I’m too old to be naïve about how the world works. Maybe sticking to the ol’ eight-and-out is committing slow career suicide. Missing the next rung on the career ladder still sounds like a better option than missing out on everything that isn’t work. The only shame is it took me so long to figure that out.

Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of posts previously available on a now defunct website. They are appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date

Bible belt identity crisis…

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The south/mid-west, for good reason, is largely known as the bible belt. If you’ve ever spent any time here and have seen the epic size of some of the churches they build, you know it’s true. This morning I had the opportunity to spend five hours driving from Memphis to St. Louis… and what I noticed most strinkingly was that every couple of dozen miles there was one of two billboards… the first were advertisements for what can only be described as a prolific density of “gentlemen’s clubs” and adult novelty stores. The second billboard type were more of the “sinners go to hell” or “end abortion now.” I wasn’t counting, but I’d estimate that easily 1/5 to 1/4 of all billboards along one 50 mile stretch of I-55 were for one or the other of these. Apparently the bible belt has a bit of an identity crisis, as I suspect at least some of the same butts in the pews on Sunday are the ones in the VIP room on Saturday night. I’m not making a values judgement there, by the way. I don’t care one way or another where someone is on Saturday night or Sunday morning, as long as they’re not at my house.

I hate to break this to both sides, but your signs aren’t making much difference (but the guy leasing the space appreciates your efforts). The wanna be pimps at the clubs aren’t going to change en mass because of this media blitz, that given the fading I saw on those signs, has been going on for a while. At the same time, the holy rollers funding those big new churches aren’t going to suddenly decide they need edible panties while driving down the interstate. You’re arguing past one another because neither one really gives a damn what the other side thinks.

I propose a compromise; a truce if you will. There’s room enough for all of us here and plenty of space for reasonable human beings to have a difference of opinion even on what seem like important issues. Truth is that I’ve got maybe 40 or 50 years left on this rock and I’m going to do what I want to do, signs or no signs. Some days that might be going to a club and other days that might be educating myself on the dogma of the faith. Life’s too short to think that it has to be all one way or all the other. In the immortal words of Rodney King, can’t we all just get along?

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Respect…

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I may have covered this ground before, but after 230+ posts over the last few years it’s getting a little more difficult to keep track of what’s been in and what’s been out. Even so, it’s something I’ve been considering quite alot lately. Maybe it’s something about the heat being out of hand down here in the summer (and most of the spring and fall), but I’ve come to have a grudging respect for all of you who who manage to work a full day and then spend the evening rushing hither and yon doing any of a million different things. I can’t fathom how you keep up with it. When I hit eject at 3:00, all I’m really interested in is getting home as expeditiously as possible… and once I get to the house, you’ll need an act of Congress or a court order to get me out of the house. But you guys, you’re out there shopping, catching a late dinner, ferrying the kids all over town, or a combination of those things and more. Seriously. Any secrets on how you do that?

By the time I get home, feed the pups, make a little dinner for myself, and do the usual stuff you need to do to keep a house up and running – cleaning, paying bills, fixing whatever odd or end happened to break this week, write up a blog post, answer a few emails, and chase the dogs around the back yard – it’s suddenly after 9:00 and I’m headed to bed so I can do it all again the next day. Once the alarm rings at 4:30, it’s off to the races. I guess I’m just having a real problem fathoming how anyone carves out time to do anything else.

Don’t get me wrong, I have no interest in being a social butterfly – Thirsty Thursdays are a long way in the past – but I’m legitimately curious about how people manage to make it all come together. I mean is there a book out there that I missed? Maybe I’m a little worried that I am missing something and that there’s some way to squeeze a little more productivity out of the day. Then again, maybe it’s just perspective and I’m getting as much done as I should reasonably expect. It doesn’t feel that way though.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go do a sink full of dishes.

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Once upon a time…

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Once upon a time, there was a bakery. The bakery was owned by a rich and powerful man who only visited the shop a few days each month. In his absence the shop was run by an expert baker who had many employees working under him. These employees, sales clerks, delivery drivers, pastry chefs, dish washers, and far away regional sales managers were all specialized in their respective work areas and brought unique skill sets to their jobs. Though not everyone loved it, the bakery had kept its doors open and survived past the two year mark when many start-up businesses fold. It had a small, but loyal following and was working hard to make incremental improvements to how things were done.

One day, the owner called the baker and told him that the next day there would be a truck of meat arriving and that they would be running the butcher shop next door to the bakery from now on too. “But sir,” says the baker, “we don’t have the equipment or the skills to operate a butcher shop. Perhaps,” he adds, “we should hire a butcher to run this new shop.” But the owner, clearly knowing best, told the baker, “don’t worry, just go in there and hack away at things until you figure it out. It’s not that hard to cut meat and besides, we’re not really worried about quality.” Shaking is head, the baker opens the shop the next morning. His staff does their best, but none of them have been trained at meat cutting and what could have become fine steaks were chopped beyond redemption and because the entire staff was consumed with opening the butcher shop, none of the bread, or pies, or doughnuts, were baked that day. As the staff focused on learning the skills of a butcher, their skills as bakers, and clerks, and delivery drivers slowly deteriorated and by the time they were even marginal butchers, their bakery had lost its customers to competing businesses that focused on their “bread and butter.”

The moral of our story is that in a world of specialists, it’s important, even critical, to use people where there skills and training are maximized. Where new or different skills are needed, those skill sets need to be developed through training or brought in from the outside. When you ask bakers to be butchers, don’t be surprised when things don’t work out as well as you’d hoped.

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Crossing over…

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In most situations there is a magical line; a point to which you can run cursing and screaming, raising six kinds of hell, and still mostly get away with it. That’s particularly true if you manage to do whatever else you do very, very well. Of course there are times when the exact location of that line is a little hard to identify, so you’re left wondering how many more times you can poke at something before getting a swift and overwhelmingly negative response. Because I’ve inherited a mile-wide malcontent streak from my father, maybe I just tend to find myself in this position more often than other people who have learned to keep their heads down and mouths shut. Some people seem born to be rainmakers and princes of the universe. Me, I’m fairly sure I was born to follow those guys around tossing rocks at them and cracking jokes. I’m good with that.

Blogging has been a godsend for me. First, it gives me an outlet for writing, which aside from reading, is probably my first great love. Second, it gives me a fantastic venue to get things off my chest that would be wholly inappropriate in any other venue. The only real problem is that just like in the brick and mortar world, even here there are lines that I dare not cross. Sure, I’m happy to slide right up to them and maybe even nudge a few toes over it, but because it’s open to the public in the truest sense, I have to self moderate. Truth is, for every post that I publish here, there’s easily at least on I got halfway through before I realized there was no way I was going to say that out loud in front of God, a couple of dozen regular readers, and anyone else who happens to stumble on this site.

Most everyone who knows me gets that I’ve been having a love-hate relationship with the job for the better part of the last year. Lord knows there are enough lines here on the topic that it’s pretty obvious. But really, all of that just barely scratches the surface of things I’ve really like to say if given the opportunity. A lot of things don’t make the cut because I’m not willing to drag other people here by name to unbraid them. Other things, some of the best things, really, don’t make the cut for the simple reason that I’m not making my living writing a blog and do make a pretty good living at my actual job. I really wish it was different, because I have some great stories to tell and plenty of people I’d love to publicly call out (actually, that number is probably less than half a dozen who really deserve the works).

The point is, I’m working to find a balance between what to write and when to keep my pen to myself. I’ve made a career of finding that line in the real world (most of the time, anyway), but it doesn’t exactly translate one-to-one into electrons. Maybe it’s for the best that some things don’t get said… But damn won’t it be cathartic when I can cross that line, sit down, and say it all out loud.

– Posted via iPad.

All shook up…

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One of the really problematic parts of what I do, is that it requires spending a fair amount of your life thinking about all the worst things that can happen… famine, pestilence, earthquake, plague; basically the worst parts of the Bible. After a while you start looking at everything around you and playing a giant game of “what if.” From a purely academic point of view, it’s great fun to match wits against the worst that God and nature can throw against us. From an individual point of view, it’s the kind of thing that leads to ulcers. Finding that delicate balance between academic interest and outright obsession has never been one of my talents. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go to Costco and stock up on bottled water and beef jerky.

Boo-friggin-hoo…

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The USA Today is the ash heap of American print journalism. Unfortunately, it’s a large ash heap and nearly unavoidable if you spend any time in a hotel. Yesterday’s business section dedicated a good portion of the front page and the entire second page feature to the “plight” of workaholics in the United States. According to the article, “about 60% of high-earning individuals work more than 50 hours a week…” Let’s stop right here and do some quick analysis… I mean, is anyone surprised that those individuals between the ages of 25-34 making more than $75,000/year and those over 35 and up making more than $100,000 per year spend more than 50 hours a week at work? Maybe I’m the only one who noticed the general trend that the more I work, the more I make. That was true when I was flipping burgers at McDonald’s and it’s true now that I have a nice cushy desk job. My point, I suppose, is how the hell can anyone be surprised that income is related to how much someone works? Is this really news to anyone who has spent any time thinking about ways to make more money?

The other aspect of the article that raised my hackles was the “high-earning individuals” complaining that they have had to sacrifice personal time and relationships because of work or that they don’t get enough sleep. Know what? That’s a choice you made in order to become a high-income individual, my friend. No one is making you work 60 billable hours per week. If it’s too much for you to deal with, step off the fast track so you can spend more time at the kid’s soccer games. Bottom line is that you make the choice to work in a high pressure workplace. The trade off is that maybe you will get passed over for that next promotion or maybe you’ll have to adjust your lifestyle to meet your new income. Bitch and complain about long hours all you want, I know I do. But don’t try to pass it off as some big, bad employer tethering you to your desk with wireless chains. Take some responsibility for your own actions and make the change if you don’t think you can hack it with the big boys.

“Ambivalent” should be a 4-letter word…

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I was always under the impression that taking a vacation was suppose to leave you refreshed and ready to take on the world again. At the moment, though, all I am feeling is pure, unadulterated ambivalence. I can’t get back into the routine… and worse yet, I really don’t give a shit. Forgive me… this is kind of a new experience for me. Usually, I want to run a hundred miles an hour with my hair on fire, but lately all I really want to do is sit in my big comfy chair and watch Buffy on DVD.

I’m not going to lie to you people… I’ve been doing the bare minimum to scrape by at work and really not even doing that for my class. And I find the whole experience a little disturbing. I want to be the guy who has lots of fire in his belly. I want to get back to knowing the all the answers before anyone gets around to asking the questions. I’ve got to get my head back in the game. Balance has never been my forte and once the stress level cranks back up a few notches, I think things will sort themselves out.