Tag Archives: communication

Print…

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As I sat down to write this tonight, it occurs to me that I wrote on a very similar topic more than five years ago. The situation was somewhat different, but it all hinged on the increasingly unbelievable proposition that in the age of electronic communication we’re still printing things out for people to read “later.”

With people running hither and yon armed with a laptop, a tablet, and a Blackberry, there really isn’t any good reason why anyone should need to print out an email and stick it in a file so someone can read it. I’m sure there are reasons it happens, I simply contend that none of them are particularly good reasons.

There are any number of ways the printed word on a high quality piece of paper can be a real joy. Going for the same effect with a run of the mill email feels a bit like going nuclear to solve your backyard bug problem. It’s the year 2016, after all. The second decade of the 21st century.

I simply can’t fathom how “print out that email” is still a thing.

70% (or why I fell in love with my new phone)…

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I’ve been struggling a bit to fall in love with my new phone. The “+” form factor just felt wrong in my hand. The balance was off and I found myself needing to use both hands for things that I could do for the last seven years with just a flick of my thumb. I liked the new model well enough, but I wasn’t in love with it.

After spending all day with it at work today, though, I’m getting turned around on all that. I left on schedule after what I would consider a regular day of use at more than 70% charged. With the last phone, I’d usually start hunting for a plug sometime after noon – and that was after giving it a boost during the morning commute.

I’m now officially of the opinion that if battery power alone were the only improvement from the last model to this new one, it would be well worth the upgrade. The new camera is impressive, with live photos being a bit gimmicky. 3D touch is fine and works as advertised – though I don’t find myself using it all that often. I’ve never particularly liked Siri and haven’t given her new incarnation much of a chance to change my mind.

Yeah, I’m a tech junky who probably doesn’t use a third of the capability of the gear in my arsenal. Sue me. I don’t need new and innovative ways to check email or ask for directions. I’m old school enough that typing on the screen is still ok by me. When Apple can beam information directly into my frontal lobe, then maybe I’ll be more interested in doing things the “new way.”

Is the 6S/6S+ a must have upgrade if you’re running the 6? No. Is it a respectable upgrade if you’re coming from one of the earlier models? Oh yeah. It’ll likely knock our socks off.

Even if that big beautiful new battery is the only thing I use to the fullest, it was well worth the price of admission. At some point maybe I’ll even get around to teaching myself how to use all the extra bells and whistles I paid for… or maybe not. It all depends on how and if I can see it improving my workflow in some way. Until then, I’m well satisfied.

Interoperability (or lack thereof)…

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One of the only bit of electronics I haven’t managed to really set up yet is getting all my devices to play nicely with one another yet. The current state of affairs has me forever wondering whether the files I’m looking for are on the desktop, the laptop, the external hard drive, or somewhere in the could. This is obviously an unacceptable situation… and the one that it looks like I’ll spend the balance of the evening trying to wrangle. As much as having the occasional cardboard box sitting around is unpleasant, trying to run the house on tech that isn’t communicating is downright intolerable.

Should have known…

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I should have known what kind of day it was going to be when I woke up 20 minutes before the 5AM alarm – too early to be awake, even by my standards, but not nearly enough time to make going back to sleep a worthwhile endeavor. I should have known then that it was a sign to pick up the phone, make a call, and burn off a sick day. But instead I pressed on with the morning routine.

The day fired one last warning shot across my bow when I got to the office and was met with a message that someone had sent me what they thought was a very important email and they needed to talk to me about its contents immediately (or when they got in at 8:30, whichever came first). Of course the problem there was they might have sent the email, but as we all know communication only happens when information is transferred between the sender and the receiver. Whatever it was their very important email said, it had been lost in transition from their mailbox to mine. As a rule I try not to comment on documents I haven’t had a chance to read, so the 8:30 phone call was, shall we say, a bit brief. I really, really should have pulled the plug at that point and called it a day.

Instead, in the middle of trying to prepare for a meeting (with the person whose email finally showed up around 9:00), I was then shanghaied into seat filler duty for 75 minutes. That led into a 30 minute pause before the next hour long meeting, which led to 20 minutes of frantic post-meeting emailing, which begat the next 75 minute long meeting. By now it’s 2:30 and that’s when I finally sat down to shove a sandwich and a few handfuls of crackers into my face today. That may be perfectly reasonable for some people, but tends to be a little late when your official day started at 7:30 and you’re legally obligated to leave the premises at 4:00.

I at least got to leave on time this afternoon. As I understand it “on time” was just a few minutes ahead of the last violent shitstorm of the day. I missed getting covered in that one by the skin of my teeth. Unfortunately, now I know what’s sitting there waiting for me when I wander in tomorrow. I was definitely a happier human being before I knew what to expect, but I’ve been at this game long enough that I should have known better than to have any expectations at all.

Expectations. That’s where the day really started skidding off the rails. Yeah, I really should have known better.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Infinite Capacity. There’s an decade old Dilbert comic in which he says “I have infinite capacity to do more work as long as you don’t mind that my quality approaches zero.” Like Dilbert, my capacity to do work is infinite, my time however is not. I’ve got eight hours a day, five days a week. No matter how fine you slice and dice the list of things to do, I’ll never get more than 40 hours worth of work done… and while my capacity to work may be infinite, my capacity to give a shit surely has a far more limited range.

2. Email. I think it may be time to switch email addresses. My venerable old gmail address is currently swamped with messages from my vet, receipts from online orders, the NRA, Starbucks, my health insurer, Outback Steakhouse, and the dozen or so blogs I follow on a daily basis. It’s possible that I’ve hit the point where I might actually be trying to take in too much information… and that’s sort of new territory for a guy who would generally be happy enough jacking into the internet Matrix style with a port in the back of his head. Somehow I’m going to have to cull the thundering herd of email that lands in my inbox demanding attention, because right now, I’m studiously ignoring it even as the counter keeps ticking upwards. That’s probably not an indication of a healthy, working information management plan.

3. Change. Sometimes change is good. Sometimes it’s necessary. Sometimes it just makes sense. Sometimes, however, it’s done for no apparent reason or simply to change for the sake of change. That’s stupid. Especially when what you’re doing already works and what you want to do is untried. There are plenty of ways to get your feet wet that don’t include jumping head first into the barrel and hoping for the best. But hey. I’m just a guy sitting here watching the ebb and flow and pondering how much easier life got when I stopped worrying about making rank.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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The hardest aspect of writing What Annoys Jeff this Week isn’t finding the three things that have agitated the shit out of me during the last seven days, it’s the culling through the multitude of life’s little indignities to arrive at the three that best sum up the week that was. As ever, it’s a precarious balancing act between my liberty to speak and my willingness to deal with the consequences of those words once they’ve left my brain and shown up on the internet. In that spirit, I proudly present you with the 110th installment of What Annoys Jeff this Week.

1. Failure to communicate. Nine times in ten I don’t mind when something I’ve bought and paid for is backordered. As long as I know it in advance or it’s communicated to me as quickly as possible after the order. What you shouldn’t do is wait for two weeks, fill the balance of the order, and only then let me know that the one widget I needed to make it all work is backordered indefinitely. Some people would probably shrug it off, but for me it’s a sure guarantee that I’ll repackage the whole thing, return it at your expense, and never conduct business with you again. When you fail to communicate with the customer, at least when that customer is me, everyone loses.

2. Being not quite sick. There’s a murky line somewhere between feeling well and being sick. I’ve found astride that line for the last two days. With an obnoxious cough, a turbulent stomach, and a general feeling of malaise, I’ve mostly crashed through the mid-week period feeling vaguely out of sorts and enjoying the attention span the Almighty gave to the average walnut. It’s not the recipe for doing great and wonderful things. In fact it’s most likely the recipe to make sure foolishness and asshattery lurk around every corner.

3. Anything to do with the Winter Olympics or the Super Bowl. So there rest of the world doesn’t respond with a visceral sigh when someone mentions either the Olympic Games or the Superbowl. I’m sure there are even those reading this now who are beside themselves with anticipation of the great and exciting things to come. As for me, my disinterest has been driven to a state of outright hostility by the sheer shove-it-down-your-throatedness of media coverage of both of these events. I’ll leave the rest of the world to their excitement. As for me, I’m not a bit interested in any of it… until the summer games… or the world women’s volleyball championship. Whichever comes first.

What Annoys Jeff this Week? (The Centennial Edition)

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Good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the 100th installment of What Annoys Jeff this Week. With nearly two years of weekly annoyances under my belt, the only thing I can say from the writer’s perspective is that despite living in a universe that seems personally intent on agitating the shit out of me, I always look forward to Thursdays. They’re the day I get to compact many of the small issues into one great big ball of pissed off and launch it out into the world. It may not be classy, but it’s cathartic.

I thought about working up something special for this auspicious occasion, but decided quickly that the best tribute would be letting it out the same way I do every Thursday – a simple list and brief description of the week’s three most pressing annoyances.

1. Technology. Honestly, I don’t know who I would be if I weren’t wrapped in the warm electromagnetic cocoon of modern technology. That’s also the problem. In a week that’s been a near constant battle with my laptop, with my wireless router, and my internet provider just to stay connected, I wonder if perhaps I’ve put a bit too much reliance on the network. Yeah, that’s really not so much a question as a statement of fact. Still, I’m pretty sure what I’m really looking for is a system that works flawlessly all the time and not a way to disengage myself from it… because the only thing more annoying than having every bite of universal data at your fingertips is not having it when you want it. Stupid double edged sword.

2. Insurance. I got a notice this week that my prescription drug plan cost is going up about $40 a month. The cost of my general insurance plan is jumping this year too, but that’s not what annoys me, really. After all, the insurance premiums and out of pocket costs are basically just the price I pay to avoid being dead. As far as I’m concerned, not being dead is basically worth every penny I need to pay. Quite frankly, I don’t want healthcare in the country to be “average”. I want to nation’s best hospitals and corporations to dump money hand over fist into developing innovative treatments and medical equipment. Like it or not, 300+ million people can’t all get the best care on the planet, but over time the ideas they pioneer at the best hospitals can develop into common practice across the country. That’s good for everyone. Until then, if I want to drive myself eyeball deep into debt to get treatment at Hopkins, Sloan-Kettering, or the Mayo Clinic, that’s my decision because at least for now I’m the one paying the bill. When someone else foots the bill and tries to be all things to all people, we inevitably end up with a mediocre “standard level of service,” and I like being alive entirely too much to let any government entity of company decide what treatment checks off the box that says “good enough.”

3. Chicks. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing but love for you ladies out there. You’re soft and curvy and smell nice. I love the way you walk and the way you talk… but after 35 years I still have no ability to understand the way you think. Although I am an accomplished man with many skills and talents, the ability to read minds is one that, thus far, I haven’t mastered. I’ll keep working on it, but in the meantime I’d consider it a personal favor if you could just go ahead and tell me what’s on your mind rather than letting me speculate wildly on my own. Trust me, left to my own devices my mind can conjure notions that are generously described as “bleak.” And that tends to be a situation other than good for everyone involved.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. The telephone. Once again, for those that didn’t get the message the last time, at any given moment there are probably 5-10 different ways of making contact with me that don’t involve my needing to answer a ringing telephone. Facebook, email, text, Facetime, IM, certified mail, fax, telegram, smoke signal, and semaphore, are all perfectly acceptable methods of reaching out to touch someone. Regardless of whether I’m at the office or at home, more often than not I’m doing at least three things at once… and regardless of how important I think you are as a person, the chances of me stopping all of those things to focus exclusively on a phone conversation are slim to none. Translation: You’re going to get a better and more thoughtful response when you send me a text or an email. On the phone, the best you’re going to get is an occasional “uh huh,” and a “what?” now and then when I get distracted by whatever else I’m working on. So please, can we all agree to reserve the actual phone calls to legitimate life and death situations?

2. Facebook advertising. I know I have a love-hate relationship with Facebook, but lately I can’t get past one or two items down through my newsfeed before finding myself looking at some kind of poorly designed add or “sponsored” post. I’m not dumb enough to think that Facebook should be providing their service for free, but I really do wish they’d find some way to make the ads slightly less obtrusive. All the current iteration of ads seem to do is interrupt the general flow of the page and make me wonder how long it’s going to be before enough people are sufficiently annoyed to start heading to the door. I really do believe Facebook is a valuable utility, but they need to do a hell of a lot of fine tuning to make the current brand of in-your-face marketing at least palatable. Until then, I’ll just make it one of my own small personal missions not to do business with any company that spends dollars running these craptastic social marketing spots.

3. Time management. Just because I’m not freaking out, don’t assume that I’m not busy. In work, as in most things, I have a method to my madness. If you watch carefully, between 8AM and about noon, there’s a flurry activity as I clear out whatever ridiculousness showed up in my inbox overnight. After lunch, there’s a bit of a lull, where I can actually catch up on longer range stuff, read the stunning number of memos and policy letters that we publish, do research, or work on PowerPoint. Starting again around 2PM there’s another flurry of email and phone calls as people try to get things off their plate before going home at the end of the day. If I’m sitting, staring intently at one of my monitors, you can go ahead and assume I’m either a) trying to read for comprehension; b) trying to decipher something higher headquarters wrote in a wholly misguided effort to “be helpful”; or c) trying to compose an articulate message that easily comprehensible by all who receive it. What I’m not doing is sitting around, being bored, and looking at lolcats. Usually.

I’ve been a bad, bad boy…

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It’s been a while since I wrote anything here. I don’t know exactly if that’s because things have gotten less stupid or I’m simply becoming use to the same level of stupid as before. Regardless, there are still a few moments when all I can do is sit back and shake my head.

As it turns out, I’ve been a bad, bad boy. I’ve been talking to people in other offices without the express, written permission of their supervisor. That, apparently, constitutes a gross violation of civil conduct and is an affront to the gods themselves. After half a career, you’d think I would remember that trying to get information directly from the source will do nothing but get you into trouble.

Instead of asking Person A directly for the information I need, the Official Process demands that I ask Person B, who will direct Person C to oversee the request for information and, who will thusly inform Person A that a request for information has been made. The information requested can then be transmitted back to me by the same circuitous route. Instead of taking 15 minutes, the process will take three days, involve, a minimum of two extra people, and has garnered three angry emails reminding me that “it’s not ok to talk to people from other offices without permission.” We could have saved an inordinate amount of time by any one of those three people simply answering the question rather than engaging in some half assed turf war, but there you have it, your bureaucracy in action… or is that your bureaucracy inaction?

So yes, please consider me sufficiently chastised for cheekily disregarding the standard routing of requests for information in an effort to actually get something done in a timely manner. Rest assured when it comes time to toss someone under the bus for delaying the project, I’ll have no qualms at all about reminding the Powers That Be who has been jamming their sabots into the machinery.

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.

Hot sweaty death by PowerPoint…

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I’ve never really understood the need of management to convey information by jamming as many people as possible into a room and then throwing PowerPoint charts at them until they want to gouge out their own eyes. These events are even more near and dear to my heart when the information could have been just as easily sent to me by email so I could read it at a convenient time rather than rejiggering my calendar to free up three hours in the middle of the week – a task I accomplished by cancelling my one actual productive meeting this week.

As a rule, 120 slides constitute just a few too many in any presentation. That’s doubly true when 31 of those slides fall into the “org chart/wire diagram” category. 1) Nobody in the room can read the eight point font used to squeeze that graphic onto the slide and 2) After ten or twelve wire diagrams, they all look exactly the same. That’s just an observation from a guy sitting in the back rows, so take it for what it’s worth.

When I’m proclaimed King of the Bureaucrats, my first edict from on high will be a proclamation that no briefing will use more than five slides. Ever. If you can’t distill the essence of what you’re trying to convey into five or fewer slides or (gasp) talk about your idea without the visual aids, there’s a pretty good chance I’ll think you don’t know what you’re talking about and will be sorely tempted to send you to sleep with the fishes. Since I’m somewhere just above the janitorial staff on one of those 31 org charts we saw, I suppose everyone is safe for the time being.

But you’ve all been warned. Oh yes, you’ve all been warned.

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.