Tag Archives: fun

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Results. I’m a reasonably intelligent man with a fairly analytical mind, but I’m at a loss for what to do when results from something like an MRI drop into my online patient portal long before my doctor has a chance to look at and comment on them. As wide as my academic interests are, it’s never ranged as far as internal medicine, so the reports end up being a lot of gibberish with lines, arrows, and color codes that mean precisely nothing to me. That, of course, doesn’t prevent me from using Google to try gleaning a bit of understanding… which never results in anything other than low grade panic or mild confusion. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I almost miss the olden days when the doctor received the report and the patient didn’t know dick about it until the medical professionals called to explain what’s what. I’m not at all sure this current model of complete transparency is helping me in any way.

2. Retirement. In my little slice of Uncle’s big green machine, there are 3 people who do more or less what I do. We’ve been a decent little team for the last half a decade or so. One of the three (lucky bastard) is retiring in a few days. His backfill is nowhere in sight. With three people, in all but the most extraordinary circumstances, we could work around everyone’s schedules and keep the trains running on time. With two, well, I’ve already identified two days that’ll be listed with “no coverage” in the next two months. That number will explode when the other guy adds his scheduled time off to the mix. All of that’s before we’ve even talked about the week or two gap for Christmas and New Year’s. None of those issues should be surprising. We’ve been warning the bosses about it for months. But not to worry… there’s allegedly a “temporary” fill-in coming and the bosses are going to hire a permanent replacement with all the speed and agility the U.S. Government is famous for displaying. With the pace at which the bureaucracy moves, I don’t expect to see either of those things happen until well after the new year, if ever. The only thing I know for sure is that for the foreseeable future, there’s going to be 24 manhours per day of work to do and only 16 manhours of personnel on hand to do it. The math, as they say, just doesn’t math. I know I won’t magically be doing an extra 4 hours of whatever every day, so I reckon the powers that be should probably get prepared for a diminished baseline of productivity and discovering that they’re just going to have to wait until we get around to some things. That’ll go over like a fart in church, but this was an issue that could have been addressed any time in the last six months…  so, I’ll be damned if I’ll be treating the inevitable result of bureaucratic fuckery as any kind of emergency for me. 

3. Exercise. Everyone on the internet loves to tell you that “once exercise becomes part of your routine, you’ll love it.” Maybe that’s true for them, but for me, I can assure you that no, the fuck I will not. Every daily walk or session on the exercise bike is 30-40 minutes I’m allocating under protest, because it’s sucking up an incredibly finite resource that I’d much rather put towards reading, or writing, or anything that I might even partially enjoy. Maybe it’s better than being stabbed in the kidney, but as something to pass the time, exercise is easily the least enjoyable part of my day. I’ll do it because it’s being required of me by someone who has far more knowledge about modern medical theory and practice than I have. Still, there isn’t a power on earth or in heaven that can convince me I’m having a good time. 

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. 

Comfortable familiarity or: What do you do for fun…

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Asked in a certain way, by a certain kind of person, the question, “So, what’s do you like to do?” can be something of a loaded gun. It’s marginally less awful than the introductory questions in DC that always seemed to be either “What do you do?” or “Who do your work for?,” but it’s only a very slight degree of less awful.

It’s almost the perfect encapsulation of a no-win question. You see, the things I like to do are not the things that most people want to base a conversation around, let alone a lifestyle. I like taking trash to the dump. I like cutting the grass. I like fiddling with projects around the house. I like hanging out with dogs, cats, and sundry other animals. I like sitting on the back porch in the summer time with a cold beer and a thick, meaty book about English history.  

I forgive you if those aren’t the activities that set your heart aflutter… but I’m never going to be someone who longs to spend holiday weekends at a bed and breakfast, or driving into the city for a show, or really wading into all but a rare few circumstances that involves me and a large group of people. I enjoy the beach, though I’ve never felt the compulsive need to take long sunset walks on it. I’m far more likely to fall down the basement steps than I ever am to consider climbing K2.  

At 40 I’m acutely aware that time is increasingly limited. I spent a large amount of that time already finding out what I like and what I don’t and given the option, I’d like to continue doing the bits that I enjoy as often as possible. I think you’ll find that if your follow up question is “Yeah, but what do you do for fun,” our conversation is very rapidly drawing to a close because it’s likely we’re never going to actually understand each other.

I’m not saying that all new things are out of bounds, but whatever it is you’re reaching for had better be spec-goddamned-tacular to convince me it’s better than the joy that only comes from comfortable familiarity. 

Doing stuff…

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I’ve mostly accepted that aside from making a quick stop to top off groceries or for fuel, weekdays are going to be mostly consumed by going to, being at, and returning from work. By the time I get home, tend the herd, and have a bit of dinner, my brain has pretty much turned to mush. All I’m good for after that is mixing a decent drink and maybe a passingly interesting blog post.

The weekends, for their part, aren’t much better with their time eaten up with errands, cleaning, yard work, and generally keeping the homestead from falling down around my ears. By the time that all gets knocked out, it’s usually already late Sunday afternoon.

What perplexes me, and in fact makes me a little bit jealous, is how other people seem to carve out time to actually go do things for recreation. Of course I’m not likely to show up in a stadium full of people, but I wouldn’t mind so much getting out to stomp around the high ground at Gettysburg or take the tour at Independence Hall. Those things take time, though, and I know the minute I pull out of the driveway my mind is already going to ticking off the things that are lurking around not getting done.

I’m telling you folks, inside my head is a damned strange place to live sometimes.

Mister Ed…

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It’s not exactly a secret that I’m not a fan of large groups of people – or of people in general. My misanthropic tendencies run pure as a mountain stream and remain one of my most consistent personality traits over time.

Mister Ed.jpgDespite my misgivings about people and groups, I’m a reasonable enough adult human being to know that both are sometimes unavoidable. While social engagements aren’t something I seek out, they are a fact of life from time to time. In those circumstances, I’m perfectly capable of behaving myself in polite company, of making small talk, and generally being a pleasant enough human being.

So you see, what I mean when I say “I don’t like people,” is I don’t go out of my way to find them, but I’m perfectly aware that they are a simple fact of modern life with which I have learned to contend. I learned a long time ago that most people need far more social interaction than I do in order to feel some sense of community or fulfillment. I’ve made peace with it. Mostly.

I’m never going to be the guy who wants to be the center of attention at a party of social event. Like Mister Ed, I’ll likely never speak unless I have something to say. Others may be more tempted to flap their gums to fill in awkward silences. That should in no way be mistaken to mean that I’m going to stand in a corner looking surly for the duration of the event. Just because I don’t usually want to doesn’t mean I can’t play nicely with others when the need arises.

Sometimes, you see, circumstances demand that we do that which we would not otherwise do, not because it’s how we’d rather spend our time, but because it’s something important to the person asking us to tag along. That said, I find myself growing less and less accommodating by the minute. If I’m going to be condemned in either case, I’d rather be condemned for what I am rather than what I am not.

Time…

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I’ve had three days off and it hasn’t exactly been one of those nice restful weekends that everyone wants. Between cleaning, vet visits, picking up groceries, more cleaning, laundry, and sundry other odds and ends, I’m not feeling rested at all. I’m sure it doesn’t help that most of those things are what I’ve been putting off for the last two weeks, but still, how about a little time to do nothing at all? Yeah. That’s not going to happen. The good news is that the house is (mostly) clean and there’s a refrigerator full of food again, but that’s not something I can really hang my hat on when I wonder where the long weekend went. It’s all stuff that needed done, of course, but I get the distinct feeling that I’m spinning my wheels, since most of it will all need to be done again next weekend.

What I need is more time. Just a few more hours in the day maybe. Or at this point I’d settle for figuring out a way to better use those six “wasted” hours in the middle of the night when I’m busy just laying there. Ranting about it hasn’t seemed to do much good, so I’d better get moving and make the most out of the couple of hours I’ve got left this afternoon. Sheesh, and I thought time only flew when you were having fun.