Tag Archives: office

Legal opinion…

Posted on by

Usually I dread the moment when I have to schlep upstairs to the vast wing of the building reserved for the legal office. That long walk almost always results in discussions that end up taking something that should be quick and simple and making it into something drawn out and complicated beyond all reason. Every now and then, though, whatever ill-tempered gods lawyers pray to throw me a bone and let me emerge from their lair more or less unscathed. I went there today fully prepared to fight tooth and nail in the hopes that common sense would prevail. I spent far more time preparing than is strictly reasonable. If I knew how to gird my loins I would have done that too.

Because this is a fair blog and I believe in giving credit where it’s due, I have to admit that today they actually made it easy. Common sense prevailed against the gathered forces of arcane policy and regulatory guidance. I get to do exactly what I want in the way I wanted to do it. I can’t actually point to another instance when I’ve had this experience… and of course that also makes me vaguely nervous because I know all gods tend to be fickle and vengeful if given half an opportunity. Knowing that, I beat a hasty retreat back to my hole as quickly as possible in hopes of escaping any further notice.

People complain that I never have anything positive to say… and I hope this post will serve to clarify that I will, indeed, sing praises… on the rare occasion when something praiseworthy actually happens… in a world that is so often stupid and bad and wrong.

I’m ok with that…

Posted on by

I’m not a decider. At one time, when I was young and ambitious, I thought that’s what I wanted. It was the career goal I chased for a while.  In my analysis of the game, though, the return on investment just didn’t make it worth the effort. What can I say, I like it when my phone doesn’t ring at 7PM on a Friday because someone, somewhere did something stupid.

The problems start when someone at echelons higher than reality decides that because they have my phone number, I should be empowered to speak on behalf of the entire organization. While it’s flattering for someone to think I have that kind of power and influence, a quick reality check will show that my parameters wherein independent thought is authorized are fairly limited. More importantly, I respect those boundaries – largely because by keeping myself between them I can generally avoid having my ass handed to me. Once on the other side of them, however, it’s only a few slippery steps to getting yourself pummeled.

I’m happy to take you call. I’ll do my best to explain the official position of the organization. If you disagree I’m more than pleased to pass your concern on upwards through the chain of command. Eventually it will arrive in the office of someone who is empowered to make a decision. I’m not saying they will and if they do I’m in no way guaranteeing that it will be the decision you wanted. It’s important to note, however that I’m not now nor will I ever be that person… and I’m more than ok with that.

Actual work (and why it doesn’t happen)…

Posted on by

There is the occasional rare day when I can sit down and focus on one or two major projects and feel like I’ve mushed the ball forward even if it’s only by a little bit. Today wasn’t that day. The fact is, I don’t remember much of what I worked on today. I try very hard to do a mental dump on my way out the door in an effort to not drag any additional jackassery back across the river with me at the end of the day. Maintaining that massive, immutable, and nearly impenetrable wall between work and “everything else” might just be the most important thing I do on a daily basis. It’s the preserver of my sanity.

I vaguely remember that at one point or another today Outlook tried to trick me into a meeting I didn’t need to go to, and someone wanted me to fix a broken folding table, and there was a very serious discussion about where to store 30 outdoor umbrellas for the winter, and picking 8 people to take a bus ride to DC next week fell squarely on my desk. Those are exactly the kinds of things that end up being the reason actual work ends up being so often late, halfassed, or just completely blown off. You’re just going to have to trust me when I saw it’s almost never intentional.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll get some of my real work done… but I’m not overly optimistic. Some week’s just go like that. Although past performance is not a guarantee of future results, it’s often a healthy indicator. With this week so far as a guide, the best I’ll likely be able to manage is keeping my head down and trudging on towards the weekend. At least it’s no longer in any way surprising that this is how the “real world” works.

Distractors…

Posted on by

I’ve always had trouble finding my mental focus in loud environments. I don’t know if that’s what makes the hermit life so appealing to me or if it’s the other way around. It doesn’t really matter which caused what. The end result is the same – sitting at my desk with glazed eyes completely unable to cobble together a single coherent thought. It’s just one of the many joys of existing in cubicle hell.

If I’m honest, I’ll admit that the day to day isn’t as bad as I feared, but with that said the bad moments are absolutely hellish. At one point this afternoon I was an unwilling third party participant to at least six conversations taking place simultaneously within 20 feet of my desk. Keeping track of the thread of my own thoughts proved to be something between challenging and impossible for the better part of two hours today. For the record, that doesn’t lead to good staff work and leaves me feeling just about as annoyed in this particular workplace as I’ve ever been. That’s no mean feat.

When other people leave the office they’re in a rush to meet for dinner, or go shopping, or engage in some other socially acceptable form of human interaction. When I leave I can’t get away from that sort of thing fast enough. Home is far from silent, of course. There’s the clatter of dogs on tile, television or radio humming quietly in the background, HVAC noises, or appliances running. Somehow those things manage to not be distracting. Half a dozen overlapping conversations, on the other hand, leave me tired and more than a bit frustrated with my own inability to focus through the distractors.

Whatever reason, the subdued sounds of home, a good book, and something pressed from the fruit of the arbor feels like exactly what I need to steady myself.

High water…

Posted on by

A few days ago I said I hope we get a little rain to make up for how dry it has been the last couple of weeks. What I didn’t anticipate was that all of that rain would arrive between 6:00-8:00 this morning. With the average person apparently incapable of driving in any more than a hint of rain and the fact that had to slosh ankle deep through the parking lot to get to the office (seriously, my feet were still soaked when I left for the day), I assumed that getting drenched before work would be the worst of it. As usual, my assumption proved to be horribly wrong.

About fifteen minutes after arriving and wringing out that which could be wrung, I got a note warning me that the building I’m responsible for was taking on water and that it was getting deep fast. It’s not the first time this has happened. A combination of building underground next to a swamp, pump issues, and a poorly sized drain it seems a sizable amount of water came cascading through the back doors and ended up backing up across an essentially brand new floor to an average depth of one or two inches. It’s not enough to break out the hip waders, but it’s damned well enough to be a monumental hassle.

I’m highly trained and competent in many things, but navigating the Byzantine labyrinth of how to get a building de-watered is not one of them. There was the predictable grinding of gears and great gnashing of teeth as that activity expanded to absorb nearly every molecule of available oxygen in my day. I can only hope that Monday set the high water mark for the week, but I’m enough of a bureaucrat to know that there’s always more stupid where the first batch came from.

Out of proportion…

Posted on by

I like to think that I’ve got a fairly reasonable sense of proportion when it comes to telling what things are important and what things aren’t. That’s true at least in my day-to-day existence where I’m responsible for things like paying the mortgage and keeping myself and three other living creatures from becoming formerly living creatures. By contrast, when I show up at the office, my sense of where things should be on the sliding scale of relative importance seems to be consistently and remarkably out of touch.

The things we choose to take issue with seem, largely, to be those things that I’d brush off as approaching insignificant – things like who sits where (not whether there are enough seats) or whether the slide background is the right shade of gray (not whether the slide conveys the appropriate information). I hope you can forgive me if I seem to have a permanent eye strain from all the rolling they do. I suppose in some universe things like that are important, but I’m not able to wrap my head around why anyone would give a damn about them. Despite years of being beaten about the head and next with this issue, I’m just not wired that way.

Believe me, I wish I could glamour myself into believing that stupid shit somehow matters. It would make being an alleged professional that much easier. As it is, I’ve just grown weary and annoyed of pretending that it does when it doesn’t. Weary an annoyed is almost always a troublesome combination because it often leaves my mouth free to engage and spew words better left as thoughts… and that rarely ends well for anyone involved.

On the mend…

Posted on by

The first day back to work after a proper vacation is traumatic enough. The first day back after the better part of a week out sick is something altogether different. It’s the combination of having a ridiculous backlog of work to go through, still feeling vaguely like ass, and having experienced none of the restorative effects of sitting somewhere sunny enjoying run drinks I guess.

At any rate after a week of guzzling Gatorade, more meals of soup than I want to think about, and generally feeling like so much warm death, my shoulder is back to the wheel. It’s good to be off the couch and all, but as it turns out I’m not all that opposed to staying home and dividing my time between binge watching Netflix, reading through two or three titles on my Kindle, and napping periodically with one or both dogs. Maybe that’s a good sign that I won’t be bored in retirement.

All things considered, it’s good to be on the mend… but as it turns out there are definitely worse things than periodic self-enforcing periods of general rest. Even knowing that, after a day back I’m ready to crawl into bed and sleep for a week.

What do you do?

Posted on by

When I worked in the District, the most important question asked at every social engagement was some variation on “What do you do?” or “Who do you work for?” The answer, of course, would immediately raise or lower your social standing or level of attractiveness. There was a while there I was introducing myself as Jeff, the young and idealistic Chief of Legislative Affairs for Some Random Made Up Hippy Dippy Non-Profit. That had way more cache than being a bureaucrat from deep within the bowels of some big agency.

To those who know me, I often answered the question with a touch more realism. When asked what I did, my stock response was almost always “I do PowerPoint.” For long stretches of my career it had the additional benefit of also being largely true. There was a while there I could diddle a PowerPoint the same way a virtuoso can make a Stradivarius violin sing. Plus it always seemed just a little bit funnier than the usual, “I could tell you, but I’d have to kill you.”

Now if people ask, well, the answer always comes with a little less humor. What do I do? Depending on the day you ask, I either have meetings about meetings or I’m the Organizational Party Planner in Chief. The irony of an arch misanthrope being the touch point for planning your next 1500 person event isn’t in any way lost on me. It’s one of the reasons I know the universe has a sense of humor.

At least when the time comes to punch out of here, I’ll know that I am fully prepared to begin my second career as the most overly officious and bureaucratic wedding planner in all of human history… because dealing with overly sensitive, emotional clients who want their special day to be just perfect sounds an awful lot like dealing with the day-to-day demands of your run of the mill general officer. The only thing missing is the poofy white dress.

Go ahead, ask me…

Posted on by

After a couple of weeks of relearning how to spend most of the day without a cell phone, I can say that it’s at best, unpleasant. I’ve made a few necessary adjustments to my personal workflows that have made the circumstance a bit less onerous, but I’m afraid there is just no good substitute for having my digital life at my fingertips at all times. Technically I guess I could go back to the dark ages and start carrying around a paper planner all day, but at that point why not just switch back to stone tablets and chisels? At least I’ve managed a few work around that keep me mostly connected during the day. They’re not seamlessly integrating my life, but they’re at letting me limp along, which I suppose is better than nothing. Just barely.

The real issue I’ve run into after becoming essentially phoneless for large chunks of the day is that I’m losing track of the myriad of notes and reminders I’d regularly send myself throughout the day. Outlook does a good enough job of keeping me on track with most official functions, but I’m feeling the absence of emails to remind me to look at one particular memo or stop for milk on the way home. I’m really missing the ready place to keep track of the copious number of ideas that passed the “I should write about this” test and made it onto my running list of possible blog topics. So it turns out the next step in the process of learning to live with traumatic loss is to come up with some kind of system of recording notes and ideas that doesn’t depend entirely on me seeing the right post it note three minutes before I’m going to need it.

Go ahead and ask me how much I enjoy creating solutions to problems that really have no need to exist at all in the 21st century.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

Posted on by

1. The bulldog whine. I don’t know where it came from but for the last few weeks Winston has been a whiner. Whines while I’m fixing his food. Whines when he wants an ear scratch. And whines at four in the morning because he’s bored. It only seems unusual because for most of his life, Winston has been a remarkably quiet dog – aside from the expected bulldog snoring and snorting. If he were doing it to get my attention when he needed to go out that would be one thing, but as far as I can tell it’s mostly just because he’s awake and thinks everyone else should be too.

2. Begging. I’ve had a bitch of a week. I’m getting my ass kicked from pillar to post and it’s not over yet. In the 30 minutes I try to squeeze in a lunch and some time to mentally reset, I’m sorry I don’t want to run the gauntlet of “spare a dollar” panhandlers sitting outside my favorite gas station/sandwich shop. I’m sure they all have very sad stories and they’re all very deserving people, but I’m busting my ass over here in the hopes that it’ll keep the rest of me above water. My observation has been they’re mostly just sitting on theirs looking for someone else to pay the bill. Fuck that noise.

3. Indoor voices. If you work in a relatively confined space with twenty other people, it might be a good idea to go ahead and use your indoor voice. If your indoor voice proves insufficient to carry all the way across the room to your intended recipient, that would be a good time to get up out of your swivel chair and walk over to continue your conversation at an appropriate volume. Or you could just shout at each other. Either way.