Tag Archives: office

[Adjective] Professionals…

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My little part of Uncle’s vast army of minions has been plagued with morale issues for what feels like as long as I can remember. As usual, there’s no one root cause. There is a conglomeration of issues that beset and bespoil any engendered feelings of goodwill. Maybe that’s just the natural state of things in an enormous bureaucracy – the unhappy rabble fester in a simmering cauldron of discontent while the gods on Olympus conduct studies, launch pilot programs, dither, and tune their fiddles. They may well be trying to do something corrective, but either they’re too far removed to really understand the fine points, bad choices are being foisted upon them from still higher up the mountain, or they’re simply living embodiments of the Peter Principle. Not altogether rarely, you’ll find a combination of all three – an Unholy Trinity of Bureaucracy if you will.

The latest trend-of-the-moment is making everyone refers to themselves as “Trusted Professionals.” I’m sure someone came up with it as a means of improving the esprit de corps, of conveying the privilege of being part of something greater than any one individual, but seriously the phrase just begs for mockery. Crusted Professionals. Rusted Professionals. Busted Professionals. Take your pick. Insert the adjective of your choice and you, my friend, are now well on your way to being as jaded and cynical as the rest of us.

As a writer, I firmly believe that words are important. Words can change the course of history. Words only do that, though, when they’re back up by deeds. When they’re not, words are just words – more flotsam and jetsam on the mighty sea of brainstorms that fizzled before they ever really got started. If you want someone to be a trusted professional, then start trusting them to be professionals. Set the standard and then hold them accountable for results. The rest will follow.

Or just make them repeat an otherwise meaningless catch phrase at the end of meetings and hope it catches on. At least that way it will be fodder for the interwebs.

Reason why…

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Scotland_Forever!There are a lot of ways that making your living with your brain is a hell of a lot easier than making your living by lifting heavy things or digging holes. I very rarely come home physically exhausted from the day. I’m not particularly worried about joints giving out around my 50th birthday (which on reflection is closer than I really want to admit). Some days, like today, you just come home with your brain oozing out your ear or a headache strong enough to power several small northeastern states. Trust me, mental exhaustion is a very real thing.

It comes from trying to carry out tasks the point of which is uncertain in an environment where the endgame is obscured. It comes from a world where everything (and thereby nothing) is a priority. It comes from a place where “Mine is not to reason why…” is a completely justifiable answer to so many questions of purpose.

It’s been my professional experience that at any given time half the people are trying to do the right thing. Some of them are even doing it for the right reasons. The problems arise when there are no reasons – or because those reasons are a gut feeling, a hunch, or a best guess from echelons higher than reality. True, sometimes that’s all there is to go on, but when it becomes SOP, you’ve got yourself a problem. Even people who generally want to do the right thing are challenged to make that happen when they’re left in the dark about the big picture. Even for those who aren’t deep blue strategic thinkers, it’s helpful to know where your widget falls in the big picture.

My brain hurts… I supposed that’s what I get for a vain effort to reason why.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Outlook has exceeded its storage capacity. I got an email from Outlook this morning at the office, roundly chastising me for vastly exceeding my network storage limit and effectively forcing me to dump easily tens (and possibly hundreds) of thousands of emails from the neat and orderly file structure I’ve had since the dawn of time into giant “pots” of email segregated by year. Sure, yes I know there are automatic ways to find all sorts of files, but nothing makes me (professionally) happier than seeing a neatly organized rhyme and reason for how my files and documents are arranged. I want to know how to get to things without needing to ask the machine to find it for me. It’s a personality quirk. Still, at a time in history when electronic storage is cheap and easy, running out of network storage is just stupid, bad, and wrong. Google might be mining my every message for content, but at least those pricks have never imposed a unilateral ex post facto storage cap on me. After all, you just never know when that email thread from February 2007 is going to suddenly become important. Based on my observation, the future largely a rehash of something we tried five or ten years ago… and when it comes around again, I like to be able to reference the documentation showing why it’s as bad an idea now as it was then. Forewarned is forearmed.

2. Pay walls. I’m a reasonably informed person. I try to draw my information from a variety of sources both national and international and representing multiple ends of the political spectrum. I think it’s important not to rely too much on any one news outlet, although I clearly have a few favorites. Regardless of whether you’re a favorite or not, I’m not going to pay for access to news content online. Not. Going. To. Happen. With a million other competing news sites and blogs, I don’t have any reason to pay for the news – for the same reason I wouldn’t pay for a newspaper when I was an undergrad. Aside from not wanting to pay just to read the one article a month I might be interested in, the same or similar content is available somewhere. In college it meant stopping by the local coffee shop or McDonald’s that always had plenty of copies of the paper laying around. Online it means clicking over to a news aggregator or running a quick key word search. It’s cute that news providers are desperate to hang on to the 19th century subscription model of distribution, but I’m not convinced it has a place in the 21st century. There are plenty of other, likely more lucrative, ways to get at the consumer’s wallet… if you’re just a little bit innovative in the approach.

3. George Foreman. A George Foreman grill was one of the first kitchen appliances I received after graduating college and striking out on my own. That original grill is long gone, but I’ve always had one stashed in a cabinet and used it at least once a week if not more often. Then I moved a month ago. The only thing I lost as part of the move was the Foreman’s drip tray. One single, solitary piece of plastic gone while moving the entire house. I have no idea how something like that would get lost in transit, but it did. I’ve been using assorted substitutes for the last few weeks. None of them have been particularly good at filling the role. I assumed jumping on Amazon and ordering a replacement would be cheap and easy. As generally happens when I assume, I was dead wrong. Not only where they not cheap, but they weren’t in stock. Anywhere… unless you wanted to order one “used, but clean” from eBay. Uhhh… no. Thanks. That’s ok for books, but not something that’s going to live in my food prep area. So instead of a $.37 piece of plastic, Amazon is sending me a new $49.99 grill tomorrow. It feels a little like swatting flies with a cruise missile.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. The first taste of spring. I’ve paid my dues and part of my reward has been “graduating” to a cube next to the windows. Usually that’s a good thing. Except this time of year when the weather finally starts shaking off the winter doldrums, things start greening up, and our courtyard looking more like an ill-tended park than a well-tended prison yard. It’s good to have a view of something, but once the rain stopped this week and the sun came out the view has mostly left me with a feeling that I’d much rather be outside working in the yard (or holding down a stool on one of my favorite deck bars) than sitting here working on version 43 of The PowerPoint Presentation that Will Save the World.

2. Being common. Pretty much everyone I know professionally carries around something called a Common Access Card. The theory behind the CAC is that it would be the one ID card to rule them all. It’s a good idea. Except that it’s not. Although it is ubiquitously common, it provides access to basically nothing. One way you know this is by standing behind a woman at the front door card scanner and watching for almost a minute while she tries to use it to unlock the doors. Even offering up a helpful, “Uh, I think you need to use you other access card for that door” was met with a furious gaze and a firm “No. You have to use your CAC.” Yeah. Fine lady. Don’t mind me while I reach past you to swipe my card so I can actually get to my desk.

3. The yard. One of the reasons I liked the new house so much was that the yard took up a relatively minor space on an otherwise spacious lot. The rest is filled in with reasonably large trees and plenty of undergrowth. The house needs a few odds and ends, but I made my peace with living with it for a while to decide what and how to attack those. The yard on the other hand is probably only a few days – a week at most – from demanding immediate attention. Trimming shrubs, weeding front and back, new mulch, dirt patches to seed where gas and septic have been dug up, areas where grading pushes water towards the house instead of away from it, the eventual fence project, and the general mowing and edging. Assuming the yard stays dry some of those things are going to have to start this weekend with others following on shortly thereafter. I haven’t had the amount of time to plan the attack that I’d have liked. By the end of summer I’ll have it sorted out, but don’t expect progress to be coherent or consistent in any way. Sadly that means it’s going to take more time than expected to bring the outside up to my probably unreasonable standard of “finished.”

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Customer service chats. I like the customer service chat functions available through most major businesses. They save me from calling an 800 number and sitting on hold for half an hour. They save me from sending an email that “will be answered in 2 business days.” It’s instant enough gratification that I can call up a chat from my desk at work and get on with my day while resolving whatever issue I happen to have. I’m always surprised when I’m doing business with a large commercial entity that doesn’t offer this convenience… and it always makes me want to deal with them a little bit less.

2. Boxes. I forgot how incredibly awful living eyeball deep in cardboard boxes really is. Now that we’ve reached the stage of the process when just about everything that’s not tied down is living in a box, running into a moment of “oh, I can’t do that because X is packed already” is becoming situation normal. Although the situation will theoretically resolve itself in short order, I’ll be a far more content human being when there’s more stuff coming out of boxes than there is going into them.

3. Staff work. Some weeks there’s more work than three people could do washing across my desk. Other weeks it’s a challenge to keep the cobwebs from taking over. This week has been a case of the latter. The nature of the work doesn’t exactly lend itself to a nice constant flow, but damn it would be nice if it did.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. I’m trying to buy a house. I understand that there are effectively hundreds of bits of paper that I need to sign. As a matter of procedure, though, it’s not a good idea to send me a dozen of them and then disappear. When I email you, then follow up with a voice message, then follow up again the next day, and then email again the day after that and still get nothing in way of response, you can reasonably expect to assume it’s not looking good for your company to retain my business much longer. I tend not to make unreasonable requests and I’m Johnny-on-the-spot getting things done on my end, so expecting the same of the companies I engage to work on my behalf doesn’t feel like a big ask.

2. Today is the first official “snow day” for my office this year. “Free” days off are always something I appreciate whenever they occur. Of course even being an “off” day I find myself up and moving well before the crack of dawn, but it’s my time and that makes it OK. Unlike other people who would just take the day and enjoy it for what it is, my mind is already turning towards thoughts of “Damn. It’s only Thursday… I wonder what the chances of getting tomorrow off too will be?” Maybe it’s just my nature to never be quite satisfied with something good… but seriously even a full scheduled day of work tomorrow will mostly be a lot of people milling around waiting for the weekend to start – and the level of disinterest only increases if there would happen to be a few-hours worth of delayed opening.

3. Maggie is an emotionally needy dog. She has been since the day I brought her home. I have a share of the blame here, of course, since I’ve always let her get away with it. Since the boxes have come out, though, it’s been even worse. Even though there is no sign of “moving” anywhere here on the main living floor, she’s attached to my hip even more than usual. At the moment that translates into sitting on my foot with her chin on my knee while I type this with one hand and scratch her ears with the other. So I’m an enabler. Yet another reason I’ll be glad to have this entire process over and done with. Settling back into “normal” will be a good thing.

Teaming…

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I’m tempted to take back what I wrote last night about steps in the right direction. My opinion on that matter was corrected this afternoon with the arrival of a “save the date” email calling forth what is commonly termed a team building event. For someone who’s fundamentally an introvert, another name for team building event could easily be “An Afternoon in Hell.”

For those not yet acquainted with my views on teams, team building, and touchy felly management theory, I recommend you read this, this, and this.

I think it’s safe to say that my views on the issue have been remarkably consistent over time… and the likelihood of that changing between now and next week feels like something between slim and nonexistent.

It’ll be just another in a long line of moments to lie back and think of England.

P.S. In case you’re wondering, if you search Google for Teamwork Sucks, this humble blog is the 3rd ranked result. It seems I’ve been doing a good job at making the case. At least I have that.

Official Christmas…

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That title is a misnomer, actually. As it has been for the entirety of my career, what was held this afternoon was the official Non-Denominational Winter Holiday Luncheon (NDWHL). I didn’t attend and if the past is prologue all it meant giving up my chance to pay $18 for a mediocre lunch and the opportunity to participate in painfully awkward party games.

I don’t have any philosophical issues with the annual get together. Sure it’s awfully lame compared to some that I’ve seen put on by private sector creatures, but that’s not really the problem either. Hanging around with Uncle, you get used to settling for the PG, family friendly, version of everything. For me it comes down to the simple discomfort of spending three to four hours boxed into a room full of perfect strangers. Being surrounded by people I don’t know and being required to make polite conversation with them for hours is basically one version of my own personal hell.

There is simply no amount of cajoling, peer pressure, or guilt that would convince me attending the NDWHL is a good idea. Telling me who to work with is well and good, but I always reserve the final say when it comes to who I do and don’t socialize with… and when I know something is simply going to be awkward and uncomfortable, why on earth would I pay for the privilege of enduring it when I have any other option?

Humor, or the lack thereof…

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Some people are funny – and no I don’t mean in that “Hey, pull my finger” kind of way. There are virtues to that kind of humor too, of course, but I’m think more about people who can turn drop a perfectly aimed barb on a dime. They have the knack. It’s some combination of timing, ability to turn a phrase, topical awareness, and lacing your words with just enough poison to let the point drive home without ever doing more than brushing against a subject.

Sadly, there are another group of people who wield sarcasm like a brute force weapon – a cudgel with which to beat people about the head and neck repeatedly. It’s a pity, because sarcasm is a real art form when it’s done right. When it’s done wrong, it leaves you looking like a total ass. There’s a fine line there and it’s critical to know where that line is at all times.

People who don’t have the gift just really shouldn’t try to force the issue. It shows every single time and it never stops being uncomfortable. There are few thing more awkward than a person standing around throwing out what they think are zingers while the rest of the captive audience is forced to ponder just how much of a tool that person really is. Here’s a hint: if no one else in the room is laughing, you’re probably doing it wrong. You should stop immediately. And you should consider never doing it again.

The world is a big place. Not everyone needs to have the same skills. For the love of God, if you don’t have a knack for humor please leave it to the professionals – or at least to the skilled amateurs. Sometimes it’s ok to enjoy the show rather than try to be a part of it.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Lack of purpose. I work in a place full of engineers. They can be a socially awkward group – not that I have a lot of room to talk. What I’ve noticed in my travels in and around the building is that it seems like none of them are even walking anywhere with a sense of purpose. No one walks like they have anywhere to go. They’re slouching down the halls, staying close to the wall, hands jammed in their pockets, avoiding eye contact at all costs, and generally unaware of anyone in motion around them. To those grown men and women I say pick your head up. Be aware of what’s around you. I assure you that your feet are going to remain right there at the end of your legs even if you take your eyes off them for a few steps. They’re not going to escape. However, it’s going to do you (and me) a world of good if you start walking around like you have some sense of purpose in life. In the meantime, I’m going to continue walking down the middle of the hallway, head on a swivel, and making you painfully uncomfortable in passing.

2. Violence. If there’s anything likely to stir debate in this country it’s the nature of the gun and the rights and responsibilities that go along with it. What I’ve never been quite comfortable with is how many people single out the gun as the problem without a moment’s pause to look at the real issue – violence. It’s fine to say that you’re sick of gun violence, but doesn’t that kind of statement imply by omission that you’re not sick of other types of violence? I’m not sure it would matter much to me if I were killed by a gun, a knife, a hammer, or a pointy stick as the end result is the same. Violence is violence. It’s my humble estimation that dividing violence by the category of tool used to carry it out is not only a bit naïve but also simply treats the symptoms rather than getting after root causes.

3. Office 2013. The productivity software on my work computer was “upgraded” to Office 2013 this week. I’m not a nuts and bolts software guy but it seems to me that upgrades should somehow be based on actually improving on the design and functionality of what came before. Instead what we apparently have is a new piece of kit that makes it harder to do the “normal” workhorse stuff, adds a few flashy “so what” kind of capabilities, and looks absolutely dreadful no matter whether you opt for a layout in “gray” or a vaguely more tinted “dark gray”. Oh I’m sure it still has the capacity to do everything I want it to do, but it doesn’t perform those tasks the way I want them performed – or at least not in a way that doesn’t require minute-by-minute consultations with the help menu and Google.