Tag Archives: professional

Six P’s…

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Ninety-nine times out of a hundred when you see me, I have a plan. It may not always be a good one, but it’s there informing the decisions I make throughout the course of the day. Even if I know the plan is going to be blown to hell and back by 9AM, I feel better starting the day with a semblance of an idea about where I want to be when the day ends.

That’s true except in the one part of my life where it feels like a plan is currently most needed – the writing part. You know, the part I really, really like. More days than not I find myself sitting at the keyboard after dinner flailing around hoping to strike on a decent topic for the night’s post. That stroke of good luck feels like it’s getting harder to come by lately. That’s pretty much how I know it’s probably time to sit down and look at this thing like an actual professional – planning out posts in advance, working to deadline, and generally not waiting for the good idea fairy to drop ideas in my lap at the last possible minute.

I think I’ve always worried that having posts pre-planned might take away some of the ebb and flow around here. It could make me less responsive to the breaking news of the day that’s just crying out for a heavy dollop of cynicism. It’s getting to the point, though, that I’m feeling like that’s an acceptable level of risk to take so I can try to get the most out of the limited keyboard time I have available. So from here on out, I’m going to do my best to see if the Six P’s are still true. I’ve I’m lucky, I’ll find all these years later it’s still a stone cold fact that proper planning prevents piss poor performance.

Selfie…

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So apparently last night Ellen DeGeneres posted a selfie of a ragtag band of Hollywood A-list celebrities that thundered across Twitter faster than any tweet in the history of the universe. That’s an interesting factoid, but while I’m sitting here getting caffeinated, I’m left mostly wondering why we care.

I like movies as well as anyone else, but I don’t lionize those who make them or endow them with super-human, superlative qualities beyond them being good at acting. That’s great. I’m glad they’re doing what they do, but I don’t want to get on the band wagon of anyone who thinks the biggest names in Hollywood are spending their days doing anything particularly heroic. They’re doing their job and that makes them professionals, not demi-gods.

It’s good that a professional organization like the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences pauses for a few hours and recognizes member achievement. People should be recognized when they’re reached the top of their chosen field of endeavor. What I don’t particularly understand, though, is why anyone outside that field pays attention to what those individuals are wearing, who they’re screwing, or what they have to say about politics or current events. It’s a little like looking to the best dentist in America to give me fashion advice or to tell me how to build a suspension bridge. Sure, he might have an opinion, but it’s the furthest thing from his professional area of expertise.

There’s no real point to this little ramble aside from my own continued curiosity about why we collectively make a big deal about watching other people put on formal ware and sit in an auditorium for hours. I hate putting on so much as a tie whenever I can avoid it, so the idea of making an event out of watching other people wear uncomfortable clothing simply defies any kind of logic I can muster.

The snow day that wasn’t…

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I’m smart enough to understand that what I know about meteorology wouldn’t take the first day of class to teach at a halfway responsible university. Being a simple man, I try to leave the prognostication to the professionals and satisfy myself that whatever it’s doing when I take the dogs outside in the morning is a reasonably good indicator of what it’s going to be like for the next 8 hours or so. Being a complex system, of course, the weather doesn’t always cooperate with that assessment. That’s why keeping an umbrella and a dry pair of socks in the truck is always a good idea.

I rely on my simple approach to weather because I don’t have a multi-billion dollar array of radar stations, geosynchronous satellites, supercomputer powered models, and highly trained meteorologists pouring over data moment by moment. The good news is apparently you don’t need any of those things to make a go of it… because using that wide array of resources, you’re just as apt to get it as wrong as I am by simply sticking my head outside to see if it gets wet.

Still, if you can convince an entire metropolitan area that you know what you’re doing and make a damned good living while getting it sort of right and sort of wrong, well, then my hat is off to you. All I wanted was a damned snow day today. I’d have settled for a few hours early release. But no. That was a bridge too far, because here between Philly and Baltimore, it was the snow day that wasn’t. I think from now on I’ll just stick with the personal observation method and maybe pick up a barometer at the next flea market I visit. Then I’d say my predictions should be about on par with the professionals.

47 minutes…

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In college, the universal rule, recognized across the known world, was if the professor didn’t show up 15 minutes after the start of class, you were free to go. Sadly, the same is not true of “professional work environments.” As a professional, you’ll be expected to sit quietly and wait for whoever called the meeting regardless of how long after the scheduled start time they actually show up. One might be tempted to think that their time would be better spent in going back to their desk and getting some actual work done, but unfortunately one would be wrong.

I set my own personal best (worst?) record today in the grand game of sitting around waiting for someone to show up. The meeting started 47 minutes after it was originally scheduled. Which is bad enough. But then of course it lasted almost an hour longer than it should have. Read that again. I’m not saying it ran for an hour after it started. I’m saying it lasted the “original” hour it was scheduled (albeit starting 47 minutes late) and then kept on running for almost an additional hour. All told, I spent just shy of 3 hours on a meeting that was supposed to be done and over in less than one.

It’s days like today that test my increasingly limited powers of keeping my big mouth shut. I’ve been around long enough that most ridiculous things seem like perfectly reasonable courses of action, but there’s something about leaving dozens of people to cool their heels because one can’t get from Point A to Point B in a timely manner apparently pushed all my buttons at once.

Holding my tongue…

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I suck at holding my tongue. It runs counter to my natural inclination to get loud and rowdy when points of personal pride are involved. I can only hope that my silence is never mistaken for assent. I have a long memory, particularly when it comes to keeping tabs on those who think I’ll stand idle while they malign my integrity. If I Asshatdon’t react it’s because I’ve opted to respond in a time and a place of my own choosing rather than based on someone else’s timeline.

My very first instinct when something stupid happens is to think about it as a “blogable” moment. Occasionally, despite how pitch perfect the post would be, a cooler head eventually prevails and I realize that now is not the time to shift my career dissipation light into overdrive. Instead, I bite my tongue, and file the original post away for future reference or for inclusion in Jeff’s Great Big Book of Asshattery, currently scheduled for publication in Fall 2036.

I may be keeping my own counsel. For now. But I urge you not to make the unfortunate mistake of thinking that I’ll ever allow myself to be backed into a corner – Especially by someone whose quiver is only filled with tersely-worded emails.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Responsibility. As a grown ass adult, you have certain responsibilities. One of those is to be where you’re supposed to be, when you’re supposed to be there. That goes double if you’re going to try passing yourself off as a professional. Yep, sometimes that means you’re going to have to play hurt, or when you have other things on your mind. It’s the way of the world, so suck it up, Rolling Stone Bomberbuttercup. When you’re the only one impacted by your piss poor decision making skills, I say do what you want and God bless… but when your decision make someone else deal with the consequences, you’re pretty much just as asshat.

2. Rolling Stone. From the perspective of having any tact or class as an organization, Rolling Stone has basically let the world know for sure that they have none. Look, if they want to run a magazine with the Boston bomber on the cover, they’re perfectly within their rights. All I’d ask is that don’t hide behind the cover of being responsible journalists tackling a hard story head on. If they came out and admitted they put that douchenozzle on the cover because they thought they were going to sell a gagillion copies of it, I’d say thanks for the truth and God bless. They’d be right and it would collectively be our fault because we Americans will buy up those magazines by the bushel basket. The only reason that smug bastard is looking out at us from the newsstand is because we’ll eat it up and pay for the privilege. Rolling Stone knows that… and we live through another example of the citizens of this fine country not having the common sense God gave a goose.

3. Standing by to stand by. I think by now we all know how I feel about meetings in general. In a decade’s worth of work, I’ve attended less than a handful that left me feeling like they were time well spent. That’s situation normal in the bureaucracy. What really grinds my gears, though is the mentality that the average drone has nothing better to do than sit around and wait for the next meeting to start. Don’t schedule something at 11:00, then slip it to 11:30, then pass the word to wait and see, and to be prepared to stand by to stand by until further notice. In a world of 32 hour work weeks and 80% pay, the least we can expect is that the limited time we do have on the clock is respected and used productively. Or maybe that’s a bridge too far.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Lip syncing. If I were to make an eight hour recording of me sitting at the keyboard banging away at what I’m sure is some very important memo or PowerPoint briefing, and then push the play button on that recording every morning when I sat down at my desk and claim that I’m working, it’s fair to say that my boss would call me an idiot and tell me to get back to work. My argument that the performance was recorded “live to tape” probably wouldn’t be sufficient to convince him that a recording was a good enough substitute to actually doing the work live and in person. Not being a professional audio engineer, I don’t know whether Beyonce performed live, live to tape, or whatever. I’m not sure I really care all that much, but it strikes me that if your occupation is “singer,” it’s probably a good idea to show up and, you know, actually sing.

2. Dress codes. On days when the temperature falls below, say, 20 degrees, I think office dress code requirements should automatically be relaxed to allow for jeans, boots of sufficient size to account for wool socks, flannel shirts, and possibly hats with ear flaps. I don’t exactly know who came up with the idea that a shirt and tie equate to professional conduct, but I think it’s safe to say that can get just as many memos written while wearing Levis and Doc Martens as I can while wearing slacks and wingtips. I’ve managed to slowly ease out of wearing a tie, but sadly, my struggle for greater clothing equality against oppressive government rules continues unabated.

3. Medical science. I’ve got my next regular check up with my favorite should-have-been-a-Prussian-Field-Marshal general practitioner tomorrow. This will be the first of two visits this year where he tells me to exercise more, eat less, stop having fun, and that way maybe I’ll live a long and boring life. That’s fine. It’s his job and he seems to be good at it. Hopkins tends not to hire people that aren’t good at it, which is one of the reasons I’m willing to drive so far out of my way for a basic checkup. Still, what I really need him, and the broader medical community to do is come up with a pill or procedure that fixes whatever damage I manage to inflict on my body without needing to change my lifestyle and habits in any meaningful way. God knows I don’t have a death wish, but I’m not sure a world without perfectly grilled steak, penne pasta with vodka sauce, and the humble potato in its many pleasing forms is worth living in… and let’s not even get started on how many more productive and entertaining things I could do if it weren’t for spending time on a bike to nowhere every evening. Science just needs to get off its hump and come up with a way to keep us from getting dead with a minimal amount of effort from the patient.

Time keeps on slippin’…

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I got to spend an entire day this week in class. You can imagine my unrestrained joy at being given this “opportunity.” Still, there’s an old saying that goes something like “Early is on time, on time is late, and late is unacceptable.” Of course sometimes life happens and even the most obsessive of us can arrive a few minutes late to our destination. On any given day when how long it takes you to get back from lunch doesn’t really matter to anyone, extending your meal a bit doesn’t hurt at all. Since this was one of those moments that we were all in it together and nothing was going to happen until all the butts were back in all the seats, what possessed one car full of you to decide it was a good day to take a two hour lunch? I mean, I don’t like this class any better than you do, but somehow I managed to wander back it at something approximating on time, even if that was mostly driven by the desire to get things over with as soon as possible. You tools, on the other hand, seemed dead set on dragging a long day out even further.

I thought the lip smacking and crinkling of paper wrappers when you got back was an exceptionally well planned touch, by the way. I mean how on earth could you have spent two hours out wandering around and not managed to spend at least some of that time jamming half a sandwich into the filthy stinking sewer that you call a mouth? Your incompetence, lack of interest in anything other than yourself, and dare I say apathy, has reset the bar for the rest of us. Look, I may be an apathetic fuck, but I somehow manage not to let my own proclivities bleed over and cause problems for other people. All I’d ask is for the same courtesy of not screwing the rest of us because you’re having a bad day or can’t be bothered to do two things simultaneously.

The crowning irony of our little drama today was that we were all part of a new mandatory-for-the-universe class on improving professional conduct in the workplace. Maybe this was part of the class – A living example of how not to do things.

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.

Delicate sensibilities…

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As alleged professionals, we all have basic responsibilities beyond those things described in our job descriptions. If your job description provides a laundry list of explicit tasks, our status as professionals imparts a second list of implied tasks that we need to carry out in order to accomplish our primary role. One of those implied tasks, at least in my mind, is reading and understanding the information put in front of us.

Part of my job, from time to time, is preparing electronic correspondence for senior leaders to inform them about upcoming meetings, key decisions made at high echelons, or to provide general information about the health of their organization. I generally write those messages as if our leaders aren’t mouth-breathing oxygen thieves. According to the self-anointed gatekeeper of such correspondence, my assumption is incorrect.

Apparently, selecting “forward” on the email task bar and referring them to the appropriate section of the message will lead to catastrophic confusion in the executive suite. These are important people and expecting them to use the little track wheel on their Blackberry to scroll down is too presumptuous. I’m told that our leaders can’t be troubled to read more than two or three sentences in an email, so it’s critical that all salient facts be presented in the viewable space when they first open a message. Thanks to my colleague, I now know that our leaders are too busy to read or contemplate any message involving the slightest hint of complexity.

Call me difficult, but when the topic has been perfectly well summarized by someone already, I don’t see any value to taking 30 minutes to reword it based on the argument that the big words might confuse our leaders or that having a message forwarded might offend their delicate sensibilities. Despite my occasional arguments to the contrary, I don’t really think our leaders are that dumb and I certainly don’t think they are that delicate.

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.

Rave…

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I make a habit of calling people out here in print when they have offended me in some way. It’s only fair that the opposite should be true as well. You get just that one chance to make a first impression and Johns Hopkins Community Physicians at Water’s Edge hit one out of the park for me this morning. I spent less than 5 minutes in the waiting room after checking in. The nurse was in the room to take my vitals before I even set my file down. She was still taking my history when the doctor came in. The doc had me walk him through my meds and history – good move making sure I understood the issues and the treatment plan, by the way – and gave me a once over and checked under the hood. He easily spent 20 minutes in the room before walking me over to the lab for blood work. Less than five minutes with the vampires, and I was on my way. In a 45 minute appointment, total waiting time was less than 5 minutes.

These guys deserve big kudos for efficiency and professionalism. If this is the way they do business, I don’t think I’ll have any issues working with them in the future. They’ve set the bar pretty high for themselves, so I hope this wasn’t a fluke experience. We’ll find out in November.