Tag Archives: result

A time and a place…

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Someone once said “There’s a time and a place for everything.” Apparently it was true enough that everyone around him started saying it too. Maybe it it. What nobody ever mentioned, though, is that if there’s a time and place for everything, there’s a corresponding time and place which is not for a thing. It’s worth trying to bear in mind, really, because you see the time and the place to tell me that the thing I’ve been working on all day “isn’t right” is not 15 minutes before the close of business. That’s especially true when I’ve been doing everything besides begging for guidance for months now.

All I’ve ever asked for is someone to tell me what the objective is – what they want the end result to look like. With that key piece of information, I can bend the world to fit that image. Without it, I’m just flailing around making shit up as we go along. As another old saw goes, “when you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.”

I’ll just have to brace myself for the inevitable shitshow and mandatory ass chewing tomorrow… because Lord knows it’s always the time and place for that.

Should’ve learned to weld…

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Monday evening. Milepost One in the long march towards the three-day weekend. One of my go to responses to many events at the office these days is an exasperated reminder to the world that I could have learned to weld, apprenticed to be a plumber, or picked up any number of practical skills that ensured my long term employability. I’m told that at least one of my high school teachers recommended that amidst my perpetual struggle to grasp the basic concepts of algebra. Perhaps the old crank was on to something after all.

Instead of doing something productive like learning carpentry, I went to college and promptly put the thought of alternatives out of my head. I do wonder sometimes at what kind of difference it would have made had I found myself practicing an occupation where the end result is something to physically show for your efforts at the end of a day’s work. At least part of me thinks that’s got to be personally fulfilling on some level. Or maybe from where I sit it just seems more fulfilling than being the guy who churns out the memo with the fewest spelling and punctuation errors.

At the rate my bits and pieces seem to be grinding down, I’m not under any delusions of transforming myself into a tradesman at this late date. Between the shoulder problems, lower back pain, clicking knee, and the occasional bit of foot trouble behind a desk is probably the most reasonable place in the world for me to stay. While I’m there, though, I’m going to spend an unreasonable amount of time thinking that I should’ve learned to weld. With all the wisdom of hindsight I think a career that results in something less ephemeral than a voluminous stack of PowerPoint slides would have suited me.