Tag Archives: schedule

Catching up…

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In addition to the 185 work-related emails yesterday, one of the hardest parts of being away is that I fell way, way behind on my blog reading last week. As much as I like to think of blogging as a solitary activity, the reality is that that the community of bloggers is surprisingly interactive. Instead of just a spectator sport, you end up in a round robin of reading, commenting, responding, and repeating. If you follow a dozen blogs and even half of them post every day, after a week you end up with a backlog of something close to literary tonnage. Now that the daily routine is getting back to a semblance of normalcy, I’m wading into the backlog. Let’s just say it’s a good thing that I like to read, because this is going to take a while.

I find summer in general to be the hardest time for a person who wants to spend time reading and writing. Writing in winter is easy – it’s dark by 5PM, it’s cold, and you just don’t feel like you’re missing much while you’re up to your earlobes in words. Summer is a different story, for me at least. It always feels like there is more to do – and those competing interests seem to win out at least as often as they lose. Maybe that’ll change now that we’re reaching the time of the season when hiding out in the cool embrace of the air conditioner is the order of the day.

I’ll catch up on my backlog soon enough… now if I can just shoehorn some quality time for writing back into the schedule, all will be right with the world.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Big Brother Knows Best. His distinguished honor the Mayor of New York City said earlier this week that “…our obligation first and foremost is to keep our kids safe in the schools; first and foremost, to keep you safe if you go to a sporting event; first and foremost is to keep you safe if you walk down the streets or go into our parks.” He went on to say “We cannot let the terrorists put us in a situation where we can’t do those things. And the ways to do that is to provide what we think is an appropriate level of protection.” Public safety is a key critical function of government, I agree, but we shouldn’t buy it at the expense of our other liberties. Whether they’re lost to a terrorist’s bomb to to the government trying to stop the terrorists, once those rights are gone, they’re never, ever coming back. If we let cowards change the way we live or lives, if we let government tell us how much privacy we should have or how much of other essential freedoms we need to have or how much we should be willing to surrender, well, I’m not sure I know what we’re fighting for anyway.

2. Moving the Goal Posts. I’m a tiny cog in a vast machine. As such, I’m cognizant that I have almost no control over my own schedule and even less influence over setting the agenda… but honest to God, I’ve had the same meeting scheduled and cancelled three times over the course of two days. Priorities shift, sometimes on short notice. That’s fine. I’m all for improvising, adapting, and overcoming. The hurry up and wait mentality is as old as the institution I serve – far older really. I have a suspicion that the Greek and Roman bureaucracies were not strangers to WTF moments. Expecting a schedule that everyone can agree to and stick with is a pipe dream… but that doesn’t make the constant moving goal posts any less obnoxious.

3. Thursday. Screw you, Thursday. You use to be cool. You use to be thirsty. You use to have dime drafts. Now you’re just as much a crank as any of the other weekdays – just another work-a-day trudging towards the weekend. Not even your neighbor Friday is good for much of anything these days. He’s in a pissy mood until the middle of the afternoon, so I don’t really have much use for him either. The only thing that makes either one of your tolerable is that the path to Saturday runs right through you. That’s the only reason you’re not dead to me.

Scheduling conflict…

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So there was a bit of a scheduling conflict this weekend. Between kicking the book out the door, driving to Western Maryland and back, and trying to squeeze in some quality time, something had to slip… and because you guys are mostly good at not raising hell about it, it was weekend blogging that took the hit. I’d say I was sorry about that, but it was a really good weekend, so I’m really not very sorry at all. Since I like you too much to spout fake apologies, we’ll just leave it at that, ok?

I know, this won’t make up for missing yesterday, but for your reading pleasure five new “old” posts are now available in the archives. Now that the book is out and all I’m busy doing is hectoring people into buying it, we should be back on track from here on out… unless someone wants to hire me for a speaking engagement, symposium, signing, or birthday party. In that case, you’ll get updates when you get them.

Neglect…

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So you tuned in this morning expecting to see the most recent five updates from the archive. On any normal Sunday morning you would be right. Today, though, the archive posts are going to be slightly delayed… Mostly through sheer laziness and the slight disinclination to drag myself away from Western Maryland and get back to Ceciltucky. In fact everything so far today is pretty much telling me to stay put.

After a busy week getting ready to release the book and a weekend that has been enjoyable, but hasn’t quite been restful, I’m not ready to get back into the groove just yet. I’ll get the updates posted tonight… or tomorrow. At this point it’s mostly a matter of whenever I feel like getting around to it.

Breaking routine…

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Going for at least one post a day is a personal goal around here. I like to think I hit the mark more often than not unless there’s some intervening traumatic life event that gets in the way of sitting down and knocking out a few hundred words. Looking at the next couple of days, though, I’m just giving everyone a heads up that it might be quiet around here this week. Getting up early, driving to Baltimore, and getting home late for the next four days is going to put a squeeze on free time… and since writing occupies a big block of available time in the evenings, that’s pretty much what’s going to end up getting squeezed off the daily itinerary.

Being a dedicated creature of habit, you can well imagine how excited I am to have my finely honed scheduled screwed with for the rest of the week… and given my track record for tolerating dumb things in a training environment, I’m going to consider it a win as long as I manage to avoid getting thrown out or picking a fist fight (not necessarily in that order). Otherwise, I’d just like to get this week over as expeditiously as possible and get back to our regularly scheduled activities.

The only good thing I can think of when it comes to being stuck in training for the week is that it gives me a whole new crop of people to observe and make snarky comments about. I might not get to post these little gems right away, but rest assured I’ll be taking copious notes and the whole story will come out. Eventually. Unless the room we’re in has wifi of course, and then it’s game on from the time I walk through the door in the morning.

Balancing the budget…

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Anyone who’s ever tried to eek their way out of debt knows that the first step is to put themselves on a budget. Unless you’re a natural bean counter or have a high pain threshold the process is pretty much agonizing. Since what I seem to have lately is too much to do and not enough time in which to do it, I thought maybe some of the same principles could be applied. Just like preparing a budget, the first thing you need to know is how much you’ve got and where it’s going. Conveniently I’m a creature of habit so this part wasn’t too hard.

So far, here’s what I’ve come up with for a typical weekday*:

* And yes, the hours are blurred because posting the exact times you do things regularly on the internet is pretty dumb, but not having any graphic way to show where my day goes leaves the post a little flat, so that’s my compromise.

The first thing that became apparent to me was that the vast majority of things on this schedule are pretty much non-negotiable, with the exception being “free time” that usually falls around 7:15-9:30 PM. That’s two hours and 15 minutes out of a 24-hour day that’s more or less unaccounted for by something I consider a “must do.” It’s the part that gets cut out when any of the other activities run long… and I’m starting to understand why my weekdays feel like a sprint most of the time.

So the good news is I pretty much know exactly where my time is going. The bad news is I lack the ability to create more time, so that pretty much leaves trying to rejigger the time that’s already available as the only real option. It seems the only way to add new activities is for something I’m already doing to fall off the list… Which explains why I haven’t touched a computer game or the Xbox since I got serious about writing again. It also explains why the house is never quite what I’d call “clean”.

Looking at your day laid out in black and white is sort of depressing, if only because you realize how little flexibility you actually have. Now that I can see how little time there really is for the fun stuff, it’s time to start making hard decisions about what stays and what goes… and figuring out how to get less than six hours of sleep on an average weekday and not to fall asleep at my desk. If I could just cut two hours out of the time I’m laying in bed doing nothing, I think I’d be way ahead of the game and might actually manage to write and watch an hour long television drama all on ths same day.

Banker’s hours…

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I thought that one of the perks of not being a supervisor would be qualifying for some kind of alternative work schedule… you know, the deal where you work nine hour days and get every other Friday off kind of thing. Years ago at the start of my career I worked at a site that ran ten hour days Monday through Thursday. Every week was a three day weekend. I have to admit that there’s something to be said for that schedule. Yesterday, though, I took a pass on the chance to get on board with the every other Friday off schedule. I always figured I’d jump on the opportunity for “free” days off, but I didn’t and here’s my rational:

1. I’ve become a morning person by default. I’m more productive between the hours of 8-11 AM than I am the rest of the day. My least productive time of the day tends to be between 2-4 PM. Tacking on another hour after that doesn’t seem to be a value proposition for anyone. Now if they’d let me start the day around 6AM, we might be on to something, but that doesn’t seem likely.

2. If I leave on time, even in the depths of winter, I get 30-45 minutes of daylight in the evenings. It doesn’t sound like much, but for my money there’s little worse than driving to work in the dark and arriving home in the dark. In December, those few minutes of light every day are worth more to me than extra days off (seriously).

3. The only “alternative” I’m really interested in is telework. I had a good run with telework back in the day and found working from the kitchen table, five feet from the coffee pot to be probably my most productive day of each week. That probably has something to do with being out of sight and out of mind. It’s a great way to sit down once a week and focus on something without that cacophonous roar of people yelling over the top of cubicles at each other.

4. Being a single father, there’s only so many hours I can stay away before something bad happens… like the kids staging a jail break, eating the couch, and turning the floor into an open sewer. Since they’re pretty well trained at keeping themselves entertained for 10 hours, trying to change up a system that works seems like a bad idea. That’s just a layer of additional stress that I don’t need to inject into the environment.

So yeah, I’m going to take a pass on the alternative work schedule for the time being and just be happy keeping banker’s hours.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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Note: I know I missed last week’s edition, so you’re getting a “best of” What Annoys Jeff this Week that covers that last two weeks. No extra charge. Enjoy.

1. Meetings that start at 6PM. Saying this out loud is probably detrimental to my career, but I can’t think of any good reason aside from executive ego that justifies starting a meeting at 6PM when most everyone in the room start their day between 7 and 7:30. You either have no respect for their time or really bad time management skills. Either one of which is generally considered bad form by fancy business schools everywhere.

2. People with no sense of urgency. When I’ve been telling you for more than a week that something needs to happen by X Day, don’t be surprised, offended, or otherwise defensive on X+2 when I tell you what you’re giving me is too late to include. I don’t care that you worked really hard on it. In conclusion, you’re a douchebag.

3. Large volumes of small children. Individually and in small numbers, I’m surprisingly ok with (other people’s) kids. Pack lots of them into a relatively small space and it has a tendency to make me twitchy. It’s just that they’re collectively so loud… and fast moving. When you’ve spent your entire adult life living in blissful solitude, I’m not going to lie, a gang of 15 six year olds reeking mayhem and chaos next door is something of a shock to the system. It’s a shame that the uberwealthy hiring a hermit to live on their property to give it a pastoral feel went out of fashion with the Victorian Age. I think that’s a career path where I could have really set the standard for excellence.

4. “Scooter” People. If you’re going to ride the electric scooter at Walmart, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect that you pay at least partial attention to what you’re doing. And by that I mean try not to drive it directly into my back while continuing your conversation with whatever slack-jawed yokel you came with to do your grocery shopping as if it didn’t happen. I have to admit it took real stones to give me a dirty look when I called you on it. Most of the time, I have an instinctive tendency to defer to my elders, but in your case I’ll make an exception. You, you muumuu wearing, blue haired battle-ax, are an asshat.

No surprises…

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In the two and a half years that I’ve been writing here at WordPress, I’d hate to guess how many times I’ve “admitted” to being a creature of habit. I’d be surprised if it wasn’t at least once a month. Maybe that in itself has gotten to be a bit of a habit, but that’s not really the point. Because I’m a creature of habit, I like having a schedule. I like knowing that the alarm clock is going to ring at the same time every day, that lunch is going to happen at more or less the same time every morning, and that I’m going to walk out the door at more or less the same time every afternoon. When some unforeseen circumstance throws that schedule out of whack, I tend to get vicerally annoyed by it, even when it doesn’t show. I’m sure there’s some deep seated psychological reason for it, but I’ve never been curious enough to try figuring it out. Making sure things go according to plan always seemed like a better use of time to me.

Of course when you’re a simple cog in the machine, most of your schedule ends up really being decided by someone or something well beyond your own sphere of control. When that happens, there’s really not much more to to but grin and bear it no matter how much you’re seething in the inside. Not that I would ever seethe over some minor detail like that, of course. I’m a pretty simple guy to motivate. Keep me fed, watered, and on schedule and all is right with the world. Start dinking with any one of the three and I can get downright surly. I should be enjoying what’s left of this Sunday afternoon, but in the back of my mind I’m already vaguely annoyed by tomorrow’s schedule being shot to hell before I ever leave the house. Around 4:00 tomorrow afternoon, I’m going to need someone to remind me that snarky comments and senior staff rarely go well together. I should probably just consider myself lucky that this kind of blown schedule is a rarity… but I’ll leave that for the glass-half-full types. Putting things in perspective seems to make them feel better. Strangely enough, bitching about it online seems to have the same effect on me.

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.