Tag Archives: thank you

Birthdays in a plague year…

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Let me start by saying this most definitely wasn’t the birthday I planned to have this year. Like most else in 2020, my plans have been cut down by the Great Plague. There’s nothing to be done about that, of course. It’s the year of grit your teeth and bear it. 

I planned on spending my birthday week happy picking through shelf after shelf of used books, poking around junk shops for long forgotten treasures, and expanding my ongoing search to find Maryland’s most perfect crab cake. Instead, I’ll spend the week splitting my time between working from home and schlepping around a mostly empty auditorium in a surely vain effort to deliver a project that the Gods on Olympus won’t find inordinate reasons to pick apart.

The fact that instead of lost in a world of books and with a belly full of crab cakes, I’m spending the day working furiously on a project that I loathe with the burning passion of ten thousand fiery suns and that I’ve actively advocated killing for years now has not exactly done wonders to improve my mood over the unavoidable cancellation of the previously scheduled week off. It’s mostly just adding insult to injury. And with my general lack of enthusiasm about birthdays that’s really saying something.

In any case, I guess this is 42. Maybe the whole point of your 40s is for the universe to throw down regular reminders that “fuck your plans.” If that’s the case, message received. Seriously. I got it. 

Even with all the insult and injury going around, I really do appreciate everyone who took the time out of their day to pass along your well wishes. They definitely did not go unnoticed or unappreciated, so thank you for that.

Thanks and congratulations…

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The only thing I find more frustrating than doing work that shouldn’t have needed to be done is being thanked for doing that work. If anyone really wants to thank me for doing work, they could start by not creating mountains out of mouse turds. Stop making work where none needs to exist. Stop changing the slides three days after they were supposed to be sent out for printing. Stop changing the seating arrangement 85 minutes before an event starts. Just stop.

We talk a lot about holding people accountable, but it’s not something I see much of in practice. In fact I’m not sure I can point at so much of a single instance of whatever it is “accountability” is supposed to be. Maybe that’s why congratulations are so hard to accept – because if people were being held accountable and compliance was made mandatory, getting the simplest thing done wouldn’t seem to be a task of Herculean effort.

At this point, unless thanks and congratulations come along with a time off award, it’s just so much more paperwork to file.

The untitled post to end 2016…

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Before I slip away into a world of making dinner, mixing drinks, and settling in for a quiet night with the various creatures here at Fortress Jeff, I wanted to take a few minutes and wish everyone a safe and happy new year. 2016 has been a real mother and I don’t know anyone who’s going to be sad seeing it disappear into the rear view. I’m envious of all those posting online in the expectation that 2017 will be better. The realist in me… well, the realist opinion isn’t one that really needs shared on New Year’s Eve. There’s a whole new year coming for that.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t say thank you too all those who supported me over the last year – your comments, emails, and occasional raised eyebrows mean more to me than you’ll know… and more than I’ll ever be able to adequately express. This little site, whether you think of it as a passion project or a vanity exercise, has let me express myself in ways that I would never, ever be able to do otherwise. The fact that so many of you come back day in and day out means everything to me.

And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere!
and gie’s a hand o’ thine!
And we’ll tak’ a right gude-willie waught,
for auld lang syne.