Tag Archives: work

The price or: Being caught at my desk…

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Nothing good ever starts with the boss coming by asking “How busy are you this week?”

The answer, the answer I should have given, true or not, is “I’m busier than a one-armed paper hanger, sir… Doing great things for God and country.”

Instead the answer was “Meh, what do you need?” I made the cardinal mistake of showing even the least semblance of interest. I made a mistake and the consequences were swift and certain.

One little slip up, friends, is precisely how you get yourself drug into the middle of a three and a half hour meeting on Friday that up until just a few minutes before was none of your damned business.

I’ve lead the internet in warning future bureaucrats about the dangers inherent in volunteerism. In my career, I’ve never been rewarded for putting up my hand and asking for more work. Although it leads the list by a fairly wide margin, volunteerism isn’t the only form of creeping workload adjustment that can ruin your day.

While I didn’t quite volunteer today, I did present myself as a convenient target of opportunity. Just being at the wrong place at the wrong time can result in two reports and a half a day worth of briefings ending up slipping from someone else’s pile to yours before you even realize what you’ve done.

“Surprise!” Says the universe. “That nice easy week you were planning… the one with the low pressure slide into the weekend? Yeah, you can go ahead and forget all about that.” The universe is a real son of a bitch like that.

That’s what I get for being caught at my desk. I know better. And now I’m going to pay the price for not turning that knowledge into action.

Work is work…

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I’m still settling in to the whole idea of working from home. Not schlepping through the pre-dawn darkness to sit in a badly lit room with thirty other people doesn’t really suck. I like the view and my coworkers are appreciative of ear rubs and the occasional milkbone. Honestly it’s a whole lot of up side and not much down, at least so far.

It’s a learning process for sure and what I’ve learned this week is:

1. Dogs make the best coworkers. They’re content to find a convenient spot on the floor, preferably in the sun, and stay put until you want them for something.

2. Cats are attention-seeking little hoodlums who want to interrupt you 47 times a day. So basically, working while a cat is in residence is a lot like having actual human coworkers.

3. Happy hour begins promptly at 4:00. Getting that tasty beverage to start the evening an hour earlier is an awfully effective way to put a fork in Monday.

4. There’s something to be said for a lunch that doesn’t come out of a cooler bag / paper bag or from the hands of a sandwich artist.

5. The availability and freshness of the coffee / tea selection is way, way better. It’s hard to underestimate just how much better life is when you can fresh brew all day long.

I wish I could offer up something a little more insightful, but work is work no matter where it’s getting done. The best we can seem to hope for is improving the venue where we spend our eight hours.

Day 1…

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Today was my first telework day in over a decade. I learned (or maybe re-learned) a few things:

1. When no one comes by your desk to talk, even with distractions of social media, animals, and an enormous killer snow storm bearing down on you, you can cram more work into two hours than you often get done in eight hours at the cube farm.

2. For years I’ve been blaming my work-issued laptop for being an antiquated, slow piece of junk. As it turns out, the computer isn’t the problem. Even on my out-at-the-end-of-the-road Comcast network connection, the thing is a veritable speed demon. So starting today, I’ll officially be blaming the network people for allowing us to creep along like we’re still using dial-up.

3. When they blow stuff up on the north range, I can hear it at my house. I’m fairly sure I knew that already, but it’s still satisfying to have an answer to “what the hell is that thumping” when the dogs start barking for no obvious reason.

4. Daytime television really is awful. I left the TV in the kitchen tuned in to the local news as background noise… but lord, the filler the run between the 12:00 news and close of business at 5:00 is just well and truly bad.

5. Working in fuzzy slippers and sweats is nice, but I’m going to enjoy it a lot more when I can help keep the world safe for democracy from the comfort of the back porch.

Breaching the firewall…

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For most of the last five or six years I’ve worked to build up a firewall between home and office. They were the twin streams in my life that must never, every cross. Today, with a few strokes of the pen, I’ve started the process to un-make that bulwark and let the two halves scrape past one another a bit more closely. Actually, that’s not accurate. I’ve given work a written invitation to conduct a wholesale invasion of Fortress Jeff.

That sounds more dire than it probably is since all I’ve really done is start the wheels in motion to get approval for working from home one day a week. As much as I value the hard wall of separation between home and office, the hard math isn’t on my side. Once I ran the numbers, finding that tucking myself in to my home office once a week would save me almost 40 hours a year of commuting time it makes the thing a bit of a no brainer, really.

I did the whole working from home thing years ago and I’m well aware of its virtues, particularly when it comes time to really study an issue and give it the mental once over without Chatty Cathy in the next cube spending the whole day in your ear. Plus, although my colleagues are decent enough (mostly), chalking up at least one day of the week where two dogs, a cat, and a tortoise are my officemates sounds preferable in just about every way.

We’re going to take this idea out for a bit of test drive starting (probably) sometime this month… but I’m not making any promises. As much as I’d like to spend another day at home, letting the office creep into the sanctum sanctorum may be a bridge too far.

The nagging cough and steady drip…

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I’ve definitely acquired some kind of crud. Since everyone at the office seems to be hacking or wheezing with something, that doesn’t come as much of a surprise. Our cube set up so closely approximates a late 19th century tenement that I’m surprised there aren’t reports of cholera outbreaks from the back of the room.

As sickness goes, the nagging cough and steady drip from my nose is far from the worst thing going around. It’s enough to be obnoxious – and enough to drive me deeper into the arms of Big Pharma to find some relief. The side effect of the OTC cocktail I whipped up, though, is the really delightful feeling of being just shy of stoned through a good portion of the day. I should probably apologize to anyone who got an email from me today. The spelling, punctuation, and even message itself is likely suspect.

I don’t really feel bad and I suppose that is the small mercy. I’m already burning enough sick leave this week on appointments that I’d really like to avoid wasting more of it on actually being sick.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Weather forecasts. I know weather is a complex “system of systems” but damn. If I were as often wrong at prediction and prognosticating results within 24 hours I’d get shitcanned for sure. Yet another example of where I’ve made poor career decisions overall.

2. Restorative days off. I’m a jealous guard of my time off. There is almost nothing I value more highly. I do my best to maximize the value of those days. I hate wasting them… which is why it’s so sad that the restorative effects of time off last no more than two hours into the first day back. It feels like it should take longer than that to slide back into a sea apathy and discontent. The operative word there being “should.”

3. Talk. People talk a lot. They talk and talk. They make promises and speak to high ideals. What almost none of them do, tough, is back that talk up with their actions. Talk is important. It speaks to our aspirations. Behavior, though, that’s what shows people how committed you are to getting there. If you can’t be bothered with the action part of the equation, it’s probably best to just shut the fuck up.

Back in my swivel chair…

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Today was not an unmitigated success. There were no meetings and, if I’m honest, that goes a long way towards making a day more tolerable if nothing else. Then there was the great cleaning of the inbox. Clearing out near 300 backlogged messages that had no hope of being answered felt like a win… until I then was left to ponder the hundred or so that remained and actually needed some kind of answer. I spent way more of the day plowing through those than I want to think about. The amount of time wasted on email would be spectacular if anyone ever bothered to add it all up. They won’t, of course, because no one really wants to know the answer for fear they may have to do something to make that number more reasonable.

So now I’m back to the office. They say great art comes from great pain. That could very well be true. I don’t know if “pain” is the right word here and I’m in no way vain enough to call what I’m doing art, but my best and most consistent writing almost always finds its source at the office. Sure, that could be because for five days out of every seven that’s where I spend more waking hours than anywhere else. I like to think, though, that it’s because the bureaucracy is a vast treasure trove of stories begging to be told. If I weren’t part of it, I’d have a hard time believing that anything so convoluted could even give the impression of functioning.

I’m not thrilled beyond all reasonableness to be back in my swivel chair, but for the sake of the blog it’s a good thing… and that’s as close to glass full as I’m going to be able to manage.

Anatomy of a day off…

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Due to the extreme plenty of hours on the clock last week, I now find myself in a position of having a few extra days to myself. Those are definitely the days I like best.

Instead of going blind on PowerPoint I got to:

– Put more shelves in basement
– Read 200 pages (of something other memos or regulations)
– Play fetch
– Restock the bird feeders and watch the deluge of feathered critters
– Cleared the deadfall from the back yard
– Walked the back 40 marking trees to cut down this spring
– Made lunch
– Watched two episodes of great British television
– Left Italian sausage, sautéed peppers and onions, and marinara to simmer 3 hours before dinner
– Sat down to write this post at 3:15 and wrapped it up by 3:30

It’s not what most would call exciting, I’m sure, but it felt like just about the perfect day.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Lazy asshats. You asshats are competing for billions of dollars of contracts. Somehow, though, you can’t manage to take your water bottles with you when you leave the damned room. What on earth would make me think you were compatent to manage major program efforts when you can’t pull off the easy to do stuff. If it were up to me being a lazy asshat who’s too good to clear your own trash would disquality you from any future work.

2. Those who can’t “leave it at the office.” This week I’ve observed at close range dozens of people who stuck around to “talk shop” for well over an hour after the work day ended. Those people perplex me. I can’t imagine a circumstance where I wouldn’t have something better to do on the average afternoon than that. The last thing I want to talk about at the end of the day is what I just did for the last eight hours. All I want to do is slide down the tail of my brontosaurous and make best possible speed for home.

3. Critics. Unless I saw you sitting in six months of planning meetings and voicing your “good ideas” when we could have used them feel free to take you nitnoid criticisms and go fuck yourself.

On the week before…

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Next week will be my personal version of hell, featuring 12 hour days, 750 of my new best friends all crammed into one room, and having all the responsibility to make it go right, none of the authority to make any actual decisions, and every bit of the blame if the wheels fall off for any reason. If I were in any way in control of my own destiny this would basically be the very last thing in which I would ever knowingly engage. Yet, party planning sticks with me from job to job like some kind of Gypsy curse.

If next week is hell, this week is a strong contender for that title. It’s the week in which everyone who has been ignoring the impending arrival of hell week has their “oh shit” moment and realizes if they don’t do something they’re going to look like utter twatwaffles in front of a live studio audience. When I was teaching this was the part of the year when I got to tell students that no, they really were going to fail because they didn’t bother to do any homework. I’m told, however, that letting these people fail, regardless of how deserving they may be of it, is “unprofessional.”

It all means that in many ways I’m spoon feeding adult humans a lot of information that was previously made available in slides, and memos, and email, and through various and sundry face to face conversations. I’m paying for the same ground five or six times a day in some cases… and paying for the same ground over and over and over again makes Jeff very, very surly.

Whatever else may be in doubt this week, you can rest assured that behind this serene exterior is a stroke or heart attack just waiting for the right moment to strike me down.