Tag Archives: work

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Infinite Capacity. There’s an decade old Dilbert comic in which he says “I have infinite capacity to do more work as long as you don’t mind that my quality approaches zero.” Like Dilbert, my capacity to do work is infinite, my time however is not. I’ve got eight hours a day, five days a week. No matter how fine you slice and dice the list of things to do, I’ll never get more than 40 hours worth of work done… and while my capacity to work may be infinite, my capacity to give a shit surely has a far more limited range.

2. Email. I think it may be time to switch email addresses. My venerable old gmail address is currently swamped with messages from my vet, receipts from online orders, the NRA, Starbucks, my health insurer, Outback Steakhouse, and the dozen or so blogs I follow on a daily basis. It’s possible that I’ve hit the point where I might actually be trying to take in too much information… and that’s sort of new territory for a guy who would generally be happy enough jacking into the internet Matrix style with a port in the back of his head. Somehow I’m going to have to cull the thundering herd of email that lands in my inbox demanding attention, because right now, I’m studiously ignoring it even as the counter keeps ticking upwards. That’s probably not an indication of a healthy, working information management plan.

3. Change. Sometimes change is good. Sometimes it’s necessary. Sometimes it just makes sense. Sometimes, however, it’s done for no apparent reason or simply to change for the sake of change. That’s stupid. Especially when what you’re doing already works and what you want to do is untried. There are plenty of ways to get your feet wet that don’t include jumping head first into the barrel and hoping for the best. But hey. I’m just a guy sitting here watching the ebb and flow and pondering how much easier life got when I stopped worrying about making rank.

Three tips for workplace survival…

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I make a concerted effort to steer this blog away from specific issues at my own office and more towards a general discussion of work in general and the foibles of the workplace writ large. However, like the modern cop dramas that everyone seems to love these days, the following issues are ripped from the headlines of real life experience while working in an office somewhere in Maryland. No bureaucrats were physically harmed in the writing of this post, but their souls might just be a little more crushed for the experience.

1. Don’t send an email and then immediately walk over to the recipient’s desk to tell them you sent an email. Thanks to the little glowing screen on their desk, they probably know this already. Plus, there’s a good chance they’re working on something and will get to whatever issue you’re having in its order of importance to them, not based on the number of times you ask for it. In fact, multiple requests for the same information will result in all of your messages being shifted to the bottom of the pile.

2. If you’re working in an office far removed from lunch options, there’s a safe bet that you’ll do at least a little eating at your desk. While it’s sad and depressing in its own right, the thing people need to remember is that the lunch break is sacrosanct. It should be inviolable, except under the most extreme of circumstances. If you approach someone’s desk and they’re stuffing half a sandwich into their face, that shouldn’t be considered an open invitation for a long winded discussion about anything. That’s especially true if the victim of your verbal deluge is trying to read a few pages of a book or magazine while jamming his face full of food – pretty much the universal sign that they’re on break and not working at the moment. If you’re one to be stuck eating at your desk on the regular, picking up a Do Not Disturb or Out to Lunch sign to hang on your cube at appropriate times might not be a bad investment.

3. If you think you’re having a discrete personal conversation on the phone in your cubicle, think again. Everyone within earshot knows if you’re blowing up at your wife, behind on your mortgage, or recently contracted the herp. Yes, we all know having those conversations from the comfort of your office chair is convenient, but sometimes everyone would be better served if you wandered off somewhere and had that discussion on your cell phone. When you’re forced by your profession to sit shoulder to shoulder with them for eight hours a day, you can at least do them all the favor of not discussing your most recent bout of hemorrhoids?

If you found these tips useful, remember there are plenty more hints and tricks handily outlined in Nobody Told Me: The Cynic’s Guide for New Employees.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Side effects. We all know I’m a fan of better living through chemistry. The problem, of course is that in addition to what various chemicals do to keep you alive, they all come with some kind of side effect – an unintended consequence if you will. The side effect of Flexeril, apparently, is that it it keeps my eyes from focusing on fine details (such as words typed on a computer screen) and leaves me feeling in a constant state of “about to fall asleep.” Neither of these things lead to a happy or productive Jeff, and that’s not a recipe for better living. Still it’s a step up from some of the side effects I’ve read about like anal seepage, stroke, and death. Clearly with these things there’s a very, very fine line between medicine and poison.

2. The reward for good work. I’ve never understood why the reward for doing good work is getting the opportunity to do more work. Wouldn’t it make more sense to say something like “Hey, you did a bang up job on that last thing, so go ahead and take a knee and we’ll let some other schlub carry the water this time.” Of course that’s not how it works at all. It’s easier to find a good horse, ride it until it falters, and then beat it because it stopped. I might not have attended a big fancy ivy covered school of business, but I learned enough from my studies to know that personnel management model is rarely successful in the long run.

3. Guilt. I make a point not to bring the work home with me. Eight hours a day is bad enough without letting it bleed over into the rest of the day. By extension, I try to offer the job the same respect by keeping my personal issues at home. There’s some inevitable bleed over, though. Like today, for instance, when I feel an unreasonable sense of guilt for sitting here with the heating pad on and my feet up at a time of day when I would usually be at the office. Intellectually I get that I wouldn’t really be doing anyone any good sitting at my desk today when I can’t concentrate on anything that requires more than four or five consecutive minutes of thought. I’d be lying if I said I was going to enjoy this time off, but I’ll be doing my level best to get past the idea of feeling guilty for burning off my sick leave on a day when I’m not hacking and sneezing all over the room.

Sleeping dogs

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Having webcammed the dogs in the middle of the day a few times years ago, I know they mostly spend the day sleeping. Based on my observation in the evenings after work, they sleep most of the night away too. Does it say anything about me that I find myself feeling vaguely jealous of how my pups get to spend their day? Plenty of beds to pick from, never needing to stray outside the fenced compound aside from the occasional doctor’s visit and vacation, someone else to prepare all their meals, and really not much of a care in the world other than whatever critter has decided to make its home under the deck.

When I get up in the dark hours of the morning to get ready for work, they stay in bed, only getting up when it’s time for a trip outside and breakfast. After that they promptly go back to sleep. While I’m going blind on powerpoint or jabbing myself in the thigh with the sharp end of a pencil to keep myself awake in some interminable meeting, they’re looking for a different comfortable place to lay down for a while. When I get home, there’s a brief burst of energy that lasts maybe half an hour where they’re ecstatic to see me again (and get dinner). After that it’s back to scoping out whichever spot on the floor, or on my lap, looks most comfortable for a hard night’s lying about.

Yeah, I’m jealous of the dogs. Aside from eating the same meal every day for years on end and having to poop outside, they pretty much have the life I want… and the freeloaders are doing it on my dime. Jerks. Have you every had the feeling that opposable thumbs and higher order cognitive skills might just be overrated?

2 hours…

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I’ve lost track of the number of snow related 2- and 4-hour delays and closures we’ve had this winter. This morning just adds one more to the tally. The only thing I can say is that “they’ve” been marvelously inconsistent in how they choose to respond to each and every snow event. This morning, for instance, is another two hour delay. That might be the right decision based on conditions where such decisions are being made, but being a guy who lives 45 minutes from the office, my conditions and theirs don’t always correspond. Such is the case this morning. From what I can see of the surface conditions outside, even if I leave two hours later than normal, it’ll be half an hour meetingsdemotivatorbefore I get to a road where I can see blacktop. Based on past experience, a good estimate is that my drive in will take take about twice as long as usual.

After a winter of having delays announced, rescinded, changed, renounced, and extended, my visceral instinct is to give it an old fashioned “screw you guys, I’m staying home” today. Sure, that would mean giving back the two hours of admin time this morning and burning off a full 8 hours of leave. I’ve got a mountain of leave banked, so that’s not really the issue.

The one hang up I have is that at some point this morning I’m supposed to be in a meeting. It’s not a meeting I’m particularly interested in, but it’s mine. And I feel a inexplicable level of guilt at pawning it off on one of my poor unsuspecting colleagues. I don’t know why. There are plenty who have no compunction about taking a day of unscheduled leave and dropping their shit in someone else’s lap to deal with. Still, I hate the idea of being “that guy.”

Of course none of that means at 0800, I won’t make the call, but I want you all to know that I’ll be positively racked with guilt about it if things go that way.

Just a theory…

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I won’t presume to speak for all the vast sweep of humanity, but sometimes I just hit a point in the day where no amount of additional effort is going to create any significant gains. It’s like trying to accelerate to the speed of light. Getting close is easy enough if you’ve got the right equipment, but getting that last little punch of speed requires the application of infinitely more energy. The problem being, of course, that it’s (under our current understanding of how the universe works) impossible to supply any system with infinite energy.

I hit just such a wall at 2:56 this afternoon. I mean I just hit a spot in the day that I couldn’t power through no matter how much coffee or sugar I poured into the system. My brain laid down a very clear line of demarcation, letting me know that I’d go no further. Maybe with a little more time I could have found a way to circle around and come at the day from a different angle, but with end of the day closing in, a new avenue of approach wasn’t really an option anyway.

Under the circumstances, the only thing to do was stiffen my upper lip and ride through the last hour of the day trying not to make waves or get noticed. My brain just wouldn’t answer the helm this afternoon and for a guy who pays the bills based on what the ol’ brain box puts out, it’s damned humbling experience. I’m going to write it off to being a problem transitioning to Daylight Saving Time and not as a harbinger of a God awful week waiting to happen. Check back with me on Friday to see how well that theory holds up.

Deception…

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In the universe of the bureaucratic underling, few things are more highly sought after than a cubicle next to a window. Generally assigned based on seniority in rank or time in service, it’s one of the small things that can make a cube feel less like a 5×8 coffin and more like an actual productive work area.

Sometimes, of course, appearances are deceiving. When you show up in a new office and there’s a prime window seat with your name on it, tread carefully. In any normal office, this seat would have been fought over and allocated long before you showed up. If it’s sitting empty, consider it a warning sign… Like the beautiful house on the tree lined street never quite seems to stay sold, there’s a fair chance this cube has problems. Someone might have died there in harness and it’s haunted or at a minimum it’s cursed by one or more of the myriad problems that tend plague a cubicle and all those who dwell in them.

If there’s any good news to be had it’s that not much in life is permanent. You’ll probably get a chance to move into something more attuned to your needs (eventually). Of course you’ll be leaving behind the window, but if a career in service has taught me anything, it’s that windows are easy enough to come by, but you only get a finite amount of sanity to shepherd you through 30+ years of toil. If you ever had to pick between the window and some sanity, it’s what you’d call no contest.

For more helpful tips someone really should have mentioned before letting you go to work as an office drone, don’t forget to get your very own copy of Nobody Told Me: The Cynic’s Guide for New Employees.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Trust. I’ve always been very open about the fact that I’m a cynical bastard. Even so, I’m always amazed at the level of trust people have in others that they really don’t know all that well outside a very narrowly defined context. Anyone can open their mouth at any time and tell you any manner of thing you want to hear… which is why I get immediately suspicious when they’re pitch is something akin to “Oh no, don’t worry about a thing.” There are a few exceptions to this rule, but it only applies to a select few who I’ve known for a decade or two.

2. Capitalism. I’m developing a rather intense hatred of capitalism, in which I’m throughly annoyed at the whole idea of getting up five days a week, slogging through traffic to arrive at work, spending 8.5 hours there, slogging through traffic to get home, going to bed, and then doing it all over again. Unfortunately, I have this insatiable appetite for “stuff,” which requires cash, which requires work. This is the 21st century. Why don’t we have robots doing all the grunt work leaving us free to not be bothered by such petty details as needing to trade time for money?

3. Seeing the bright side. Some people are hopelessly optimistic. They’d see the bright lining in a mushroom cloud. Sometimes, I don’t want to see the bright side. I want to sulk. I want to be annoyed. I want to be angry. and I want that feeling to spur me to action in a way that no amount of good feeling ever could. I’ve made plenty of bad decisions in haste and anger, but most of my best have also come from the same place. Even if it’s a mixed bag of results, it’s the spark that keeps things moving.

The more things change…

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I’m afraid we’re screeching back into one of those times when I’m going to spend far too much time casting around for new blog ideas. In this case, the problem isn’t any kind of block, but rather that everything I really want to write about is embargoed or otherwise of a nature that I consider it out of bounds for this forum. It really is a pity, because I know there are some real doozies that are sitting in my notes just wasting away. Sure, maybe they’ll see the light of day sometime in the future when they’re less relevant, but there’s no denying that takes the edge off them.

If you’ve read The Cynic’s Guide, you’ve already read most of this story. God knows I’ve already lived it. The best I can tell you is that the past is a pretty damned good indicator of what the future is going to be like. It’s 100% situation normal in the belly of the bureaucracy… and that’s a uniquely off combination of comforting and infuriating. If nothing else, I know what to expect. I’ve been here before after all. The names and faces are different, the scenery has changed, but it’s the same old, tired story. The more things change, the more they never do… at least this round of eye rolling is on the banks of Mother Chesapeake instead of Big Muddy.

The reverse butterfly effect…

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The butterfly effect is usually synopsized as something like “When a butterfly flaps its wings in Shanghai, a hurricane washes up in Miami.” I’m not a fancy big city mathematician, but it seems plausible that if you make one little change in a complex system, downstream events can be radically altered by that original small shift. It doesn’t take a great leap of logic to accept that it at least seems like a reasonable argument.

The fun thing is that sometimes the butterfly effect also works in reverse. Take for instance the meeting you have scheduled for Wednesday afternoon that suddenly gets cancelled. The butterfly flaps its wings and presto the entire day on Monday suddenly becomes gloriously meeting-free. If she just beats those gossamer wings a few more times, this week could be looking up.

Sure, I’m bending logic nearly to the breaking point to make that case, but it feels good. And since I’m a blogger and not a professional chaos theorizer, I’m going to go with it.