Tag Archives: work

PowerPoint Service Announcement…

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I get it. I’m a PowerPoint Ranger. I’ve got my 5000 hour tab. I can rock the old school black on white or jam it with 100 megs of media content. We can do those things. We *can* destroy the network with the sheer size of our files. We have the technology – Thought technically, I suppose I have the technology. I wouldn’t use my POS employer-issued Dell to build such a piece of work, but I digress.

Friends, my point is that if you’re not on your guard, PowerPoint will slip in and destroy you in the night. You’ll start off with version one and two. A few days later, you’ll find yourself at version 8. Out of nowhere, version 16 rises from the early morning mist… surely version 17 is only a day away. I can only warn you that no good ever came from double digit versions. Down that path lies only ruin. It’s too late for me, but you, you can save yourselves.

I urge all of you – just say no to multi-version PowerPoints. No good can come from them. Be proud of your tabs – but only use your skills for good. The path to PowerPoint glory will tempt you, but never, ever forget that with those tabs, comes great responsibility. Use them wisely.

Nothing at all…

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I know I have a temper. It’s a family trait. Fortunately I also have a surprisingly long fuse and occasionally can muster the zen-like ability to let stupid crash over me like a wave. But honest to God the hardest thing I do on a daily basis is sit and listen to absolute nonsense and say nothing at all. Not because I’m particularly afraid of what might happen, but because history has shown me that it won’t make a damned bit of difference. I don’t make a practice of going against the lessons of history. Instead, I jot down a few more notes. I fire off 100 word blog. And I wonder why they don’t offer a college class on how to get ahead in life by suspending both logic and disbelief. That would have been far more useful than Geography 101 or Cosmic Concepts. If I get through the next two days without having a stroke I’m going to proclaim it a personal victory and establish a holiday in it’s honor.

47

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Usually the arrival of the holiday season leads to some of the better posts around here, but at the moment the creative juices are mostly blocked. It’s a function of distraction more than anything else. The creative juices should start flowing freely again as soon as the current untenable position gets resolved. Even in the event that no resolution is forthcoming, I’m cautiously optimistic that the sheer weight of human stupidity on display during the holidays will be enough to get me over this latest hump. Once that sweet, sweet day of resolution comes, though, I have a feeling that you’ll know it because you won’t be able to stop the flow of new posts.

For those keeping track at home, the statistics are currently: 47 resumes submitted, 15 flat rejections, 1 referral, and 0 interviews. I’m drawing in the law of large numbers and to paraphrase Grant, I intend to fight on this line if it takes all Winter.

No confidence…

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After the British loss at Yorktown, the government led by Lord North collapsed in a Parliamentary vote of no confidence. The sitting members of Parliament communicated to King George III that they no longer had faith in the Prime Minister to effectively set policy. In representative government, the mandate to lead comes, directly or indirectly, from the led. I’ve been thinking lately that it’s a pity we don’t see the application of no confidence motions in more places. If we learned anything from the unfortunate case of Lord North (and from Braveheart), it’s that men don’t follow titles. Sure, they’ll go along for a while – as long as things are going well or as long as they don’t have options. But the moment they lose confidence or when a better opportunity presents itself, their support for your mandate to lead will fade away like a mist. You’ll look around one day and find yourself alone with your bad decisions, resented for your presumption of unearned loyalty, and ultimately made as irrelevant as the rock the water in a stream simply flows around.

In appreciation of dogs…

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The more time I spend around people, the more I like my dogs. There are plenty of people I like well enough, but after a day at the office, there’s nothing better than coming home to these two. They’re not going to want to talk or ask questions. They’re not going to need a PowerPoint on short notice. And they’re not going to call an impromptu meeting. They’re mostly going to be happy with the same dinner they’ve had every day for two years, hanging out on the patio, and an occasional scratch behind the ears. Dogs are decidedly uncomplicated like that. When the world where you spend eight hours a day is doing its level best to go sailing off the rails, they’re an amazing bit of dependable normalcy… and possibly the last bulwark between me and bludgeoning people into a coma with a three hole punch.

Are we boring you?

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I’ve seen almost every stereotype you can think of in the eight years I’ve been in federal service – the solitaire wiz, the three newspaper reader, the aged technophobe, the guy who nods off during meetings, and even the pointy-headed boss. But the one thing I hadn’t encountered before today was the one who falls flat out asleep in their cube. Now it’s been a slow few days and given the lack of foot traffic, it should be at least notionally possible to fall asleep briefly without attracting undue attention. Snoring on the other hand, is a dead giveaway – but has the up side of providing several hours of entertainment for your colleagues… Especially when you do it again after lunch… and even more so when gravity takes over and your head, arm, or other body part thumps onto your desk.

I have to admit that it’s a pretty ballsy move to take not one, but two naps when you’re only three weeks into your new job. I mean, I can be an arrogant prick, but my hat’s off to that kind of nose-thumbing of authority. Tomorrow I’m going to try keeping my riotous laughter to a minimum as I think it might have disturbed our sleeper. Maybe I’ll bring in a nice CD of Brahms and try to set the right mood for the day. In any case, it’s some of the best in-office entertainment I’ve had in a while. Not sure if that’s good or just sad. Possibly both.

The problem with pamphlets…

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There are a million metric tones of management consultants who will tell you that the biggest problem for everyone is communication. For a species that relies on communicating to do everything, we’re remarkably bad at it. We’re even worse at it in large groups, where there’s a fine line between getting your message out and bashing the couple of people who are still listening over the head with a brickbat. I won’t even get started again on modes and methods. You people out there who are afraid of email know who you are and there’s nothing I can say to save your souls.

I could write a dissertation on elements of communication and strategy to get your message out. Fundamentally, all of them rely on having some kind of message discipline – that is, build your message calendar and don’t let anything, no matter how seemingly important, take you off the message of the day. If the day or week is focused on training, every word out of your mouth should be focused on elements of training. Any question asked should be spun to reflect those same elements. Message discipline is what makes people sit up and notice even a low budget political campaign. Lack of discipline is the kiss of death even when you’re well funded. Get on point and beat the message into the ground and only change the tune on your own terms. Asnd for God’s sake, don’t confuse the message by running off on a tangent every time someone else wanders by and distracts you for 30 seconds. You’re going to end up with two dozen different messages that were only received by one person each rather than one message received by two dozen people.

For the record, a pamphlet is piss poor communication. If you’re lucky someone looks at it once and throws it away while maybe, just maybe remembering that they saw it at all. The chance of them remembering content: almost zero. Just the way it is. Flyers are good for a quick attention grab, but don’t expect much more from them. Of course it helps if there aren’t three people trying to design the exact same pamphlet based on ever so slightly different direction. Then what little return on investment you’ll get from the end product is diluted due to the increased labor hours expended to come up with three versions of the exact same bloody thing. Throwing a lot of manpower at this kind of thing is fine if, and only if, you have bodies to spare and nothing else that needs done.

In summation: 1) Communication is more than wandering around dispensing wild eyed, half-formed ideas; 2) Disciplined communication carries the day; 3) Pamphlets are, as a rule, stupid; 4) Using three people where one is sufficient is redundant. Knowing these four simple things could go a long way towards making those eight hours in the middle of the day seem less arbitrary and capricious.

Good days have a price…

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If you’re a wanna be writer whose best blogs come out of days that piss you off the most, the price of ending the day on a good note is that it severely restricts the available pool of material. Sure, the blood pressure is a few points lower, but I’m paying good money for meds to keep that in check so I don’t really need the help. Besides, I need the material, because let’s face it, sunshine and lollipops generally don’t equal great reading.

The good news, in this case, is that there are way more bad days than there use to be so good content should be in ready supply. Until the next big batch of stupid comes along, I’ll find something to keep writing about… But it’s not going to be sunshine and lollipops, I can guaran-damn-tee it.

Three day…

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I throw alot of heat at the job around here, but I want to take this opportunity to mention one of the things that definitely doesn’t suck. In the world of the federal civilian, there are few perks more appreciated than the steady flow of paid holidays that loosely mark the coming and going of the seasons. These 10 days constitute the cornerstone of the sought after government employee benefits package. Coupled with the judicious application of accumulated annual leave, these days can be parlayed into a goodly stream of four and five day weekends and still leave two weeks left over to cover the end of December festivities and maybe even a week somewhere warm and tropical.

These extended weekends are even a perk for those who opt to stick around the office in that there is almost no one else around. It’s a great opportunity to actually play catch up on projects that have been lying untended in the corner of the cubicle, because there are almost no interruptions. I’m not extending the 4th of July holiday myself this year, so I’ll be in the office right up till the bitter end on Friday (if you consider 3PM the bitter end). After that, it’s off to enjoy the three day weekend… Which mostly means trying to sleep in until at least 7AM and then doing yard work until it gets too hot to see straight. Not exactly an epic vacation, but for now I’m not looking any gift horses in the mouth.

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Once upon a time…

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Once upon a time, there was a bakery. The bakery was owned by a rich and powerful man who only visited the shop a few days each month. In his absence the shop was run by an expert baker who had many employees working under him. These employees, sales clerks, delivery drivers, pastry chefs, dish washers, and far away regional sales managers were all specialized in their respective work areas and brought unique skill sets to their jobs. Though not everyone loved it, the bakery had kept its doors open and survived past the two year mark when many start-up businesses fold. It had a small, but loyal following and was working hard to make incremental improvements to how things were done.

One day, the owner called the baker and told him that the next day there would be a truck of meat arriving and that they would be running the butcher shop next door to the bakery from now on too. “But sir,” says the baker, “we don’t have the equipment or the skills to operate a butcher shop. Perhaps,” he adds, “we should hire a butcher to run this new shop.” But the owner, clearly knowing best, told the baker, “don’t worry, just go in there and hack away at things until you figure it out. It’s not that hard to cut meat and besides, we’re not really worried about quality.” Shaking is head, the baker opens the shop the next morning. His staff does their best, but none of them have been trained at meat cutting and what could have become fine steaks were chopped beyond redemption and because the entire staff was consumed with opening the butcher shop, none of the bread, or pies, or doughnuts, were baked that day. As the staff focused on learning the skills of a butcher, their skills as bakers, and clerks, and delivery drivers slowly deteriorated and by the time they were even marginal butchers, their bakery had lost its customers to competing businesses that focused on their “bread and butter.”

The moral of our story is that in a world of specialists, it’s important, even critical, to use people where there skills and training are maximized. Where new or different skills are needed, those skill sets need to be developed through training or brought in from the outside. When you ask bakers to be butchers, don’t be surprised when things don’t work out as well as you’d hoped.

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