8 posts tagged “work”
So, I have a Livejournal where mostly I post the mundane details of my workouts. Why? Because I need some pseudo-public accountability and someone who likes to see those details reads my LJ for them (though he's been reading for *years*, he's never bothered to join...though he did randomly comment once). And I have a professional blog of sorts. And even though I haven't updated it in months, there are still plenty of things sitting on the back burner waiting to go up.
Given the existence of those two, why am I considering resurrecting this? Mostly because I've reached a place on my LJ where I'm not all that interested in sharing personal stuff--too many former friends and whatnot still lurk around that place. And also because I've found that in order to do my job, I have to not only maintain a presence in various online communities, but I have to be actively exploring and playing with the tools. (If you have even an inkling of an idea of how many UGC/community/socially focused sites there are out there these days, then yes, this is absolutely as time-consumiing as it sounds.)
And now, I'm off to poke at the Ning community that I've ignored for months.
Why can't I seem to remember to take my camera with me when I leave my office during the day? I remember to put it into my (fabulous, new) bright orange messenger bag in the morning when I leave the house, but then I promptly forget that I have it with me.
I know this is hampering one of the personal projects I've been trying to get off the ground recently, but I can't seem to shake it. Annoying.
On an unrelated note, how can I get the following two comments about my attire/appearance on the same day?
Co-worker 1: You kind of look like a pirate today.
ten minutes later...
Co-worker 2: Wow, you look so...conservative...today.
What? So I look like a conservative pirate? I mean, I realize I wore my hair down today, eschewing my usual borderline pomapadour/high roll with exposed shaved sides (ala a mohawk), for the first time since I got the notion to take clippers to hair a few weeks ago. But, really. Conservative? A pirate? WTF?
Like anyone who has had to sit through presentations, training sessions, or talks at professional conferences, I have developed what I consider a healthy hate of Powerpoint. And certainly in my many past roles as a project manager, ui designer, usability evangelist, and information architect I've trotted out a few Powerpoint presentation of my own...though I have to admit that I've apologized more than once to my audience for perpetrating such crimes against them.
When I ran across the following clip on YouTube, I nearly creamed myself. Fuck nearly. I totally creamed myself.
This is how it should be done. Want to get a message across? Make it interesting. Make it compelling. Make sure it's not static. (And no, a few lines zooming in across your slide while text rotates into place isn't going to cut it.)
I'm not particularly interested in the actual content of the message here. To be honest, I'm more than a little "Web 2.0"d out. But I'll be damned if I didn't sit and watch the whole thing.
These are the reasons I don't hate my job today:
- The opportunity to rail on Agile development methodologies within a service oriented architecture.
- Verbal smackdowns of bitchy technical architects who are a little too used to getting their way.
- Back hallway standards discussions leading to plots to subvert the man.
I feel a treatise on Agile in an enterprise environment coming on soon...
That's a phrase that's been stuck in my head for awhile now: There has to be a better way.
It first came up during a drunken night at a bar with a friend a little over a month ago. Or rather, that's when someone else finally said it. It's something I've been saying for years, usually just in a scream that booms through my subconcious on a regular, almost clock-like, basis.
For the past couple of weeks I've been thinking it more and more, and I
could feel it starting to come together but it was waiting for a
catalyst. A seed, if you will. That irritating grain of sand in the
oyster that kicks off the beginning of the formation of a pearl.
This morning I had what I think could very well have been a crystallization moment. I'll go so far as to call it The Tipping Point, with the obvious nod to Malcolm Gladwell, whose name randomly came up in a casual conversation this morning.
After weeks of banging my head against the wall of a closed-minded
organization hierarchy at my company, constantly wondering why I
couldn't manage to make progress on a single thing, I was starting to
question my own abilities. I was actually starting to doubt my
professional acumen. Anyone who knows me at all has to know how
absolutely ludicrous it is that I would ever question my skill or
knowledge...I'm the cockiest bastard you'll ever meet when it comes to
my absolute confidence in my ability to solve a problem elegantly and
efficiently.
But this morning, I received what was a relatively simple question from a friend (coincidentally, the same friend who I had that drunken bar night with over a month ago) via a text message. We launched into a ten minute back and forth over the usefulness and appropriateness of formal taxonomies, folksonomies, tagging or unrestricted search paradigms for various audience contexts. In that ten minutes, in messages of 160 characters or less, I was able to explain my viewpoints, answer his questions, and feel like I was actually engaged in a worthwhile discussion.
Contrast that ten minutes with the four hours of meetings that I'll sit through today where I will accomplish little and may be able to provide one small piece of information that will actually be heard by anyone else. Go ahead, wrap your head around that. I'll wait...
Ridiculous, isn't it?
I know there's a better way. And what I know now is that I'm going to have to make
that better way, because it's not just going to throw itself in front
of me. Large companies bring rigid hierarchies that don't allow
for progress. I need progress.
I am so cold. Here's the thing: I'm never cold. But today, despite the fact that I'm wearing a lightweight sweater with a velvet jacket over it, I'm practically shivering at my desk as I freeze my (considerable) ass off. This is insane.
Does bleeding lower one's core body temperature? Because if it does, that's just one more reason to Hate Being A Girl.
One of these days I'm seriously going to get myself fired for my
inability to stop things from spewing forth from my mouth unchecked
while at work. A brief exchange in the few minutes before a meeting
with a consultant who started today to work on one of my projects:
Analyst: I'm worried about that big closet behind my new desk.
Project Manager: It's huge. It's like a whole office.
Me:
Have you opened the doors yet? It's weird. There must be a duct
running along the outside of the building over there or something,
because as soon as you open the doors there's a definite roaring noise
coming from inside.
Analyst: How do you know this?
Me:
Well it looked big on the floorplan and I wanted to see how big it
actually is, so I checked it out. I think it would be a great place to
hide if security was chasing you, or something. Or to nap, if you
bring earplugs to work.
New Consultant: (looking at me) So, are you saying you're ready to come out of the closet?
Me:
*hand slapping table once for emphasis* Oh, I'm out. I'm the biggest
leather daddy drag queen you'll ever meet. In fact, I'm packing right
now. Wanna see?
(a brief moment of silence, then laughter around the room)
Project Manager: In case you don't remember Dex from the earlier meeting with the executive board, she's our resident smartass.
Me: ...and cynical bastard malcontent.
Of
course the funniest part to me in retrospect is that I wasn't joking.
I really was packing, though I probably wouldn't have whipped it out on
the conference room table. Probably...
