It occurred to him that what had seemed perfectly impossible before, namely that he had not spent his life as he should have done, might after all be true. It occurred to him that his scarcely perceptible attempts to struggle against what was considered good by the most highly placed people, those scarcely noticeable impulses which he had immediately suppressed, might have been the real thing, and all the rest false. And his professional duties and the whole arrangement of his life and of his family, and all his social and official interests, might all have been false. He tried to defend all those things to himself and suddenly felt the weakness of what he was defending. There was nothing to defend. “But if that is so,” he said to himself, “and I am leaving this life with the consciousness that I have lost all that was given me and… Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Work
HW ‘s Presentation Tips: Get to the Fucking Point
Here’s a simple presentation tip that would help a lot of people: Get to the fucking point. At a meeting this morning, the company sick time policy was explained to 100 people over the course of 30 minutes time via two PowerPoint presentations by two different people. I’ll summarize it here: If you’re well enough to work, you should come to work. If not, stay home. BUT — if you stay home too much, it may negatively affect your annual performance review. That’s the policy. Let’s open it up for questions. Don’t take 15 minutes to say something you can say in 15 seconds. Don’t feel like you have to include a historical introduction to the topic, charts, graphs, trends, industry comparisons. Other people are not in love with the sound of your voice the way you are . . . Read more →
It May Depend on the Temperature
Here’s another colleague in the break room, wiping something off the front of her shirt . . . “I spilled coffee down my shirt,” she explains. I ask: “How does that compare with just drinking it, as far as a pick-me-up is concerned?” Read more →
The Life of a Soybean
Here’s one of my colleagues in the break room, making a sandwich and pouring a small carton of something down the sink . . . “What are you pouring out?” I ask. “Soy milk,” she says. “I didn’t drink it soon enough. I’m wasting the life of a soybean.” “Wow . . . when you put it that way, it sounds pretty upsetting.” “It is!” she says. “I’m distraught! That’s why I’m eating.” Read more →
Twitter: 2009-07-01
Office email: "Refrigerators being cleaned out tonight. Please take home anything you'd like to keep." OK. Going to stock up right now… # At a s/w demo, a user asks: "What are inheritable user permissions? Does that mean if I die, my permissions go to someone else?" # Read more →
Pesto Pete
Leftovers from a catered lunch meeting found their way into the break room refrigerator. I pull out a tin of pasta . . . “Look,” I say to the woman watching me, “this one has my name right on it! ‘Pesto Pete,’ that’s what they call me.” “That says ‘Pesto Penne,’” she says. “Close enough!” Read more →
Too Much Collegiality
The men’s and women’s restrooms at our office face each other across a hallway. Neither one of them has a double-door entry for privacy. If you push open the door to the men’s room, you’re looking at a row of sinks, but if you’re coming out of the men’s room at the same time someone opens the door to the ladies’ room, you’re looking right at the stalls, including ankles and feet if anyone’s in them. I’m all for collegiality in the workplace, but isn’t this overdoing it? Even at home, I don’t mind if people close the bathroom door . . . Read more →
Twelve-Minute Breaks
Twitter: 2009-05-27
Someone’s in the dept conference room screeching profanity. We can hear it through the walls. Can’t wait to see who comes out! # Read more →
20 Years Went By Like the Wind
I found a former colleague on LinkedIn this weekend — he was my boss at my very first IT job as an entry-level programmer. He mentioned that his daughter had graduated from college and is now an ER nurse. That doesn’t sound right because I remember when his daughter was born and it seems like just last week, but I’m doing the math in my head and sure enough it was more than 20 years ago . . . Read more →
Drinking in the Morning
Drinking in the morning has an undeservedly bad reputation . . . Of course, it’s a three-day holiday weekend and if I want to start the day by enlivening an otherwise ordinary glass of cola with a splash of tequila, that’s nobody’s business but mine. But I also think that on weekdays, most workplaces would be more interesting and fun if people had a glass or two of wine before coming in to the office . . . Read more →
The Passive-Aggressive Cleaning Crew
I asked a facilities person about the cleaning crew situation . . . turns out we did recently hire a new outfit. Her theory on why they keep moving the watebasket: “Maybe they want you to notice that they emptied it.” Read more →
Why (Some) People Love Meetings
[W]hat … meetings are doing is playing out an emotional drama–conflict, blaming, flirting, one-upsmanship, random outbursts, anger, and so forth….the soap-opera aspects of meetings are the most exciting parts of their jobs…. Indeed, these people are often upset if I show them how to conduct well-run meetings, because I’ve taken all the joy out of their lives. — Gerald M. Weinberg, The Secrets of Consulting: Why We Love and Hate Meetings Read more →
With My Hands Behind My Back
A couple of days ago, I saw one of our senior managers walking down the hallway with her hands clasped behind her back. I’d never seen her do that before — the hands thing, I mean. It gave her a different look — in fact, it gave her a different sort of presence — so I decided to try it myself. I immediately felt more thoughtful — or at least I felt like I looked more thoughtful — like a professor strolling across the quad. Today I was doing it again when I happened to meet up with the woman I copied it from. I told her I was trying to emulate her hands-behind-the-back leadership technique. She said the only reason she’d been doing that is her shoulders were sore from Pilates class and she was trying to stretch them out . . . Read more →
Stop Moving My Wastebasket
It seems we’ve hired on a passive-aggressive cleaning crew at the office . . . Every morning this week, I’ve come in and my wastebasket is under the desk in front of my chair, instead of under the desk to my right where I always keep it. I appreciate that they empty it before moving it, but where am I supposed to put my legs if there’s a wastebasket right in front of my chair? Read more →
Need a Boost?
We’re wordsmithing a confirmation email that we send out to new members of our association. One problem I have with it is that we talk about our mission being to “enhance the quality of nursing care” and then in the next sentence we talk about members receiving “enhanced benefits.” Do we need to use “enhance” in every sentence? What’s the difference between “benefits” and “enhanced benefits”? Maybe we could just say “benefits” and leave it at that. No, our customer care analyst says we really do offer “enhanced benefits” above and beyond the usual benefits, so we need a synonym for “enhance” if we don’t want to use it twice. I’m thinking we could say “improve the quality of nursing care” or we could say “boost the quality of nursing care.” “Improve” is clearly better but I just love the sound of the word “boost.” They’re not booing, they’re saying… Read more →
Overheard
An Absolute Pleasure
I’m reading a recommendation on LinkedIn, written by a person I know for another person I know. Unbeknownst to the vast majority of people who’ll read the recommendation, these two people used to date each other. I know I’m a bad person but I can’t help mentally adding “…in bed” to the end of each sentence. Try it: Cleopatra is an absolute pleasure to work with. While working together, I found her to be a consummate professional. Clearly, her keen attention to detail is without equal. . . . You get the idea . . . Read more →
The MIT Guy
After shooting some hoops, we stop at Extra Mile for hot dogs and sodas. Something catches my eye about the clerk’s name tag — underneath his name, it says “MIT.” “Did you go to school at MIT?” I ask him. “No,” he says. “That means ‘Manager In Training.’” “Oh, that makes sense.” Convenience store clerk seemed like kind of a low-level job for a MIT grad. Read more →
I’ve Lost Another Friend
I’m waiting for Jeff to get me the server uptime numbers for March when I see this Facebook update: Oh he loves those Facebook name applications. He’s got a Clown Name, a Smurf Name . . . I add a comment: Hey Buttons! I need those server numbers. Hop to it… He deletes my comment and deletes me from his friend list. His sidekick — the Barney to his Fred — also deletes me from his friend list. He does send me the server numbers though, so it’s OK. I’m results-oriented . . . Read more →