My instant reaction to the 9/11 attacks was that they were a nuisance that got in the way of more pressing concerns. . . . Accepting that fascism is worse than western democracy, even western democracies governed by George W Bush and Tony Blair, sounds very easy in theory, but it is very difficult to do in practice when you are a habitual enemy of the status quo in your own country.
Inspired by Don Carman’s Reporter Responses, a handy list for the IT professional:
In 1960, Douglas MacGregor of the MIT Sloan School of Management developed two theories of workplace motivation, Theory X and Theory Y.
I come down strongly in favor of Theory Y. I don’t feel like I’m an inherently unmotivated person, that my boss has to keep coming up with new ways to get my head in the game, and I don’t find that most other people do either. People want to do good work. They want the opportunity to do good work.
The key, really, is not to motivate people, but to avoid demotivating them. A lot of managers haven’t figured that one out yet.
This is an excerpt from a job posting for a Sr. IT Project Manager:
- Develop project plans and ensure that deadlines are met on time and projects are delivered within budget constraints. You will use standard project management tools to define requirements and track project status.
- Manage and prioritize projects for the division using standard project planning methods and software through all phases of the project/development lifecycle.
OK, let me get this straight: You want projects delivered on time and within budget — you don’t mention whether or not you want the software to actually work, but I assume you do — and you want it done with standard tools and standard methods.
It may have escaped your attention, but that is not a standard result. The standard IT project is either late or over budget or fails to meet customer expectations, or all three.
If it were possible to deliver high-quality software on time and within budget with standard tools and methods, then everybody would be doing it.
So you want someone to achieve exceptional results — non-standard results — with standard tools and methods. How is that supposed to happen?
I can deliver exceptional results, but you have to let me do it my own way. If I have to use the standard tools and methods, I’ll get the same crappy results everyone else gets.
Thus spoke The Programmer.
Watching George [Foreman] come back to win the title got me all excited. Made me want to come back. But then the next morning came, and it was time to start running. I lay back in bed and said, “That’s okay, I’m still the Greatest.”
Here’s how I spent the MLK holiday: My son went over to a friend’s house and I stayed home and read a book. When the boy came home, we threw a football around for a while, and then I took Lightning to the dog park, where he fended off an inappropriate advance from a giant black pit bull.
So all in all, a jam-packed day of doing nothing . . .
A friend of mine tells me he doesn’t get a day off for the King holiday. In fact, he doesn’t get another paid holiday until Memorial Day!
HA HA HA! I work for a company in the banking industry. If you work for a bank, you get all the holidays off! In fact, between now and Memorial Day, we get Lincoln’s Birthday, Washington’s Birthday, Groundhog Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Earth Day, Cinco de Mayo and spring break. Plus a floating holiday.
Oh, I almost forgot — National Safe Boating Week.
WOO-HOO!
Identify these two well-known novels from the first and last lines. Answers are in the comments. More lit quizzes here.
My son and I are sitting around the house when the phone rings. He looks at the caller ID, which says something about Recruiting.
“It’s the U.S. Army,” he says.
We don’t pick it up, and a female voice comes on to leave a message, which has nothing to do with the army.
“A woman?!” he shouts. “What would Andrew Jackson say about that?”
“Andrew Jackson?”
“That’s right, soldier!”
My wife is talking about the possibility of a Christmastime family trip to Thailand. She’s from Thailand, lived there through college, and still has relatives there.
I’ve never been to Thailand — I hate to travel, for one thing — but our son has been over there with her on a few occasions.
Here’s his reaction, punctuated with frantic screaming:
“AHHHHH! It’s people who can’t speak English in 170-degree heat!”
I don’t think this boy has a future as a travel agent.
“They haven’t seen you in a long time,” my wife tells him.
“Can’t we do a video conference?”
In case you don’t recognize the woman in the painting, it’s Angelina Jolie (as the Virgin Mary) with her kids, hovering in the heavens above a Wal-Mart.
Perhaps most surprising to us has been the degree to which fear appears to be a feature of modern work life. Whenever we talk with others about this work, such as on airplanes with strangers, we get a similar response — “Oh yeah, I can relate to wanting to speak up but biting my tongue.” It’s really a shame how much apparently untapped knowledge there is out there and how much pain and frustration results from this silence. That, too, has been somewhat surprising–that people are genuinely hurt and frustrated about their silence. This suggests that employees aren’t failing to provide ideas or input because they’ve “checked out” and just don’t care, but because of fear.
What is happening here? Let’s examine some possibilities:
Assuming neither of these conditions holds, people make a decision to speak or hold their tongue based on the specific features of the situation, including a calculation of how what they have to say is likely to affect their job security and/or mobility.
People who don’t care about job security or mobility are therefore able to be more fully engaged in their work, ask questions that need to be asked and say things that need to be said.
Hence the old saying that the effective leader must come to work everyday prepared to lose his or her job . . .
As in the previous example, these photos are from the same photoset on Flickr:
What could be worse than being an Asian woman in Asia and having to surrender your mystical Oriental hotness to Asian men? In no other race — white, black, Hispanic — are the women so much better-looking than the men.
Now you might say: What about Indian or Middle Eastern men? Aren’t they uglier than Asian men?
Possibly — but my point is that their women are incredibly ugly as well, so it’s a good match.
My wife’s cousin, also an Asian girl, agrees with my theory, but adds something I hadn’t thought of: Asian guys are also boring, she says, because they’re all the same. They all have the same story, same parents, same college major (engineering or business), same, same, same . . .
Replacing an on-site customer with some use cases is about as effective as replacing a hug from your Mom with a friendly note.
Brady Quinn and the rest of the Irish seniors wrapped up their college careers by doing what they do best: losing every big game they play, most of them badly. It was the ninth consecutive bowl loss for Notre Dame, setting a new NCAA record for ineptitude.
Thank God they locked up Charlie Weis for 10 years, huh? As recently as last week, Weis was assuring everyone that he plans to be at Notre Dame for the duration. More of a threat than a promise at this point . . .
See Also: How to be a Notre Dame Fan
So much for the Wolverines’ “We should have been in the National Championship game” argument.
Kudos to J.D. Booty (391 yards, 4 TDs), who took a lot of criticism this season, had a mediocre first half, including a fumble, then came back after halftime and took over the game.
I got some delayed gloating from a UCLA grad about denying USC a national championship shot. Let’s keep it simple: either you’re good enough to win a national championship or you’re not. The Trojans lost to Oregon State and UCLA. They weren’t good enough.
Still, it’s better to go to the Rose Bowl and win it than to go to the Emerald Bowl and get your rear ends kicked by the 8th-place ACC team.
And the victory over USC may be a mixed blessing for Bruin fans, who will now likely be stuck with Karl Dorrell for at least one more season.
FIGHT ON!
I was mathematically eliminated from college bowl pick ’em at the office with 13 games left. The leader — an Indian gentleman — is 15-2. I’m 11-6, but there are only three games left where he and I picked a different winner.
At least I’m ahead of the woman who picked the games based on which of the mascots would win in a fight.
If I’d won the thing, I probably wouldn’t mention that I actually let my son pick the games, my only rule being that he had to pick USC in the Rose Bowl . . .
A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.
I have relatives like this — people who are either so dishonest or so lacking in self-awareness that all they seem to gain from any experience whatsoever is an inflated sense of their own self-importance.
I also have relatives who can’t remember that they’ve already told you the same story on 10 previous occasions, forcing you to grit your teeth and nod appreciatively for the 11th time.
Then there are the relatives who fall into both of the above categories. These people are hell on earth.
I preface some obvious remark to my son by saying “Call me Kreskin, but . . .”
He jumps in and says, “OK, you’re crazy.”
“I didn’t say ‘Call me crazy,’ I said ‘Call me Kreskin.”
“You’re a kreskin.”
“Kreskin,” I explain, “is a mind-reading guy. He makes predictions about things.”
“Oh . . . then, you’re crazy.”
