It’s Employee Survey Day! The surveys are completely anonymous. Don’t write your name on them and please seal them in the envelope in front of you. Oh and — solely for statistical purposes — please indicate the department you work in, your job title, age and how long you’ve worked here. (Ha ha, I’m sure everything’s on the up and up but I wrote everything left-handed anyway . . . to maintain some deniability . . .) Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Work
How to Get on My Bad Side
Walk into my office the day after your project is approved and say, “When are we getting a team together for my project? Because I don’t plan to miss my deadline.” Slap the back of one hand into the palm of the other for emphasis. Read more →
Judging Books by Covers
They say you can’t make judgments about people based on what they look like but of course that’s nonsense. You don’t think so? OK — our office building is right next door to the Orange County Social Services Agency. Once in a while, someone drives into our parking lot and causes me to say to myself, “That person has got to be looking for Social Services.” Because they look like someone whose kids should be taken away from them. And in every case I’ve been correct — the person goes to the Social Services Agency! Put that in your juice box and suck it. Read more →
Not a Team Player
Who You Really Are
Often people attempt to live their lives backwards; they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier. The way it actually works is in reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do, in order to have what you want. — Margaret Young Read more →
Where is Everybody?
This is our office parking lot at 6:30 p.m. on a Friday . . . Read more →
April Fools
Every month, I present web site metrics to our Web Steering committee. Since this month’s meeting fell on April 1, I took the opportunity to mock up and present a set of fake charts showing all of our key metrics falling off a cliff. LOL! OK I know what you’re thinking — not as funny as cling wrap on a toilet seat. You’re right but chart pranks are more cerebral . . . Read more →
Your Morale is Too High
Easter Bunny Inc.
The Importance of Doing Meaningful Work
Over the course of each academic term, he asks undergraduate and graduate business students three questions: A year out of this program what do you expect your job will be? What kind of job contributes the most to general well-being? Practicality aside, if you could be doing anything 10 years from now, what would it be? What’s striking is that there is almost no overlap among the students’ answers to these questions. . . . The question then becomes: Why are students studying so hard and paying so much to reach objectives that are neither what they dream of nor what they think of as especially responsible? — The Importance of Doing Meaningful Work – Forbes.com Read more →
If I Had a Toyota
If I had a Toyota, I’d drive it to work one morning, crash it right into the front lobby of the building, get out, say good morning to everyone, and blame the whole thing on a faulty accelerator, just to break up the monotony of daily living . . . Read more →
Overheard
Hearing Voices
I’m getting some coffee in the lunch room . . . no one else is present. One of my colleagues walks in and says, “Are you talking to yourself, Paul?” “No, actually I wasn’t saying anything.” Which I wasn’t. “Maybe you’re hearing voices,” I suggest. “And ironically, you were just insinuating that I was nuts.” Read more →
Do Not Disturb
Most of us at work have offices with doors. People close the door sometimes for privacy, but mostly when they just want to work uninterrupted for a while. So today I had a brainstorm of an idea: I could just close my door and go home! People would marvel at my new work ethic! “He’s in there working all day and night,” they’d say. “He doesn’t even come out to use the bathroom!” Read more →
Enclosure
I Am a Programmer
They were like spectators. You had a feeling they had just wandered in there themselves and somebody had handed them a wrench. There was no identification with the job. No saying, “I am a mechanic.” At 5 P.M. or whenever their eight hours were in, you knew they would cut it off and not have another thought about their work. They were already already trying not to have any thoughts about their work on the job. — Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance We had a manager’s meeting today on the subject of employee recognition. The text we were given to read in preparation for the meeting was indistinguishable from a handbook on training your new puppy: Behavior which is reinforced is usually repeated. . . . You risk extinguishing the positive behavior by not recognizing it. . . . Provide compliments in a timely fashion,… Read more →
DogPoopBags.com
“What kind of work do you do?” someone asks you. “I’m a web developer,” you reply. “How interesting! What site do you work on?” “It’s just a small site. You wouldn’t have heard of it.” “Oh I’m on the web a lot. I may have seen it. What’s it called?” In a barely audible voice, halfway between a mumbling cough and a coughing mumble, you say, “DogPoopBags.com.” “Ha ha ha — for a second there I thought you said DogPoopBags.com. I . . . uh . . . oh, sorry.” Read more →
Bad is Good
I saw a guy I used to work with on LinkedIn today . . . The thing I remember most about him is that he believed it was bad luck to wish good fortune on someone. For example, if you said to him “Have a good day,” he believed that would in fact cause him to have a bad day. When I worked with him, if I saw him as I was leaving the office, I’d say “Have a crummy evening.” And he’d say, “Thank you.” Read more →
Overheard
Occupational Intensity
I saw a guy yesterday — let’s call him Jack — that I used to work with 20 years ago on my first programming job. My most vivid memory of him is the day he offered to sock another programmer — let’s call him Sid — “right in your f^$&ing face, Sid” because Jack was unhappy with the quality of Sid’s work. You rarely see that kind of passion and zest in the workplace anymore . . . Thus spoke The Programmer. Read more →