Office email: A friendly reminder that all refrigerators will be cleaned out this Sunday. Please take anything home that you do not want thrown out. I do not want this carton of Macadamia Vanilla Bean ice cream to be thrown out. Wait — does it matter if I brought the item in, or just that I don’t want it to be thrown out? Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Work
What Are the Laker Girls Going to Do?
The Laker Girls 2011 squad has been selected. (You can watch the auditions.) But with no Laker games, what are they going to do? Idea: Come over to the office, stand behind me all day and dance around every time I school someone. “Bob, let me be direct. Your idea has one problem. It’s stupid.” OHHHHHHH! Loud music! Dancing! Cheering! Read more →
Some of You Pricks Should Be Billionaires
Disagreeable Men Earn More Than Nice Guys — Harvard Business Review Read more →
Aside
I’m a phony. Are you? — Via Scott Hanselman’s Computer Zen
A Half-Assed Job of Anything
It’s enough to make you cry to see how bad most people are at their jobs. If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you’re a one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind. — Kurt Vonnegut, Player Piano Read more →
Work-Life Balance Doesn’t Exist
Look, we know the baby boomers failed at work-life balance. We know it doesn’t exist. So let’s just start talking about things that are real. . . . You can have kid-centered days or you can have career-centered days. You can’t have both. Let’s just stop lying to ourselves because it’s not helping anyone. — Penelope Trunk Read more →
Fault and Change
Think of all the things that are not working in your life. That job you don’t like, that relationship that’s not working, those friends that annoy you. Now turn them all on you. Imagine that everything that’s not working in your life, is your fault. How would you approach it? What would you work on to change your life to the state that you want it to be? — Carlos Miceli Read more →
Do your work, and I shall know you. — Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
Dilbert: New Server Names
What Can You Stop Doing?
All of us have a tendency to take on additional work, lose focus, and feel overloaded — whether we work in the C-suite, at a desk, or on a shop floor. The key is not to repeat that pattern by adding more work. Instead, take an inventory of everything you’re trying to do, pick out the few things that will make the most difference (to your job, your career, or your life), and put everything else at the bottom of the pile or eliminate it altogether. Prioritize, prioritize, prioritize — and you may find that you’ll get more done by doing less. — Ron Ashkenas, “When Managing Complexity, Less is More,” Harvard Business Review Read more →
Don’t Know What You Don’t Know
It is essential not to profess to know, or seem to know, or accept that someone else knows, that which is unknown. Almost without exception, the things that end up coming back to haunt you are things you pretended to understand but didn’t early on. At virtually every stage of even the most successful software projects, there are large numbers of very important things that are unknown. It is acceptable, even mandatory, to clearly articulate your ignorance, so that no one misunderstands the corporate state of unknowingness. If you do not disseminate this “lucid ignorance,” disaster will surely befall you. Human nature is such that we dislike not knowing things that are important to our well being. Since there is so much we don’t know in a software project, the nearly universal tendency among developers and their managers is to gloss over or even deny altogether the extent of their… Read more →
Voice-Activated Copiers
We just got new copiers at the office. They have 900 features, which makes it hard for people to figure out how to access the one feature they really want, i.e., making a copy. My office is close to one of the copy rooms, so when I hear someone in there struggling with the new copier, I go in and tell them it’s voice-activated. “Just say your name and the number of copies you want.” “Jodi Smith. Two copies.” Nothing happens. “I don’t think you’re authorized to make copies. Get Debbie down here and have her try it.” Update: We had training classes today on how to use the copiers. I’m dating myself here but I can actually remember when it was possible to operate a copier without a training class. Read more →
Redundancies
Where Is Everybody?
Friday @ 6:30 p.m. Read more →
There Will Be No Additional Rules
Welcome to Nordstrom We’re glad to have you with our Company. Our number one goal is to provide outstanding customer service. Set both your personal and professional goals high. We have great confidence in your ability to achieve them. Nordstrom Rules: Rule #1: Use best judgment in all situations. There will be no additional rules. Please feel free to ask your department manager, store manager, or division general manager any question at any time. — Nordstrom Employee Handbook Read more →
Wisconsin’s Smoking Gun
If you cut the pay of an overpaid worker, he’ll generally scream bloody murder. After all, overpaid workers like to stay overpaid. But if you cut the pay of a non-overpaid worker, you haven’t really damaged him. He just quietly leaves and gets a job elsewhere. After all, the ability to find a comparable job elsewhere is pretty much the definition of not being overpaid. Now how are the Wisconsin public workers reacting to projected pay and/or benefit cuts? As if the rug’s been pulled out from under them, that’s how. Every time a worker says “These cuts will cause me severe pain,” that worker is saying, in effect, “I can’t get anyone else to pay me at the level I’m accustomed to,” or, in briefer words, “I am overpaid!” So yes, they’re overpaid. And the louder they get, the surer you can be. — Steven Landsburg Read more →
What We Are and What We Do
In that strange separation of what man is from what man does we may have some clue as to what the hell has gone wrong in this twentieth century. — Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Read more →
I’ve Got a New Password
I’ve had the same password at work for three years. This morning, a new policy forced me to change it. What’s the over/under on how many days before I stop typing the old one by mistake? Read more →
Tips on Working with Slimeball Recruiters
I got a call at the office this week . . . “Hi, Mr. Epps. This is Eric O’Neal. How are you doing today?” “I’m okay. Who are you?” “I’m with a company here in Newport Beach. My team specializes in placing highly competent technical personnel and . . .” “What company is that?” “I’m with Jobspring Partners and I understand that you’re looking to hire a C# ASP.NET contractor.” Let me interrupt for a second to mention that all of these slimeballs seem to have the same quirk of introducing themselves in three parts: 1) Name. 2) I work for a placement company. 3) The name of the company. It must be part of the training. No one ever says “This is Eric O’Neal with Jobspring Partners” all in one piece. Major red flag when a recruiter doesn’t want to tell you who he or she is working for.… Read more →
Just Say No to Meetings
No one likes meetings, but we can’t stop having them — The Work Buzz Many of my co-workers say they spend too much time in meetings. I notice that they keep going to the meetings though. If I really thought I was spending too much time in meetings and I kept going anyway, I would have to question my own integrity. Read more →