RTT: The only living boy in New York

Jim, get your plane right on time
It's just your job that's on the line
Fly down to Madiso...o-e-o...o-e-On
(and on and on and on and)
Here I am
The only IT guy in New York...

• New York City has been a dominant element in my life of late. It seems that when I'm not there, I'm trying to fix something that's gone wrong there. And when I am there, I'm working my @$$ off - until midnight or 1-2 in the morning. And if I'm not doing either of those things, I'm trying to make changes that will prevent Option 1 or Option 2 from happening.


• People in Manhattan do behave as though they believe the world revolves around them. I know we all struggle with self-centeredness to some extent - but it often seems as though the people on that little island ("off the coast of America" as Spalding Gray once said) have given up the struggle. They live with the permanent delusion that they are more important than everyone else. Maybe it's just the cost of living.


• The problems seemed to start when we blew the circuit in the server room. That was just before I made a scheduled trip to New York at the end of September - to finish upgrade of their connection to the company network. While I was in NY, we met with an electrical contractor and solicited a proposal for them to install a second circuit in the room. Of course, before the work could be completed, there were more power problems and more downtime. More people p*ssed off at the IT Dept. Finally, by the end of October, those problems were resolved. Or so we thought.


• Keep in mind: On Wednesday, November 4, the New York Yankees played Game 6 of the World Series in the Bronx. They beat the Phillies that night to win their 27 World Series Title.


• November came "in like a lion". On Tuesday night, there was another power problem in the server room. Then, overnight, the network connection (which we had just been installed a month before) went down. And Wednesday morning, power went out again to half the server room. By noon, my flight had been booked to LaGuardia. I didn't even argue. A goat needed to be scaped - and I was feeling mighty goaty.


• You know how when you're really tired and in unfamiliar territory, things can seem quite surreal? How's this for surreal?
  
  By 11:30 pm Wednesday night, when I left the office I had worked (including travel; I can't sleep on a plane) about 18 hours. My only meal for the day had been Burger King at the airport before my plane left. The hotel that the office had booked me into had no rooms - so they in turn have set me up in another hotel - a $10 cab ride from the office. The desk clerk has warned me that the place doesn't look like a hotel from the outside (truer word were never spoken). The cab drops me off on 58th Street near 9th Avenue.
  
  There are all these 20-something hipsters milling around on the street as I drag my 40-something self and luggage into the entrance. It doesn't look anything more like a hotel inside either - and the techno is booming from somewhere above me. I get on a long, steep escalator with lime green lighting all the way up to the next floor - and the closer we get to the top, the more sure I am that I have dragged my luggage into a dance club.
  
  But no! When we reach the top, I see it - across the dim floor - music pounding, people dancing on the opposite side of the room, youngsters everywhere with drinks in hand - the check-in desk!


• On Thursday, I only worked about 16 hours - but there was no travel involved and I ate lunch at my desk (leftovers from a lunch meeting of some big-shots in the Board room). The only diversion was dinner at a little Brazilian restaurant around the corner from the office - where I read news reports about the Fort Hood shootings on my BlackBerry.


• When you're paying almost $500 a night for your hotel room, is it wrong to be a little concerned when the door looks like it was last opened with a crowbar?




• By the time I flew home Friday, the power situation had been resolved - by replacing the ORIGINAL circuit in the server room. So we ended up with two brand new circuits in that room. And the power has been stable there ever since.


• But the new network connection had problems on Monday and again Wednesday last week. Somebody else can make THAT trip to New York.

Take care.


PS: Go visit Keely at the Un-Mom willya?!



How many times to do I have to keep saying it?!

There are no winners - only survivors

Everybody has certain times at work when you just have to grin and bear it, right? There are certain days (of the week, of the month, each year) when you just know it's going to be rough - and you've got to tough it out.

Today was one of those days.

The annual budget planning meeting started today at 4 pm. And it ran until a little after 9 pm. So (that's right, you guessed it) everybody worked nearly a full day - and then had to sit through a five-hour meeting. Now, a five-hour meeting would be difficult enough if you were fresh - but after working all day, the prospect of sitting in a meeting for five hours is more than most people can bear.

I'd like to say, before going any further, that: I'm not sure there is necessarily a better way to handle the thing. It's easy enough for me to say that they should start the meeting in the morning, meet until we get through the entire agenda, and then have everyone go back to their normal duties for whatever time remains. But the truth is: we'd probably all get pulled in a million different directions during the course of the meeting if it were taking place during "normal business hours" - so it's not clear that starting earlier would be much of an improvement.

At least, by meeting into the night, there's a kind of natural process which eventually brings the meeting to a close. That is, when everyone is too punchy to go on, you know the meeting is over.

In such an undertaking, there are no winners...only survivors. And I survived - for another year. Here's hoping you make it over the next hurdle, wherever it is that you toil.

Take care.

RTT: The "Not Dead Yet" Edition

So, two weeks ago (you remember - the last time I posted) work really s*cked.

Then last week, work didn't s*ck quite as bad - but it was still pretty bad. I found out the previous Friday that I needed to be in New York on Monday morning. Don't get me wrong - I don't mind traveling and I like Manhattan. But I always end up working long hours and don't get to enjoy the trip; this trip was no exception*. And, to close out the week right, I worked a couple extra hours Friday evening and didn't leave the office until 7:30 at night.

I'm hoping that work s*cks even less this week. Hope springs eternal.

Being called out of town last week resulted in my missing the first "Odd Couple" read-through. Although not the end of the world, it was rather awkward to be cast in a lead role one week - and the following week have to make excuses why I would miss the first rehearsal. Last night, I attended my first rehearsal and had fun, though. But, man-o-man! - I've got a lot of memorizing to do!!

Yesterday was the three-week anniversary of my wisdom teeth removal. And I can't wait till the "traumatized" areas of my mouth stop being so sensitive to hot and cold items placed therein. My teeth have never before been sensitive to temperature - and I can't wait for them to regain their brute indifference. That is going to happen - right, Leslie?

I finished a couple of books since my last post. First was The Powwow Highway (in preparation for a He Read/She Read post - unless Rebekah has dumped me) and, more recently, I completed (at long last) Vincent Bugliosi's massive work (1500+ pages) on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy called Reclaiming History. It took me months to finally reach the finish line of Bugliosi's magnum opus**, not because the book is poorly written or boring - but because the factual information regarding the assassination and, in particular, debunking of many conspiracy myths that have cropped up over the years (including a complete demolition of the Oliver Stone film, JFK) are covered in such great detail and with great authority. If you are like I was - having never read a book on the Kennedy assassination - or believing in a vague way (without knowing quite why) that there must have been a shadowy conspiracy behind Kennedy's death - you owe it to yourself to read at least part of Reclaiming History.

I'm getting sleepy now, so I'd better get this baby posted before I run out of steam. With any luck, I'll spend less time working and more time writing this week.

Hey! Stop laughing at me like that. It's impolite to ridicule the deluded.

Take care.

PS: If you need more randomness in your life (and who doesn't?), I would be remiss not to strongly urge you to visit Keely at the Un-Mom immediately. If not sooner.

* Get this: I took my little voice recorder and microphone with me to NYC thinking I might...{giggle} do a post or two in my...{guffaw} spare time. I wasn't kidding about the whole "deluded" thing.

** I apologize for mispronouncing Mr. Bu-li-o-si's name twice. I never realized the "G" was silent.

The Glory of "I Don't Know"

Maybe it's just me - but somewhere, sometime, at some point during my life here in these United States, we seem to have become convinced that everybody ought to know everything. No one ever seems to want to admit that they don't know the answer to a question anymore. When people don't know the answer these days, they either:

- Change the subject by pretending you asked a question they DO know the answer to - and answering that question, or

- Tell you that the question you asked isn't relevant - and that what you really want to know is something they would love to tell you instead, or

- They pretend to know the answer but never really answer your question, or

- They lie and make up an answer

While each of these responses indicates a unique talent for subterfuge, none are very helpful or efficient or honest. But it seems that use of the words "I don't know" is now an unforgivable sin - and we are all doom to the Hell of Half-Truths.

When was the last time you heard or participated in a conversation where one party ended a statement with the phrase "...you know what I mean?" and anyone else involved had the guts to admit "No - I don't have any idea what you're talking about."

And then, just when I was convinced that only the few & the brave would admit to "not knowing", I had a conference call with a software vendor who willing to acknowledge on more than one occasion that she couldn't answer one of our question regarding her product (but would find out). At one point, she even said that she didn't want to try and sell us the software by "over-promising".

Wait a minute! Was that a breath of fresh air I felt coming into my office?

Take care.

An Open Letter To My Wife

[Editor's note: I both feared and somehow knew this day would come - once we were both blogging. I hope that you, Gentle Reader, will give me some license to use a bit of snark in writing about a topic I take deadly seriously.]

In the Middle-Aged Woman's other blog ('cause you can never have too many), she has recently posted about her dread of returning to work as a sixth-grade teacher. This is nothing new. We are fast approaching the one-year anniversary of Teaching Dread. When you still don't want to do something after a whole year, I think the warning lights and sirens are supposed to come on.

Anyway, on her other blog, the MAW said:

Husband feels this is simply another expression of my desire to do "something else." That whatever I find myself doing, what I want to be doing is "something else."

Although I have not been substantively misquoted, the quote is woefully incomplete - and therefore I don't feel that it accurately represents my thoughts or feelings on the topic.

But, Ladies and Gentlemen, isn't it convenient that I, too, have a blog*. So here's...The Rest Of The Story.

When the MAW first expressed to me** (three nights ago by time this is published) how she was starting to "freak out" over the idea of returning to work soon, she spoke primarily of her concerns that the procedures to eliminate her back pain had not yet borne full fruit (and whether they would ever do so) and that continued need for painkillers would also be a problem.
Because I'm a guy, I decided to ask at the outset of the conversation whether this was one of those times when I was supposed to listen and empathsize (I read somewhere that women really like that sometimes) or if my role was to offer suggestions, direct feedback, try to "fix it" (all the stuff guys just love to do; I think I read that somewhere too). The MAW said I should play it the way I felt it.

So toward the end of our conversation, after taking a few minutes to process all the "new sh*t [that had] come to light", I offered the following comment:
[It ain't verbatim - but it's good enough]

Well, I think your fear over returning to work has three primary components:

One part is the amount of anxiety you would be feeling about returning to school any year, under any circumstance. This is normal stuff - to be expected - don't let it get the best of you.

A second part is the worry resulting from your continuing back pain. But since the timetable outlined by the doctor for expecting full relief has not yet expired - and you won't have to return to work for a full two weeks after that - let's withholding judgement and continue to hope for the best. Still, you must be sure to share your anxiety over any on-going pain and the need for medication - as well as your fears regarding a full, pain-free recovery - when you see the doctor.

The last part is your continuing struggle with the desire to be doing "something else." It seems to be the general rule that, after a while, whatever you are doing ceases to be the thing that you want to be doing.

One more thing and I'll wrap this up. Around the time school let out, the MAW and I talked about whether she would return to teaching in the fall. Even before we spoke, she had let the school administration know that she didn't expect to be back. I told her at that time, if she couldn't or didn't wish to return, we'd just have to change our way of living in order to do without her salary.

So that's The Rest Of The Story. There's a lot more to come on this story, I'll bet. I, for one, am just full of ideas and opinions on the whole situation. Nurturing happiness, making and keeping commitments, dealing with pain and stress - it looks like I'm set for material on Meaning of Life posts for the foreseeable future.

Of course, living and blogging aren't the same thing. I guess we'll have to see just how close to one another they are.

Take care.


* Just this one - at least until Wednesday when I unleash a new blog upon an unsuspecting world with the inaugural edition of He Read / She Read! Actually, I'm hoping that the world - or at least some part of it - won't be completely unsuspecting. So please, tell your friends & plan to stop by and read it for yourself. Sprite's Keeper and I are hoping you will let us know what you think of it.

** The 2009 Edition of Teaching Dread

Taking Stock

On Friday, I finished Mid-Year evaluations for the men and women that work for me. How can I refer to it as a mid-year evaluation, you ask, when it's the end of July? Because my company requires that I conduct two formal reviews of my staff each year: a mid-year evaluation and a year-end review.

And this was NOT the year-end one. So by process of elimination, it must be the mid-year.

Anyway, they are done. Everyone knows how I feel about the work they have done so far this year (in this case, ranging from good to exceptional) and they know the things I expect them to focus on for the remainder of 2009 (at least three major items for each person on my team). I take providing feedback for the people who work for me very seriously. When I began as a manager, the idea of evaluating other people made me feel uncomfortable; and, although I have gotten used to the process over time, it is not an activity where I desire to get too comfortable. I think that the process of evaluating another person should not be taken lightly. And so I do my best to be thoughtful, to be even-handed, and (above all) to be honest.

A few months ago, I wrote a post that concluded with my expectations concerning the busy spring and summer on the horizon at my job. Last week, the project which was the focus of that effort was completed. My team and I are all still intact - so it seems things transpired much as I had envisioned.

I'm glad that's over. We all are. Hopefully, the rest of the year will provide room to take care of things that did not receive our full attention during the heat of battle.

I never expect things to be slow at the office. I'd settle for manageable. And I hope that your work life is going well.

Take care.

Work is not a four-letter word

(Oh, you know what I mean...)

It can be distressing to dwell on the fact that, if you are a person with a relatively demanding, full-time job, you probably spend more of your waking hours with co-workers than your family and friends. Well, it is to me anyway.

Don't get me wrong. I generally like my job. And I work with a good group of people - generally. I feel that I am well compensated, so I can't complain (but sometimes I still do). Still - nobody says - "OK, honey, see you later. I'm heading to play." There's a reason they call it "work".

And the past few days have been a reminder why they call it that.

Even at times like these, there are plenty of things about my job that I like. I like to solve problems - and there is plenty of opportunity for that. I like to help people - and every once in a while, I feel I have done so. I like being "the boss" (most of the time) - because I feel I can have a positive influence on my teammates and exert some control in my work life. (Or as my good friend, Chico, has said: "I like to accumulate power - and then not use it.")

Despite the fact that I work hard, sometimes put in long hours and can have a crazy work schedule, I am not a workaholic - and I don't tend to "bring my work home". I'm good at compartmentalizing* the different facets of my life - and I try very hard to keep work in its compartment. At times it has been a source of consternation, I think, to the Middle-Aged Woman. She sometimes feels the need to vent about her job - and she doesn't seem quite sure why I don't feel the same way. I'm not much of a complainer, myself. (If this sounds like the MAW is a complainer, that's not really true.) I've heard complaining can help some people feel better. It does not make me feel better.

I would like to say that I love my job - but I don't. I spend little or no time thinking about retirement - that is so far away, it would be like slow torture. Besides, I have too much to do at work. I don't have any "Take this job and shove it" fantasies. If I were to leave my job, I would want to give the people I work with now every chance to succeed after I leave - not leave a gaping hole behind.

But if I had the means, I would leave my current job and try something else. Probably writing. Maybe go to seminary. I would act in more plays. I might buy a guitar and learn how to play one properly.

One thing is certain: I wouldn't be bored.


Take care.


*I looked it up to be sure it was a word. I've been using it in conversation for a long time - but seeing it written down, I had to double check.

I should sleep good tonight

There is a part of me that is really lazy - and I have lost touch with that part of myself. I need desperately to rediscover it, to feed and nuture it - so that I can live like other people.

I'm pretty tired right now - so some of the information above is b*llsh*t. The more I think about it, it's almost a perfect continuum - beginning with ideas that are highly true and finishing with stuff that even I don't believe.

The Middle-Aged Woman with whom I live (and move and have my being - and who seems to end up posting about the things I do before I can) has already shared that I worked overnight from Sunday to Monday morning. This was the result of a power outage in our main office and subsequent malfunction of our massive UPS that had me working on the network from about 10:30 PM until a little after 6 AM.

The good news is: staying up late to finish blog posts has screwed up my sleep schedule to the point that I hardly gave it a second thought - until between 4 and 5 AM.

The bad news is: my sleep schedule is likely to be an even worse shambles than normal for the rest of the week.

My advice to myself is: get to bed early tonight. And so, I bid you a fond bonsoir.


Take care.

Still Keeping It Real on Monday Moanin':

(or Why do people retire - and then get jobs?)

I found out today that my mom has a job with the Census Bureau. She bought a cell phone and ponied up for the GPS service so that her phone can give her driving directions to the destinations on her appointed rounds. After reaching age 65 and retiring from her job - now she works for the Census Bureau.

In between church and...church (that is, the Children's Concert held at my church - where I served as Master of Cermonies this afternoon), I showed Mom how to save names and numbers into the new phone, I downloaded and installed the GPS application on it, and walked her through the steps to enter a destination in the phone and get driving directions. She didn't do too badly for a former retiree.

It didn't really strike me while my Mom was visiting - now I'm wondering why she went back to work. I assume the pressures were financial - but she's only been retired for about six months. I don't believe her financial situation has changed that radically in so short a time (although she probably wouldn't tell me anyway - so that could be a poor assumption). More likely, she disliked her previous job to such an extent that she decided to retire at the first opportunity and deal with the fall-out if or when necessary. She may have even decided to take the job just to do something different.

My mom likes to dabble. I wonder how long she'll dabble with the Census Bureau.

I'm not planning on retiring or getting a new job anytime soon (although the MAW did suggest on Saturday that I arrange for our company to provide a full-time support person in the Boca Raton, Florida office - then get myself the job). But I do expect that this week will usher in a new phase of "nose to the grindstone" focus at work. I expect this phase will extend for at least two months - and, perhaps, to the end of summer. I need to get myself and my team to the middle of June intact - and I think things will proceed smoothly from there. The work will be like rolling a huge ball over a hill - we need to get it over the crest of the hill and then follow it down the other side (as it crushes everything in its path).

Maybe then I can retire. And, if and when I ever do, there is one thing you can count on.

I won't be going back to work six months later.

Take care.

Day off (or off day)

Where I work, the office closes down on the afternoon of Good Friday. I haven't exactly been feeling 100% since about Tuesday morning, so I arranged with my boss to take off the entire day and get some extra rest. I did sleep in and loaf around a good portion of the day - but taking the day off doesn't necessarily have the result you might expect when you're a supervisor. That, combined with my damnable inclination toward productivity, combined to wreak havok on a day that should been filled with sleep and devoid of expectation.

It started this wasy: Sometime during the last 24 hours, I learned that Jackson Browne would be performing at a local venue on July 27th - and that tickets would go on-sale at 10 am this morning. So, right away, I start formulating goals and expectations. I'm gonna coordinate with friends who I think will want to see the show and get us some good seats. It took three phone calls, three emails, one Internet snafu, plus one hundred and eighty-five American dollars to get me four tickets to the show. I normally would be pleased with such an industrious start to the day - but the bitter taste of "coulda-shoulda" was in my mouth. The aforementioned "Internet snafu" left me with four seats in Row W - instead of the ones in Row K that I was intially offered by Mr. TicketMaster. I got over it - but, in some ways, the theme for the day was set:
It's not going to be everything you hoped for.

I started to make some updates in my accounting software and paid some bills on-line (I'm two months behind in balancing accounts and I need to get caught up this weekend). After a while, I was thinking that I should stop fooling around on the computer and get in some quality time on the tread mill. Then I started to get hungry. I decided I didn't want to eat until after 3 pm - and I didn't want to work out on an empty stomach when I wasn't feeling my best - so I took a shower.*

When I got out of the shower, The Boy (often referred to as 17-year-old Boy by MAW) asked if I would give him money to go golfing with his BFF this afternoon. Having seen his latest report card earlier in the day, I was not so inclined** (although later I did spring for him to have a late lunch/early dinner with his bud). And a few minutes later I started getting pages on my BlackBerry which, eventually, metamorphasized into phone calls regarding a network outage affecting our company's spam filtering service. That outage had cut off our flow of email to and from the Internet. (Good Lord! Is anyone still reading or listening to this drivel?! I'm not sure I'm even interested - and I lived it!)

OK - so here's the point: I took the day off work - but didn't escape work. Both my "real job" (the stuff I get paid to do) and my self-imposed to-do list (balance the check book, exercise, work on my blog, etc) were nagging at me most of the day.

The moral to the story?
It wasn't my boss I needed to ask for time off -
I needed to give myself permission.
As Ron White would say:
"That's a handy piece of information to have, right there."

Take care.


*Which may end up being the highlight of my day.
**The most disappointing thing is: I know he's just not trying very hard in some classes.