Connie hums a little Elmore James and hopes that in her next life she will find mundane decisions much easier to make. Much, much easier. A snap, no less.
The Blues
15-Minutes at a Time
At my primary job, we are all undergoing a “time study” wherein we jot down on a form everything we’re doing within 15-minute blocks of time. For three days now, I have started my day with an 8 ½ x 11 inch piece of paper with clock times in fifteen minute increments running down the left side and lines on the right to fill in my incredibly important work.
It’s making me crazy.
The first day I amused my self by filling it in as I would a twitter account. The line next to each fifteen minute block holds, roughly, 140 characters. I like doing it this way best.
Connie is downloading and reading email – deleting most of it and ignoring the rest.
Connie went to the kitchen, poured a cup of coffee, and explained flash mobs to co-workers.
Connie lectured Name Deleted for Privacy about clicking on attachments from unknown emailers.
Day Two wasn’t quite so fun. My tasks are pretty evenly divided between multitudes of less than 5 minute things OR multitudes of long term projects. The latter I can break down, I suppose, into 15 minute intervals, but there isn’t enough space to put:
Responded to Board Member’s email explaining volunteer policy, called Theatre Dept. (again!) to try and book puppet show, answered phone call from Concerned Grandmother, rubbed co-worker’s pregnant belly, ran the halls gossiping and loitering on my way to pee, poured coffee, checked to see that server hadn’t exploded or nuttin and succumbed to a blueberry muffin.
You see the problem?
As for the projects, I’m finding it difficult to break them down, so there are tasks where I fill in one line
Developing fundraising materials
and then put ditto marks down the page.
But that’s making me frown. I’m finding that I don’t like the ditto marks. If they want 15 minute intervals, then dammit, I want tasks that can begin and end in 15 minutes. So. For Day Three, I ignored everything that couldn’t be done within 15 minutes. Then I arranged stuff so that I had the 3 minute task, the 5 minute task, and the 7 minute task all together so that I had a “clean” 15 minutes. I don’t want to start something that has to carry over into the next block. Often I can’t get it all to work out mathematically and I end up spending a minute or two staring at the time study chart thingie.
I suppose I’ve mentioned that I’m neurotic. No? Well. Now you know.
Everybody knows everybody goofs off. A couple of times, I put:
Blatantly goofing off.
I’ve always prided myself on the fact that if I’m goofing off at work I don’t try to hide it. I’m an in-your-face slacker when I slack. Now I’m goofing off in precise fifteen-minute intervals. Slack? Precise? You see the problem, right?
Then there’s the white-out dilemma. Today I had already written:
Connie is outa here!
When the boss showed up to discuss Important Things™.
After she left, I pondered whether I should white-out the “outa here” or just cross it out or just ignore the whole damn thing like the conversation never happened. But then I got all consternated that the Boss was going to put “Talked to Connie about Important Things™ “on her time study chart thingie and then it was going to look like I was falsifying my work record!
Now, really, who is going to put “blatantly goofing off” and then lie about all the rest of it? Hmmm. That would be kind of clever.
Anyway. I’m not really a white-out kind of person. This is because I do everything on the computer and it’s driving me crazy to have to hand-write this thing. And now that I think about it, I don’t know for a fact that I do have to hand-write it. Hmmm.
In any event, I crossed it out and wrote:
Foiled again! Boss chose quitting time to discuss Important Things™ which were discussed with no real resolution.
The conversation only took 11 minutes so I sat there for 4 minutes and straightened the things on my desk. I did not add “straightening desk” to the form because there wasn’t any room left.
I have 6 more days of this. I’m a little manic.
Monday Morning Pep Talk (or dirge, take your pick)
The last minute of the song is cut off and the video images don’t really go well with the song, but this is one of my favorite songs. When I’m depressed, it’s a nice, warm blanket to wrap in and when I’m not, it’s a spirit lifter. Go figure – dirge or pep talk, take your pick.
The Tyranny of Time
more time, more time, more time
Twice a year, I get the idea that I might have too many clocks. Today is one of those days as I participate in the national pastime of trying to figure out why we need Daylight Savings Time.
If it’s true I have too many clocks, it would be an odd situation considering I’m a person who hates the tyranny of clocks and punctuality.
At about the age of 30, I started the high ceremony of The Removal of the Watch. This ritual took place every Friday upon my arrival home from work. Until Sunday at approximately 6 p.m., I paid no attention to time – I slept when tired, ate when hungry, and only checked the time to verify that any place I was planning to go to was open.
It’s a nice way to live. I’d like to do that full-time.
A few years ago, I found myself in the horrible position of having to schedule my life in 15 minute intervals. In any one workday, I would have 6 or 7 different places scattered about town that I needed to be at precise times. That situation brought on the wristwatch collection.
Every last one of them need a new battery.
I’m a firm believer in the right accessories for the clothing ensemble. Nothing corked me more than looking at a watch umpteen hundred times a day only to have that watch look stupid with the day’s outfit. I soon discovered $5 or $10 would buy me snazzy watches, silly watches, elegant watches and funky watches. Like the now defunct reading glass collection, the number of wristwatches approached infinity. Since I bought them all at the same time, the batteries all die at about the same time. Getting new batteries put in the watches once a year almost requires a second mortgage.
While I still schedule my life in 15 minute intervals, I spend most of my time in three places – all adequately equipped with a clock for easy viewing. In the past couple of years, the clock on the cell phone has replaced the wristwatch. All those wristwatches are languishing unappreciated in the dresser drawer. (I might have to do something about that.)
Time as treasure.
In the search for wristwatches, I discovered tiny little desk clocks. Uncharacteristically I exhibited some restraint and I only have two of those. They’re devilishly hard to set. There are some days I’d like more. Today is not one of those days.
My kitchen appliances are all, except for the refrigerator, equipped with a clock. The most important of these is the coffee pot clock. Without that clock, I can’t set the timer, and without the timer, I can’t have coffee ready when I wake in the morning. It would destroy what little peace I have in the morning if I had to begin the day trying to get the damn thing to brew me a cup of coffee. (When did coffee pots get so complicated?) Of course, they’re all digital.
Coffee Pot
Then there’s the DVD player, the alarm clocks and the car clock – also the dreaded digital type. The good thing is I now have a car that provides an easy way of changing the clock. Thirty years of digital timepieces and we’re just now figuring out how to make them easier.
There are two clocks, beside the cell phone, I rely on most. One is the spiffy radio-controlled-set-itself-to-the-Master-Clock-of-the-Universe thing that also tells me the temperature inside and out, the humidity level, and whether or not it’s going to rain. I love this stupid thing – I just wish it wasn’t so ugly.
hi-tech, low-tech, digital, analog
The other is my giant wall clock covered in faux leather with great big Roman numerals. This is the clock I glance it when I’m trying to figure out how late I’m going to be as I run around the house looking for my glasses.
Twice a year, I have to set all these clocks as I twirl about the solar system in either Daylight Savings Time or, um, hmmm, Normal Time.. Invariably, I forget one or two which leads to a month or two when I’m confused. I’m either late or early or discombobulated trying to figure out which one is right.
As I roam through the house, pushing multiple buttons (and cursing), I get lazier and lazier about setting each to the precise time. Since many of them are cheap and/or battery operated even set at the precise time, they’ll begin separating from the pack in a few weeks and every one of them will tell a different story as to what time it is. This is why the one that talks to the Master Clock of the Universe is such a favorite.
Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.
My alarm clock was cleverly designed to set itself twice a year when we adjusted to or from Daylight Savings Time. But then they changed the dates that happens and so a couple of weeks ago, I spent the better part of a day puzzling how it was that I kept losing an hour when I went upstairs. So I just had to fight with that thing to get it back to the right time and now I’m fighting with it again. Trust me. My life requires an alarm clock that not only tells the right time but rings really loud.
Talkin' time.
And now, between setting clocks (and running out to buy batteries for clocks), I’m late and have to call work to try and explain why a multitude of clocks caused the situation. I leave out the part wherein I spent two hours I didn’t have writing this blog post. Sometimes you do things because you have to, sometimes because you want to – kind of like how I have a plethora of timepieces when I find time to be tyranny and punctuality as something only the truly gifted can accomplish without precise planning and great haste. I wish they’d just leave time alone. It’s problematic enough without changing it twice a year.
[And dammit, I just had to go in and change the time in my blog settings so that maybe the next post will show the corrected published-at time. Jeez Louise.]
W. Va. Fur and Root 