Connie let the teenagers paint her nails last night.
Stylin’
work
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.
From frustration to maniacal laughter
Used under creative commons license http://www.flickr.com/photos/ram_/1181604199/
It’s been Monday all over, all day, and it feels as if entire geological epochs have passed since I woke up this morning. I have 10 more hours to go.
First there were frozen pipes (no kidding). All I can figure is the insulation has slipped or something. So I got out the space heater at 2 a.m. this morning.
I overslept.
I was late.
I’m not sure I even brushed my teeth.
There was no heat in the office.
We are out of coffee.
A colleague “lost” a critically important database file that she had “backed up.” Um no. We had remedial backup lessons.
Last week, I didn’t mail a vitally important document. I have been on the phone groveling for a special dispensation.
Note the looming hysteria?
But I’m laughing. When the downward spiral of disaster whips into a frenzy, there’s not much you can do but strap in and hang on. I’m not quite amused enough yet to giggle-shout, “Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!” but I’m working on it.
As you were. . .
My hair’s on fire.
- I’m rootin’ tootin’ mad.
OK, mouseketeers, I’m cranky and trying to shake it off.
I am all for eccentricity, personal quirks, individual phobias and neuroses. I’m accommodating of these things in both myself and people I interact with up to the point where such are not good for me.
When they’re my own, I work to change myself – sometimes unsuccessfully. But I try. And I don’t expect others to put up with my nonsense.
When it’s other people, I develop power and control issues which surprise me.
It’s all the rage in business seminars to adminster mini Meyer Briggs personality tests. I don’t believe I’ve ever taken the full Meyer Briggs, but I’ve taken multiple short form tests.
That would be me - a combination that doesn't exist in nature.
I’m a combination that doesn’t exist in nature. Test administrators always try to tell me that I’ve done something wrong – fudged my answers. In one test, where personalities are color coded, I’m equally green and blue – which translates as analytical/emotional. In another test where participants are labeled as creatures, I’m a chameleon meaning I’m still analytical/emotional, but I possess the tendency to always see both sides of a situation. (Those who know me well will tell you this is my greatest strength and my greatest weakness – it explains my inability to make a decision. It also explains why some of my co-workers thing I’m two-faced.)
In tests designed to reveal which side of your brain is dominant, I always come out as using both sides equally. I’m told, yada yada, that only 10% of the population thinks like this.
All of this conspires to make me a nontraditional worker. Things that motivate most folks, don’t work for me at all. Things that irritate most folks don’t bother me. The flip side is that I get my panties knotted and shredded over stuff that most folks regard as downright ridiculous.
There’s nothing worse than getting all enraged knowing that 90% of the world cannot even begin to understand why. And so, I suppress the anger as much as possible and just try to get on with things.
Michael L. Smith's fabulous and incomparable Mad Bluebird photo
At this moment, I’d like to go all Dexter.
I’m trying to shake it off.
Years ago, my father told me that his overriding management technique was to treat people as if they were going to do the best job possible with the best possible outcome. I suppose this is the management version of The Secret. He went on to say that if you treat people like they’re incompetent, they will be. If you treat them as if they’re dishonest, they will be. If you treat them as if they don’t have a strong work ethic, they won’t. If you deny them the right to self-direction, they’ll foment rebellion.
I adopted Daddy’s modus operandi years ago. It has served me well
I’ve found these things to be true. I believe that most people want to do a good job. I believe that most people want to love their work. I believe that most people want to behave ethically and with good principles. I believe that most people know how to best complete a task based on their own personality type. – the corollary to that is that I believe that the people who actually do the task know best how to do it. And if they don’t, it’s a result of bad management in the past.
But by the elastic in Great Aunt Gertrude’s girdle, I get wound up, infuriated, and my hair bursts into flame when I’m treated as if I don’t know what I’m doing when nothing in my work history supports such a conclusion. This becomes apocalyptical if the treatment is such that it is witnessed by co-workers or consumers. Apparently, one of my peccadilloes is the right to be right. (I’m working on it. Really, I have no idea why it bugs me so much to be “corrected” when it’s my opinion that nothing is in need of correction. I’m quick to admit when I don’t know. And I’m quick to ask for help when I don’t know. I was always that kid in class that asked questions. I don’t have that “fear of looking stupid” gene. And in terms of customer service, I practically coined the “I don’t know, but I’ll find out” response.)
Maybe some chammomile tea will help return me to my cheerful eccentric self.
The only other thing that rips off my safety-sealed-for-your-protection lid is being treated as if I’m dishonest.
We all have power and control issues, but in keeping with my unusual brain, mine are eccentric. If I’ve been given authority for something, I don’t like having my decisions questioned with a view to changing them. As such, I have an on/off switch. Rather than protest my innocence, explain my rationale, or ask why I’m being interrogated when there is no problem, I’m apt to wash my hands of the whole mess. You don’t like what I did or how I’m going about it? Fine. Do it yourself.
This is not an adult response. I’ve been working on it for years. I’ve got to figure out an appropriately assertive, but nonthreatening way to get across the idea that just because I’m not doing something the way you would do it doesn’t mean I’m doing it wrong.
So? What makes you go all purple prose postal?
W. Va. Fur and Root 