Performance, People and Phones

The word of the week is . Not tangerine, as you may have considered...

Sept 6 – Vacationing from your day job

How’s everyone doing this fall season? Anyone have any interesting plans? Going back to school? Plans for travel? Nobody else I know keeps a blog to mention these things in, so I thought I would ask... toss it out there, let us all know. I’m considering a vacation early in the new year, but as you all know I’ve yet to choose a destination – any suggestions?

It’s a dream that a lot of people want but don’t know how to fulfill: quitting their day job. But unless you win some money or otherwise find a shortcut, it’s almost always a matter of long panning and hard work. GetRichSlowly has a great piece that examines the ups and downs of quitting your job, as told by someone who has done just that. Good reading that makes for interesting choices.

Sept 7 – Princesses and Dinosaurs

Perhaps you’ve forgotten about a lovely web community based at DeviantArt.com? Not been there lately? Well, you should... when they have cool things like this: Disney Princesses as Superheroes. I like superheroes, and these are a little more than stick-figure napkin-sketches... plus there’s so MANY other cool things to search / surf for on DeviantArt. Crossovers, contests held on many topics, or just plain strange stuff that pops out of people’s heads and onto the digital page. Like these undead Disney character cosplay costumes, similar to the Twisted Princesses I posted a few months ago – cool!

Apparently there’s also a lot of love out there still for a certain low-IQ, big-on-smash Transformers character by the name of Grimlock – check out these great images that people have come up with over the last twenty years or so. I have to admit he’s a fave of mine as well: big, dumb, simple in his priorities but not vicious as you would expect from his appearance. No pushover though – who would want to tangle with a giant metal T-Rex, anyway?

Sept 8 - Performance

Strange how some things blindside you when you’re distracted... well, not so strange, when you’re distracted by about a thousand other things. While preparing for 3 employee reviews this week, I forgot it was time for MY review – and I had it sprung on me today. It took almost three hours... and it was excruciating to see myself deconstructed in terms that the company felt were important, or not. Nothing in there about being generous, friendly, kind, honest... all those things we value in our day-to-day lives are set aside for more corporate traits like accountability, leadership / inspirational traits and other things designed to maximize profitability and minimize expenses. By the end I felt as though I’d been taken apart and put back together again as a person I wasn’t familiar with, or sure I liked. Such is the way of the management world, when you are tasked with such that you cannot accomplish it all yourself no matter how hard you try... so you are told you will be judged on how well you have others get things done by delegation. If they fail, you fail, and you alone suffer the consequences, which will likely result in you no longer having a management job. Intense pressure, which I’m already under. Yay.

So I’ve been trying my damndest to come to grips that I’m no longer a CSR, that my job is a ‘challenge’ in so many ways to me now that it seems foreign to me. I’ve looked at a fair number of sites on Performance Management, and come to the conclusion that managers are all insane, as a whole, to do what they do for the rate of pay they get. I should have developed a single skill set( hopefully one not vulnerable to being outdated quickly )and become something like a plumber, or a carpenter. Or lawyer.... that’d have been a LOT less stressful, for sure. *shrugs* Hindsight won’t erase dark circles.

Sept 9 – Name Games

Of late, I haven’t played much of any of my collection of games, Xbox or PC – it just doesn’t appeal to me when my time is so limited and my energy levels so low. Still, I’m glad to see that PC games are still going strong – C|Net had a recent posting about how PC games may be going through a renaissance again, thanks to games like Starcraft II and gaming services like Steam. Seeing as I’m using a ‘newer’ laptop and CPU, I’m able to still play most games at decent speeds, albeit while the laptop’s plugged in. Getting a new PC desktop isn’t really on my radar, as I don’t feel the need to upgrade or to give up more space in my bedroom. What I do need is more time and less stress, neither of which you can buy anywhere. For example:

Here’s something I found to help me out when meeting new people: How To Remember People’s Names. It’s a great article, not too long and it may save you some embarrassment when you meet that person again for the second time... that’s all. Simple, eh?

Sept 10 – Call me about the weather?

Holy expensive hardware, Batman... have you seen the price of the latest smartphones? I’ve been considering one( sort of )lately, but looking at their cost when purchased outside of a contract with a phone provider is eye-opening – have a look at the cost of some of the most popular phones, priced to sell. Does anyone out there have one of these things? Are they really worth it? I know Canada has one of the worst levels of price-gouging when it comes to cell phone costs, and it bothers me to see how much people are paying for the ‘privilege’ of owning the latest phones. Hundreds a month? No thanks!

Yes, I’m an io9.com junkie, but there’s good reason, when they print really useful articles. Like this one about weather prediction, which they explain as related to barometric pressure. This has a direct interest for me, as I’m sensitive to changes in air pressure... just like the article mentions. As well as being sensitive thanks to the damage to my joints( via arthritis )so I get a double-helping of weather prediction most days. Useful, but painful – like a lot of things in life you don’t ask for but are given.

Sept 11 – Nine Years

Nine years since two iconic buildings fell and thousands lost their lives in several places across the United States in 2001. The horror of those two attacks still makes me shiver when I recall with perfect clarity where I was and what I was doing at the time. I made several phone calls immediately to our stores in the Falls, where staff didn’t seem to comprehend that the world had changed that day. I watched things unfold live on television for hours, unable to comprehend that I place I had visited years before as a tourist( as had millions of others )was now a pile of rubble. All at the behest of other humans – was this the same feeling that those who ordered Hiroshima and Nagasaki destroyed felt as they saw the results? There can be no going back; history will record as it always has, and the world will judge.

I managed to leave work somewhat early today, after the usual duties were done, including as always that the bi-weekly payroll was completely correct and submitted. The rest of the evening was spent simply decompressing from the week – television, some reading and a whole lot of NOT thinking about work; that’s the hard part of late. Work / life separation has been very, very tenuous for me lately.

Sept 12 –Newt and Numbers

Today, the folks in charge of the global banking system finalized their plans to stave off future financial crises of the like we faced this past year... led by Canada’s shining example, as our banking system was the rock in an otherwise turbulent global sea of economic chaos. Good news, that means a more stable world economy that is less prone to suffer ills on a massive scale should one sector or country falter. We’ve still no idea what will happen should some global disaster like an asteroid strike happens, or the sun hiccups, but for the most part we’re planning on minimizing the damage our own problems create.

Heck, I didn’t post a link last week, but here’s one now: Mike Hogue has put up some new cool downloadable stuff at Newt And John.com, along with the always-excellent weekly update for the comic! See how Two Roommates Take On The Universe – in colour, no less! Seeing as I spent a good portion of my day today playing Battlefield: Bad Company2 on the Xbox, I heartily recommend a good laugh after heavy gaming.

I’ve written most of this week’s blog while sipping tea over at The Mountain Bean, on a wet weekend here in BC. I can look out the window and see the nearby forested hills almost completely obscured by white mist, as the mountain weather sits quietly on the land around. It’s quiet, beautiful, and smells absolutely fabulous – so fresh and clean that you wonder there’s any civilization around at all nearby.