E just sent me the most wonderful article about the pros and cons of working from home.
It strikes me that the dilemmas described in it are terribly important to my next big career decision, so I need to address them honestly, directly.
One way to ensure this, methinks, is to blog about it: The article defines an eight point checklist, which I will try to respond to point-by-point. Continue reading
Well, now I look foolish!
The Spirit of Tasmania goes to Devonport, not Hobart, and Google Maps tells me it’s a four hour drive (or ride) from one to the other. Our bike is a 250cc single-cylinder bike, a type colloquially known as a thumper. The name is due to the vibration inherent in one quarter-litre cylinder banging up and down right under your groin… I was sore enough after a two hour ride from Springvale to Ballarat on the weekend. Four hours across the spine of Tasmania, while doubtless stunningly beautiful, does not sound butt-feasible.
So I will catch de plane, like a normal business zombie, and make use of free shuttle services wherever possible.
My employer have graciously agreed to send me to Linux Conference again in January 2009. This year it’s in Hobart, so with any luck I will be catching up with an old friend.
This will be my first time travelling to Tasmania, and I am hoping to take the ferry (they have a special on), so that I can take the motorbike.
It looks to me like the global economic downturn is biting this year: the registration status page says that only 43% of tickets have sold, where in recent years the conference was typically completely sold out by early December. That’s with Google subsidising tickets for women to encourage at least trace amounts of gender equality.
Only one person I know well is going.
Mododrum, shameless purveyor of contagious memes inflicted this one on me…
1. Did you cry today?
No, although I nearly howled with rage at one point, at work no less!
2. What were you doing at 8.00am this morning?
Sitting on a train, reading Iain M Banks’ Matter and enjoying it immensely.
3. What were you doing 30 minutes ago?
Readin’ mah smokin’ feedz in Google Reader.
4. What was something that happened to you in 1992?
I achieved the greatest efficiency and productivity as a VCE student that I probably ever will.
5. What is your Mum’s Mums name?
These days? Gillian Annwn, or possibly Briony, depending on who/when you ask. Edit: Oops! That should probably be the late Thelma McMahon.
6. Words to explain why you last threw up?
Food poisoning, I think it was. It was bad; these things happen to me very rarely.
7. What color is your hairbrush?
My What? You mistake me for someone with a use for such a thing. 🙂
8. What was the last thing you bought?
Breakfast & coffees for myself & workmates.
9. Name 5 things you want to do before you die?
10. What did you eat for breakfast?
Eggs benedict and a croissant in the cafe under my office to cheer myself up.
11. Where did your last hug take place?
In the kitchen, with E, waiting for the kettle to boil.
12. Are you ticklish?
If you need to ask, the answer’s ‘no’.
13. Are you typically a jealous person?
No.
14. Favorite animal?
15. Last gift received?
A Genki Inversion Table, a terrifyingly cool early anniversary present from E.
16. Who’s the last person to call you?
My Dad, although he got my voicemail, and obviously didn’t want to talk badly enough to try my mobile. *shrugs*
17. Do you chew on your straws?
No. ABOMINATION! I get disproportionately annoyed by imperfect straws.
18. What makes you sad?
The news.
9. Where did you go today?
From Springvale North to Springvale Station, in a little blue car driven by E, from Springvale station to Melbourne Central in a Connex train, then up a lift to my floor.
20. What is something you say a lot?
‘Teh’.
21. Who was the last person you said “I love you” to and meant it?
E.
22. What should you be doing right now?
Explaining extremely silly things to the South Australian Government.
23. Do you have a nickname?
Apart from what E calls me, no, not really. My brother calls me ‘Dude’, but this is also what I call him.
24. Are you a heavy sleeper?
Only if it’s already loud while I’m falling asleep.
25. What are you listening to?
A streamripped copy of this morning’s Triple J Breakfast show.
26. What was the best movie you’ve seen in the past two weeks?
Iron Man. Trashy, wonderful movie. Like some of my favourite novels, it touts ideology I could hardly be more at odds with, but it is also full of Toys, so I can forgive.
27. Do you like anyone right now?
I’ve had enough coffee this morning, so yes, I do currently harbour positive feelings for other members of the human race.
28. What book are you reading at the moment?
Matter aforementioned. Classic Culture. Don’t f*ck with them.
29. Name someone who made you smile today?
E. I sense a theme.
30. Secret guilty pleasure?
Warning: meandering content beyond this point. May contain traces of blather.
I have raved here about the marvel that is SkullCandy before. Alas, my Smokin’ Buds finally packed it in the other day due to excessive mechanical abuse, and became suddenly monaural.
I have come to depend on their supernatural powers of noise-removal in my office, since the nature of cubicle-farms leads to a workplace which is never quiet, where there’s always someone talking, often more than one someone.
It is not entirely coincidence that I bought myself a new pair of SkullCandy Full Metal Jacket ear-buds at roughly the same time I bought Nine Inch Nails Ghosts. It is wonderful though.
Ghosts is a lyrics-free album. That should be stated up front for those of you who were hoping that Trent still wants to fsck you like an animal. 🙂
It’s also not especially danceable, a trait which much of their previous work is valued for.
I have heard it said that the album is an accoustic one. This is not the case. In fact, there’s so much of NIN’s trademark distortion and static that you can get seriously alarmed if Ghosts is the first thing you listen to on your new earphones.
I’m not going to rave here about the way this album is being distributed, or licensed, except to say that both are rather cool.
As music to fill the silence inside your head while you work, I have yet to find better.
As mechanisms for doing so, the SkullCandy Full Metal Jacket buds are well worth five times the $70 I paid for them: crisp, clean and packing more base than any speaker stack. They also seem, if possible, better than the Smokin’ Buds at obliterating the sounds of my office.
With this in my ears, I can work, no matter how much it all falls apart around me.
Like anything else that one is compelled to do repeatedly, while simultaneously being starved of cognitive sustenance (i.e. bored), riding public transport breeds odd little eccentricities and optimizations.
Many are about fares, tickets, routes, schedules, and other boring / commute-specific things, and as such constitute some of the most inherently boring-to-others thoughts it is physically possible to entertain.
Others are just Odd.
For instance:
But the best of all is probably:
With passtimes like these, I really can’t understand why more people don’t take the cheap, environmentally sound option that is our public transport system! Three cheers for Connex!
Man·age·ment, -noun:
A terribly disfiguring and potentially terminal disease of the brain. Management causes an almost total cessation of actual work through advanced procedural confusion.
The afflicted individual may initially become more productive than usual, but as the incubation period (or “promotion”) reaches its completion, most activity normally understood to constitute ‘useful work’ ceases, replaced by politicking, CRM (Compulsive, Repetitive Meeting) syndrome and distended lunching.
In cases of chronic (also referred to as “Senior” or “Upper”) Management, almost all normal forms of communication can be inhibited, leading to the individual being completely isolated from reality. Under no circumstances should the therapist attempt to make communication with the sufferer of Upper Management, as this can lead to agitation and random, violent activity. Just accept that they are unreachable, and try to avoid any unnecessary exposure to their attempts to communicate with you, typically in the form of ‘Powerpoint’ diagrams.
Treatment:
Although it has been suggested that some Management cases make compelling arguments in favour of voluntary euthanasia, there do exists viable treatments which can lead to a total recovery in some cases.
Short-term stabilization can typically be achieved through a Retrenchment or Redundancy, often administered as part of a broader course of Restructuring.
This is never sufficient in itself, almost always being followed by a relapse, typically to a more Senior form of the disease than before.
Suitable follow-up treatment can include a long course of parenthood, or exposure to a high-energy source of specialist technical jobs. In time, the patient may even be able to tolerate controlled doses of reality check.
In the long term, especially where the chance of relapse seems high, a methodone-like substitution program known as ‘team leadership‘ may prove effective.
Of course, if the patient is exceptionally senior and/or proves resistant to all of the above, in the end the only suitable treatment can be retirement.
…this random outburst brought to you by too much caffiene, the ‘italic’ button in the WordPress editor and a severe but non-lethal dose of Powerpoint.
Update: Note, this should not be taken as a reflection of my actual opinion of managers in general. Without adequate management, very few jobs are even remotely tenable.
I seldom seem to write about my actual life on this blog, which could be a good or a bad thing, depending on your feelings about blogs.
Today I am writing about my life in a carefully lateral way, because there are real actual people in my life, some of whom are in charge of my paycheck and some of whom have the potential to be litigious or otherwise prickly.
There have been Retrenchments. I can say that with aplomb, because its in the press already. This has led to a distinct increase in the number of hats I wear at work. This has so far led to 55-hour weeks, not counting overtime. Strangely though, it has also given me a new-found perspective. I am no longer laboring under the delusion that certain kinds of time-management are under my control. The resulting sense of freedom has seen my actual productivity soar, and my general workplace morale begin to climb also.
At the same time (pure coincidence) one of the banes of my existence at work, an entity which gave to me the hardest-working Christmas Day and Boxing Day I have ever known last year, has finally leapt into long-overdue motion. This has yielded an abundance of overtime work. It has also given rise to innumerable phone-calls and meetings with an individual who reminds me uncomfortably of a really horrible former employer. I would really like to character-assassinate this individual in a public place, picking over their foibles in gruesome detail, but I fear my present employer would frown upon such behaviour. Maybe some other time. Suffice to say that some people are just walking explanations for how wars and murder and generalised hatred remain a part of modern life.
🙁
This burst of activity has also given me an unusual opportunity to interact with (as far as I can tell) a much younger and more naiive version of myself. At first I found these interactions deeply upsetting: no fault glares so brightly as those which fester in our own past. But yesterday I had a bit of an epiphany about it all: I am the Big Dog here. This unsettling younger self I seem to have found regards me as some kind of spooky old legend, to be learned from and *boggle* emulated!
Once I understood this, everything changed. I suddenly found myself freely talking in acronyms I haven’t used in years. The arduous pain of explaining why I did it that way became a rewarding geeky chat. It came as an astonishing revelation to me that I can just do my job without any need for gratuitous showing off, and to this young critter I will seem like some kind of guru. It feels damn good to suddenly see myself so clearly from the perspective of my somewhat younger self.
I have to admit though, there is a strong temptation to behave like a BOFH. The world-view and attitude of the BOFH had never tempted me before, until suddenly I found myself interacting with a genuine (literal!) PFY. I have this sudden desire to swathe myself in the thoroughly opaque robes of UNIX lore and generally act like a Tolkien wizard! Fortunately, the dictates of Real Work for a Real Employer intervene. Telling someone to go RTFM in the middle of a hectic deadline-stricken project is generally frowned upon by management.
🙂
Oh god I love caffeine! Welcome back into my life O wonder drug.
This post finds me half an hour after my second coffee of the day, a very fine cappuccino courtesy of the Food Inc. at the bottom of the tower. At this point I am still talking waaay to fast and feeling deliciously omnipotent. I have just come from a meeting in which I introduced the two managers who control my job and who hadn’t ever properly met before to each other. It rocked. In another 25 minutes I will be running off to another meeting (at which I am at risk of being fed more coffee!) with a guy who has been the intermittent bane of my existance and one of the aforementioned managers. In the interim I have to read a dense five-page project plan and work out how I feel about it so that I can speak coherently and lucidly about it in the meeting. Nonetheless, I am pausing to write this blog post (insanely quickly and with minimal quality control) because caffiene has made me ALL POWERFUL and I am quite confident that I can do ANYTHING in fifteen minutes or LESS! I know that a crash will likely follow the boom, but right now I DON’T CARE! 🙂
