I am. At least, I'm at the office. Not terribly in the mood to work today, which is the sort of thing that happens to me when I'm all alone and not under a deadline.
I don't actually have anything to do.
I've been frightfully busy since I started here, what with the training and then the doing of the things I'm learning to do. For some reason, today I can't think of a single thing that needs to be done. I don't doubt there are things I should be worked on. I just can't think of them at the moment.
I politiblogged yesterday until my brain exploded so that's taken care of. (I was going to a group meeting this Wednesday after work but I'm not doing that unless this storm moves out (Did I mention that it's pouring down snow outside?) (Are you allowed to nest parentheses?) and the one threatened for Wednesday fails to materialize.)
DiamondGirl won't be in until 10:30 or 11:00. Haven't heard from Bernie. Don't know if I should assume he's making the slow commute from Boulder or that he's not coming in today. (DiamondGirl says sometimes he just 'forgets' to mention he won't be here. I'm okay with him not being here, but I'd like to know.)
Either way, I'm planning to slide out early. But not until 2 or 3, so I have some time to fill yet.
I've checked my work notes back for a week and I can't find anything I'm forgetting. I checked my running "to do" list and beyond a couple of phone calls of no particular importance and that I don’t feel like making, there's nothing on it.
I have a user manual I've been dabbling with a rewrite on. I could work on that. Yawn. I hate rewriting someone else's work. I'd rather work from scratch. It's a pain to redo graphics and try to move huge chunks of text around inside a badly organized document. I spent two hours tagging and generating a table of contents for the stupid thing last week, so I could at least figure out what was in it.
I'm annoyed at having to work in Photoshop when I normally work in PaintshopPro. (And in an older release, so that I'm not constantly being confused by being offered a lot of graphics options I don't understand.) Also, I'm annoyed because Photoshop takes an hour to open.
I haven't yet cracked either of the two SQL books I picked up on Saturday. (Even though it came with a recommendation, I can't really believe that Teach Yourself SQL In 10 Minutes is really going to be comprehensible.)
I sure do wish I could think of something interesting to write about.
My new office is cooler than the one I sat in before. I need to remember this when I'm getting dressed in the morning. Maybe bring in a sweater to keep on my chair, just in case.
Ooo! Ooo! I just remembered something! I can go try to generate a report!
The thrills never stop.
I'm making a conscientious effort to blog more often these days but having to do it in the evenings when I'm tired makes it more work than fun.
Weekend! Now that I'm a Working Stiff again, I'm once again free to wallow in the leisure of two whole days off.
Can't blog for long, though. I have work to do tonight. (Or maybe tomorrow, depending on how the mood takes me.)
Today was supposed to be all Weathery, but it was crisp and sunny, so we drove down to Castle Rock and walked around the Outlet Mall for a couple of hours. I bought three pair of socks and a quick-reference book for SQL codes. We stopped by Borders on the way home (I bought SQL In 10 Minutes), came on home, sat around for an hour and then walked over to Whole Foods to pick up some snacks and some dinner. ($18! But I got enough food for three meals and snacks for a week.)
You might have noticed the frequent references to SQL in my day's shopping.
Bernie is convinced that either DiamondGirl will quit soon or that I won't be able to turn her work ethic around and he'll wind up having to fire her. While I'm perfectly willing to learn the level of SQL it would take for me to confidently approach our bulk e-mail product, I don't think he understands the difference between me being able to recognize a SQL string generated by a piece of software designed to produce such strings and me being able to write such a string from scratch.
I tell myself that, if nothing else, I'm going to be a lot more employable the next time I'm pounding the pavement. QuickBooks and a bit of low-level SQL will look good on a resume previously top-heavy with proprietary software programs that only the company that produced them cares about. (Of interest only to the company that produced them? Hmmm.)
There's something wrong with the grammar in that sentence, but let's press on. I'm not here to talk about work, after all.
Actually, I'm not sure why I'm here. Today I ate a mediocre sliced beef sandwich, bought three pair of socks, two books on SQL, and went to the grocery store. Not really the stuff of riveting blog entries.
I need a haircut. Ditto.
One of the things I bought at Whole Foods was rather-expensive-for-the-size container of cut pineapple. Pineapple is one of those fruits so often sold and consumed in an insufficiently ripened state to let most folks appreciate just how amazing a delicacy it is when thoroughly ripened. Good pineapple is like sunshine sieved through sugar.
Also, I bought asparagus roasted with mushrooms, and a chicken breast with a light walnut-lavender breading.
Mmmmmmmm. I do love living across the street from Whole Foods.
So, I’m sitting here, dinking around with some work and gearing myself up for today's scheduled 2-hour meeting.
Mostly chomping down on soynuts because I forgot to bring my breakfast and I can't meet from 10:30 - 12:30 without food in my system.
No shouting this week, at least so far. That's a good thing.
At this point I'm holding on, mentally, to the idea of March 24. On March 24, Bernie leaves the country for a ten-day vacation. He'll be completely out of touch. It will be a vacation for everyone!
Bottom line? It's only been a week and I'm already sick of having to turn in a timesheet, not to mention trying to account for every minute of every day. I'm not, by nature, a clock-watcher. I come to work, I work until I get hungry, I eat lunch, I work more until I'm tired, I go home.
(I'm working, okay? Every minute of every day* unless I go to the bathroom or during that brief, 30-minute interval when I'm shoveling down some lunch and hoping I don't get sick from eating too fast.)
Also? Try saying 'hello' or 'good morning' when you come in. We speak to you, it's only polite that you should speak back.
Also? If we have a two-hour meeting scheduled to start at 10:30, yes, it does mess with our day if you decide at 9:53 that you want to start at 10:00 instead.
You consistently do and say things that show a massive disrespect for your employees, their professionalism, and the work they're trying to do for the company.
You and I? Are going to have a little talk.
______________
* Okay, not the five minutes it took me to write this, but still.
I've been pondering that e-mail and I've decided that I was wrong to send it. Granted, it's nicer than the two I drafted before it, but it's still hostile.
When, oh when will I learn not to e-mail when I'm furious?
Anyhow, after Bernie got to the office yesterday and read it, he was in a bad mood (no surprise) and then he and DiamondGirl had another shouting match later in the day.
Sigh. I think I was right to establish immediately that I wasn't going to be micro-managed but the way I handled it was wrong.
Now I owe him an apology.
Posted by AnneZook at 06:41 PM | Comments (0)Bernie turns out to be one of those guys who likes daily "status" reports telling him what you're working on.
I can live with that, although figuring out how to get DiamondGirl to tell me what she's been doing every day will be a pain.
But. I sent him an update on Friday for the week (since I hadn't been doing it daily) and this morning I find this huffy e-mail in my box all about how surprised he is that he's paying two people full-time and he's only getting part-time work out of them.
He seems to think his employees should be able to account for every minute of every day. Now while I know some organizations do have staff do that, those tend to be people in "predictable" jobs where they have a concrete work-flow. Which, you know, does not include this company.
Anyhow, I spent 20 minutes writing him a really hateful e-mail.
Of course I deleted it unsent and re-wrote it. I'm not sure how hateful this one is, but after he reads it, he may decide he doesn't need me around the office.
Dear Bernie:I agree that DiamondGirl's time was not well accounted-for last week. I noticed that and had already intended to discuss it with her. There’s been a bit of sloppiness about tracking projects and progress in the past week or two and that’s largely my fault because it’s taking me some time to get my feet under me.
Understand that part of my time and part of DiamondGirl's will never be accounted for. Those “impromptu” meetings where you come out of your office and discuss the possibility of doing some project with one or both of us, for instance. I’m not sure you realize how often that happens or how much time it takes up. There’s also the “fuzz factor” which is the amount of time lost when someone get interrupted in the middle of a complicated project. It can honestly take someone like a software coder fifteen minutes or more to retrace their steps and figure out where they were.
My understanding about these status e-mails was that you wanted to keep track of the major projects we’re working on and how much time we’re investing in them, especially the ones with “billable hours” and not that we were having to account for how we spend our time every day.
If you need me to track the amount of time I spend washing dishes, getting the mail, running off door-to-door solicitors, answering (mostly wrong number) phone calls, figuring out Tina’s filing system, looking for documents I need on the network, not to mention the half-hour it took Friday to write you that status e-mail and the 30 minutes I’ve spent on this one this morning, then that’s going to be very difficult.
Whaddya think? Too hateful?
I love being employed. I actually got a paycheck last week.
I should have savored it. It might be my last.
Posted by AnneZook at 09:14 AM | Comments (1)This whole "working for a living" gig is a lot more, well, work than I remembered.
This week, it's the bookkeeping thing that's stressing me. I did tell Bernie that I wasn't good at this kind of stuff and I'm not. I might be better if the Tweenybopper had left any kind of coherent records.
Granted, she felt the same way I do about having to take on bookkeeping chores, but that's not really a good reason for her to have failed to keep records in any form that would allow someone to come in and figure out what she's been doing, you know?
Okay, so I knew she didn't like to file. I figured that out when I found piles of stuff dated 2004 and 2005 sitting all over the place. (She started in late 2003.) (I'd be less bitter if I could find anything dated 2006.) But I assumed that, somewhere in those piles, a coherent system would appear.
I'm thinking, you know, "assume." ass - u - me Mostly me.
Issuing invoices this past week has been a guessing game. From casual remarks dropped by Bernie over the last week, a couple of things the Tweenybopper said before she left, a post-it note she left on her computer monitor, and the two actual job files she handed to me, I think I've found everything I was supposed to bill. (I'm going to put together a list for Bernie for Monday and have him double-check it.)
Okay, enough whining about that. What else is new?
Well, payday arrived. Yesterday, in fact. I slit open the little envelope, pulled out the check, and looked it over. 73 hours. $17.76.
And I'm thinking, yeah, I agreed to take a temporary pay cut until August, but this is ridiculous. (Bernie called them and I got a more reasonable check today.)
DiamondGirl seems to be doing well at getting her recently diagnosed Diabetes Type II under control. She's been taking her meds and eating right. And her energy level and concentration have improved immensely.
Unfortunately, that doesn't really mean she and Bernie are getting along better. Partly she gets bitchy very quickly in our too-frequent meetings. I can sympathize...she's been through these same problems many times already and is worn out and frustrated from trying to work with Bernie.
If you're a process-oriented, linear software programmer being supervised by a free-form, big picture, grasshopper-brained sales/marketing person, there are going to be problems.
She needs to make some changes, but Bernie needs to make even more. For one thing, he has to start writing down complete specs on all tech jobs he wants. I need to figure out a way to make him understand that, "build me a program that does this" really isn't a sufficient set of guidelines to hand a programmer.
Also? He has to learn to talk to us before he takes on any jobs that involve anything more technical than he can do himself.
Today I found DiamondGirl desperately working over the scan of a hand-drawn logo (4" x 6"). Bernie wanted her to turn it into camera-ready art that the client could hand to the printer to produce a decent 2' x 6' banner. It also turns out that Bernie told the client we could do that in two hours.
He's insane.
And he has to learn that you can't really build core business strengths if you're just accepting any kind of job that comes along. There are half a dozen different types of projects we're working on at this point, only two of which are even remotely connected to what he told me were the "core strengths" he wanted to develop.
Sorry for not being entertaining. I'm not feeling the fun today. Just the tired.
Because I think it’s important to track the good things that happen.
#1 Bernie works a short day. He’s arrives around 9:00 and he leaves around 4:00.
#2 Bernie works from home on Fridays. He rarely comes in on a Friday.
#3 Bernie travels. He’s leaving March 22 and not returning until April 5. (On the down side, I’ll be doing a lot more traveling myself, although they’ll usually be short trips. So far, San Francisco in May, New Orleans in June, and LA, I think, in September. So far. These are good. I used to work for someone where all the clients were on the East Coast. I loathe those long flights. )
#4 DiamondGirl is fun. I like working with her. She’s smart, committed, and very hardworking. Also I just like her.
#5 Buehler. I see him when he’s in and I still like chatting with him. I regret that he wasn’t able to pull out a full-time job for me before the Bernie situation happened, but whatever. He’s bought me lunch once and coffee twice in the last week, so I know he still likes me.
#6 The 7-1/2 hour workday returns! Many companies these days work their employees for 7-1/2 hours, instead of 8. That gets them around those pesky “mandated break” laws. I haven’t worked for a company that did so…well, I’m not sure I ever have. But I am now. I don’t have to roll into the office until 8:30. (On the down side, only 30 minutes for lunch, so no time for playing in personal e-mail or anything.)
#7 Payday will arrive. It hasn’t arrived yet and it may not arrive on the next scheduled payday, but I have faith that it will arrive. It’s not a funding issue. Our stupid payroll company says they didn’t get the notification eight days ago that I was hired. Whether or not they’ll get me into the system for the next payday is still up in the air. But I have faith that payday will arrive. You know. Some day.
#8 Short “to do” list. I finally got my notes organized and I only have seven things on my “to do” list, some of which are just reminding others to send me data. (On the down side, one of them says, “billing” which is easy to write but going to be tough for me to do.)
9:45 a.m.
Actually, I shouldn’t even be typing. For lo these many years past, it’s been my habit to stroll into the office, fire up the old computer, and spend 2-3 hours blogging or reading e-mail, scanning the news, or any of several other nonproductive pastimes.
It’s always been my theory that a new day is something that needs to be eased into gently. And very gradually. This theory leads to many things, like a disinclination to get out of bed in the morning, but I'm okay with that.
With this job, I really need to be ready to dive in the moment I get to the office. (At least, during these next couple of weeks when we have hours’-long meetings scheduled every day and I’m using the rest of the time trying to figure out how to do the few things I’m aware I need to do.
3:52 p.m.
Well, so much for that blog entry.
What I want to know is why is it invariably the days of the worst weather that I forget to bring my lunch? I like to go out to lunch occasionally but I'd rather not do it when it's raining, sleeting, or snowing.
"So, Anne," I asked myself. "What is up with the new job? How's that working out for you?"
So far...so still undecided. I'm not sure I have a lot of faith in the company's business model. There's a lot of emphasis on helping clients manage their customer e-mail lists. I'm not really fascinated by mass e-mailing. The idea of spending a lot of my professional life html-coding e-mails fails to thrill.
There's a lot of talk about whether we will or won't be in the business of managing customer's websites, from the technical perspective. Not my strong suit. When I want a website designed, I pay someone to hand me a finished product.
I wasted two hours today entering half of a survey into the wrong software program. I guess that's one of the hazards of the business when you're new and you have two s/w programs to choose from. (Had I read Bernie's e-mail closely, I would not have made this mistake, so, entirely my bad.) (On the positive side, once I switched to the right s/w, I got the job done in fifteen minutes.)
My first bookkeeping test comes up this Thursday. We bill our clients on the 10th. I have no idea who I'm supposed to bill for what but I've carved out time in my schedule on Wednesday to search through the bookkeeping s/w and see if I can figure out who we billed last month. Bernie's also going to help me through it, which will be useful.
We're having 1-1/2 to 2 hour meetings every day for the next two weeks to introduce me to their entire client list, what we do for them now, what we're supposed to be doing for them, and what we would like to do for them if we can convince them to pay us for it. I really loathe meetings, so yuck, but I really need this info, so I have to be there and paying attention every second.
Moment of Mirth:
Today, Bernie asked if we could get A from our website stats. DiamondGirl said we don't track that. Bernie said we should have A on our website stats. DiamondGirl said we don't track that. Bernie said A should be on our website stats. DiamondGirl said we don't track that.
This continued for several minutes, with Bernie becoming monotonous and DiamondGirl becoming increasingly heated.
I begin to understand where part of their communication difficulties come from.
I have not yet had a chance to address this with Bernie, but I did mention to DiamondGirl that if you say something twenty-seven times and the person you're talking to doesn't seem to be understanding it, it might be an interesting experiment to use some different words.