Major Adjustments

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times: the great and terrible thing about working in Totally Pointless Projects was the lack of real expectations. How I miss those leisurely trips across Riverside to Dominican Joe! We won't even get started on three-martini breaks. What glorious times those were, when the 3MBG was fully staffed.

The bad thing about it was when they decided there damn well ought to be some expectations and started making us document everything, only without actually giving us anything to do, except some projects that are - well, totally pointless, to get right down to it. Weekly status reports, monthly status reports, Scotland Yard to document when we arrived and left, and pointless fish meetings every other week - those constituted the bulk of my workload. I don't miss 'em.

The really bad thing about it was the reason I kept trying to get out, despite the often cushy lifestyle: I was so afraid I'd be ruined for actual work. And it's true, though hopefully the effect is not permanent. I'm very busy, I have to get stuff done (though I'm not expected to produce a lot of documentation showing that I've done so, because it would be pretty obvious if I weren't doing my job); more than that, I worry about doing my job well, and I certainly don't have time to loaf about on the break tables or at the coffeehouse. It's not easy to adjust to.

But perhaps the strangest and most bittersweet change of all is no longer working among the sort of people who thrive in the Totally Pointless Projects environment - the people who have been there for years, or even decades, until they bear little resemblance to what you and I know as humans. I don't think I've smelled microwave popcorn since starting the new job, not even at breakfasttime. No Phantom Pharter haunts the kitchenette. No headphone antenna bobs about ominously over the tops of distant cubicles. The sound of snoring does not fill the air, nor does the floor shake violently, sending items tumbling off the shelves, with anyone's thunderous approach.

So I'm stressed out, depressed, and can't sleep. It's either PTSD or withdrawal from some chemical in the microwave popcorn fumes. Whatever it is, I better hurry up and get used to it.

Rendre Puissant!

There's something about work-related stress that always makes me want to speak French. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's the fact that the French have 35-hour workweeks? Or that at least one major French employer's company cafeteria, I have it on very good authority, serves wine with lunch? Or does stress simply bring out an otherwise latent desire to quit shaving my underarms?

Whatever the case, it's best for everyone concerned if I don't undergo too much stress at work. For one thing, I don't speak French.

The poor panicmonger. I hate it when bad things happen to people you don't like, because then you have to feel sorry for them. But whatever else you can say about her, you have to admit, she doesn't hoard bad tidings. She's great at delegating, and we should be grateful; because, as you may know if you've ever taken a Fred Pryor seminar, delegating is the same thing as empowerment.

We're so empowered, we should all be shooting lasers out our butts.

But today was not a banner day for the panicmonger. Her boss gave her a pointless project which largely entailed duplicating a lot of research already done by another group. She was not allowed access to this research, so she had to do it all over again herself in order to answer the questions the other group had raised. Fortunately she immediately empowered all of us to handle the situation for her, and went home in a snit.

It kept me so busy, I barely made it to break. Sacrebleu!

The Things Cats Do

I wanted to post a scan of a birthday card Jim got from his sister. It has a picture of a cat, covered by a blanket, lying on his stomach on a massage table, a masseuse cat preparing to rub him down. "Just a little licking around the butt area," the first cat is saying.

I'm sorry, but that card should totally have been for me, birthday or no birthday. Google it if you don't know why. I dare you!

Anyway, I plugged in the scanner, and two breakers tripped and all the power went out in my bedroom. Flipped the switches and the power came back on, but the scanner will not; I think it might be fried.

Oh well. We hardly ever used it anyway.

Forgive my disjointedness. There have been a couple of glasses of sangria. It's actually been a fairly stressful week, as weeks working in the public sector go. It's not really that easy to stress me out, though I'm much better at appearing calm than I am at actually feeling calm. But the panicmonger supervisor, the Ineffectual Perfectionist, takes a toll on us all. I'm tired and discouraged. There are times that I really feel, even though people I love deeply, passionately, with all my heart, have moved away, that my job isn't too bad and I can stick it out indefinitely. At least as long as they keep showing up to break. But then the boss starts hovering, radiating useless anxiety and disapproval, and I'm simultaneously demoralized and guilt-ridden. Work becomes a fairly unhappy place. This isn't good.

Oops, did I just type that out loud?

The conference is over, and it will get better, and it's silly to fret. Work will be calm and mostly boring and occasionally productive again. And there are new people starting, some of whom are bound to be fun. And Robbie won't have to get all flustered and pull an A, because the panicmonger - who is surely seeking desperately for another job - will eventually have to find one.

She just needs to hurry up about it, because she keeps producing litters upon litters of kittens over every little thing, and kittens grow up into cats, and you know what cats do.

A True Story

All the departments in our division have been going through a process documentation procedure. This is a normal bane of workplace existence - and necessary; I'll allow, for this one, that in principle it is not excessively silly.

The process I'm part of, the one we've been documenting for just the last week or so, is pretty simple. The flow-chart for it has no cross-references or dead-ends, and almost no infinitely regressive loops. It's probably the cleanest flow-chart I've ever seen. Of course, I've only worked for the state a year and a half.

But, sitting down with a member of the Automation department to put down all the details, we were forced to admit it's not entirely perfect. "We distribute copies of the official packet, but the number of copies we have to make changes frequently," my coworker confessed. "Sometimes one office decides not to file a copy anymore, or another office decides they want one."

The Automation staff member stopped writing, put down his pen, let out a profound exhalation, and opened his soda can. He took a prolonged drag of it and set it down heavily with a loud sigh. "Some tequila sure would go well with this Fresca," he said.

I can't remember if he was in my Stress Management class several months ago, but I sure hope so.