Saturday, August 22, 2009

Shower

Do you ever get out of the shower all clean and shiney, and then you think to yourself, "Dammit! I forgot to masturbate?"

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Lying

I forgot to mention that a week or two ago the president of my company said, "Morning, Josh," as I was walking into the building.

"Morning," I replied, "but I'm not Josh." I really shouldn't lie to people like that.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Frustrating

I know my previous posts about my new job have been just short of gushing, making it seem as though I've found the most awesome job in the world, so I thought I'd make a post about how it does frustrate me sometimes.

The "president" of the company ... (Tangent: In such a small company, traditional corporate titles become ridiculous, being both ostentatious and not descriptive enough. Our president is a figurehead for the company, but he also is the sales department slash account representative slash the guy who smooths things over when shit goes wrong.) ... where was I?

Anyway, the president and I have very frustrating miscommunications sometimes. The miscommunications sometime come in the form of novel-length email strings or whole days of walking back and forth between each other's office looking confused. This is a result of us being two distinctly different types of people. In the time-honored tradition of reducing a complex society into an oversimplified dichotomy, he is a Talker and I am a Doer. (This is not to be confused with the Thinker vs Doer generalization.)

Talkers react to issues that would best be solved by discussion and negotiation and schmoozing and other human interaction. Doers react to issues that would best be solved by planning and organizing and completing tasks. This is not to say that Talkers don't do anything, and that Doers don't talk. It's just that each group doesn't see what the other does as necessary to resolving an issue. They often can't see or don't understand the issues that the other can.

For instance, the president spends his day wheeling and dealing, and he finally pulls in an account. The talk is over, so to him the deal is done. The only thing that's left is that pesky problem of delivering on the promises he made during his speal. He doesn't care if what he promises is reasonable, feasible, or even doable. It's not an issue to him; he just talks until the deal is closed.

Enter me. I've got to make what he said we could do a reality. I need to take the client's specifications, and the extras he said we would do for them, and figure out a way to execute them. Whether or not he promised something we can't do or that can't be done is not an issue to me. It was just talk.

Obviously, this is where we don't see eye to eye.

When he closes a deal, he'll send me reams of email strings that criss-cross, overlap, back-track, and repeat themselves, as well specification documents that the client created and negotiation documents that he and the client made together. It takes me literally hours to sort through all this crap to find out what it is I'm supposed to do. There's stuff in there like, "Hey, it was good seeing you at the convention! Are you going to the next one?", "The next time you're in town, I know a great steak place to eat.", and "You have a great weekend with your daughter!" It's all mixed in with relevant details about the deal, which also might be mixed in with relevant details about other simultaneous deals. Writing code and entering information in to a database is easy. Parsing through this bullshit is one of more difficult parts of my job. It get's a little frustrating.

Similarly though, when he asks me for a status update on a project so that he can impress, reassure, or otherwise talk at his clients, I give him a list of what I've completed, what I am working on, and what I have left to do. He often gets flustered and asks, "Yeah, but is it done yet? What do I tell the client?" I'm trying to do something, and all he cares about is what he'll say.

So, there you have it. In summary, my job's not perfect, the world is full of confusion, and this post is done.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Marriage

I don't get it. Apparently, you have a problem with people getting married. Well, not all people. You don't care if some people get married. And you don't care how long they stay married. And you really don't care how many times they get married. The confusing part is, you don't even seem to care what species is getting married, just as long as one is male and the other is female. So, what's the deal with not wanting queers to marry? I must have missed the part where that seemed totally ridiculous.

Is this over the word? The word 'marriage?' Is that what all the fuss is about? Fine, keep your stupid word. 'Marriage' can be a religious ceremony between a man and a woman. Neat, now your precious word is still sacred. Now the rest of us will enjoy 'scribblybop,' a new word I just made up that signifies a legal union between two consenting adults. Okay? Are you happy now? Your religion's got its word, the US has got its word, and never the twain shall meet. Done. Issue solved. Case closed.

But, just out of curiosity, what was it to you? What is so goddamned precious about your word? Is it some magic incantation? Is it a secret password? What is it? You fought so vehemently to protect it; it must have some special power that you're not telling us about. No? It doesn't? It's just some plain, ol', stupid word? Huh ... Weird.

Well, if we're just coopting words, then we get 'God.' You can't use 'God' to mean what it means to you any more. Yeah, sorry. We called it; you should have been quicker on the draw.

So, now we get to choose how to narrowly define 'God' to suit our whims. You can't use 'God' anymore to mean an excuse to be narrow-minded or as a means for being self-righteous in your persecution of others. Nope, sorry. We have a new definition of 'God.' Yeah, from now on, God is defined as a compassionate, all-loving force that unites humanity and is diametrically opposed to suffering and injustice. I guess you'll have to make up your own word for whatever you had been calling 'God' (and 'scribblybop' is already taken).

For a more practical method of bringing about change than made-up words and sarcasm, Mom in Real Life would like a moment of your time.

Circa Now