Brown Dirt and Tons of Stuff

Whew.

It has been a busy week.

We've been cleaning over at Bob's house for the last two days.  We have made a lot of headway. I imagine the house hasn't been thoroughly cleaned for several years at least.  At one point I found a box of mail from 2003, so it probably wasn't thoroughly cleaned since then.  We've got enough junk to fill a 20 yard dumpster, which we're going to order today.

In the last two days we've hit the major junk filed areas - the atrium, the kitchen/dining room, and the living room.  Stripped them all the way down, threw out a ton of stuff, mopped some very brown floors, cleaned some furniture.  Today's plan is to finish up the kitchen and start working down the hall toward the bedrooms.

Meanwhile, in the work environment I've got a project that I am going to have to delay again - we just can't get it to work, it's one step forward and one step back.  Every time we get something resolved, we run into another problem, like peeling back the layers of the onion.  So, as I go through the day cleaning at Bob's, I am going to be cutting back and forth to work to see if I can kick this project into higher gear.

One of the frustrating things about the project is, due to the way the bureaucracies of both companies work, it has been virtually impossible to get all the players on the phone at the same time.  Really, I suspect we could resolve it if we could just get everyone to sit together on the phone and go through it step by step in real-time, but everyone is so overwhelmed with other work project we just can't seem to make that happen.

I'm pretty badly frustrated about it and it's causing me a lot of stress, which is layering on top of the other stress, so I am cranked pretty high right now.  But, I know the secret to getting through it is to just keep the head down and work through it, as painful as it is.  One of my frustrations is that some of the resources (people) involved seem to bump into a problem and then just stop and wander off and do something else.  I always hate slamming people at work, but I am reaching for the big hammer.

Meanwhile, I just keep reminding myself to breathe.  Simply breathe.  Head down, keep moving forward.

Outside of that, things really aren't going to bad.  It has been nice doing to physical labor over at Bob's place, so that has been enjoyable, though I swear I've inhaled a ton of dust bunnies and spider-webs.  I've got a quick work related meeting shortly, then I am going to go over and dive back into the work at Bob's.  I'll take my work computer with me so I can see if I can kick the project forward at the same time.

Adventures of a Human Being

Quite frankly, today I am exhausted, frustrated and overwhelmed, mainly in the working world.  Back in the late January and early February time frame we had two senior level project managers quit on short notice (both because of the exhausting and frustrating work load).  As a result of that my organization absorbed their work load with the promise of additional resources to replace the lost people.  Well, fast forward to the end of April and there are still no replacement personnel yet.  So, essentially two of us absorbed the work of two other people with no reduction in our already existing workloads.

Then, when you layer into it that, as an overall organization (the project teams, technical teams, and customer teams) we seem to be stuck in permanent fire-fighting mode, it's just exhausting.  You can hear the exhaustion and frustration in people's voices on teleconferences and you can see it in the tone of a variety of communications. 

Now, I've been through times like this before and I know that the trick to getting through them is to just keep your head down and keep swimming.  But, lately it has been difficult swimming. I need to roll over on my back and float for a while. I've got a couple of days of vacation coming up around the 10th, so that should provide some relief. But today, it's exhaustion and frustration.  I'm going to meet with my manager a bit later in the day and vent.  I know she's trying to get those extra resources (she's as exhausted and frustrated as everyone else is) but I guess I just need to vent.

So, let me pivot away from the work environment.  (It's always amusing to me how just writing down your frustrations. Those three paragraphs have helped release some of the stress, just that small period of time floating on my back.)

I've really got nothing to complain about in my personal life.  It has been going well enough. The heavy workload has squeezed some of my personal life out, but I am still getting some good personal enjoyment time - some good reading, some good movies, some good conversations and socialization. I'm even getting ample time to write. So, in that aspect, my personal life as a human being is going pretty good, it's just the work frustration that has a pretty firm grip on me.

Today is Friday however, so I have the weekend ahead of me and I am looking forward to that.  I am going to drive up to Fremont on Saturday and have lunch with my friend Ty, who I haven't seen in a couple of months.  I am looking forward to that.  I also want to spend some time minimizing (i.e. throwing crap away) in my apartment.  Strange, but there always seems to be "more stuff". It's like I have a teleporter in the closet that mysteriously makes stuff appear.

Temper, Temper, Temper

I skirted against the edges of my temper today.  At work, we are going to move from the area where we are currently located by ourselves to a new area that we will share with another group.  I am apprehensive about the move. 

The other group is larger than we are and in our history with being co-mingled with other larger groups - we often end up struggling for the essentials, since the larger group can simple overwhelm us.  The complicate matters, we are moving into an area with a group with which we have bad history.

Now, it is always a challenge to not let the history influence the present too much - but it is also a mistake to forget the lessons of history. In a rather heated discussion with the manager of the other group today, I made it clear that I am sincerely worried about the issue and the potential issues that are going to arrive. 

I am further exasperated because I think the other group gave our group the short shrift in planning the move and in how the area is going to configured.  And I am further frustrated because I think our management was asleep at the switch while this was going on.  Now, I am going to have to push fairly hard to make sure our group is taken care of.  A frustrating day all in all and I get even more frustrated because it all could have been handled much better.

This seems to be one of those things where I should probably just let it go - but that is difficult for me. I have deeply buried within me an unwillingness to just go along to get along.  The dehumanization that is possible in large companies is always very difficult for me to swallow and I refuse to (it is the Kool-Aid that I won't drink, LOL, which is what started the whole conflict with my Director, when she told me I had to drink the Kool-Aid) just let it go.  Is it a battle I should fight?  Probably not...probably not.  But, well, temper, temper, temper.

Monday's Struggle

The day was mostly a struggle.  I slammed into the wall of frustration when I hit the office - there are just far too many moving parts and too may parts moving in chaotic cycles, to have any level of confidence beyond maybe the eighty percent level. I sure don't like being that frustrated. I did manage to make a few small advances during the day, but all in all if feels like I ended up further and further behind. It's a very difficult environment to be working in and I know I am not the only one who feels that way, but, since the root of our problems is our director - there doesn't seem to be much we can do about it.  Very, very frustrating.

A Little Bit Older and Deeper In Debt

Another 12 hour day under the belt.  (A little bit older and deeper in debt...).

Today's insight - perspective matters.

Work was the usual madness associated with this project.  I was frustrated at one point in the morning, but once that discussion was over I calmed down.  This project remains the perfect example of why leadership matters - good leaders made difficult circumstances better. Bad leaders make it worse.

I've got my feet up and I am going to wander off to bed to read shortly, but for now I am watching the latest episode of Castle and unwinding.

A Glass, Full

The day was one long meeting or nine long meetings all strung together.  Either way, the end result was the same.  Though it was a smooth start to morning, including time with T.R., the first meeting threw me headlong into a foul mood. I don't mind consulting on other parts of the project, but I dislike it when people attempt to off load their work on me, especially since I have a full project load myself. 

There are two analysts assigned to developing some custom reporting - the only challenge for them is neither of them has the depth of knowledge to design the reports they need to design.  Like everyone else, they're under heavy pressure from upper management - so, in the meeting today, they attempted to foist the detail work off on me. 

Now, under normal circumstances I am always glad to help - but these are not normal circumstances, so I refused to commit to the task unless management decides to assign it to me.  If I am a glass of water, then I am a very full glass of water - we can always pour more water in, but some of it is going to splash out. 

So, after that meeting put me in a foul mood I struggled through the morning.  At lunch, I decided to log out, commute home, take a nap, and try and reset the day. It worked and I was able to salvage both mood and productive out of the afternoon.  Then, a simple dinner (grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches), and an easy slide into the evening.  In a short while I am going to slip into bed and read a few chapters in "The Cloud Atlas".

Work Frustrations

I'm not entirely sure how I hijacked my own blog and started writing extensively about work.  Maybe work, to a degree, has hijacked me.  I had a frustrating day today, mainly due to the overall volume of work, but that was just the surface that irritated something deeper. 

I am not sure what the deeper thing is that has kept me irritated at work, that has made me so frustrated, that makes me sensitive to the irritations of it all.  I think I will spend some time this weekend thinking about that and meditating on it. In conversation today I characterized my work environment as being 90% good and 10% bad, and I realize that for a lot of people that would be paradise. But, for some reason, the 10% frustrates me so badly that I find myself climbing the walls. 

Today, my trigger point was that yesterday I had sent an email asking for clarification on a project I was working on - and today, when I read the response from my upper management - well, it completely muddled things up.  From there, I struggled with staying present and motivated. I was able to, through techniques I've learned and through focusing on one task at a time.  I even managed to work myself into a good mood, then I had an afternoon meeting that spun me back into frustration - talking about the thing that had frustrated me to start with. 

Yes, definitely something I am going to think about and meditate on over the weekend.

The Challenges of Change - Part 1

I've mentioned earlier that we're going through a period of high change at work and that it is stress inducing.  The change continues - we're still in a holding mode waiting for formal announcements. I'm swinging back in forth in my moods. Yesterday was a classic example.

I was meeting with my manager who asked how I was feeling about the change.  I have a certain curse that I cannot overcome, so I told her the truth.  I told her that I was in neutral, in a wait and see mode, hoping that the changes would be changes for the better, but that I was terribly disappointed in the way the whole thing was handled. It has been very top down and it has invoked a feeling a helplessness, a feeling that I am unable to influence the change - rather than it being something I am doing and embracing, it is something that is being inflicted upon me.

Though it wasn't my bosses intention (I have a very high regard for my immediate manager and a tremendous amount of personal and professional respect), all the conversation did was get me ratcheted back up again. I accept the need for change. I accept that, as an individual, I can't always influence the change, but when you try and pretend to have a collaborative environment, but don't - that just gets me fired up all over again. For me, one of the great tragedies of the whole thing has been that, through six other directors over the course of twelve plus years, we've actually had a collaborative environment and we've gone through some tough changes.  It has only been with the advent of this current director that the environment of trust and collaboration has been ruined.

I think it is a cautionary tale for management everywhere - a bad manager (or in this case a director) can destroy relationships that took years to build pretty quickly.  Then the question becomes, can those relationships be rebuild after the damage is done?  Who can say, but I definitely am on that journey right now.

As a result of the turmoil at work and a spot of inner turmoil in my personal life, I ended up spending a restless night.  I went to sleep shortly after nine p.m. and managed to sleep about seven hours, but I woke up about four A.M. and laid in bed, tossing and turning for a while as I worked my way through the stress.

I think, when it comes to "bad changes", I am an advocate of the "rip the band-aid off" approach.  Determine the reason for the change. Determine the specifics of the change. Communicate the change and the reasons for the change. Implement the change.  Allow opportunities for honest feedback. Focus on building the "new relationships".  Once we know what the change is going to be, we can react to it and make our decisions accordingly. It is the state of uncertainty that is so stressful.

As I am sitting here preparing to re-enter the working world for the day, I have a handle on the oncoming change again. Unintentionally, my boss send me cascading through the emotions associated with change by wanting to talk about it.  Lets just get it over with.

At Work, We Play The Hunger Games

Publicity still - Jennifer Lawrence as "Katniss" in "The Hunger Games"

Ah, it is good to be home at the end of the day. I spent most of the day running reports and analyzing data and though time consuming, it went rather smoothly. No smooth day goes unpunished though.

Just as I was about to leave the office I had a couple of customers contact me and report one of those persistent but intermittent problems. The kind of problem that happens some times, to some people, but cannot be forced or predicted. Those are the worst kind of technical problems, since they are the most difficult to trouble-shoot.

I got a frustrated there at the end of the day because it is either a network latency problem or a hosting server latency problem, but, unfortunately in a complex environment, there is too much wiggle room for groups to go "not us" and point at each other, demanding the others prove it's them. Very frustrating.

So, I vented in the privacy of my car, ranted and raved a bit, then got home, made a big salad, and all is good again. Tomorrow, I will see if I can push it up the hill and get someone to understand that it is a big problem and that it needs to be addressed. We'll see if I make any headway or not. I often joke that, with these types of problems, the only real headway I ever seem to make is to bang my head against the wall which is...painful.

Other than that frustration there at the end of the day though, it was a pretty good day. I was productive in regards to the reports I ran and the analysis I was doing. I had a nice lunch at Hobbee's. My team was in good spirits.

I've started reading "The Hunger Games". Given that it's a young adult novel, I am blazing through it fairly quickly. I am about a quarter of the way through in two nights, so I anticipate finishing the book within the week. I can see why it draws so many fans - it is a well-written little tale.

Jennifer Lawrence, who did such an excellent job in "Winters Bone" has been cast as Katniss (the protagonist of the novel), so I am looking forward to the movie as well. Indeed, the reason I decided to read the novel is because I am looking forward to the movie.

I think, in general, that young adult novels tend to translate better onto film - mostly due to complexity and length. This is a huge generalization of course, but adult novels tend to be both longer and more complex, which means that in the process of adapting the work for film something has to get left out.

My plan tonight is pretty simple and straight-forward. I am going to watch the movie "In America" on DVR and do a little writing and a little reading and just ease my way into the night. I'll probably invest a little time in bagging and recycling books as well. So, it should be a nice night.

The End of a Challenging Day

Well, today was definitely one of those days. It started out very well - I had an excellent morning and made it into the office without incident. The first three hours or so of the day were pretty productive and peaceful - and then things took a turn for the worse. By the end of the day I was tired, short-tempered, and pretty frazzled.

I came home and had a very simple dinner - a bowl of chicken noodle soup, spent some time with TR, and wandered the internet for a while, looking at the excellent work out there on Deviant Art and Red Bubble. From there, I popped over to Amazon and saw a book that looked interesting, so I added it to my wish list - The Buddha in the Robot.

I got chewed up today by one of the things at work that is a constant hot button for me. We have a pretty good desktop support group (the group that configures and supports the PC's). For the most part, as individuals, they are talented and professional. However, we've got a problem that a lot of help desks deal with. The analysts on the help desk are measured on ticket based metrics. They are measure based on home many tickets they open - and close. The cycle time between opening and closing is also one of the key metrics.

Years ago Deming pointed out the irony in this type of arrangement - people perform to what they are measured on. Pure human nature. Measure someone on how fast they close a ticket and guess where their emphasis lands. (I also run a help desk and on my help desk the analysts are measured on customer satisfaction and task resolution - not cycle time.) Our emphasis is on figuring out what the problem is and fixing it. So, there is a place where I collide with the culture of ticket based metrics.

We periodically get cases referred to us that are the PC help desk cases because they close and refer tickets out as soon as possible. If they have an opportunity to transfer something out - boom, out it goes. Now, our applications and systems run on the desktop environment - so, if there is a problem with one of our systems or applications, they pass it over to us - as they should. Except, in a good number of cases - it is a PC problem, not an application problem. So, we have to hand it back to them - and the customer gets caught in a loop.

There is actually a very simple test to prevent this hand-off. Access the system and see if you (on your PC) can do the task the customer is reporting as broken. If you can - then it is not an application problem, but a PC configuration problem. However, sometimes, in order to keep their metrics down, the analysts on the central PC help desk simply see "X Application" and close the ticket and transfer the call out, without doing any troubleshooting.

Sometimes it gets truly absurd. I've personally called the help desk to try and get a desktop support person to address a problem, or at least open the right kind of ticket and route it correctly, only to have the try to transfer my call...to me! (To my help desk that is.) It's very frustrating. Despite repeated training efforts and documentation efforts - all of which are contained in their reference materials - they still "transfer and close" to keep their numbers down. Unfortunately, it sucks up my time and the time of my help desk analysts on trying to get the customers out of the loop they land in. Of course, to the customer - it's all Greek - they don't care who helps them, they just want help. Today, what sent me spinning into a frustrating mood was a succession of these types of calls.

The pure frustration of bureaucratic nonsense and corporate group-think is one of the things that can be so draining. I get home and I just want to lay down and stare at the ceiling, or perhaps nap, or perhaps both. It usually takes a while to get free of that crappy and crabby feeling. It is very tempting in a company to "measure the easy things" (like ticket cycle times) and ignore the hard to measure things (like customer satisfaction or actual problem resolution). Ah well, as my stress counselor successfully reminded me - you chose this job. I did. And sometimes, having chose it, I just need to put on my armor and suck it up Today was definitely a suck it up day.