Playing With This Site…

Posted 2010 April 29 Thursday 17:46 Jabberings (2)

I’m currently changing up some plugins, cleaning up add-ons, and editing stuff under the hood, so I can start mobile blogging via iPhone, and fix/update stuff that has gotten weird over the past few months.

So, if this site starts acting funny, that’s why.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, WOW, lotsa stuff has been happening.  Where to start…?

Oh, I know.  With my priority list: workaholicism, social-life, and long-term.  (All three of which have not led themselves to regular blogging, not without biting hands that feed.)

Workaholicism:

With all the different stresses in the world, between war and economy and unthinking people running their mouths/fingers, things intruded into work.  Personal and professional blended in ways not good, peeps began to doubt themselves in ordinary every days tasks, and overall we were not very useful or effective.

So management types in my department (read: my boss) decided to make things better.

Since our business, fixing computer-type issues, can’t stop while we were focusing on fixing people-type issues, we’ve had to go about it by the seats of our pants.  Not always the best course of action, but our choices were limited.

It ended up breaking down to some basic steps:

1. Get people back to trusting themselves and their abilities, and wanting to work.
2. Change how we interact with them, by removing all the actions that got them hating their jobs in the first place.
3. Identify common complaints, then work to prioritize and resolve them.
4. Improve our habits, actions, and processes to avoid getting all effed again, and having to go back to step one.

(Important note: I didn’t create that list, I divined it out of the actions my boss directed.  His list, and the lists of my peers, may differ, but I think the fundamentals behind all of our lists are identical.)

I know, there’s a distinct danger of getting a happy-schmappy, “I fart rainbows” attitude when implementing the above list.  So my secret :shh: between-step has been to avoid anger or blame when working with people, while placing one demand on them: participate to the same extent that I am participating, or get the hell out of my way.

If I’m required to communicate clearly and completely  throughout the process, so are they.  If I’m required to be pleasant and nice, so are they.  If I’m required to think, so are they.  If I have to be real, so do they.

So far, it appears to be working.  We have to keep re-balancing our efforts, to avoid the pendulum swinging too far the any which way, but things have improved greatly in the past few weeks.  It’s nice to hear laughter in the department once and a while.

And since things appear to be going well, I didn’t feel bad about taking yesterday, today, and tomorrow off.

Personal life:

I haven’t had one for almost fifteen years now, and before that it was really spotty.  Now, I know a social life is important, any primate without some sort of a social life tends to leave the gene pool, usually sooner rather than later.  That is an observable fact in monkeys, apes, chimps, and humans.

My social life just never came together.  From age nine until seventeen I moved once a year, sometimes twice in one year.  The Arts High School gave me two years to find a social life amongst a changing student body, and then that was all gone.  After high school it took me a couple of years to get comfortable and it seemed like I could have a social life, but then my father had an aneurysm, during which we almost lost the house while we were both unemployed.

And repeatedly I’ve been told to “get back on that horse” or “just do it”.

I honestly understand the concept of a social life, I didn’t know what mistakes were my fault and what was the fault of people around me.  I still don’t entirely know what to avoid saying, what to avoid doing: I’m a social-life cripple.  (I just mask it with wit and jokes.)

Don’t assume because you know how to have a social life that I do as well.  (Well, good rule for life in general: don’t assume something you know is known by others.)

So, I did what I was good at: I ignored the ignorant and went about it my way.

Dealing with shaking out and understanding those concepts has taken me a year, plus.  Breaking down the whys, hows and whens has just come about in the past five months.  Identifying left-over emotional issues has happened in the past few weeks.  As of right now, I can count the things I have left to deal with on one hand.  That’s the first time I could do that since I was wearing short pants.

Now that I’m at this point, I’m focusing on improving my apartment until I wouldn’t be embarrassed to invite any but really good friends over.  A possible problem: I’m over thirty now.  Social lives change after thirty, if only because your friends have kids and you stop being able to drink a twelve pack in one night.  

Long term:

I don’t believe in living for today, or tomorrow.  I believe in living today, and living for next year, and the year after, and ten after that, up until the end of my life.

I’d also like to remain an expert in my field, identifying and troubleshooting technology issues.  (Which means I have to keep buying new technology and taking it apart, and reading tech-sites voraciously.)

I’d like to get back into painting and drawing, but my supplies and tools have fallen woefully out-of-date.  (I really need a good drawing table, which will cost me a few more pennies than I have available.)

I’d like to have a family, but…  Well, see above.

And, ultimately, I’d like to end my life teaching in a college or university.  (Even if I do hear: Mister Feesl, Mister Feesl, I HAVE A QUESTION!!1!!)

Oof.  Well, I think it’s time to start screwing around with this website.  *mwa-ha-ha*  It’s BREAKIN’ STUFF time!

Have fun, readers.  I’m going to.

Skåll!!!