Five things make a post

[darkemeralds]

1. My sister moved away last week. Not far, but out of the immediate neighborhood. For her, the change has been extreme--having to sell her house and move to a small rental apartment. Me, I just keep noticing that they don't live in that house anymore, and that there are no drop-by visits, and that I'm back to being on my own in the 'hood. So it's kind of sad.


2. On re-re-re-reading Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature over the last couple of weeks, I've been reminded of the concept of ego depletion. That's where, after forcing yourself to concentrate on a task for too long, your decision-making and general agency become measurably compromised. Five days at a job I quit enjoying ages ago practically guarantees an empty mental larder by Friday night. I'm accepting that writing, editing, or in this case even grocery shopping, over the weekend is more than I can ask of myself.


3. On the plus side, here's my retirement countdown:
   
   
   
   I went to a retirement seminar last week and I'm going to need those 351 days just to negotiate the web of red tape that lies between me and my freedom.


4. I've been re-stocking my mental larder this weekend with The Hour. It's extremely good--I put it off on the grounds of having hated Mad Men (hated. Hated like I've never hated a show before), but I enjoyed succumbing to this view of the period in which I was born.


5. I'm currently reading The Singularity Is Near by Ray Kurzweil. It's a text full of very large and very small numbers (teras and petas and nanos and picos all over the place) and therefore perhaps not the best candidate for absorption by audiobook. But the general idea--that within my lifetime we will have created technology that surpasses the capabilities of the human brain (and, shortly thereafter, all the human brains)--is persuasive, and hits me somewhere between exhilarating and terrifying. The book is nearly ten years old and so far Kurzweil's predictions are pretty accurate.

Back to work tomorrow. Work is evil. I can hardly wait for the Singularity.

Comments

[darkemeralds]

He's been doing yeoman duty on my sanity too. Long-distance amusement and brainy chat are huge benefices!

As sorry as I am to read about the disorder and chaos in your job, I have to say it's kind of a relief. You could be describing my workplace, and it's strangely validating to know that it's not just my personal failings as an employee. Good luck to us both, huh?

[ruric]

I had a long meeting with the Cap Projects Team today and a chance to swap war stories. The situation the project managers and their teams are in is just insane.

So yes - always validating to find out you are not alone! *G*

And despite what himself says below I still think there's good stress and bad stress. Working at ex org could be very stressful but for 80% of the time I was there it was productive and everybody was in it with you. Some of my best memories of the old place are of working til midnight with the CEO, Directors and random staff to finish bids cos we were all in it together (that changed when my old CEO left and the new one joined).

At the new place I can't imagine the CEO or any of the Director's rolling up their sleeves to muck in and make sure anything works. There's downward delegation with apparently little awareness of how stressed and under-resourced those below them are. I'm sensing a general mood of resentment, disillusion and people feeling like they're being set up to fail which is not a great place to be at the beginning of delivering a massive programme!

[darkemeralds]

I agree completely that there's good and bad stress. And the good can creep over into the bad imperceptibly if there's a bit too much of it, or if the environment changes.

"Under-resourced" is exactly what's happening. Not only have we all been asked to take on a little more (then a little more...), but as we have to learn the new tasks we take on, AND give up elements of our private lives to do them, there's an exponential decline in the quality of everything we do.

With the best will in the world, even the most workaholic of employees can't keep up indefinitely. When it starts to fall apart, it falls apart with alarming rapidity. I'm seeing that now in my workplace.

[ruric]

Absolutely. Taking on more and learning new things can be fun but the older I get the less I'm willing to put up with things that eat into *MY* time.

I have a pretty fulfilling life outside work, there's a lot more I want to do with the Transition Town group and with the Maser Gardeners and with a couple of other projects. I don't want to lose out on doing those things which fulfil my soul because the job is eating into all my time.

I've always had a reasonable grip on what I'm willing to put up with in terms of quality of life + income to do what I want + demands of job (though I did lose that at the end at the old place).

I began my working life by leaving a job because the stress/rewards balance was all wrong, I left the old place because they ceased to value staff and to be honest if I can't reconcile things here in the next month or two then I'll be off. They do need my post (so I'm unlikely to temperfit my way out) and I'd hope to stay until they found a replacement but I have no problems with saying "thanks for the opportunity but this just isn't working for me." At least it's honest? For all I know they might be feeling the same way too!

After all my team has had 3 managers in the 3.5 months I've been there! *G*