I Had an Aha! Moment This Morning

I am sitting at my desk working on an assignment for Microsoft, when I had this Aha! moment.

The job I am doing is very complex. There is a pile of 40 some candidates for outstanding achievement awards. These are a lot of very important people. The job is mind-boggling because the write-ups are so god awful in most cases. Some are rather like trying to read a plate of spaghetti.

My job is to bring order out of chaos, discover what needs to be said that isn't in the documents before me, and then to contact the people involved, get the information, and complete the write-ups. And I have a bit less than two weeks to do it in.

Please understand that for this assignment, Microsoft came looking for me not the other way around. I'm a consultant. This was based on the smallest possible job I did for them sometime last year. I wrote up the proceedings for an off-site series of meetings they held. Someone there was so impressed that when this latest bunch of stuff came up, she asked for me by name, even asking my agency that if I were on assignment that I perhaps could work for them too on weekends and after hours. That was very flattering.

Deciding to take the job was one of my smarter decisions. Now to the aha! moment. I was busy firing off emails all over the globe to the director of this, and VP of that, then sending a suggestion to the manager I'm reporting to telling her of changes that need to be made in the process and volunteering (for money of course) to actually give some form to their current chaotic process (herding cats comes to mind) and write up a guideline to enable people to do a better job up front. That's when it hit me. In the past I have always been sort of overwhelmed by such important people and having to deal with them. I mean, some of these folks have world-wide reputations.

The aha? Well, I'm not only not overwhelmed by them any more, I don't feel at all inferior to them either. While I haven't accomplished the heady levels of technical and managerial they have, in my own way and in my own field I am just as good and just as accomplished. It's done wonders for my ego.

I think this happened in part because I am being treated as an expert and my opinions and suggestions are being respected with this group. They act as if I walk on water. I am referring to the local Microsoft group for which I am working, not the broader company or all of these technical geniuses with whom I am dealing. I honestly needed this. It's done an enormous amount for my self-esteem. It doesn't hurt that I get to work at home, set my own hours, etc. It also doesn't hurt to be told that people are so impressed by me and my work that they are asking my manager for a place in the queue for my services as each project is finished.

On some level I know my own expertise and worth. But on another I needed to hear it from someone other than the little voice inside my head. This next couple of weeks are going to be brutal. There is nowhere near enough time before the deadline. I'll meet it of course. I've already let management know I will be going into overtime and weekends. I have strategies for doing research until the answers to my emails begins coming in, and there are a very few of the nomination write-ups that are actually good enough and which contain sufficient information for me to begin the final drafts of those.

In the end I will do it. But I'll also turn around and refine their process so that next year whoever does this will not have nearly the hard time I am. In their defense, I should add that this program only started last year, so the guidelines have not really been set. They will be next year because I will set them. I feel very good about me this morning.

Frustration

I am frustrated enough to bite the dog today. I have a new assignment with Microsoft with a very tight deadline. I have 42 files to read, understand, research, rewrite, and turn in. I have two weeks from Monday to do it.

For some reason known only the the Microsoft network itself, the damned electronic babysitter will not allow me to access the site I need to be able to download the files I have to work on. The system administrator has worked for two days to try to remedy this and thus far we have failed miserably. This morning I still don't have access. Of course I didn't know that for two hours because the damned auto-update feature is also bugged and defective and didn't work, thus denying me access to any of the Microsoft site. Yes. I am being paid for that time. That's beside the point. Finally my daughter the systems administrator, fixes it for me and the updates get updated.

So I go out to the page I so desperately need. Still no access. For 20 of the files, I have paper copies. If things get desperate by Monday, I can enter these by hand and thus have files to work on. I have enough work for today and about halfway into Monday before I have to start doing this in order to move ahead. For those other 22 files, there is no way. If I cannot even see what they say, I can't assess what is good or bad, what is missing, or what research/interviews I have to do to bring them up to speed.

I am not terribly efficient when I am this frustrated, I admit. I need to start my interviews/research etc. on Monday once I am fully up to speed on what is needed on these current files. This I can do. However, with 10 working days to do it all, I am not happy with the idea that 22 files are out there I can't even read much less work on. I take great pride in the quality of my work. I work fast. I am willing and able to work long hours and weekends when necessary (nice paychecks btw when I do that).

So I have fired off a note to my boss and am going back to work on what I have. By the end of the day at least 20 files will be annotated as to who I need to contact, what information I need, and what research I need to do online to make sure that the story is written well. Monday I start on that and pray. I plan to hand enter only the file I most currently will be working on in the hope that somewhere along the line this mess gets fixed and I won't have to do all of them.

Grrrr......I don't need this.

I am So Excited

As many of you know, I am very political. I generally have an opinion on almost everything. Today I was listening to CNN when Jack Cafferty asked what we thought that the new embassy in Iraq, which has had huge overruns, has now had its opening postponed indefinitely. He asked what that said about the Bush administration.

I dashed off a response. Of course I didn't think to keep a copy of it. I just heard my entire comment read on CNN during the Situation Room. I was so excited. So I started dinking around with my mail program and found the original comment. Here it is:

"That boondoggle of an embassy will stand as a permanent monument to George Bush's ineptitude, and the failure of his policies in Iraq. It was started with inadequate knowledge and planning, carried out without oversight and apparently without a master plan for success, and in the end will stand empty as a hollow tribute to everything that went wrong over there. Mr. Bush cannot afford to fund health programs for poor children but he has no problem dumping money down a rat hole with projects such as this."

Yeah, I know it's a very little thing, but damn.

Meet Max

This is Max. He's a hand-made stuffed dog that I am giving my granddaughter for Christmas this year. I've been alarmed over the entire toy thing with all the poison paint and other things, and I don't know what is safe and what is not.

From my point of view, all the toys that are going to be put on the shelves for us to buy this Christmas season have already been manufactured and are either in store warehouses, already on the shelves, or in transit. We know from the reports that there are going to be many more recalls before Christmas is actually upon us. For that reason I determined not to buy anything that is not made in this country this year. I will not risk the well-being of my precious granddaughter for the profits of some greedy toy company who won't even do the basic quality control one would expect of any manufacturer, but especially for those who are importing toys from third world countries where safety and quality standards are all but nonexistent.

Max isn't perfect. Then again neither is his owner. On the other hand, Max is made with a lot of love, he's soft, cuddly, washable, and he contains nothing toxic. From his yarn to his stuffing he was manufactured in this country. He is safe. To me anyway, that's a lot more important than the fact he is not entirely perfect. He looks handmade. I suppose that's because he is. Funny how that works.

Anyway, Max meet the world. World, meet Max.