Month: June 2009

How you view the world through your own eyes

Lately, there is a lot going on in my life. Starting with some insecurity about where my job stands, given the merger. Yeah, the place where I spend most of my weekdays is like standing on shifting sands.

Then there is the economy, as I warily look at the balance of my retirement account.

Turning 40, and looking at what this next era in my life looks like (along with looking at the balance on my retirement account, ay yi yi!)

And a lot of at home personal stuff, too.

So lately, I’ve become like a broken record. I say to The Good Man, “I’m overwhelmed” when presented with a new problem. “I’m overwhelmed” when I have to make a big decision. “I’m overwhelmed,” when we try to sort out our calendar of all the events and friends and appointments and to do’s.

I had kind of a bad week last week, and by Friday I was not in a great mental place. Saturday morning, I’d had a good night’s sleep and things were better, but I was still on the verge. A couple tears over my morning pancakes and some heavy sighing over coffee.

On the way home from breakfast, The Good Man and I went to the local drug store to pick up a few items.

I was completely in my own head standing in line, just desperately wanting to get through the store and go home, be away from all of humanity. Just…shut down.

The lady in front of me in line was having some conversation with the clerk that wasn’t going anywhere, and so there I stood, rolling my eyes, waiting, tapping my foot, etc.

I listened in trying to figure out what the problem was. This elderly lady was waving a piece of paper at the probably nineteen-year old clerk, “My son needs these things, this is what I need….” she said, desperately.

The clerk was looking at her like she’d sprung a second head. “Did you call in for that?”

She replied “my son…he wrote this down just now….I need these things!”

The clerk looked at her list, “Coffeemate, that’s over in the freezer section,” he said, waving distractedly and shooing her away.

She shuffled off, muttering, “I need these things….”

I paid for my stuff, and as I left the store, I saw the woman pleading with another clerk, and getting more frustrated and disoriented.

As we walked to the car, I told TGM, “I’m worried about that lady.”

He asked me if I wanted to go back and help her.

I waffled. Sadly, most of the time, it’s better not to get involved. Best to just go on about your day. But something about this woman really got to me.

We went back inside. I didn’t see her immediately, so we went over toward the freezer section. She wasn’t there, either.

So we turned and walked a few aisles.

I found her, standing in another aisle, completely lost, eyes wide, and she was frantic. She looked about like I did the first time I entered Times Square, only way less excited and eight times as scared.

She held out her piece of paper to me and said, so plaintively, “Can you help me?”

“Yes, I can,” I said, and she visibly relaxed.

TGM and I helped her get the items on her list while and got her to the cash register. Then we took our leave and went on about our way.

But the rest of the day, I couldn’t stop thinking about that lady.

She clearly needs help, needs not to be wandering out in the world alone. She’s reached that point in her life where she can’t do it herself anymore.

I have been saying so much lately, “I’m overwhelmed,” and I am, but I’m not so overwhelmed with my life that going to a neighborhood drug store in the suburbs makes me feel wide eyed and frantic.

Maybe, seeing her terrified eyes (honestly, the look on her face is a memory that will never leave me), was like looking in a mirror for me, but it was also a wake up call.

I’m not downgrading what I’m feeling, what’s going on inside me is real, but sometimes, and this is a weird feature of human nature, having a comparison to know that one, you are not alone, and two, you could be in a worse spot, is healing.

I sure do hope that lady found her way home ok.

Office Archeology

You know, you work in an office environment for forty hours (or more) a week, and you start to become immune to your surroundings. Same gray walls, same tan carpet, same beige cubicle wall fabric.

However, when you are new, you tend to notice the odd stuff laying about, but being new, you don’t say anything for fear of sticking out like a sore thumb.

So you go along to get along…but you wonder. Oh you wonder.

Today, I had all my afternoon meetings wiped off the ol’ calendar, and found myself with some time on my hands (a very dangerous thing for a mind such as mine).

So I went on a walkabout to document some of the more puzzling items I find about my new office environment.

Put on your Indiana Jones hat and join me, won’t you, as we engage in an office archeology and sociology expedition.

Let’s just begin with the number one item that perplexes me on a daily basis.

It’s a pair of keys that go to a cable that secures a laptop against theft.

They are lying atop of a bank of filing cabinets that line a well-traveled thoroughfare at work. Meaning, these aren’t in a cube, they are actually far from anyone’s cube home, laying by the main doors to our floor.

I always ponder…WHO owns these? Do they know they are missing? Is there a laptop somewhere that is forever shackled to a piece of modular furniture with no means of escape? OH THE FUTILITY!

Seven months I’ve been here and these keys haven’t moved a centimeter. I often wonder how long they were there before I found them. Every day, there they sit.

Along the same lines of “something left on a bank of filing cabinets”, we have this:

I hear you saying, “What’s weird about that, Karen? It’s a stapler!”

Yes. Yes it is. A high capacity stapler. Yup. You could affix about 50 to 75 pages together with that big guy.

It’s sitting on a public thoroughfare, on top of cabinets that are at least chest high (and I’m fairly tall), so you can’t even get good leverage to push the handle to make the staple.

And the location is very, very far away from any copy room, copy machine, printer or other such device (it is right outside of a conference room, actually).

I mean, one of these high capacity staplers sits in every copy room. I’ve checked all the copy rooms on the floor, they all have one, so this guy isn’t lost or misplaced.

I have never seen a single person use this nice stapler.

There it sits. Lost and forlorn, unable to be useful for anyone’s stapling needs.

All alone. Maybe I should introduce it to the keys?

Ok, on to the stairwell. I happen to sit a floor above my boss and the rest of my team, so this stairwell is very, very well traveled.

Wait, what’s this?

Let’s go in a little closer, shall we?

Oh, it’s just a bit of rubbish, right? A bit of a Heath bar wrapper. Yup. What’s odd there?

One of our coworkers had a bag of mini-Heath bars in his office that was descended upon by office vultures. Sure, no biggie. Janitorial will just get that when they sweep the stairwell.

Trouble is…we haven’t had Heath bars in the office for TWO months. At least. Maybe longer. And I guess janitorial doesn’t sweep the stairwell because that bit of wrapper has been there for those two months, not moving a hair’s breadth to the left or the right.

Plus, I think it might have been me that dropped it, I’m not sure. I do remember a bad day where I was madly unwrapping and gobbling mini-Heaths as I stomped up the stairs, mad at my boss.

I keep thinking this wrapper will go away, but no, it’s become part of the landscape. (I know, I know…I *could* pick the damn thing up myself)

Ok, from the stairwell, let’s move on to the copy/supply room. Nothing odd there right? Paper products, binder clips, sticky notes, highlighters, and these:

Big deal, right? Simply those Vis a Vis dry erase pens that you use for overhead transparencies. No big deal, an office necessity, right?

Well…except that every conference room in the building has the kind of overhead projector where you hook up a laptop, not the old fashioned push a slide on there and write on it kind.

No one uses clear transparent slides anymore. As far as I can tell, they haven’t for some time here.

And we have a full stock of pens.

So you say, “oh fine, those are just leftovers”. Sure, I agree. No big deal. I took a couple packs for use at home (nice fine point pens! Yes!).

And this week, I notice the stock has been replenished.

For pens that no one uses.

Hmm.

Ok, big finish.

Despite the fact there is MUCH more that I could document here, I’ll draw to a close with the piece de resistance, the coup de gras, and some other French phrases I can’t think of but are probably fitting….

We have to go to the thirteenth floor for this one.

Here we go:

It is probably hard to see from the crappy iPhone photo, but that there is your standard office environment exit sign. But on the left of the sign is a clingy sticker thing that portrays…the bones of the human foot.

Now sure, we are a biotech company and interested in medical things…but we don’t do anything that involves feet. At all.

I have NO idea why the foot is on the exit sign or what it means? Is this some puzzle from employees past? Are they telling me to beat feet for the exit? Are they saying, “walk on!” Am I being told to think on my feet or I’ll be made to exit?

WHAT!?! What are you telling me? Speak to me, wise ancestors! I have to knooooooow!

Ok, I’m getting whipped up, so that must mean that’s enough for today’s scientific analysis.

Join us next time when we’ll explore “that stain on the cube wall” and “storage room, from dust bunnies to gold”.

Thank you, and good night.

Overheard on the elevator

Two women talking, one noticeably pregnant.

First woman: “I’m telling you, get the massage oil, have your husband rub it on your belly. It’s very relaxing and helps with stretch marks. Plus, you know, it’s very bonding.”

Pregnant woman: : cynical laugh : “Oh trust me, we’re not bonding.”

Yikes!

Stages: Circling the Drain

If you’ve worked in a corporate environment, you’ve no doubt had the opportunity to watch one of your coworkers go through the progress of becoming ever more disenchanted and eventually leaving.

Things are pretty wacky around my own employer these days. Times are strange since the merger, so we’re seeing a lot of bad behavior.

There is the coworker who, on Friday, was in the employee directory, and on Monday, wasn’t. No one knows what happened. After sixteen years at this company, he was just…gone.

There was also the senior manager guy with a whole set of direct reports who suddenly no longer has direct reports. He is listed as a peer to the people he once managed.

Weird.

Right now, I have a good friend, mentor and coworker who is going through the “stages”…he’s on the path toward “I’ve had enough!”

So with that in mind, here’s my unofficial, opinion oriented, based on experience, stages of the descent of a corporate minion.

Stage One: Grumbling.

“This place is so strange, I don’t understand why (boss) has to manage like that.” This stage is characterized by a slight uptick in the complaining about the job. I mean, we ALL complain about the job, but this is taking it to a new, higher level, with some unconvincing, “I should find a new job” statements thrown in.

Basically, the disenchanted is still in the game, still meeting deadlines, still doing the work, but is starting to think about doing something different. This is like picking at the edge of a scab, really. Just picking and picking but not serious about it. The grumbling stage includes a lot of thinking, “Can I make this work?” and “I’ve been here a long time” and “Maybe things will improve.”

Stage Two: Misbehaving.

If the grumbling progress continues, things ratchet up and become tinged with a bit more emotion. Anger, frustration and acting out become obvious. Could be an, “I can’t believe he said that” comment from a meeting where the disgruntled shot their mouth off on something, could be missing a “mandatory” all hands event, could be missing a deadline. Enough to get noticed, but not enough to get fired.

At this stage, the disgruntled begins thinking seriously about looking for another job. They usually start by looking at other open jobs within the same company. May even go so far as to navigate over to Monster.com and Craig’s List to see if there is even anything interesting outside the company.

At this stage, the disgruntled usually stops just short of actually updating their resume and, usually, aren’t happy with job opportunities found elsewhere, so they decide to hang in there a bit longer to see if things improve.

Stage Three: Actively acting out.

Characterized by coming in late consistently, leaving early, disappearing for large parts of the day, distracted in meetings, more impassioned discussion of looking for another job, and complaints about “this place,” followed by mentions of actual job openings at other companies.

Resume has been pulled up in Word, updates are being made, daily searching the job sites. Asking friends for leads. Making rumblings among close coworkers that he’s looking. Trying to find allies that are also looking, or trying to convince others to join him in the job search.

Pretty serious, but yet, could be convinced to stay with a little management intervention, a little love, a little promise of something more.

This is usually where the disgruntled invites a trusted friend to lunch offsite and runs down a list of grievances and confesses they have had it. They are looking for a job. The case is laid out, discussed, asked “do you think it will get better?” Lots of “this is ridiculous” statements issued.

Sometimes, this is where the disgruntled will receive a surprise bonus or promotion or similar, and this puts them back at state one or less…at least for a while.

So this is the stage where my friend is hovering. Actively looking, actively disgruntled, been to several offsite lunches, discussing the merits of job opportunities at other companies. Then again, we are actually due for a mid-year review and bonus, so we’ll see…..

Stage Four: Stealth.

The disgruntled is not only actively looking, he’s got a few leads. Maybe even calling in sick here and so they can go interview. Something may be happening, so it’s time to pipe down. Many people (especially boss-type people) often confuse stealth with a move back to stage one. Easily confused, certainly.

The disenchanted person may be coming in on time again, but if you look close, they aren’t really working that hard, aren’t volunteering to take on new projects, may be handing off work to coworkers. They want to leave on a good note and are feeling optimistic that something is about to change. Mood has improved. Complaining a bit less. Laughing at all the boss’ jokes.

Stage Five: Poking the Tiger.

Not everyone gets to stage five. Many people get to stage four, find another job, and leave. They leave on good terms, shake hands with the boss and go off to a new gig with a fresh look of optimism in their eyes.

Those that can’t find another job or aren’t motivated enough to find another job move into the phase where they start stirring the sh*t. Oh yes, they are too timid to actually *do* something themselves, they want someone to do it for them. Passive aggressive.

So they start actively missing deadlines and meetings and coming in late and not even pretending like they care about the work. They may even speak insultingly or say stuff that’s not cool. They openly challenge people to say something. They aren’t just picking away at the scab, they are making new wounds.

At this point, the boss may actually realize they have a performance problem on their hands, and put the disgruntled on a performance action plan. This either spurs the disgruntled to find another job…or, bad attitude continues until the end of the performance plan and the inevitable happens.

Or, some powerless bosses still won’t take action, and they let the employee keep flailing away.

Often the employee will finally just up and quit. Sometimes in a blaze of glory “this is part of company folklore” kind of way.

Sometimes, the disgruntled poking-the-tiger guy gets weary, still lacking any self-starting behavior, becomes stuck in place, and they just pipe down and keep doing the job. These people become the “retired in place” completely useless employee, the guy who just can’t get fired and just won’t quit, so he sucks down company resources until retirement.

We’ve all known one of those, haven’t we?

Rock your Vote!

Hello party people! I could use a bit of your help, please.

I participated in something called “Tweet Me a Story” contest from the great group of folks over at NYCMidnight (they do film and story contests and are a lot of fun).

This is how it works, there were 500 writers placed into 25 groups. We were all assigned a word that had to be used in a 140 character story. Each writer was allowed to enter three stories.

Judges chose the top 15 stories from each of the 25 groups, and then posted those stories online for voting.

I had the amazing luck to have two of my stories go through!

To help me out and cast your vote, go HERE or cut and paste this link:

http://www.nycmidnight.com/2009/tweet/firstround.htm

I am in Group 3 – flying

My stories are 7th down and 11th down on the list.

Or to go straight to the voting page for my group: here

You are, of course, welcome to vote for whichever stories you like…

The stories that get the top 5 votes are able to go on and compete in the next round.

Every vote counts and thank you in advance!

I am Karen Fayeth, and I approve this message. This post sponsored by the Give the Girl a Chance campaign!