Category: meeting hell

And Then It Got Surreal

Yesterday I found myself sitting in the very posh office of the Chief Executive Offer (CIO) of this here organization that employs me. Our CIO is absolutely brilliant, well recognized in the IT field and is one hell of a business woman. She’s also a rather serious sort, which is fine. All business.

Somehow I’ve managed to be a good enough little employee and shown enough of my own savvy that she has been willing to invite me to some pretty high level meetings. Yesterday was one such meeting and I was damn lucky to be invited.

In the office were five of us minions from various ends of the business along with the Lady With a C Title.

The IT organization is building a very big and very key component of the business systems here at the ol’ place of employ, so we were on the phone with a third party having a fairly intense negotiation.

The building where the CIO sits is very, very old and a brand new happy IT building is being constructed as we speak. It’s going up right in front of the existing building and will be a little jewel of efficiency and network capacity. Good stuff!

The current building sits on a hill and the windows from the CIO’s office offer a spectacular view of San Francisco and even the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance. When I do get to be in her office, I always sit near one of the large windows and spectate the view.

So there we are yesterday on the call with our CIO and the CIOs from four other large organizations speaking with a third party company about this huge joint effort. My C Level exec was taking the lead on the call and right from the start, things were getting tense.

As she was speaking, suddenly I hear the “bluuuuaaaaaart!” of an air horn. The kind of air horn that an obnoxious fan might bring to a football game. I’m the sort of gal who startles easily so the air horn lifted me a quarter inch off of my seat. As my head whipped around to look out the window to see what, exactly, the frap was going on, I noticed a large bundle of rebar go floating by.

Ah, I see. The construction.

Because I am mature and a professional, I immediately wanted to start giggling like crazy. It was so surreal. “Blah, blah, blah you are not understanding our strict budget requirements…*bluuuuaaaaaart!*… : bundle of rebar floats by: ”

So I looked at my shoes, I looked at my notebook, I looked anywhere but in anyone’s eye because I was about to laugh my fool head off.

Ahem. Then I regained my composure and my serious “umm hmm” look and got back in the game.

About ten minutes later, the CIO is drilling the third party rep, “That is NOT what I told you two weeks ago, you have NOT addressed the key component of this proposal…*bluuuuaaaaaart!*…: floating rebar :”

Oh hell. I can’t keep it together. I bit the insides of my cheeks and stayed strong.

Then a scant five minutes later the third party rep, “…we can only provide this set of concessions because the way our company is positioned, the street won’t look favorably on…*bluuuuaaaaaart!*…: floating rebar : ”

I can only imagine what the guy on the phone was thinking. He had no perspective on what the air horn was about, he just kept hearing it over the line.

Which made me wonder if that wasn’t the greatest negotiation tool ever!

This third time I hazarded a look around the room and found that no one other than me seemed to be affected by the air horn blasts. They were all cool as a cucumber while I was using every tool in my arsenal to hold it together.

The fourth time was the deal breaker. It came at such an awkward moment in the conversation that all five of us minions broke down and started giggling like kindergartners. I looked around the room as we all laughed. All of us. Except the CIO.

Whoops. Ahem.

Thankfully the meeting soon wrapped up and as I took my leave, the CIO thanked me for attending and I managed to stay very serious and professional, but I chuckled all the way to the parking lot.

I may be a well-regarded professional, but that latent childhood hasn’t gone away yet. Nor do I expect it will anytime soon.

*bluuuuaaaaaart!*





Image from The Sportsman’s Guide.




You, there! Stop That!

Yesterday was quite an important day for me at work. As a still fairly new employee, I am required to complete a whole list of mandatory training courses and over the past six weeks, in addition to being thrown into the deep end of the pool on work matters, I have been finding every spare minute possible to knock my training items off the list.

Most of the subjects are online courses and can be started and stopped at will, so that helps. There are a few, however, that are required to be taken in person.

Yesterday I had to travel some distance to another building at a far flung campus in order to attend : cue very dramatic music : Safety Training.

Oh yes, I am employed by a very safety minded entity, and that’s actually quite ok. There are lots of people here who perform very dangerous work and making sure those employees are safe and looked after is of vital importance.

However, in the parlance of The Good Man, I pilot a desk for a living. So do the kind souls who are forced to report to me. This means the risk factors tend to drop off dramatically to include things like aggressive paper cuts and oh damn I tripped on the copy machine.

But rules are rules and every manager MUST take this training regardless of function.

So of course about 85% of the training class didn’t apply to me. As I sat there listening to the types of harness that can be used for overhead work and then a hearty debate about whether or not a lab worker should be required to wear safety glasses when looking in a microscope, my well documented monkey-mind took a whole other journey.

I recalled back to the very early years of my employment when I worked for Sandia Labs and as part of employment I had to take both rattlesnake and coyote training. That’s right, we had to learn to spot, avoid and deal with these common inhabitants of the New Mexican desert.

Even though I also piloted a desk back then, rattlesnake training certainly grabbed and held my attention for the duration of the seminar. Today’s detailed dissertation on eye-wash procedures less so.

So then I started thinking about other safety courses that would be fun to take. Advanced crocodile wrestling, perhaps? How about Zip Lining To Freedom for Beginners? Dog Sledding and You: How to remain the leader of the pack? Or…Golden Gate Bridge painting, how to cling to the wires on especially windy days.

C’mon! That’s actual safety! That stuff is not only cool it matters!

No, instead I learned that while typing your wrist can bend to between zero and 25% and you should be ok Carpal Tunnel-wise. More than 25% and I need to fill out a stack of forms and evidently point and taunt. (Ok, not actually on that last part but would that be fun? “Jimmy’s gonna Carpal! Jimmy’s gonna Carpal!”)

Well I can tell you, those two hours of a dry PowerPoint presentation really made a big impact on me. I’m now fully compliant and safety trained. I’ve already warned The Good Man that safety walk around of the apartment is coming soon (surprise inspection, of course). Oh yes, he and The Feline are gonna get inspected real good. “You there! That fuzzy felt mouse with one eye ripped off is just lying in the middle of hallway! Trip hazard!”

A monkey-minded woman with a little bit of knowledge is a very dangerous thing.

Next course: Surviving Life With Karen, a primer for man and beast.









Image from Clay Bennett.




Energy Good. Nerve Damage Bad.

Last week I went through several days where sleep and I just weren’t going to be friends. This happens off and on and it’s a real bear to get through.

On top of my bad sleep, I was having crazy busy days at the old place of employment. The kind of days where a little “top of my game” would sure have helped me get through the challenges.

So I was over in the building were our IT team sits because I had to deliver some documents for the signature of a Director of Important IT Things.

I was in his office kibitzing when he asked how I was doing.

“Tired,” I said. “Just trying to get through the day.”

“Here,” he replied, waving toward his bookshelves loaded with candy and snacks of all kinds, “Grab something to give you some energy.”

Among the snack packs of Cheetos and Oreos and full size candy bars was a box of 5-hour Energy drinks.

“Hey,” I said, “That’s probably what I need.” I grabbed one and shoved it in my pocket and then took off, late for my next meeting.

I’ve seen the compelling advertisements for this 5-Hour Energy stuff. The announcer promises us, the worthy consumers, that the energy boost will get us through the afternoon slump we all experience. I know quite a few folks who regularly use these little energy shots (mostly the IT boys), so I was interested.

That said, I can get the jitters from a single cup of regular coffee, so I know I have to be careful about these kinds of things. I thought maybe I could take half or something.

Later, back at my desk, I took out the bottle and flipped it over to see exactly what is inside this magical elixir of energy.

Here’s what the label says it contains: Caffeine, huge amounts of niacin, and massive doses of Vitamin B6, B12 and Folic acid.

I thought back about what I know about all of these things, as given my delicate nature, I have to really study the effects of any supplement I decide to ingest.

Caffeine…we all know what that does.

Niacin, gives you quite a flush.

And B vitamins will, in fact, hype you up.

Ok, I get what this is doing. Nothing magic here. In fact, this crap kind of worries me.

Niacin, in high doses, can bring on niacin toxicity. The label shows Niacin at 150% of RDA which while not terrible is still quite a lot.

Vitamin B6 and B12 are certainly very important vitamins, and when in deficiency can cause a variety of unpleasant issues. Most B vitamins come from food and unless people have difficulty eating or digesting food, vitamin B shouldn’t be in deficiency. Vitamin B supplements, from what I understand, should be approached cautiously. Prolonged supplement use in excessive high doses (the energy shot bottle says 2000% of RDA) can cause nerve and brain damage.

“chronic administration of 1–6 g oral pyridoxine per day for 12–40 months can cause severe and progressive sensory neuropathy characterized by ataxia (loss of control of bodily movements). Symptom severity appears to be dose dependent, and the symptoms usually stop if the patient discontinues the pyridoxine supplements as soon as the neurologic symptoms appear.”

Source.

Most people will say that Vitamin B is water soluble and so the body will excrete most of the excess dosage and it’s not that big of deal. Mostly, that’s true, especially if the excess dosage is intermittent, not daily.

Now let’s turn to the sketchy answer to the question about B vitamins in the FAQs on the 5-hour Energy website. This does nothing to make me feel better. Note that the answer moves from “minimum not optimium” and then quickly talks about caffeine instead of vitamins.

Myth: 5-hour ENERGY®contains dangerous levels of Vitamin B12, Vitamin B6 and Niacin (Vitamin B3).

Fact: The amounts of B vitamins in 5-hour ENERGY®are well within safe limits. The RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance) is the minimum (not optimum) daily amount set by the Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine. Of course, if you are sensitive to caffeine, have any medical conditions, are taking any medications, or otherwise have any concerns whether 5-hour ENERGY® is right for you please check with your physician before taking it. 5-hour ENERGY® is available in a Decaf version which has only 6mg of caffeine – about as much as a half cup of decaffeinated coffee.

Source

Um, why are they talking about a decaf version when the question is about excess vitamins? Sketchy.

So I’m thinking this energy stuff may be ok every once in a while, but what about these people who use it every day? And several times a day?

Yikes.

Anyhow, we’re all big kids and can make our own choices. For me, that little bottle of 5-hour Energy drink is still sitting on my desk, untouched. No plans to down that bad boy anytime soon.









Photo Copyright 2012, Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons license in the right column of this page. Taken with an iPhone5 with terrible office florescent lighting and the Camera+ app.




Is It Better To Have Loved and Lost?

I’m not so sure.

Oh! Yeah, I’m not talking about romance or relationships. I’m talking about vacation.

I had a glorious, fabulous, amazing week in the city of New York. I loved, I laughed, I ate until I saw blue spots in front of my eyes. We walked and walked, saw multiple Broadway shows, had a few cocktails and generally had one hell of a good time.

It was a MUCH needed vacation. I’m pretty bad about taking more than a couple days of vacation here and there. This was the first full week with plans and events and turning off work email that I’ve had in a long time. In fact I can’t remember the last time…

Today, now, is Tuesday. My second day back at work.

Brutal. There really is no mercy in the flow of work. I mean, I can dip out of the ever forward charging machine, and then upon returning I have to run to catch up and hop back on.

In the weeks leading up to the week off, I had widely publicized my upcoming vacation to all who would listen. This was a strategy to make sure everyone knew, to head off any surprises, and to assert that no one should bother me while I was out.

It worked pretty well. I had no calls or even a text message while I was on holiday. Awesome!

However, what that also meant was everyone I work with delayed all meetings for the week I was out. Great! Right?

Every missed meeting was then plopped all over my Monday and Tuesday.

Back to back to back to back to back meetings for two days straight.

In fact, I’m writing this while on a conference call. It’s a dull call and my attention isn’t needed at the moment.

So I decided to take this moment to whine. Or whinge as the Brits might say.

Is it better to have vacated, then come back and drown? Struggling with work life knowing how great it was last week (and missing it terribly)?

Or is it better to just slog on without vacation and never know truly how good it can be. Ignorance is bliss?

Meanwhile, I have a wicked craving for a piping hot knish and a real pastrami sandwich.

Oh, and an egg cream made with Fox’s U-Bet syrup. (the good stuff).

None of these things I can get with any quality here in the Bay Area.

*sigh*







Image from JamesCampbellTaylor.com.




In The Small Hours

Recently a new meeting appeared on my calendar at work. It’s a new group and a “core team” for an emerging and rather exciting new project that crosses many functional teams. Many global teams.

It’s a good sign that I was invited to the table and I take it as the step forward that it is.

However.

The meetings are set for 7:00 in the morning once a week in order to accommodate as many time zones as possible. Seven in the ayem. I rarely like rising by seven in the morning, much less well before so I can rise and feed the cat and get dressed and drive to work in order to be there by 7:00am.

That said, I find these early mornings to be a little odd and endearing. As much as I hate rising before the sun, those wee hours are also sort of fascinating.

This morning I stepped through the door from my building into the damp morning air. A fairly thick fog lay hugging the pavement as streetlights lit it with an ethereal glow. It was so quiet. Odd because in just an hour this same stretch of road will be backed up with the traffic of parents dropping their kids off at the nearby school, and punk kids walking and screaming and laughing and being obnoxious teenagers. Plus kids wailing at the nearby playground and the rumble of trucks and cars and the world coming alive.

But for these few precious moments, the world is silent. Quiet fog like the paws of a night animal sneaks and swirls through the streets.

Even with extra caution to avoid local deer and morning walkers, my usual twenty minute drive to work takes just ten and I think “hey, I’ll get to park in that one awesome parking spot right by the front door” but of course that’s not true. I’m not the only soul wandering the quiet workaday streets.

The tall multistoried edifice where I work looks imposing in the darkness. It is backlit by floodlights and the mist swirls high above the penthouse suite. The windows of the building are mirrored and in the daylight, this provides both security and uniformity. All you see is a solid wall of reflection.

In these dark hours, I can see into offices. There on the eighth floor I see an executive in his office bustling about. He looks almost frantic, pacing around the space. I suspect he is on an early call and the stress of the business day is already nattering in his ear.

I can see that lights were left on in The Big CEO office area. He has a nice office. I’ve actually been in that space, just once when he wasn’t there. I wonder why the lights are on because he’s not in there and his admin isn’t at work yet. Did someone forget and leave the lights on?

I can see multiple computer monitors on his desk and I wonder how many emails he must get in a day. Maybe it’s not that many as he has not one but two executives as direct reports. I bet they get all the email and he gets to be the “face of the company” and attends marketing events and drinks something expensive and drives something expensive and I bet he is working from home today anyway.

As my tummy rumbles I wonder if the executive suite gets breakfast catered in.

It’s too early in the morning to eat. My tummy is both hungry and nauseous. In about an hour I will be ravenous.

It’s so early that the main door to the main building is locked. During the day it’s open to all visitors and staff, but this morning I can’t actually remember where the badge reader is located. It’s not right next to the door and I recall it’s cleverly hidden in what looks like a light pole. So cleverly hidden it’s impossible to find.

I wave my badge around everywhere in the vicinity like a mad multi-limbed Shiva until I finally hear that satisfying click and I open the door and enter the lobby.

The security guard nearing the end of his overnight shift looks at me with knitted brows and doesn’t reply to my chirpy “good morning”.

It’s ok. I was faking the chirp anyway. I wouldn’t say hi to me either.

Pushing the up button to call the elevator, I’m happy to see the doors open immediately. I believe that when the elevators aren’t being used, all cars return to the first floor. It’s usually a dreadfully long wait during business hours, but not today. I ride up to my floor, stride to my office and flick on the lights. Immediately I put on my wireless desk headset and dial into the call.

And now someone in the parking lot can see me, my form bustling about my office as the stresses of the day begin to whisper in my ear. As I announce my entry to the call and greet the team, I already feel weary. I began mentally running through the day’s calendar trying to remember when I can actually leave work and head home.

I came in early so I can leave early, right?

Alas no. Pesky time zones. I have a call to an APAC country very late this afternoon.

And this is how my employers get their money’s worth out of me.




Not my building but surprisingly similar. This building is in Minneapolis. Mine is not.



Photo by drouu and used royalty free from stock.xchng.