Category: sigh

Oh So Very Subtle

First posted here almost three years ago and it turns out it’s still timely.

Earlier today I had a long and spirited conversation with my boss about my need to spend a small amount to better support my organization. Any budget requests are generally rejected, no matter how small. So he and I plotted ways we could still accurately categorize the costs, but make the request seem palatable.

That ability to make it subtle is harder than it looks.

____________________

From a high level meeting I attended at work, during which we had an hour long debate about a difficult and political situation regarding budgets (if you haven’t done the corporate thang, then know that nothing gets hackles raised like budget conversations).

At the end of the meeting, the Financial Analyst said to the Senior Director,

“So, do I make it so?”

“No.” He replied, sternly. “Make it subtle.”

I had to write it down, it was just too good.





Jean Luc Picard facepalm found all over the ‘net. Let me know if this photo belongs to you and I’ll add attribution or remove.


On A Mission

At the end of last week, my Big Boss (the boss who begat boss who begat boss) gave a presentation to us troops. An “All Hands” is what they call these events. “Quarterly state of the department” and stuff like that.

We have a new Very Big Boss and so Big Boss had just given him an overview of who and what we are about. The All Hands was scheduled so that Big Boss could show us what he presented. This was so we could, you know, live up to all of his promises.

As part of the presentation, Big Boss unveiled our new mission statement.

I hate mission statements. I really do.

But to his credit, Big Boss was able to take our former three paragraph run on sentence and bring it to a few lines. The lines still say meaningless things, but it’s at least easier to read.

So thinking about mission statements and writing mission statements and the sort of language mission statements use, I figured there had to be someone out there who created an online mission statement generator.

I was right. Many are actually serious affairs, trying to genuinely help business people crank out something useful. I didn’t want that. Then I stumbled across this Mission Statement Generator. It uses a slot machine interface.

Now we’re speaking my language.

First pull:

We probably should be hindering a high level of employee dignity by dedication to bribery discarding all principles.

Oooh. Bribery. I do like the idea of a mission statement that fully owns up to the magic of kickbacks in the business environment.

But then again, Mr Sarbanes and Mr Oxley to tend to frown upon such things.

Time to pull the lever again:

We are committed to providing unquestionable investor return with quality products and integrity of the highest integrity.

Ah yes, investor return always a popular phrase. And throwing quality and integrity in there….good stuff. Integrity with integrity? Sure!

Pull three:

We are dedicated to challenging world-class dynamic metamorphosis by expansion through personal goals at the highest level.

Ok, now we’re talking. “World class”…a full bag of yes! Metamorphosis! Good, good. Expansion? Who can argue with that? We’re getting close, but I think we can do better.

Last pull:

We are committed to generating the full range of our staff development with expansion through added value from the lowest level.

Ok, that’s just downright scary. I think our actual mission statement says something almost exactly like that.

Creepy when comedy blurs the line into reality.

: shudder :




Image from the fabulous Rob Cottingham and his Noise to Signal cartoons. This particular panel couldn’t be more perfect! Used under a creative commons license.


Little Miss Goody-Goody

Yesterday, after a long day of being a good corporate citizen, I climbed into The Jeep and pointed her nose toward home.

Near my office there is a very busy intersection located just near the entrance to 101. The intersection gets jammed up after work as everyone is trying to make it through at the same time. I don’t need to go on 101, but I have to pass by the entrance.

So in the busy 6:00 hour it’s all a matter of timing to get to the other side of the intersection while the light is green, hoping the other light another three blocks ahead also turns green so you don’t get left hanging out in the middle of the intersection.

Generally speaking, the local police don’t really find humor in people jamming up the intersections with their bad sense of timing and impatience.

Yesterday I just wanted to get home. I wanted some dinner and the chance to not think about work for several hours before sweet magical sleep.

As I rolled to the intersection, I looked at traffic, I weighed the odds of the light ahead turning green, and decided to go through the intersection and get in line. My front wheels made it into the lane, my back end was hanging out into the intersection.

I kept looking at the light, thinking “uh oh, this green is getting stale.” I mentally begged the other light to turn and save my bacon. As my light went yellow, I implemented evasive maneuvers. I was in the center lane, so I turned the wheel to move into the left lane, thus getting me out of the intersection.

Only problem was, there was something blocking my egress to the left lane.

A police car. With his lights on.

He had been headed the other direction and made a half u-turn, thus blocking the left lane. I looked at him, he pointed, I nodded, then pulled over to the far right lane instead, over to the curb and I stopped.

*sigh*

Then another car pulled in behind me, the guy who was ahead of me in line. Seems that nice police officer got himself a two fer one deal. A traffic ticket BOGO.

Damn. Damn. Damn.

The policeman approached the other vehicle first. I turned off my car, found my license and insurance and opened my windows to wait. I heard things like “Sir, are you aware that you….” and “…being charged with a moving violation…” on the breeze.

A moving violation? But I was standing still! Ok, I moved into the intersection. I get it.

The mind was racing: How long ago was it that I got my last ticket? Remember when I got popped by the stupid red light camera? If it was more than eighteen months ago, then maybe I can apologize my way out of this. Be calm. Be calm. Be nice to the cop. Say please and thank you. Say you are sorry. Say you misjudged the flow of traffic.

The officer brought a ticket back to the other guy, he signed it, took his copy, then drove off. The officer lingered near his police cruiser for a bit. He was on his two way radio. Must be calling in my plate.

I waited. And waited.

Finally the officer approached. I held out my documents like a sacred offering.

“Ma’am, are you broken down or something?”

“Uh, no officer. You pointed to me.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry! I just wanted you to know that I was going after that guy. You’re good. Have a nice day.”

“Oh? Thank you officer, you have a nice day too!”

Then I almost peed myself with relief. Holy. Crap.

When I told this story to The Good Man he said “you get good-kid karma points for stopping and not just driving away.”

I hope that’s true. I suspect I’m gonna need ’em.





Photo from FightSpeedingTicketsNow.com.


My Heart is in Southern NM

And I’m wearin’ it around my neck.

About a month or so ago, the internet burst forth with the story of mega-corporation Urban Outfitters (who I won’t link to) stealing Esty artist Stevie K‘s wonderfully successful “The World/United States of Love” line of jewelry.

The concept is simple yet beautiful silver pendants depicting states and countries with a tiny heart inside. Stevie makes the pendants out of precious metal clay and sells them through her tru.che Etsy store. This beautiful concept was successful enough, Stevie was able to quit her job and pursue art full time.

Since I’m no stranger to having my creative work ripped off on a much smaller scale, I was of course incensed by this blatant abuse of an artist making her way in the world with her creative work.

So I decided to support Stevie’s work the best way I could. I went to her online store and bought this:



It just arrived today.

Lovely, isn’t it? In the posting for the New Mexico pendant, the heart was placed over toward the eastern side of the state, somewhere around Portales. Well, Portales is a fine town but it’s not where my heart is at. I asked Stevie if she could move the heart more toward the center of the state, and she obliged.

My heart is in Las Cruces where my real heart resides thanks to my two beautiful godkids. I will wear this necklace with pride both for where I come from and in support of independent artists everywhere.

I notice that Stevie has put her store on pause while she catches up on orders. Apparently I’m not the only one who wanted to support an independent artist who had her ideas ripped off.

But she’ll be back. If you want to show your love of where you’re from, keep an eye on Stevie’s store.


Rasty Feline – Come here – I want to see you.

Back in 1876 I would imagine that Mr. Bell had no idea how his invention might take unify the world.

I appreciate that telephones and long distance dialing are nothing new, and yet I can still find ways to be amazed.

Since my job is global, I’m often up early in the morning to take conference calls. No matter what time of the dark night I rise, The Feline is always certain that it’s time to be fed.

It doesn’t matter if it’s actually her feeding time. She’s awake. I’m awake. Food. Now.

I usually ignore her until the clock spins around to the right feeding time, but this does not sit well with The Feline. Which means she rather vocally lets me (and The Good Man. And the neighbors) know just what’s on her mind.

I usually keep my phone on mute and I close the door to my home office to keep her out, but that does not deter the persistent one. She’ll get her snout into the gap under the door and let the vocalizations rip.

Through the magic of telephonic technology, my crabby Feline has been heard around the world. London, Singapore, Sydney, Mumbai, São Paulo, Kuala Lumpur, Tokyo, Argentina, Columbia, Sweden, France, Ireland, and more have all heard her pleas.

Two weeks ago, I was on a call with at least six vice presidents and executive vice presidents of my company. I fed the Feline early to pipe her down. I was on mute. I said very little. I made sure she was far away from this call.

Little did I know…

The second I went off mute to give my input to the executive team, The Feline had something to say.

Yes, executives of a multinational company had to hear my damn cat hollering.

Today was a first for The Feline. This morning she was heard in Kenya. Yup, all the way to Nairobi. May all those nice people in central Africa know: “I will not be ignored!!”

*siiiiiigh*

By the way…if it’s seven in the morning and you are stumbling around trying to dial Kenya with a country code of 254 and you forget to dial the 011 first…well, you talk to a really nice lady in Waco, Texas (area code 254) who wants to know why in the heck you are calling her.




Who me?



Photo by Karen Fayeth and taken with the Camera+ app on an iPhone4. Photo subject to the Creative Commons license found in the far right column of this page.