Hey, working from 8 ’til 8 doesn’t seem so bad when you worked from 8 ’til 10 the day before.
[tags]sleep, work[/tags]
Category: Work
I am prepeparing to kick your ass.
From the Globe and Mail: Going forward, rise up against crapspeak
Recently, a decree went around to local authorities in England and Wales – town and county councils, mostly – from the body that governs them, forbidding use of a long list of popular crapspeak terms. The Local Government Association sent out a list last week of 100 “non-words” for councils to avoid. According to The Associated Press, the list exhorted government officials to replace “revenue stream” with income and to avoid cryptic code words such as “coterminosity,” meaning an overlap of administrations. “Stakeholder engagement” can easily be replaced by “talking to people,” the chairman of the association said.
Almost simultaneously, a writer for the BBC’s online magazine posted a rant about the mindless cheeriness of the most popular catchphrases in business. Lucy Kellaway is on a campaign against “going forward” in particular, which, as we have noted, is used by every inarticulate person who wants to make some reference to the future. She accuses business folk, with their optimistic blue-skying and reaching out, and leveraging, all their synergies and passionate commitments to visions, of being brainlessly upbeat. “All the celebrating, the reaching out, the sharing, and the championing, in fact, grind one down,” she writes. “The reality is that business is the most brutal it has been for half a century.”
I couldn’t agree more. I hate having to listen to this every day. Actually, “going forward” might be one of the most egregious examples, along with “leverage” and “touch base offline.” Those make me want to claw my own ears off.
[Inspired by Currency Tim]
[tags]crapspeak, globe and mail[/tags]
Currently…
reading: The Angel Riots by Ibi Kaslik and Strategic Management: An Integrated Approach by Charles Hill and Gareth Jones. Eye Weekly and Now Magazine every Thursday. Toronto Life once a month.
listening to: Saul Williams by Saul Williams, though any minute now I’ll move on to Death Cab For Cutie‘s Narrow Stairs or Visiter by The Dodos.
watching: almost nothing. I’m paying only marginal attention to sports (go Pens! go Celts!), The Office and 30 Rock are done for the season and The Shield hasn’t started yet. All that’s on right now is Battlestar Galactica, and even that’s on 2-week hiatus.
scanning: 190 news feeds, averaging about 509 articles per day. Of course, these are only my personal-interest feeds; I have just as many work feeds. I mainly skim the headlines here, and pay attention to maybe 50, flagging 5-10 to read later.
browsing: 6-7 websites per day. I rarely have a need to visit particular websites now (see ‘scanning’, above) but a few are applications (e.g., Google Analytics) or snapshots (e.g., the weather) that don’t work in an RSS channel. There’s also Bruce MacKinnon’s editorial cartoon every day which, despite my best efforts, I cannot wrangle into a Yahoo Pipe. Again, this is personal-interest only; there’re other work sites.
running: 3-4 times per week, 3 miles at a time. On a treadmill. Half flat, half slight incline.
eating: penne with sundried tomato pesto. Well…an hour ago, anyway.
looking forward to: our rockies/BC trip in June; Euro 2008; visiting Nova Scotia twice in August, once to visit with family and once to wrap up the MBA.
wondering: why the hell I started writing this blog post in the first place.
[tags]angel riots, ibi kaslik, toronto life, saul williams, death cab for cutie, narrow stairs, dodos, visiter, google reader, bruce mackinnon, yahoo pipes, euro 2008[/tags]
Things I realized today
- Quickest way to make friends with the neighbourhood homeless guys: take pictures outside at night. Like moths to a flame.
- I can write a 4-page marketing assignment in one day if I need to, even if I couldn’t possibly care any less about it.
- Enough people listen to the request show on my old home town’s community access radio show via the web that the server was choppy. Also: requesting Nicole Atkins and The Thermals will probably confuse the locals; they did come hot on the heels of a request for “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” by Poison. Thanks for playing them anyway, Andrew.
- Seeing the Canadiens finish first in their conference is surreal. The last time this happened was 1989, and I wasn’t even that into hockey yet (it hit me two years later), so it didn’t mean that much. Now, after watching them struggle for so long, it’s just…weird. Nice, but weird. Come Wednesday (or Thursday?) I’ll be so amped up I won’t care about my next marketing assignment.
- I’d pay somebody $100 if I didn’t have to go to work tomorrow.
- It may have been 11 degrees somewhere in the city, but down here by the waterfront, t’wasn’t.
[tags]parrsboro, nicole atkins, thermals, canadiens, toronto weather[/tags]
Today
Today is St. Patrick’s Day. I do not care about this so much since I’m about as Irish as pineapple, and my tolerance for drinking cheap draft in crowded bars is pretty much down to nil. However, a shocking number of people (many of whom I know for a fact are not Irish in any way, shape or form) are wearing green today, so maybe this is a bigger deal than I thought. Having grown up in a place named New Scotland, in a non-drinking family, the importance of March 17 may have been lost on me.
Today I am 89% of the way through my MBA. I have 157 days left. If the entire program were put on the timeline of a single day, it would be about 9:22 PM. I am officially phoning it in at this point.
Today my brother is in town again. He was here just last weekend; I guess he really missed the place. Anyway, we had a bite and a couple of pints at Smokeless Joe last night (I believe we have now taken pretty much everyone we know there) and he’s off to meetings today and tomorrow. Soon he’ll know the city better than we do.
Today’s it’s cold again, which is deflating after the semi-warm day we had on Saturday. Supposed to be above freezing & rainy tomorrow and Wednesday, which bodes well for removing some snow.
Today I’d like to be working for VanCity, like my friend* William Azaroff. He got to meet Muhummad Yunus and he does some cool stuff at work.
Today is gonna be the day that they’re gonna throw it back to you. By now you should’ve somehow realized what you gotta do. I don’t believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now.
* It feels odd to call him that, since I’ve never met him in person, but rather have communicated only a few times over email and phone. Still, blogs & Facebook & Twitter give a strange sense of familiarity. Hmmmm…there’s a whole other blog post simmering there…
[tags]st. patrick’s day, mba, smokeless joe, toronto weather, william azaroff, vancity, muhummad yunus, oasis, wonderwall[/tags]
With my feet in the air and my head on the ground
Sorry internet, I’ve been too busy to blog lately. Work is devouring most of my time, so it’s probably a good thing I’ve dropped any pretense of putting effort into the MBA. Also, daylight saving time is wreaking havoc on my brain-clock, making it hard to keep up with my usual distractions. Thus, you shall get brief notes instead of piercing insights.*
- I don’t really know how two Kara Keith songs ended up in my inbox, but I like the songs I’ve heard so far. I suspect I downloaded them via Chromewaves.
- The last time Montreal was first in their conference this late in the season was 1993, which was also the last year they won the cup. I’m just sayin’. Weird thing about that year, though; they wound up finishing third in their division (let alone conference) behind Quebec and Boston, both of whom were powerhouses, and then won the cup.
- Last night we took the cats to the vet (which I kind of enjoyed, ’cause it gave me an excuse to leave work at 5) and found out that Sonny, the one we refer to as “fatty”, “fat boy”, “sir fatness”, etc. has lost weight. He’s now a sleek, slim 17 lbs. I guess all those nights of threatening to kill him as he howled for food have paid off.
- Thanks to ModernMod for sending me the Frames‘ cover of “Where Is My Mind.” I’ve been listening to it constantly.
- My toe is…well, weird. It’s still the color of violent rage, but it’s not hurting. I ran two miles on it this morning, in brand new shoes, and hardly felt anything. This is my first broken pinky toe so I’m not really sure whether this is standard, and just ask me if I can be arsed to look anything up on WebMD.
* as if you ever get piercing insights here.
[tags]kara keith, montreal canadiens, fat cats, the frames, where is my mind, broken pinky toe[/tags]
A confederacy of dunces
Had dinner and a quick drink with CBGB last night at Volo. I needed to unwind after a long week at work (which isn’t done yet…see below) and a quiet, snowy evening with some friends and tasty beer was a proper way to do it.
.:.
Before I sacrifice what’s left of this weekend on the altar of work and the MBA, I thought I’d throw up a couple of thoughts. It may be the last you hear from me for a few days.
- This just in: Toronto city councilor Rob Ford is a screaming idiot. Not just for this latest nonsense, which shows that his approach to debate is roughly that of a six year old. The man is in the hall of fame for terrible elected officials. It’s embarrassing to live in a city where people continually vote for him.
- Holy crap…my Canadiens are leading their division! Meanwhile, here in the land of altered reality, people are still talking about the Leafs making the playoffs.
- I find this map of religious majorities in America very interesting. Anyone know of a Canadian version? [via Richard Florida]
- I’d used Bloomex a few times for flower delivery and thought they were ok, but they messed up my most recent order — and the customer service followup — something fierce. Luckily Nellie’s an understanding wife who doesn’t demand flowers on/near Valentine’s Day, and so she just laughed it off. I won’t bother going through all the details; I’ll just leave it at this: do not, under any circumstances, use Bloomex. The service they gave me was truly one of the worst customer experiences of my life, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. It didn’t cause me harm or anguish or anything…it was just staggeringly, monumentally incompetent. Avoid them at all costs. Warn your friends.
.:.
Guns scare me. Texas has adopted the “castle doctrine,” which means you’re now justified in shooting someone if you feel threatened in your home; there’s no longer much expectation that you take reasonable measures to avoid the threat. You can just shoot it. Some have gone vigilante and extended this to their neighbourhood, like this guy who shot two men in the back because they robbed the house next door, despite the imminent arrival of police and the pleas of a 911 dispatcher.
Militarism scares me. When the Chief of Defence Staff says democratic debate on Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan is emboldening the terrorists to attack our troops, it reeks of the same low scare tactics we’ve heard from the United States in recent years. As POGGE put it when this story came out last week, “I think we’ve just been told to shut up and salute.”
American military integration scares me. While a recent deal struck between Canada and the US is intended to let troops from either country cross the border in case of a civil emergency, the potential ramifications of misuse are staggering. There was also no debate on the topic — the deal was signed a week before the story broke — which strikes me as unusual and troubling. This could be a very big help in an actual emergency, or a very ugly tool used for political/military purposes.
[tags]bar volo, rob ford, montreal canadiens, toronto maple leafs, bloomex, castle doctrine, joe horn, rick hillier, american military integration[/tags]
So I says to Mabel, I says…
It sucks seeing your weekend disappear before it even arrives. I’ve been working too late every night this week to get anything done on my marketing assignment, which is due Monday, and that means I’ll have to knock the whole thing off this weekend. I hope it’s not long. Or difficult. Or worth much.
.:.
For the second game in the row the Canadiens came back from a big deficit, even taking the lead in the third period, but they gave up two quick goals and lost to the Penguins. What they are doing is not good for my heart, people.
.:.
All these wacky hours is also hurting my music-listenin’. Right now this is what I have waiting in the music inbox:
- annuals . be he me
- devotchka . little miss sunshine soundtrack
- duke spirit . neptune
- ladyhawk . shots
- rebekah higgs . rebekah higgs
- siberian . with me
- sigur ros . hvarf-heim
- sigur ros . svarf
- silver mt zion . 13 blues for thirteen moons
- sons and daughters . this gift
[tags]canadiens, penguins, annuals, devotchka, duke spirit, ladyhawk, rebekah higgs, siberian, sigur ros, silver mt zion, sons and daughters[/tags]
Day three of the plague
Yea and verily, this cold is kicking my ass. I had to stay home again today; even if I could summon the energy and concentration to do my job today, I’d just make everyone else sick. I can still get some more basic work done here this afternoon, but I need to find a way to get functional by tomorrow. Can’t miss three days in a row.
I’m sure some people would think I’ve gotten sick like this because I’m (largely) off meat, but that’s not it. I still eat seafood occasionally, I still take vitamins, etc. If anything I probably don’t eat enough vegetables (ironic, for a vegetarian…) or fruits. The Toronto Star actually has a story today about how easy it is to be vegetarian in this city.
.:.
Speaking of my job, my title includes the word “strategy”, a term used inaccurately and far too often. I take some flak for it — I often get accused of task-oriented people of “not doing anything, just thinking about things” — which doesn’t bother me, but it does start me wondering if what I work on is really strategy.
That depends largely on the role description, I suppose, and I won’t go into that here, but I read an interesting article last week by Penelope Trunk (aka The Brazen Careerist). In it she states that people inclined to think strategically are (Myers-Briggs personality type) typically INTJs.
The best thing you can do for your career is take a personality test to understand your strengths. If you are an INTJ you really are a strategist. If you are not an INTJ, the fewer letters you have that match that, the further away from strategist you are. So get some self-knowledge before you declare yourself a strategist.
I am, in fact, an INTJ — I was an ISTJ in university when I first took the test but a few years ago came out INTJ — so while this may not mean much in itself, and I would never refer to myself as a “strategist”, it does help to reassure me that I am, in fact, in more or less the right field of work. Which is, you know, nice.
.:.
I haven’t used Schmap.com myself, and until Monday I’d never heard of the site, but whoever they are they decided to use one of my Flickr pictures for one of their new Paris guides. It’s a shot taken in Place des Vosges, for their Marais neighbourhood guide.
Of course, I can’t take any credit whatsoever for the shot; Nellie took it, just as she took all of the best shots from our trip to France. The girl has an eye.
[tags]vegatarian, strategy, myers-briggs, intj, schmap, paris, marais, place des vosges[/tags]
Happy holidays, everybody!
A work day that was supposed to end at noon actually didn’t end until after 3:00, but that’s ok. It wasn’t exactly a tough one. I had one little errand to do in Yorkville, and it took about 15x longer than it should have, but I pretty much expected that.
.:.
Ah, the Liquor Dome. Craptacular then (by which I mean my university years), craptacular now.
.:.
R.I.P., Oscar Peterson, a true Canadian music legend.
[tags]liquor dome, oscar peterson[/tags]
Skirl | Dan Dickinson 