Ants vs. Grasshoppers
There’s a genuine “mixed air” feeling here today at work. Because we shut down tomorrow for the holidays and won’t be back to work until January 3, half of the people have already adopted a “slacker syndrome” attitude, and are spending their day goofing off, Christmas shopping online, and enjoying one of the many potlucks throughout the building. (Hint: lots and lots of crock pots filled with meatballs.) Not much productive is getting done, to no one's great surprise.
As for the other half of the staff (the Type As, I suppose), they’re busy trying to cram as much work through the pipeline as possible, because by God, this absolutely, positively, come hell or high water has to be done before the end of the year!!! Hurry, hurry, hurry – get this done now, now, NOW!
Of course, most of it is stuff they should’ve had done months ago, and now they’re finally getting around to doing it, at the time when most people’s minds are definitely not on their assigned duties. I mean, how can you concentrate on work when there's a Midwest potluck just brimming with cheese balls and crackers a mere 30 yards away?
As you can guess, it makes for some really interesting viewing from the sidelines.
Take my little department, for example. This AM, my manager Skippy Whitebread was handed an inventory list of all of the products we have checked out from the storeroom, and was told that we need to account for each and every item on the list before the end of business tomorrow. Never mind that he’s been requesting this inventory list since June – today was apparently the magic day.
So instead of doing something productive (and leaving me alone), Skippy is all worked up, running around like the nutball he is, trying to account for every possible product in the department that might possibly have an asset tag on it. He’s currently sitting on the floor behind me, surrounded by piles of hardware and cables, trying to check items off his list. Oh, sure – he’s got plenty of regular “work” to do, if he decided to actually do some – but instead he’s making a huge mess that odds are he’ll leave for one of us poor writer schlubs to clean up.
Now, I’m willing to bet you anything that he’ll spend the rest of his day counting, fretting, checking on, checking off, and dragging all of us into his inventory hell, and then he’ll turn his forms in...and they’ll sit on someone's desk, untouched, until sometime next year. Maybe in February or so someone will pick them up, shove them in a file somewhere, and that’ll be that.
Hurry up and wait?
Feast or famine?
Nutballs – all of them?
Pick your analogy. Any one will do. Or feel free to mix and match.
We’re closing down tomorrow night for a full week, which will be nice, since I don’t have to carry the “emergency pager” this year. Truth be told, last year when I left the office I put the pager in the glove compartment of my car and left it there until I had to return to work on Jan 3. It didn’t go off once, but Skippy was insistent that “someone” have it with them the entire time, just in case a bigshot (who is also off for the week) wakes up at home on December 25 and decides that they need a document written pronto. Yeah, sure -- that’s going to happen. Right after that snowball fight in Hell we’ve all heard rumors about.
As for me, I’m trying to wrap up loose ends before our forced vacation, and I’m trying twice as hard to avoid being dragged into Skippy’s inventory game. 'Cause there aren't any winners there, and besides - I have a potluck to go find.
1...2...3. Three.
As for the other half of the staff (the Type As, I suppose), they’re busy trying to cram as much work through the pipeline as possible, because by God, this absolutely, positively, come hell or high water has to be done before the end of the year!!! Hurry, hurry, hurry – get this done now, now, NOW!
Of course, most of it is stuff they should’ve had done months ago, and now they’re finally getting around to doing it, at the time when most people’s minds are definitely not on their assigned duties. I mean, how can you concentrate on work when there's a Midwest potluck just brimming with cheese balls and crackers a mere 30 yards away?
As you can guess, it makes for some really interesting viewing from the sidelines.
Take my little department, for example. This AM, my manager Skippy Whitebread was handed an inventory list of all of the products we have checked out from the storeroom, and was told that we need to account for each and every item on the list before the end of business tomorrow. Never mind that he’s been requesting this inventory list since June – today was apparently the magic day.
So instead of doing something productive (and leaving me alone), Skippy is all worked up, running around like the nutball he is, trying to account for every possible product in the department that might possibly have an asset tag on it. He’s currently sitting on the floor behind me, surrounded by piles of hardware and cables, trying to check items off his list. Oh, sure – he’s got plenty of regular “work” to do, if he decided to actually do some – but instead he’s making a huge mess that odds are he’ll leave for one of us poor writer schlubs to clean up.
Now, I’m willing to bet you anything that he’ll spend the rest of his day counting, fretting, checking on, checking off, and dragging all of us into his inventory hell, and then he’ll turn his forms in...and they’ll sit on someone's desk, untouched, until sometime next year. Maybe in February or so someone will pick them up, shove them in a file somewhere, and that’ll be that.
Hurry up and wait?
Feast or famine?
Nutballs – all of them?
Pick your analogy. Any one will do. Or feel free to mix and match.
We’re closing down tomorrow night for a full week, which will be nice, since I don’t have to carry the “emergency pager” this year. Truth be told, last year when I left the office I put the pager in the glove compartment of my car and left it there until I had to return to work on Jan 3. It didn’t go off once, but Skippy was insistent that “someone” have it with them the entire time, just in case a bigshot (who is also off for the week) wakes up at home on December 25 and decides that they need a document written pronto. Yeah, sure -- that’s going to happen. Right after that snowball fight in Hell we’ve all heard rumors about.
As for me, I’m trying to wrap up loose ends before our forced vacation, and I’m trying twice as hard to avoid being dragged into Skippy’s inventory game. 'Cause there aren't any winners there, and besides - I have a potluck to go find.
1...2...3. Three.
posted by Tommy G at
11:53 AM
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