Ornoth

Because they only last 45 minutes, summers in New England can get pretty busy. Take the past couple weeks, for example. Here’s a day-by-day account of the past 14 days…

17 Wed

After a regular day at work, I received a call from someone interested in buying my condo unrenovated. That was about an hour before my contractor arrived to sign the contract for my bathroom renovation, which I then put off until I had a chance to speak to my real estate agent. And an hour after that, my best friend Inna arrived from Pittsburgh to begin a two-day visit.

18 Thu

Spent the day with Inna, but also met with the real estate agent to determine whether to proceed with my renovations or not.

19 Fri

Spent the morning with Inna before seeing her off on a flight to Germany. Spent the remains of the day packing for the next day’s bike ride.

20 Sat

Spent about nine hours in the saddle, biking 130 miles from Boston to Provincetown in my annual Outriders ride (writeup). Kicked around Provincetown until my late-night ferry back to Boston.

21 Sun

One precious day of rest, which was badly needed, since I seemed to be developing a sore throat.

22 Mon

After a regular work day, ran home to change into fancy clothes for an evening cruise of Boston Harbor to celebrate my employer’s 10,000th client. Very tired from too much socializing, biking, and lack of sleep!

23 Tue

You might call this a day of rest, except that it included work, laundry, a grocery run, and packing for another bike ride. And my sore throat was getting worse…

24 Wed

I biked in to work, and after work biked out to Waltham to pick up my registration packet for the weekend’s MS Ride.

25 Thu

Led a contingent of co-workers on a 70-mile bike ride up to Ipswitch and back for Buildium’s beach day summer event (writeup). More energy-sapping socializing! Kinda scraped myself up playing beach soccer.

26 Fri

A regular work day, but it included a free, private ice cream truck as a reward for being nominated in Boston’s best places to work survey!

27 Sat

Woke up at 4am to ride down to UMass Boston, and then another 100 miles to Bourne with friends from Buildium for the Cape Cod Getaway MS Ride (writeup). Stayed overnight in a Mass Maritime Academy dorm. (Note that I said “stayed overnight”, not “slept”.)

28 Sun

Sunday’s 75-mile MS Ride to Provincetown was cancelled due to weather: 55 mph winds, record cold, and record rainfall. We got soaked to the bone just getting from the cafeteria to the bus outside that would bring us back to Boston, and I got completely and utterly drenched after riding 4 wind-blown miles from UMass back to my condo. Yes, I still had my cold, too.

29 Mon

After working half a day despite illness, Inna flew back into town for another quick visit on her return trip from Europe.

30 Tue

Took half a day to see Inna back to the airport and on a flight home, and then enjoyed a surprise four and a half hour planning meeting due to shifting priorities at work that promise to make the next few months extremely challenging.

Knowing how insane June was going to be, I intentionally left this Fourth of July holiday weekend COMPLETELY open. So now I’m enjoying napping throughout the day, recovering from my cold, being completely anti-social, and writing up some blog entries to share what’s been going on.

It was nice to have interesting things to do in June, but I’m very happy to have this brief, quiet respite at the moment.

A recent visit to the international restaurant chain Texas Roadhouse got me thinking about the evergreen topic of corporate insensitivity.

Throughout the chain, the staff are required to do a country music line dance at least once per hour they work. That’s pretty demeaning in my eyes, but secondary to something else that wigged me out even more.

And that is this: the waitstaff—who are of course being paid well below minimum wage—are required to wear tee shirts that say “I ♥ my job!”

I haven’t known many waitpersons who truly loved their jobs. In fact, most of them were waiting tables because they were trying to keep their heads above water financially and didn’t have any other marketable skills. I can’t imagine many of them would agree with the sentiment expressed by the corporate sloganeering that Texas Roadhouse employees are forced to wear.

Aside from being an intensely new low in demeaning the working class, the thing that irks me here is the amazing myopia or hubris of a corporation that thinks it has the right to assert an individual’s personal opinion and display that opinion publicly. It’s a violation of the employee’s privacy and the separation of one’s work life from one’s personal life.

There’s no meaningful legal difference between those tee shirts and a company putting out a television commercial that shows photographs of employees claiming that they voted for a particular political party or that they support a particular political position. And it’s a very short road from there to requiring that employees look, speak, act, buy, and vote according to the corporation’s demands.

Lest you think that’s a ridiculous assertion, consider that many employers already expect that employees will promote the company’s marketing efforts in social media by using their personal Facebook and Twitter accounts.

What gets lost amidst all this corporate interference in people’s personal lives is that employment is a mutual agreement which is supposed to be in both parties’ interest, and that corporations should both ask and compensate employees for their sacrifices.

In the past, we saw how the labor market changed when corporations transitioned from a lifetime employment model to employment at will. When the corporate world unilaterally decided that company loyalty to the employee was outmoded, they eventually learned that they could no longer assume they would receive the same level of employee loyalty to the company in return. In short, loyalty—like everything else in the employer-employee relationship—is a two-way street.

Now that companies are finding new ways to assert control over their employees’ personal lives, they need to realize that if the company expects to intrude on an employee’s personal life, they also need to make room for the full reality of that employee’s personal life.

Unfortunately, that’s something most companies have yet to learn. I have a friend who is a software engineer. When his company asked its staff for ideas about how employees could further promote the company, he suggested that the best way he could contribute would be to post to a company-sponsored engineering blog, where he could discuss the technical details of some of the innovative work his team had done, giving the company some free credibility in the engineering community.

Needless to say, corporate leadership didn’t want anything to do with promoting the skills and reputation of its engineering team, for fear of losing them to other employers. As a result, my friend’s willingness to promote corporate marketing efforts on his personal Facebook and Twitter accounts—as well as his overall sense of loyalty to the company—have both been correspondingly lowered. Edit: And a few months later, he left the company.

Employment is a transaction which is supposed to be equitable and of mutual benefit. The perpetual efforts of corporations to wrest every last ounce of value from their employees, usually without offering fair compensation, has impact on employee loyalty and retention that is obvious, but which most companies utterly fail to consider.

Texas Roadhouse’s requirement that waitstaff wear tee shirts that say “I ♥ my job!” doesn’t make me want to work there. In fact, quite the opposite: I’m moved to deep sympathy for their staff, who have to work in such a demeaning and humiliating environment created by their overbearing and insensitive employer.

Another gem from work.

We’re looking to hire a senior frontend developer. I was given a resume that came in via a headhunter and was asked to comment on it. After eyeballing it, I went to the candidate’s portfolio site.

The third item on his web portfolio looked kind of familiar. In fact, it was one of my company’s primary sites. Wow, that’s quite a coincidence!

The accompanying writeup stated that “Working as an Independent Contractor and given a visual design and graphic file, I hand coded the following Web page mock-up using XHTML and CSS for a newly designed Web site’s home page.”

Naturally, that piqued my curiosity, so I did some investigation. The page he produced “as an Independent Contractor” was actually nothing more than a tech test we used to give to prospective frontend candidates.

That’s right: candidates. This was not work that he was ever paid for, there was never any pretense it would be put into production, nor was his work good enough to earn a job offer the first time around.

And clearly he has no chance in hell of landing the same job a year later, based on (1) his willingness to lie about his experience, and (2) the fact that one of his highest accomplishments is completing a tech test from a job interview.

Come on buddy… Get a job.

Just a quick note to observe the 25th anniversary of both the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster… and my professional career.

The Challenger disaster is one of the few news events where I recall exactly where I was. At twenty minutes before noon on January 28 1986, I was at work.

Although I hadn’t finished my undergrad at UMaine, I had just begun working as a software engineer for the university’s parking, police, and fire departments, which were all housed in one old farmhouse on the edge of campus.

My Televideo 925 mainframe terminal was located just outside the police chief’s office, and when the news broke about the shuttle’s disintegration one minute into its flight, the chief called everyone into his office to watch the event on the television that he usually used for videotapes or presentations.

Three months earlier, in October of 1985, I had been fired from a job slinging sandwiches at 7-Eleven because I had actually read the manual on how to operate the cash registers. My buddy Mike Dow was doing database work for the parking department and brought me in to assist, since he and I had already done some volunteer work together on CSNEWS, one of the internet’s earliest information services. But the Public Safety gig was my very first paid programming job.

For that reason, the Challenger disaster is inextricably linked with the beginning of my professional programming career. A career which has now officially spanned twenty-five years.

It’s been quite a ride, but I won’t indulge in reminiscing about all the good and bad times along the way. I’ll simply say that I’ve learned a lot, developed valuable skills, had a lot of satisfying successes, made so many great friends, and had a ton of fun. It’s enough to make an unemployed guy want to go back to work!

But today isn’t about all those things. It’s really more about just taking a minute to say: Wow, twenty-five years!

Huh. I was sorting through an electronic pile of refuse when I came across this little gem I wrote. Not sure how long ago.

Core values: corporations who think they’re important love them. Little do they know that in most cases they’re actually the kiss of death.

Think about it. When corporate leaders formulate a list of the company’s core values, they rarely think about how their employees actually behave; usually they’re thinking of how they *wish* their staff behaved. Even the guys and girls in the corner offices who are aware that there’s a difference between the two shrug it off, thinking it should inspire their workers and give them a lofty target to aspire to.

But when you are a worker bee and every day you see people violating the “core values”, then you come to have a lot of disdain and even contempt for that list and the people who dreamed it up it on their two-week Caribbean offsite. That attitude rapidly spreads throughout a company, and very effectively de-motivates even the most bushy-tailed college recruit.

What’s the alternative? How about taking a good, honest look at your company culture before etching those lofty values in brass? Make your values descriptive, not proscriptive. Maybe you’ll wind up with a core value of “We try to help our clients, even though they frustrate the hell out of us sometimes”. It’s not exactly a call to excellence, but at least it’s accurate, and that’s a lot less harmful than when a veteran shows the plaque to an eager and gullible new hire and says, “Yeah, we really don’t do that shit. Some manager just made those up.” I remember finding one such brass plaque at my first job, discarded on the floor in a storage closet.

In consulting, probably the single most important thing you learn is to manage people’s expectations. You always strive to under-promise and over-deliver, because doing more than someone expects makes you look like a hero, and doing less than someone expects causes doubt, mistrust, and contempt.

What surprises me is that senior managers never apply that expectation management lesson to corporate core values. Most companies set lofty, unattainable values that they never live up to, ensuring that any employee who believes in the core values winds up disappointed, crushing any enthusiasm they might have had. While the “leadership team” sits in the boardroom and wonders why they have morale issues despite the awesome core values the company stands for.

So if your company starts talking about core values, take a very careful look at whether they’re descriptive or wholly proscriptive, because the latter are guaranteed to cause trouble.

Funny how someone can get through consulting craft class, and still give a website walk-thru to a client CEO with “strippers Boston” sitting prominently as left over input in his browser’s Google search toolbar.

I told you about the Death Flight from Hell, right? Well, wash, rinse, repeat.

Actually, it wasn’t that bad. Yesterday’s American Eagle ATR 72 flight from San Juan to St. Thomas boarded about half an hour late because allegedly (a) they were late getting in from their previous flight, and (b) they had to go through customs.

Eventually we get to the runway and start rolling and… oh, an indicator light came on. We aborted takeoff. Again. Boy, doesn’t that sound familiar? We’ll just taxi back to a holding area and wait for half an hour while the pilots try to diagnose the problem.

No, that didn’t do it, we have to go back to the “gate”—actually a portable generator sitting alone out on the tarmac, a quarter mile from the terminal—and have a mechanic come on board to look at it.

Another half hour passes before the pilot comes on and says, in effect, “Well, we’re not sure why, but it works now. But if it comes on again, we’re going to ignore it. After all, it’s nothing safety-related… just the control of the flaps. Your safety is our top concern here at American Eagle.” Yeah.

So we taxi out to the runway, and wait. We’re number two to take off, but we’re sitting there for about fifteen minutes before the pilot turns back to the gate. The loudspeaker informs us that after all that sitting around, they happened to notice that the plane doesn’t have enough gas for the 20-minute flight to St. Thomas, and we need to go back to fill up.

More waiting! Brill! At least there was interracial lesbian schoolgirl action going on a couple rows ahead of me. Welcome to the islands!

From that point on, things actually went pretty well. We took off, and despite heavy rain, the short flight wasn’t too bumpy, and the landing was reasonably—and surprisingly—smooth. We got in late, but safe; although the sheer number of glitches makes me very happy that this was the last flight I’ll have to endure on American Eagle for a long, long time.

In December I spent a couple weeks in Columbus Ohio, scoping out a new project for work. But things got kind of quiet after that, so the holidays made for a nice little break.

However, you knew that would end. The consulting business usually picks right up again in January, and I was quickly staffed to another project, since the Columbus gig didn’t need my specific skill set.

So yesterday I flew to the client site. Did I mention that it’s on St. Thomas, in the US Virgin Islands? Yeah. That’s a good 500 miles further south than Miami, yanno.

The flight from San Juan to St. Thomas was particularly interesting. I’ve been on small planes before—most notably when I commuted from Boston to Scranton Pennsylvania in 2006—but this one took the cake: an eight-seat Cessna 402. It was the pilot, me, and one of my coworkers, and we sat right behind the pilot. Others who have taken that flight have been allowed to sit in the copilot’s seat! I got some real dramatic video footage of takeoff and landing, which I might share later, and we had a great view of the islands, since we never climbed above 3900 feet during the 30-minute flight. When we de-planed, it felt like we ought to have tipped the cabbie for the ride. The van we rented in St. Thomas could hold more people than the plane we arrived in! Really!

At least in theory, it’s a consultant’s dream to work the winter months on a Carribbean island. And, to be honest, what I’ve seen of the island so far is nice: beachside bar at the hotel, huge looming mountains just inland, swaying palms, and 80° F, of course. Nice change from last week in Boston, when it was just 7 degrees, or -9° F if you take the wind chill into account. Fun. I will conveniently ignore the fact that today Boston set an all-time record high of 66° F. Figures!

On the other hand, I am and have been sick as a dog. I could feel a cold coming on all last week, and it really took control Friday night. I spent the weekend shooting golf ball-sized balls of crap out of both my lungs and sinuses. I travelled anyways, since I thought I’d turned the corner on this thing, but the four-hour flight from Boston to San Juan was a major trial. The cabin temperature was kept at a steady 95° F, which meant I spent the whole day fighting nausea. And last night my throat hurt so badly that I couldn’t swallow, which limited me to about three hours’ sleep. Euhh. Zombie Ornoth. Hopefully tonight’ll be better, but indications aren’t good so far.

The other negative is that the project seems like it’ll be pretty strenuous. Euhh. But so far, so good. If I was healthy, this’d actually be pretty fun.

Photos and more stuff will be forthcoming, I’m sure, but give it time.

Time for a quick general update. Things have been pretty good of late.

On the work front, I’m not at the client site anymore, which is really nice. Still working for that big lingerie retailer, which is mostly okay. The other day I learned what a tanga is. Sadly, not through a hands-on demonstration.

And I’ve changed roles on the project from business analyst to UI engineer, which is great; I like to balance my work experience between business, creative, and technical roles/tasks.

Got my first performance review last week. It was pretty glowing, which is gratifying, considering I was instrumental in pulling this project out of the hole it had dug itself. The few criticisms I received were mostly about how we as a team could have better handled a couple issues, rather than any individual shortcomings, which was also encouraging.

Being at the home office also means I can go down to the Haymarket to buy produce on Fridays, which has really surprised me. Last week was typical: I got 10 limes, 6 bananas, and a quart of strawbs for $4; the limes alone would have cost me $10 at the grocery store in my neighborhood! The savings at Haymarket is just ludicrulous, and I’ve been eating a whole lot more produce lately as a result.

The other thing I’ve done for work is recreate an improved version of the foosball ranking application that we used to run at my last job. It runs off the Elo ratings system that’s used in ranking chess players, so it has a bit of advanced maths to it, but it also lends a bit more credibility. I’m pretty happy with it, and so far it’s been pretty popular with the boys at work.

A week or two ago I got an email out of the blue from a nonprofit that wants to use one of my photos for a member mailing, and potentially have me do a multi-location photo shoot for their website. Paid! Granted, I’m not gonna charge much at all, both because they’re a nonprofit and I can use it to build up my portfolio. And it’s got me learning about how to price photos and effectively negotiate copyright rights. So that’s very cool, but it doesn’t deserve more press than that until it’s a done deal. It’d be sweet to be able to say I’m a paid photographer, in addition to being a paid writer and award-winning poet!

Bought new luggage, too. I liked my old red wheeled Kenneth Cole duffel, but the fabric had torn, so it needed to be replaced. It only survived the trip to Las Vegas thanks to copious last-minute application of Gorilla Tape. I couldn’t decide between the larger or the smaller Samsonite wheeled duffels, so dang, I bought ’em both, and still paid half of what one Tumi bag would have cost. And they’re a very pretty royal blue, which makes me happy.

Went to the dentist for… uh… the first time since I was laid off by Sapient. I have to go back in a couple weeks for xray results and a real exam, but the hygienist seemed to think things were actually very good. I’d been fearing much worse.

My assistant editor is preparing and sending out the next issue of DargonZine. It’s wonderful that I don’t have to, although he’s taking his time at it for someone who set a goal of getting nine issues out this year. Still, I don’t envy him; it’s not bad when you know the process, but it’d be quite involved for someone not familiar with how it’s done and the dozen or so technologies behind it.

There’s a mess of health and bike stuff to talk about, but it’s all going to go into ornoth_cycling, where it belongs.

Except for this one comment. By the end of this year’s PMC ride, I’ll have raised around $26-$29k for the Jimmy Fund. Thinking about that, it’s kind of staggering. That’s enough money to buy a pretty decent car, or pay $1200 per month in rent for two years. It just staggers me that my friends have been so incredibly generous. Then you think about the 5,000 other people who ride each year, who have similar fundraising stories, and you get an idea of how massive an impact the PMC has on the Dana-Farber’s ability to advance the state of cancer treatment and prevention.

That’s a great thing to be a part of, and a nice note to end on.

Here’s the assertion: your brain wants a rough balance of activity and rest.

If your brain has to work really hard most of the time, it has a tendency to seek out quietude when it can. If you’ve ever worked in a high stress position, you know how precious “down time” can be. On the other hand, if your brain doesn’t get enough exercise, perhaps it becomes restless. Once you reach a certain level of boredom, you start looking around for things to occupy your mind.

Let’s start with that latter state. I’m going to kick around the idea that “creativity” (in general) may be a symptom of your brain looking for things to occupy it. If you have the spare mental energy to noodle on things and wonder about this or that, you’re more likely to produce stuff we’d call “creative” than if your brain is overwhelmed and working hard all day. No?

The reason why I say this is because I think that the converse explains some things I’ve seen in myself. When I’m slammed at work and putting in twelve-hour days, the last thing I can imagine is sitting down and writing a story or designing a web site, even when I happen to find myself with ample time on my hands. But those are exactly the things that motivate and excite me when I’m not challenged at work and there are few demands on my limited attention.

Is “creativity” a symptom of your brain searching for something interesting to do? Does intense, focused work sap your brain of the desire or the impetus to create? I’m curious about others’ experience.

I’ve struggled in recent years to justify my self-perception that I’m a creative person. I rarely find time these days to write fiction, take pictures, or design web pages, and when I do… I keep finding myself stymied by a complete lack of creative energy or inspiration.

Should I attribute that to creative burnout from a very stressful career? Or is it just that I have become less creative with age? Or should I resign myself to the idea that I’ve never been a very creative person, since even my prior successes were mostly derivative in nature?

Whatever the cause, these days my brain seems to be less willing to jump into creative pursuits, but very attracted to just turning off the internal discourse and letting my mind just rest.