My friend Kris burned me a CD of Vegas Video 3.0 this weekend. I didn’t want it so much for its DV-editing capabilities as for its audio multitracking. I’ve felt like composing again, for the first time in about four years — I’m planning to hook up my keyboard, and to make some drum tracks on my computer, and to sing into my built-in monitor mic, and make some generally low-fi stuff. When my first song is done, I’ll give a cookie to the first person who can name the artist whose style I’m imitating.
Assuming I ever get it done and feel OK enough about it to post it…
Today at work, Mary (the upper-middle-aged, slightly flaky one) insisted that I must still be losing weight. "How do you do it?" she asked. I felt like telling her that she only notices that I’m losing weight when I wear two particular flattering shirts to work, but I knew she wouldn’t listen. So, I told her what I’ve been doing: walking at least once a day and cutting back on sweets. That’s all I’ve successfully done, anyway. I must admit, though, that it made me feel good to know that someone thinks I look better than I did. Maybe my weight is redistributing itself as I’m losing a little at a time.
Now comes the bitchy part of today’s variegated blog entry. I know A doesn’t read my blog, so I’m going to be blunt and blatant. [Note: I did edit this after the initial post, to back off on the animosity factor. Just in case.]
A blogs at work. A lot.
Yesterday, I decided to write down a play-by-play of all the ways she stalls from doing work vs. all the ways I stall from doing work. Loni, the third cog in our wheel-o-processing, never stalls from doing work. To give you an idea of how our office is set up: I sit at a computer and run checks through a little machine that reads the MICR numbers at the bottom. (This is what I mean by "processing" work.) If I spin in my chair to face my left, there’s another computer there where I fax and e-mail reports to clients, and log what accounts I’ve processed so far. On the other side of this computer, in the next desk/cubicle over, is Loni. Loni and I face the same wall while we’re processing. Behind Loni sits A. Loni and A sit back-to-back while they’re processing, but face the same way — away from me — when they send reports on their other computers. The end result of this setup is that I can see over A’s shoulder when she’s blogging on the computer she should be sending reports from.
Anyway, yesterday’s tally: nine blog-checks. Minimum. Because, see, while I’m processing, I can’t see her unless I do an over-the-shoulder glance just because I hear her keyboard going clickety-clack. And she’s not always posting; sometimes she’s checking to see if anyone’s responded to her post, or she’s checking other people’s blogs, or she’s taking surveys, et cetera. Me: yesterday, I e-mailed Aaron twice and looked at weather.com three times (mainly to discover I wouldn’t be taking my lunchtime walk due to snow).
Today’s tally: twelve blog-checks. Minimum. These were shorter but more frequent than yesterday’s. I only checked weather.com twice, and didn’t e-mail Aaron at all.
I guess my main rant about this is, if you’re going to blog during the workday, you forfeit your right to comment or complain about how long work is lasting. Because we work until all the work is done. Only in rare circumstances can we lock up work and just get back to it tomorrow.
On the flip side of this, though… rarely, if ever, do any of us take our allowed breaks. We take half-hour lunches when we’re alloted a full hour, and we work through our two ten-minute breaks. So, if you look at it like that, stalling at the computer ten times a day for two minutes each time is equal to taking a ten-minute break twice a day. But then you get into the "using Sky Bank resources (i.e. bandwidth) for personal reasons" argument, which I don’t feel like delving into…
Oh, and one more thing. Yesterday, A’s name was chosen out of a hat and she was named Employee of the Month. She (therefore, we, since I’m her ride) would have gotten a parking spot close to the employee door… had she not been a temp. Yep, she got it taken away from her because she isn’t a full-fledged Sky employee. Which kind of sucks in a way, but also made me snicker in a way. The major bad point to this is that her motivation is now at an all-time low. I guess mine would be, too.
OK, A… I guess I’ll know now if you read my blog.