dianaschnuth

I’ve heard too many stories about people who lost or almost-lost their jobs from blogging about work. I will not fall into said trap.

Instead, I will carefully avoid it by speaking in generalities and not mentioning any names.

I know I shouldn’t, but I hate it when I have to ask questions simply because I’m ignorant of a thing. Not because it’s a stumper, not because it’s complex, and not because I need a second opinion. I know, it’s no fault of my own that I’m ignorant, but still. Even more than that, I hate having to choose who I’m going to ask, given a selection of various potential gurus or wanna-be-gurus.

First, and most pleasant, are the people who are always kind and polite and stop what they’re doing to answer your question fully. These are in the minority. Then there are the people who don’t look particularly annoyed, and they give you their full attention, but you get the vibe that they wish you hadn’t come to ask them. Maybe they even put on the obviously-false politeness that’s so grating.

Next are those who very grudgingly answer your questions and make you feel inferior for having had to ask. These people tend to cross-examine the questioner, knowing full well that said questioner doesn’t know his or her ass from a hole in the ground at this point, and further queries are simply confounding the matter. In extreme cases, these people will just have the questioner turn possession of the question over to them for a solution instead of answering the question at all.

Finally, and I didn’t run into this until recently, are those who flatly refuse to answer your question, and request that you ask someone else. Granted, these people are generally overworked and pulled in several directions at once, but having the experience of being denied help entirely—not just put off—is a little demeaning.

In actual work-related news, I still haven’t gotten my giftcertificates.com e-mail from Sky yet. That’s annoying, because I’ve got it spent in my head: a Hauppauge WinTV PVR video capture card, an Epson Stylus R200 photo printer, and a Carlo Robelli acoustic-electric guitar. All from Amazon, of course. 🙂

From: Diana Schnuth
Sent: Monday, September 13, 2004 1:47 PM
To: ‘Aaron R. Schnuth’
Subject: good afternoon

I just heard the most bizarre sentence from one of the contractors working in our building. I was coming in from reading at the picnic table during lunch, and I had to navigate around the stepladder just inside the doorway. There was this hispanic contractor right there, and as I walked past him, he said to his buddy up on the ladder, ?We gotta get the egress lighting, vato.? Now, I know that an egress is an exit (thanks to Judge Harry on Night Court), but hearing someone use that in the same sentence with ?vato? was surreal. 🙂