My boss was upset with herself today. She went out to lunch yesterday and "was bad," in her words. Her plan then was not to eat the rest of the day, but she said that she would up getting, and eating too much, pizza.
I was thinking, after she told me this story, that it's a definite sign of aging when you wake up regretting, both physically and emotionally, the choices you made the night before --- and they're food choices.
Lots of us have had those "What was I thinking?" mornings after. In my younger days, when I had them, they would come out of a bottle. It's definitely a sign that those younger days are gone when the source of those mornings was delivered in a cardboard box with a domino on it.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
Fear of Flying
It was announced today that Tony Kornheiser is leaving the "Monday Night Football" broadcast, due to what Tony called a fear of flying.
Believe me, I can understand. I'd be fine if I never get in an airplane again. I'd much rather drive or take the train. I might have to travel for work in a couple months, about 800 miles away, and if I do go I'm going to inquire if I can drive rather than fly.
I don't like being in a plane. I don't like the take off, and I don't like the landing. You must understand, though, it's not a fear of flying --- it's a fear of crashing. The flying part is fine. It's what happens when the flying doesn't happen the way it should that I have a problem with.
The way I figure it, if I'm in a car moving about 70 mph on the ground, or in a train moving at a similar speed about 10 feet or so off the ground, and something happens, I have a chance. If I'm in a plane that has an issue a few thousand feet off the ground at hundreds of miles an hour... forget it. Game over, man.
I know the statistics. Flying is the safest method of travel, based on fatalities per hundred million miles travelled. My reply consists of two words: "what" and "so" (not necessarily in that order). It doesn't matter how long the odds are, how big the X in that 1-in-X ratio is... eventually the 1 is going to happen. (This is the same reason my wife and I spend a small amount on lottery tickets every week - we know how unlikely it is. But, eventually, somebody wins.) I'd rather not be involved when that 1 comes around, is all.
Believe me, I can understand. I'd be fine if I never get in an airplane again. I'd much rather drive or take the train. I might have to travel for work in a couple months, about 800 miles away, and if I do go I'm going to inquire if I can drive rather than fly.
I don't like being in a plane. I don't like the take off, and I don't like the landing. You must understand, though, it's not a fear of flying --- it's a fear of crashing. The flying part is fine. It's what happens when the flying doesn't happen the way it should that I have a problem with.
The way I figure it, if I'm in a car moving about 70 mph on the ground, or in a train moving at a similar speed about 10 feet or so off the ground, and something happens, I have a chance. If I'm in a plane that has an issue a few thousand feet off the ground at hundreds of miles an hour... forget it. Game over, man.
I know the statistics. Flying is the safest method of travel, based on fatalities per hundred million miles travelled. My reply consists of two words: "what" and "so" (not necessarily in that order). It doesn't matter how long the odds are, how big the X in that 1-in-X ratio is... eventually the 1 is going to happen. (This is the same reason my wife and I spend a small amount on lottery tickets every week - we know how unlikely it is. But, eventually, somebody wins.) I'd rather not be involved when that 1 comes around, is all.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Of carts and horses
It would be one thing if this had been an isolated incident. This kind of thing happens all the time, though.
At work, there's a database that my coworkers and I need to search from time to time. We access it by running a query in a program called Access. The business' IT team doesn't support Access anymore, so they're phasing out all of the Access-based tools and lookups. Makes sense so far. There are a lot of IT initiatives happening around my team right now, and among them is a program to convert all of our Access lookups to another program. Thus, yesterday afternoon they got rid of the query tool we used to search this particular database. Thing is, there's a slight problem with the replacement..... it doesn't exist. Or, at least, it hasn't been shared with us yet. Since about noon yesterday, we've had no Access, which means we've had no access. We need this database, pretty much every day (not all of us every day, but at least one of us). We can't do the pieces of our work that require it otherwise. Day and a half.
When we found out our tool was removed and not replaced, one of my coworkers said, "It's like putting the cart before the horse."
I replied, "It's more like putting the cart... where the hell's the horse?!? We have no horse. You see a horse, you let me know."
It's been a frustration of mine for as long as I've worked for this company (just over 5 years). Every single, solitary time they do an IT initiative like this, it's the same. The details change, of course, but the theme is the same. They're done at a management level. They're budgeted, designed, built, tested and implemented without nearly enough (sometimes not any at all) input from, or consideration of the actual needs of, the end users --- the day-to-day, hands-on-a-keyboard movements and tasks of those of us who have to operate these tools. Management wants X (in this case, no Access, and a new program), and IT delivers what is asked of them (the Access tool is gone, and it will most certainly be replaced by the new program). I'm sure from management's and IT's perspective's, this has all been wildly successful. Maybe I shouldn't put IT on an equal footing in that sentence. They're given a project to complete, in a particular manner, and they do it. The problem is with how they're told to do it. So I guess I should edit that to say I'm sure management will consider this wildly successful.
I'll have plenty of time to congratulate them, since I won't be losing all that time I previously spent doing my damn job.
At work, there's a database that my coworkers and I need to search from time to time. We access it by running a query in a program called Access. The business' IT team doesn't support Access anymore, so they're phasing out all of the Access-based tools and lookups. Makes sense so far. There are a lot of IT initiatives happening around my team right now, and among them is a program to convert all of our Access lookups to another program. Thus, yesterday afternoon they got rid of the query tool we used to search this particular database. Thing is, there's a slight problem with the replacement..... it doesn't exist. Or, at least, it hasn't been shared with us yet. Since about noon yesterday, we've had no Access, which means we've had no access. We need this database, pretty much every day (not all of us every day, but at least one of us). We can't do the pieces of our work that require it otherwise. Day and a half.
When we found out our tool was removed and not replaced, one of my coworkers said, "It's like putting the cart before the horse."
I replied, "It's more like putting the cart... where the hell's the horse?!? We have no horse. You see a horse, you let me know."
It's been a frustration of mine for as long as I've worked for this company (just over 5 years). Every single, solitary time they do an IT initiative like this, it's the same. The details change, of course, but the theme is the same. They're done at a management level. They're budgeted, designed, built, tested and implemented without nearly enough (sometimes not any at all) input from, or consideration of the actual needs of, the end users --- the day-to-day, hands-on-a-keyboard movements and tasks of those of us who have to operate these tools. Management wants X (in this case, no Access, and a new program), and IT delivers what is asked of them (the Access tool is gone, and it will most certainly be replaced by the new program). I'm sure from management's and IT's perspective's, this has all been wildly successful. Maybe I shouldn't put IT on an equal footing in that sentence. They're given a project to complete, in a particular manner, and they do it. The problem is with how they're told to do it. So I guess I should edit that to say I'm sure management will consider this wildly successful.
I'll have plenty of time to congratulate them, since I won't be losing all that time I previously spent doing my damn job.
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