Lost Mojo & Possibly Kidney
Apologies, i've been out of the loop. My gawd itz been 7 days or so since i blogged. Not sure where the time went. Itz all pretty hazy, at least until wakin up this afternoon in the gutter, with a new tattoo, a serious headache, and minus a kidney. Chloroform might have been involved.
Ok, i kid. I'm pretty sure i still have both kidneys. (Although one may just be temporarily AWOL, or on strike.)
Anyways, in the last few hours, while getting my bearings, i've had visions from god (or chloroform) about changes that need to happen. And as much as it embarasses me to air relationship drama in public, i have to admit that i think i'm having intimacy issues... with ... my blog...
I just feel, you know, like i need a little space, you know. No - i am not thinking of leaving you or anything. And no - i have not been blogging around behind your back... But... I just don't feel we have the same connection we used to, sweetie....
Remember when we used to stay up all night together reading, googling, creating obscene puns? We don't do that anymore. Now itz all "blah blah blah, stupid link, stupid link, shout out to cooler blogs, blah blah blah"... I mean, WHERE did our style go? Our attitude! I miss the angst, baby - the anomie. I'm sad to say that i think we've totally lost our mojo, baby.
Things have changed... And I need some time to think, and... you know, find my kidney...
Don't get me wrong - i am dedicated to trying to work this out. It just may be awhile before i feel i can open up with you again... Aw, baby, don't cry - hey, at the very least... you know, we'll probably try to stay together for the kids... or something.
The Future Always Falls Short
As predictions near reality, the intricate interplay of new knowledge and compromise often lead to an end-vision somewhat diverted from the original ideal. This is sad, but true.
But i tell ya, my 2004 home computer would be ALL THAT AND A BAG OF CHIPS if only they had kept the steering wheel thingamajig they forsaw in 1954.
Glad they got rid of that portly scowling grey guy tho. That woulda just been too creepy.
Leverage
From the archives, my guru lays it down:
JMGuru: i hate nekkid girls ...
JMGuru: they always get their way
Inefficient? Overtaxed? Slacker?
Because itz been at least three weekz of non-stop werkliness and an average of 4 hrs sleep nightly, i begin to wonder if i am just not doing it right. On my desktop, right now:
Project 1
- configuration and user testing (data model and implementation) for vendor app
- coordinate with vendor on customizations to application
- meet with leadership and facilitate sign-off on new processes, policies and implementation plan
- development and sign-of off future capability release plan
- schedule and manage user testing
- follow up and thank you notes for three different business development meetings from this last week with prospective clients/partners
- complete a deliverable and develop survey tool for existing parters
- complete business plan and market analysis for ongoing service offering around results from Project 2
- update client account strategy wrt recent events and conversations
- schedule meetings with bus dev contacts at client
- prepare for meetings
- status call tomorrow
- reach out to H (media contact) for assistance getting article in WSJ
- write article
- complete four gnarly engagement profile documents
- update contact list with new employee information and distribute to all
- set up firm laptop with correct license key for new data normalization app
Gawd i get tired just thinkin of all of it.
Travails of My Continuing Gentrification
Having a housekeeper is weird. Not that i don't like it - i LOVE it - but i still don't know how to act. I always find myself picking shit up and ordering the house before she comes. Like i don't want her to know just how much a slob i am.
But, if anyone knows your dirty secrets she does. You can't hide anything from housekeepers. Today with horror i realized that she even cleaned and ordered the sock drawer... where the astroglide and ... um, toys are.
And it often takes me a week or so to discover the different places where she stores the clutter that i usually leave distributed rather evenly on every flat surface in the house. I spent the last two weeks trying to find my business cards.
But look - the woman WASHES the RUGS & CURTAINS?!? My gawd, i dont care if she thinks i am heathen incarnate and she's saying a rosary for my torpid sock-drawer-having soul right now, because THAT FRIKKIN ROCKS.
Humans Doomed
Dan notes alarming trend. I am convinced yet again of the end times. Still, all that aside, i submit that "Retarded Monkeys" would make a pretty cool band name.
My Blog will RULE!!
Everytime i log in, it seems, Ben's upgraded my blog with more features. There's support for sidebar blogs now, as well as orphan entries. Watch out, because once i get some time, i can do kuh-raz-eee funcky schtuff, like set up a real "about me" page, move my blogroll to itz own link, and use the clean space for a sidebar blog where guest bloggers (or my alter egos) can run rampant in their alotted 200 pixels... AND i can also use the sidebar blog for Mobloggin once i get that figured out.
ALSO, i now have the power to easily ban User IPs. You know i am just dying to use this. So, go ahead, somebody - piss me off.
Status Reporting
It was a 6 week flat fee project... 75K.... 1.75 FTE's, including me, the manager. Simple enough gig, designwise - build reusable training and performance support materials for Object Oriented web application developers in a well know asset management firm. Simple, despite the ancillary incidentals required for success: Perform Vulcan mind-meld with client subject matter expert. Learn OO fundamentals and Java 2 in 3 days. Find a way to elegantly couch everything within the client's programming and project management methodology. Pretty it up with coy graphics, scenario based coding exercises, and animated flash files.
But, I had just come off building and launching a far more complex, hardcore case-based bootcamp for investment banking operations analysts, so comparatively, this was a cake walk.
It was also my third offical manager role, timed to deliver right before the next promotion cycle. And i was going into it anal-retentive project manager stylee, gantt charting the muthafucka down to 4 hour task based increments with clearly indicated roles and deliverables... pre-scheduling every client review, sign off and milestone meeting on all Outlook calendars, and documenting the hell outa anything and everything scope/risk or otherwise related.
This was the prelude to that 25K jump in pay i'd been deserving for the last year, gotdamnit, and i was pouring it on.
That tuesday morning i got off to a slow start. Admittedly, i was late getting out of bed (the previous weekend at foxwoods likely to blame), but my hotel suite was only 5 minutes from the client site, so i wasnt too stressed - the 11 am meeting with my developer and SME would still go off as planned. Brushing my teeth, CNN on in the background... then..
Breaking news. Fire at WTC. Looking up from the sink, the tv reflected in the mirror the now well known beginning of that very gnarly day.
I sat on the edge of the bed. Thought of my team still working at that investment analyst project who i'd just left the week before to run this gig in PA. My partner who had meetings with MS downtown, my friends at Merrill. Tried to call people, but my NYC cellie was already jammed. Used the hotel phone to call my current PA team. The news they were just hearing. Will the meeting be cancelled? I was asked. No, i don't think so, we'll see.
At the client site, the next few hours, only real info was through AIM and email. Seeing the entire JPM/Chase team logged off at once. Frightening.
But i did the Manager thing. I found and documented the whereabouts of as many people as i could, left Voicemails for Partners. Work would be postponed until further notice. I told the client that we would probably be leaving - trying to get home (we were all from NYC or DC), we located and distributed communications on open roads. Found places for people to stay since we couldn't get into NYC. Cool, calm, collected. I would just tidy up my tasks and desk and go to a friends in Allentown since it was reported the road to my house (near the holland tunnel) was a no-go.
After everyone had cleared out, the client site strangely silent. I reviewed my workplan. There were meetings to reschedule, and possibly a 3 day variance in the final delivery. Of course, this is the sort of thing you gotta document, so, i broke out my status reporting template....
When you report status and document delays or overruns, you have to identify the what and why of it. It's standard.
Delivery of final products will likely be an estimated 3 days behind schedule due to...
I spent 30 minutes writing and re-writing one half of a sentence. Nothing sounded right.... I tried 'forces beyond our control'... nope, that's too vague to be acceptable in a status report. 'Events in NYC and DC', although descriptive, also did not speak directly enough to the impact on the schedule. 'Our entire team is freaked out and doesn't know what's going on, where our friends or family are, if they're alive, and whether or not we can even get back home', altho completely accurate, wouldn't work of course....
Oh my god, i suddenly realized. Thousands of people are missing, and i am trying to figure out how to note it in a status report?
It was then that i realized i was finally crying.
Consensus Building Strategies
Conversation with client:
Pwylla: "So now all we need is to get the buy-in of the leadership team ..."
Client: "Ok, let's schedule a meeting early next week with the Team Leads ... What do you think?"
Pwylla: "Well, we've approached and vetted ideas with a couple key stakeholders, so i don't expect resistance..."
Client: "Yeah I just hope we don't end up getting bogged down in consensus building... do you have any strategies to facilitate agreement quickly?"
Pwylla: "If the Big Boss signs-off beforehand, we can basically make it clear that his decisions are the rule..."
Client: "... and what about those points that are open for discussion or input still?"
Pwylla: "Well, in those instances, i recommend royal rumble style caged fights to the death."
Client: ".... that might solve several problems at once, actually."
Crazy Ass Cabbie Interaction #674
ok. itz too numerically significant now to be just me. at least twice week i end up in the most strange late nite conversations with cabbies. they even turn off the meter and keep me in the car for 10 to 15 minutes, vehemently proposing/proselytizing/proclaiming. And 10 - 15 minutes on the cabbie night shift between 12 and 2 am is the hardcore real moneys, so i dunno whazzup.
aside from just being told i am beautiful, they are mostly adamant about me hooking up with someone in a marriage sorta way, and tonite's cabbie insisted that i have children "because you are a beautiful soul, and there should be more of you".
i never start these conversations. and i certainly don't intentionally perpetuate them. mostly i just nod and smile. but they tell me their secrets and offer life path advice the likes of which Madam Cleo would charge 2 bux a minute and then some.
i dunno what the late nite NYC cabbie sees in me. do they do this to everyone?
Praha - A Review
Excerpt of postcard from Queenie & Phlp in Praha:
Hey Pwayla (try spelling it when youre drunk!) You know why we've always wanted to go to Prague? Because it's freakin' bad ass! Besides the fact that a big pint (.5 liter) is ONE DOLLAR USD, there are buildings here with toilet paper older that the US! ...maybe time to explore my czech heritage. and itz cheap.
LGP Finds Elusive Google Niche
Thanks to K's exhaustive analysis of what the hell a morning suit is, LGP is now making a mark in the following search engine rankings -
- First in "swedish formal dress"
- First in "swedish wedding dress code" (ireland)
- First in "kravatt"
- Second in Alta Vista's "kravatt morning"
- Third in "kavaj dress code" (again, Ireland)
- Fourth in Google Spain's "morning suit"
- Fifth (on the fourth page, but hey) in Google Canada's "morning suit?" (with question mark)
- There is a distinct dearth of information available on the web regarding swedish/international formal attire, and "morning suits" in general
- Someone in Ireland has friends getting married in Sweden and is tearing up the search engines
- People really just don't know what the hell a "morning suit?" is
- People just like typing the word kravatt
Hypersensitive Melancholia
After a pleasant emotionally distant week or so, now have swung full tilt to the other end of it. But i think in general, itz been a creepy two weeks... Or probably i am only noticing the creepy, since i am specifically trying to avoid the creepy. Damn you, silly swellin braighne, damn you!!
Diagnosis: Overall i've just run into too many oblique references to people flat out losing their minds along with what seems like an uptick (or at least an uptick in close-hitting occurences) of random unnecessary death and weirdness.
Prognosis: however, i am confident all this can be solved with drugs.
Metaphysical Masturbation
So i've entered that stage where i start to hyperintellectualize things again and read too many philosophical treatises on Being. It's a safe perspective, really, an end-run around the conflicts generated when personal reality encounters scary life crap that calls all authenticity into question.
The often overly-active, annoying braine of mine comes to the rescue, and transforms my personal involvement into antiseptic, complex objectivity. This is not personal - it's merely an academic question. Connection, relation, identity, Being, time, presence: mere operands in an ontological algorithm that can be assessed from a cool distance... They are certainly not issues that impact me directly.
Life, death, love, fear or happiness - overwhelming questions of who we are or what the hell to do next - these are simply data points to be autopsied in a cold, sterile environment.
Egg's Gotta Blog
Our long-time close friend and LGP commenter now has a blog :) Read her daily - you don't want to miss any important information regarding fall in pheonix.