I need you to put your Skype status on Do Not Disturb and clear everything from your calendar for this meeting. No multi-tasking. I need your undivided attention.
I was surprised he didn’t ask us to turn our webcams in order to check on us. The meeting was a mandatory two hour training. Actually, it was a two day training. Two hours each day. No interruptions.
Of course, everyone is working from home, so our attention couldn’t be monitored. But, there were exams as part of this training. They really wanted us to pay attention.
I did. . .sort of.
The problem was the training was of no interest to me. Was it beneficial? Maybe. It was well written and well delivered. But, the concepts didn’t relate to my job. My manager thought it did. It related a lot to his job. But, I’ve done my job for 7 years without his four hours of training.
There are 25 people on the three teams that attended. Twenty-five people, four hours works out to 100 hours. At roughly $50/hour, that’s $5,000 that we paid in “lost” hours for this training.
What’s the role of managers? Especially if they are managing knowledge workers? Shoudl they be able to do the employees job better than the employee? Should they be experts on the needs and the skillsets of the team?
Or, should they be experts at, well, managing? Able to listen to the team and remove roadblocks or provide support?
I’ve been on teams and I’ve been in charge of teams. And my answer is unequivacle. Managers are not in their role because they are the smartest, or the most skilled, or the most important.
Managers have a role to play on a team. But, if you are smarter than all of your team members, you need to hire smarter employees. If you know how to do team members jobs better than they do, you need to train them and give them opportunities to become the expert at what they do.
Managers who decide they know best, who decide that whatever they say is naturally more important than anything the team might say, or do, are hamstringing their teams.
If you are in charge of people, don’t treat them like sheep. Don’t assume that you know how to do their jobs. Don’t assume that you know better than them how to do their jobs. If you hired smart people, they know how to do their jobs. Let them.
Stay safe
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2020 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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At least that’s what I wanted to say. Instead I scrambled to try to remember what we had just been talking about. I was early in my career, working for WordPerfect Corporation. I was in a meeting that included Alan Ashton, the company president, and he had just asked me a question. Unfortunately, it was that opened ended type,
Rodney, what do you think?
Had he seen my attention lapsing? My management chain was in this meeting. We were designing an entirely new support offering. An offering that would allow us to go onsite with customers.
I had been the first WordPerfect employee to attempt this. It had been a bit of a clandestine operation done without the knowledge of the Executive Vice President. Later he found out and fortunately for me, was deemed less important to the company than the new support strategy. A strategy that I had pioneered. . .and the company president had just asked me about.
Meetings have changed a lot in the 30 odd years since I sat in that office in Orem, Utah. Tomorrow I have an important client meeting. I won’t have to worry if the VP might see my attention wandering. We will all be remotely connected. We’ll be dialed in remotely.
Modern meetings, remote meetings, are often filled with comments like, “I’m sorry, what was the question?” Or, “Sorry, I was looking at something else.”
I think in some ways, our remote meetings and the ability (the freedom? The temptation?) to multi-task has made us less attentive. Tomorrow’s meeting will probably not be like that. It’s a pretty high level meeting. And yet, each section will delivered by a different person. So, during the portions that aren’t mine, I might get distracted.
And we didn’t used to have PowerPoint. There’s much debate whether PowerPoint presentations have made us better or worse at meetings. Some have tied the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster to the use of PowerPoint in NASA meetings. We’ll use it tomorrow. And for most of our presentations.
For one thing it helps you to know what someone was asking you about when they say,
Rodney, what do you think?
A quick look at the slide deck and I’m back on track.
As it was, I don’t remember what I responded to Alan Ashton all those years ago. I know I didn’t say, “Can you repeat that?” But, my response was probably less insightful than it would have been if I’d had a PowerPoint presentation to look at.
Stay safe
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
Follow him on
Twitter (@rodneymbliss)
Facebook (www.facebook.com/rbliss)
LinkedIn (www.LinkedIn.com/in/rbliss)
or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2020 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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I was tired. I’d been on an outage call all day. And not only that, it was a stupid call. By that I mean that someone made a mistake. They missed a step in the process we had run a week earlier. Now the error was showing up.
And now, I was sitting in my garage. The door was up due to the heat. The thermometer showed 90 degrees. At 40% humidity, it was not uncomfortable. But, I was tired and simply sat and stared.
And I noticed the trim around my garage door was coming loose. Maybe I should fix that?
Instead I just sat and stared.
And I noticed a set of golf clubs I meant to list for sale online. Maybe I should post them?
Instead I just sat and stared.
There were other things. Maybe I should spread that bug poison on my lawn? There was my broken shop light. I could fix that, maybe? Or maybe build a storage shelf for my drills? Oh, and I needed to repost the fish tank and terrarium online. And there was an inside door panel on my Suburban that needed fixed. Oh, and that stroller that showed up in our yard? Yeah, I needed to post in the neighborhood group asking if anyone was missing one. And there were weeds between the patio bricks that needed spraying. And the bugs. I needed to spread that bug poison on the lawn. Oh, wait. I mentioned that one already, didn’t I?
ADHD can be a bear at times.
In the mean time I sat. I sat and stared.
Maybe I should write down all the things I need to do. That would require getting up. Maybe I should put “Make a list” as the first thing on my list?
Finally, I decide I had to do something. I drug myself off the chair I was on and found a shipping receipt. My list looked like this:
- Bug Poison Lawn – 30 min
- Build Storage Shelf (design) – 20 min
- Spray Poison on Walkway – 10 min
- Fix Suburban Door Panel – 30 min
- List Golf Clubs – 8 min
- Relist fish tank/Terrarium – 20/15 min
- Fix Garage Door Weatherstripping – 20 min
- List Stroller with 2nd Ward – 5 min
- Fix Light w/ Liquid Nails – 10 min
- Gas car / take Old Oil – 40 min
I added the times to try to motivate myself. But, once the list was complete I just sat and stared at it. Everything needed done and I didn’t really feel like doing any of them.
Because I couldn’t decide, I let someone else choose for me. I decided to roll a die. There were ten items so I needed a ten-sided die. They exist. They are used in role playing games, especially Dungeons and Dragons. They are referred to as a d10.
I no longer play D&D. I don’t actually own a d10. So, I did the next best thing. I opened my Clock app and chose the Stopwatch option. I let it run for a few seconds and stopped it. It read 4.23 seconds. I looked at my list and found the third item,
– Spray Poison on Walkway
I found the RoundUp and spent a few minutes spraying the stray dandilions and grass that had sprung up between the cement pavers.
I finished and put away the RoundUp. I then rolled again. This time the number was 3.56. I found the sixth item,
– Relist Fish tank/Terrarium
Well, this was a more involved task. I retrieved the fish tanks that had not seen a fish for over a year, and the terrarium that had housed hermit crabs over a year earlier. I cleaned, organized and photgraphed them. I’m sure my estimates were off.
As I worked on staging the pictures for my post, the Mariners game started. I “turned on the radio.” By that I mean I opened the MLB.com app and selected the Mariners game at the Aneheim Angels.
As the innings past I added the golf clubs to my “for sale” posts. And fixed my shop light with some liquid nails. And since I had the Liqued Nails out, used it to secure the weatherstripping.
Many of these items have been on my list for weeks. Some for only a few days. I have four items left, but I’m out of time, and the Mariners lost their game to the Angels.
Tomorrow maybe I’ll try this again. D&D players use a d4 as well.
Stay safe
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
Follow him on
Twitter (@rodneymbliss)
Facebook (www.facebook.com/rbliss)
LinkedIn (www.LinkedIn.com/in/rbliss)
or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2020 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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I love baseball. Most baseball fans are wonderful people. Baseball fans are like Country music fans.
What kind of music do you like?
I like all kinds of music.
What about country?
Okay, I like almost all kinds of music.
The Country music fan is much more tolerant than most music lovers. He’ll listen to your Justin Timberlake, and Beyonce, and also listen to Toby Keith and Miranda Lambert. Country music fans are tolerant.
Baseball fans are the same way. We’ll watch the Super Bowl. We’ll watch the US Open. We’ll watch the NBA Championship. We’ll even watch NASCAR and MMA. But, we’ll also spend three hours watching 9 guys standing around trying to hit a ball with a stick.
So, why am I calling out my fellow baseball fans as racists? Because they have an opportunity to show their true colors, and they aren’t measuring up.
Baseball has started up again. We will get 60 games and an expanded post season. It’s a far cry from a normal 162 game season. With the start of the shortened season, baseball has made a lot of changes. They’ve implemented the DH, the Designated Hitter, in both leagues. They’ve extended the number of hitters a relief pitcher must face from 1 to 3. They’ve changed extra innings to start with a guy on 2nd.
Oh, and one more thing, Major League Baseball, MLB, has embraced Black Lives Matter, BLM. Each team has chosen how to support the cause. The Red Sox displayed a large banner on the Green Monster. The Houston Astros drew BLM in the dirt in the back of the pitcher mound for their opening game against the Mariners. Some teams have kneeled prior to the playing of the National Anthem and then stood for the Anthem. Other’s kneeled during the Anthem. The Mariners raised a fist during the Anthem. Other teams have included a “Black Lives Matter” patch on their uniform.
Black Lives Matter is not a movement without controversy. Some BLM groups have published goals that not everyone agrees with. Not everyone is appreciative of the BLM protests.
Reading the message boards of many teams and you will find comments such as,
Quit with the politics and just play baseball.
If they participate in these protests I won’t watch anymore.
Why does it have to be about race?
All lives matter, not just black lives
The comments go on and on. And these people consider themselves baseball fans. True fans.
They don’t know anything about the history of baseball. Not really.
In 1947 the season started on April 15. That day a player took his spot at first base and changed the game forever.
The player was Jackie Robinson. He would go on to win Rookie of the Year. He was slightly older at 28. But, it wasn’t he ROY award that changed the game. Even though the Rookie of the Year award was started in 1947. Robinson’s speed made him a natural shortstop. But, the Dodgers had Pee Wee Reese at shortstop, so Robinson moved to 1st Base. And it wasn’t his new position that made him noteworthy.
What made him unique was the color of his skin. As any baseball fan knows, Jackie Robinson was the first black man to play Major League Baseball in the modern era. The last black player to play in what we know as the Majors was Moses Fleetwood Walker. He was chased out of baseball in 1884. Baseball, like the rest of the country became segregated. Blacks played in the Negro leagues, whites played in the Major Leagues.
A man named Branch Rickey who was president of the Brooklyn Dodgers organzation signed Jackie Robinson to a Major League contract. And just like that the color barrier was broken. . .and they all lived happily ever after.
Well, not quite, but more on that in a minute.
Fifty years later, April 15, 1997, a player named Ken Griffey Jr, the son of a Major League player, asked the commisioner, Bud Selig, if he could wear Jackie Robinson’s number 42 instead of his own 24 for a game. It was significant because that was also the year that Jackie Robinson’s number was retired in all of baseball. Nothing like that had ever been done, before or since. No one would ever again wear number 42 as their uniform number.
Ten years later, April 15, 2007, the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s first game in the Majors, Ken Griffey Jr again had an idea. He asked Bud Selig if he could again wear the number. Selig liked the idea. In fact, he liked the idea so much he made it a rule throughout all of baseball. On April 15 each year, every player, every manager, every coach, every batboy, everyone in uniform would wear number 42.
It’s one of my favorite baseball traditions. It’s called Jackie Robinson day. The TV broadcasts on that day show everyone in the same number. When you consider that Baseball’s Rookie of the Year award is also now the Jackie Robinson award, and he was a first ballot Hall of Fame inductee and you can see that Jackie Robinson is one of the most honored men in the history of baseball. He has earned his place among the greats of the game.
But, it wasn’t always that way. His introduction to the league was anything but welcoming. First off the 15 other baseball owners voted to exclude blacks from playing. Fortunately for Branch Rickey, the new commissioner Happy Chandler, overruled them.
Not all the players on the Dodgers were happy to be playing with a negro. Some of the players circulated a petition to have him kicked off the team. Instead, manager Leo Durocher arranged to trade the one most opposed, Dixie Walker.
Opposing pitchers threw at him. He led the league in hit by a pitch. Some clubs threatened to boycott games against the Dodgers. Ben Chapman, manager of the Philadelphia Phillies was one of the worst offenders. He and his team showered Robinson with racist taunts. Some of the players used their bats to pantomime shooting at Robinson, and especially unnerving tactic to use on a combat veteran. Robinson also received numerous death threats.
Robinson was not only a great player. He was a great man. He knew that had to accept the abuse and play through it without fighting back. Instead he did his hitting on the field. He finished fifth in MVP voting and of course, won the inaugural Rookie of the Year award.
So, let’s get back to my original point. The fans who are opposing the Black Lives Matter movement are hypocritical racists. I’m sure that back in 1947 there were plenty of people who couldn’t understand why the Dodgers had to bring race into it.
We are told that somehow saying Black Lives Matter should instead by All Live Matter. That it’s wrong to single out black lives as more important.
And yet, don’t All Players Matter? Why do single out Jackie Robinson? Why did we retire his number even on teams he never played for? Why does all of baseball wear his number on April 15? Why is the Rookie of the Year Award named for him? Why is April 15 named Jackie Robinson Day?
Other black players quickly joined the Major Leages after Robinson broke the color barrier. Aren’t those men important? What about those men who played all their career in the Negro Leagues and never had the chance that Robinson did?
Are not all of these men important?
And what about the other players? The white players. The Asian players? Aren’t we minimizing their work, their worth when we venerate Jackie Robinson so highly?
Of course not. Of course all players matter. However, Jackie Robinson is honored for what he accomplished, but also in recognition of the horrible treatment black ballplayers were subjected to for decades.
When we say Black Lives Matter, we are not saying they are more important than other lives. We are recognizing the mistreatment that black Americans were subjected to for decades.
And I say baseball fans who object to baseball’s embracing BLM are hypocritical racists because they are the same type of fans who opposed Jackie Robinson joining the Dodgers in 1947. But, I’m sure if you asked them, they would tell you how proud they are that baseball broke the color barrier decades before the Civil Rights movement. They would talk about the courage of Robinson and what he had to overcome.
And then they would ask why baseball has to get all “political.” Why do they have to make it about race? Why can’t they just focus on playing baseball and leave all the politics out of it?
Because baseball has always been about race. Sometimes they’ve got it right, like Branch Rickey in 1947. Sometimes they got it wrong, like Ben Chapman in 1947.
So, if you are a baseball fan and you support Jackie Robinson Day. If you are proud of the history of integration baseball has shown. If you admire stars like Griffey and Rivera and Ichiro, not because they are players of color, but simply because they are great ball players, you should be supportive of MLBs support of BLM.
Our history is our future. And there’s no more room for racists in 2020 than there was in 1947.
Stay safe
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
Follow him on
Twitter (@rodneymbliss)
Facebook (www.facebook.com/rbliss)
LinkedIn (www.LinkedIn.com/in/rbliss)
or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2020 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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Yesterday was Opening Day for Major League Baseball. I watched the Dodgers play the Giants in front of a group of cardboard cutouts. But, my beloved Mariners didn’t start play until today. So, it didn’t count. . .not for me.
Today I paid $25 for a month’s worth of baseball via MLB.TV. It’s the only way I can get Mariners games. In the past, I’ve paid for the entire year up front. This year, I’m going month-to-month.
This was not your typical baseball game. First, is the lack of fans. A typical baseball stadium will hold 40,000 fans. They make up a fuzzy backdrop to the TV broadcast. A mixture of colors and shapes that all blend into a mosiac backdrop. Tonights game was row afer row after row of empty green seats.
Typically a homerun or foul ball causes a scramble as fans via for a souvenir. In the best of cases, the ball is then handed to a young fan almost too small to hold it. I miss that. Tonight homeruns and foul balls bounced around the empty stadium like a badly designed pinball game.
And there were lots of masks. Some players wore them, but the coaches all wore them.
The game was played in Houston. However, the broadcast showed the Mariners home stadium. That’s where the Mariners broadcast team was. They were sitting in the press box of an empty stadium watching the video feed of a game played 2000 miles away in another empty stadium, so they could broadcast the game to the fans who were at home.
Surreal.
There are rules changes this year too, that most casual fans wouldn’t notice, but change some of the fundamental strategies of the game.
- Relief pitchers must now pitch to a minimum of three batters, unlike the single batter they could face in previous seasons.
- The designated hitter has been expanded to both leagues.
- If a game goes to extra innings each team starts with a runner on 2nd base.
- Games that have gone 5 innings and then delayed are not going to be made up.
Also, baseball has embraced the Black Lives Matter movement in a big way. The back of the pitchers mound has baseball’s logo with the letters BLM.
The Mariners dropped a laugher 8-2 to the defending American League *Cheaters, I mean Champions. It broke a string of 11 Opening Day wins in a row for the hapless M’s.
But, it was baseball for now. I’m reminded of the saying of the great relief pitcher Benjamin Franklin,
What have we got Dr Franklin?
A season, if we can keep it.
Finally, a breath of normalacy, even if it’s anything but normal.
Stay safe
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
Follow him on
Twitter (@rodneymbliss)
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or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2020 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
*The Houston Astros were found to have stolen opposting team’s catcher signs for the past two seasons in violation of the rules of baseball.
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Strange wedding.
Yes. Very strange. Come along.
– The King and Queen from The Princess Bride
Well, baseball started today. . .I think. It’s been a most unusual off season. Baseball ends with the last out of the World Series. This is typically in October, but occasionally spills over into November. (Exciting times when the team plays in an open air stadium in a Northern climate.) It starts with the first pitch on Opening Day. Typically in April, but occasionally as early as late March.
That means that the off season is 5 months long. Typically about 150 days.
This year? The Washington Nationals won their first World Series on October 31, 2019 by beating the cheating Houston Astros. (Seriously, they cheated and lots of people are still upset.)
Today was opening day, July 23, 2020. It’s been 267 days. It’s been so long I don’t even remember when opening day was supposed to happen. I think it was sometime in March, but frankly it’s still too painful to go back and look.
Being a Seattle Mariners fan, I have two annual traditions. Each year I spent $120 for the ability to watch all 162 Mariners games over the internet. This year, I spent my money, but of course, opening day was postponed and they gave me back my money. (I would rather have had the games.)
The second tradition is I import the Mariners’ schedule into my calendar. So, I have 162 appointments, each with an meeting notification telling me who the Mariners are playing.
And for the last three months, about 5 days a week I get a pop up reminder that we are still not playing baseball.
You would think that I would be looking forward to Opening Day. . .Delayed.
I was. . .and I wasn’t.
My first child, a daughter, was born in 1989. My second child, also a daughter, was born four years later in 1993. Six years later, my lovely wife was pregnant with our third child. The ultrasound said it was a boy. Being a lifelong scouter, you’d think I would be excited.
I was. . .and I wasn’t.
I refused to let myself believe our third child was a boy. It’s not that I DISbelieved. I just didn’t allow myself to accept that it was really happening. That was until 2000 when my son was born.
That’s what Opening Day 2020 has been like for me. I didn’t pay for the broadcast ($45 now, since at 60 games, it’s less than 1/3 of the regular schedule.) I also have not imported the revised Mariners schedule. Their first game is tomorrow and it will happen, but I’m mostly going to wait and see.
Tomorrow’s not promised to anyone and in 2020 who can say what the next sunrise will bring?
Stay safe
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
Follow him on
Twitter (@rodneymbliss)
Facebook (www.facebook.com/rbliss)
LinkedIn (www.LinkedIn.com/in/rbliss)
or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2020 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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If the good Lord is willing and the creek don’t rise
I’m not sure I should be posting this yet. But, I’ll knock on wood.
We’re in the middle of a migration. We are upgrading a key program on our agents’ computers. The migration started last week. We are continuing this week and we’ll finish up next week.
We’ve been planning this migration for six months. In fairness, three of those months were “on hold” because of COVID. But, it’s been a long time.
The real challenge has been to upgrade software that is sitting on computers in people’s homes. In addition, we needed a solution that didn’t require a lot of time from our agents and didn’t require our agents to become IT experts.
We came up with a solution about two weeks ago. Our engineers did. We tested it and it did everything we needed it to. The agents only need to log in to start the migration. We built in checks to help us identify if something goes wrong.
The first week we did one site in North Carolina. It went off perfectly. This week we are doing a site in Utah and one in Alabama. Next week we do the last two sites.
And so far so good. The migrations have gone exactly as we planned them.
Are you superstitious? Do you know if you are?
Do you ever “knock on wood”?
Do you know why?
Generally, it’s something we say (and do) when we don’t want anything to go wrong.
The migration is going well. Knock on wood.
It’s just a saying, right? I mean it’s like the one I posted at the beginning.
Hopefully we’ll finish the migration without any issue. If the good Lord is willing and the creek don’t rise.
But, they aren’t the same. One is superstitious, one is not.
knocking on wood is an ancient tradition. It’s religous, mystic even. Ancient cultures such as the Celts and the Druids believed spirits lived in trees. Knocking on the wood calls forth the spirit to assist you in whatever you are trying to do.
So, when I say, “The migration is going well. Knock on wood,” I’m really asking the spirit in the wood to come out and help my migration go well.
And, of course we are afraid to say something good, like “the migration is going well” for fear that we will jinx it. And that is also superstitious, of course. Not surprisingly it originated with baseball players, one of the most superstitious group of people in the history of sports.
We use an ancient superstition to combat a modern one.
Tomorrow we continue our migration. Knock on wood. Hopefully it continues to go well. If the good Lord is willing and the creek don’t rise.
Stay safe
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
Follow him on
Twitter (@rodneymbliss)
Facebook (www.facebook.com/rbliss)
LinkedIn (www.LinkedIn.com/in/rbliss)
or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2020 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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It’s supposed to help your office feel homier. Of course, that was before our homes were our offices, and our offices are our homes. For a long time we had trouble keeping plants in our house alive.
We now have one of those plants that grows really long. Actually we have two. And they are really long. And we have a spider plant. And another plant that I don’t know the name of. But, it’s really green.
By a weird coincidence our plant-lives started increasing as our children got older. So, we have plenty of plants in our house. But, my office is not near any of them.
So, I got a plant for my office. I thought a lot about what I wanted to get. At work I have a fairly level headed demeanor. I’m calm in crisis. And I’m known as someone easy to work with.
What isn’t clear is that I think through every decision, every interaction, every impression. It’s not like I’m paranoid. And I don’t spend a lot of time playing office politics. But, when I do play them, I’m really good. I’m better than a lot of people.
However, most people don’t consider the situation at work from a critical standpoint. They don’t consider how every decision affects their continued interactions.
You know what? I might be completely up in night. I might be overanalysing my interactions. I might be the only one playing office politics.
But, either way it’s how I approach work. And I decided to get a plant that reflected that approach.
I got a desert cactus.
It seems fitting.
Stay safe
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
Follow him on
Twitter (@rodneymbliss)
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LinkedIn (www.LinkedIn.com/in/rbliss)
or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2020 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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I had a moment yesterday where for the briefest moment I was lost. Not lost on the map. I was lost on the calendar.
Like many of you, I’ve been working from home for weeks. . .months. And like many of you, my home life has blended into my work life. I’m on salary, so I don’t have to keep track of my hours. I’m on salary so I don’t get to keep track of my hours.
And let’s face it. None of us walk into the office at 8:00am, close the door and emerge at 5:00pm. That’s not how “work at home” works. We end up dealing with kids. And the plumber. And getting the mail. And WHAT IS THAT NOISE? And a million other distractions. The good news is that statistics show that even with the interruptions we are giving our employers more hours than they are paying us for.
Well, that’s kind of a good thing. It means we aren’t slacking off. But, it also means we are working, and stressing more than we were when we went to the office.
One my stress relievers is a Dilbert desk calendar. You know, the kind that has one strip per day? Every year I ask for one for Christmas and every year I end up buying myself one in January.
I used to have a friend that had one and I would look at his and randomly leaf through the days reading comics at random. My friend never did. Once I got my own copy I understood why. That daily comic is like a little scoop of ice cream. And it’s the newness of it that makes it tasty.
I left my Dilbert calendar in my office when I started working from home. I retrieved it today. That was a lot of ice cream to eat. The last day I was in the office was Monday March 16. That was 126 days ago. There are only 164 days left in the year.
The amount of pages I removed was nearly as many as I left.
It’s strange to think about returning to my office. In fact, I walked in and my monitors were face down on my desk. The drawers were open and a picture had been knocked off the wall.
Despite the fact that the door was locked it looked like someone had gone through my office. Hard to believe considering the amount of security our building has.
I was more than a little annoyed until I started thinking about the last 126 days. On March 18, 2020, a 5.7 magnitude earthquake hit Southwest Salt Lake City. It was centered in Magna, Utah, just South of the airport.
My office building is in Southwest Salt Lake City, just South of the airport and just East of Magna. It wasn’t a buglar that had trashed my office. It was an earthquake that rattled our building pretty good. . .two days after I started working from home.
So, Dilbert is no safely installed on my home office desk. And I’m seriously wondering if I will ever return to the office.
Oh, and yesterday I took a Sunday afternoon nap. I woke up in a panic because I was sleeping in the middle of a workday. I really needed Dilbert to tell me it was still the weekend.
Stay safe
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2020 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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Recently I did a book review on Garth Brooks The Anthology | Part I. Since I’m now doing a review of Garth Brooks The Anthology | Part III, you might think that you missed a review for Garth Brooks The Anthology | Part II.
I thought I’d missed it too when I saw Garth Brooks The Anthology | Part III on the shelf. I’m sometimes a “Collect All The Things” guy. I hated to think I’d missed the second installment.
I later found out that Garth Brooks decided to skip Part II and go straight to Part III. I didn’t ever find a reason why. But, it made sense in a way after reading Part III. Where Part I focused on the first five years of Brooks’ career, Part III focuses on his live performances.
And one of the things that becomes obvious in reading through the 255 oversized pages, is that Brooks had a very definite planto how he was planning on running his career. From what he wanted his stage shows to look like to how he intended to take his music to television, Europe and Australia.
One area that Brooks seems to have not known what to expect, or been able to polan for was his concert in New York’s Central Park It’s the opening chapter in the book and it’s a compelling story. Eventually, we learn, along with Brooks that his concert in Central Park was the largest concert in history. At least the largest in New York history. Nearly 800,000 people attended.
Garth Brooks was the most popular recording artist in history. He’s sold over 100,000,000 albumns. And as amazing as his studio career was, his live shows were even more impressive. And the book captures that the spirit of those live shows, in words and pictures.
What I Liked
Much as in the first Anthology installment, Brooks’ voice comes through well in the storytelling. Personally, I’ve never been to a live Garth Brooks show. I didn’t even see his television specials. So, all of the material in the book was new to me. But, I’m also a big Garth Brooks fan, so this book was like reading a new installment in a series you’ve already become a fan of: same characters, new settings.
What I Didn’t
Part III, lacked some of the cohesion and flow that the first book had. By starting with the Central Park Concert the book felt like ti started in the middle of the story. We went from the high point of Central Park back to the very beginning of his career where he’s just a guy trying to form a band.
I understand why they told the story the way that they did, and it “worked.” But, it also felt somewhat contrived. In many ways there was no natural progression of one live event to the next. And in some cases there was. Obviously, you go from playing bars to clubs to opening act to headliner. But, trying to tie the growth of the act to various live events in a progression didn’t always work.
What It Means To You
If you are a Garth Brooks fan, especially one of the millions that attended his live events, you’ll undoubtedly enjoy this book. You will learn information about how performing groups get created and how stage shows get put together. If you are not a fan, the story may not be enough to keep you engaged.
My Rating
3 out of 4 stars
Stay safe
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
Follow him on
Twitter (@rodneymbliss)
Facebook (www.facebook.com/rbliss)
LinkedIn (www.LinkedIn.com/in/rbliss)
or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2020 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
