words bind me

And then....

2008-05-09T23:13:54Z

So, after all the water drama, I ended up in the hospital emergency room needing re-hydration. How ironic.
It turns out I can't eat shellfish.
We discovered this in the most dramatic fashion. We ate shellfish for lunch (late because of all the brouhaha about the water leak). Several hours later, I spewed every last ounce of stomach contents onto the bathroom wall and floor, and I even managed to get some into the toilet. I don't recall ever having had projectile vomiting before. It is not something I want to do on a regular basis.
I passed out, after vomiting and then vomiting followed by vomiting. Martha phoned for an ambulance and she raced, well she hurried, after us and met us in the emergency ward. I remember starting to vomit, I vaguely recall struggling against the attendants who wanted to get me up off the floor, and I even more vaguely recall the bright lights of the ambulance. Then, as far as my internal story went, I was waking up in the hospital. They checked me out, and then to see if I'd recover on my own, they invited me to stand; this was a failed experiment if looked at from one perspective. I had to be held up by Martha and the nurse and my blood pressure dropped like a stone.
They had to poke around a bit, looking for a vein, but they managed to rehydrate me. After that I felt much perkier and far more alert and aware. Rolling out to the car, to go home, we ended up laughing our silly asses off because perched on the back of the car was a rug from the flood and my watch, which I had taken off when I washed the dog! They had hung on through the drive to the hospital.
I'm fine now. But, I'm not going to do any experiments with shellfish; I don't care why I couldn't digest them.

Yesterday, today, tomorrow, and beyond

2008-05-05T00:47:25Z

Yesterday, pulling into the garage, I noticed water had dripped onto a bunch of boxes. I looked up and our furnace, which is, yes, on the garage ceiling, had water dripping from some joints. I was dumbfounded but worked my way, step by step, through the resolution of the problem. I discovered that the filter was filthy and chastised myself for having let it get that way (somehow I thought the filthy filter had some connection to the water dripping). I went to the store, bought new filters, and changed the furnace filter (our furnace is not really a furnace but the blower unit for a heat pump).
This morning, we reviewed our plans for the cruise: what to pack, what meds need refills (old lady stuff), and so on. This morning I discovered that Belinda, my brave spouse, plans to take a single suitcase -- not even a large suitcase. It came up because the final hurdle is getting to the ship. Parking in the pier is $12-15/day: too much. Most of our friends either have mothers (who are still living) or are mothers (and some fall into both categories). We leave on Mother's Day. Something that hadn't penetrated for either of us as neither of us have mothers. In fact, I was focused on the 7th, the one year anniversary of my mother's body being discovered.
We'll get to the pier. No worries. The thing about a single suitcase came up when Belinda suggested we take the bus; I stared dumbfounded and asked: what about our luggage? She replied that she was planning to take a single suitcase. Our friend, who was over for tea, and I stared at Belinda. I declared that I was looking forward to seeing that.
That was all pleasant enough.
I went upstairs to bring the folded laundry to the bedroom and I heard what I thought was running water. I turned off the air cleaner, to be sure that it wasn't that noise, and it was the sound of running water in the wall between me and the unoccupied unit next door. The woman who bought it a year ago is 85 and not physically and mentally fit for the role of condo-owner. It explains, suddenly, the water dripping in my garage: same wall.
We get the only other residents in the complex together and we get into the unit and find that the toilet on the main floor has been running water onto the floor, flooded the main floor and the basement/garage. I stepped into the garage to see what was happening there and stepped into a couple of inches of water.
We turned off the water and electricity for the unit and spent some time hunting down relatives (the owner has periods of confusion) and are now getting ready to negotiate for the clean-up in our own unit.

wetcoastwriter @ 2008-04-28T06:40:00

2008-04-28T13:49:53Z

Well, the meltdown is done, the workload is eased (I've passed a milestone and moved on), and my pain level is under better control. Does that make it better? Is that it? I'm just a cork on the ocean, my life under the influence of the wind and water I float amongst? If that's so, I'll end up in the big garbage dump between Hawaii and California. Circling with the rest of the floating crap disposed of without thought.
If I do end up there, it's entirely my doing. Yes, life is full of influences that are outside of my control; ultimately, what I do with them determine whether I am flotsam or a sailor.
Life became much more manageable when I just let go of the need to have it turn out right. There are too many fears running through my bones and none of them are truly relevant. Not anymore. In a matter of days, it will be the 1 year anniversary of my mom's death. Not long after that, I pass into the next decade of my life. Pretty busy time.
These past few years just seem like that, incredible events piling up like logs on the beach after a storm.
I am writing more, which is one reward for all the chaos, and I am feeling, right now, like the chaos doesn't matter as much as it has. It's just there, it's there whether I'm looking at it or not, it's there whether I am safe on shore or deep in the midst of it, it's just there, it's nothing about me.
Succeeding at small things.

Melt down

2008-04-05T17:40:21Z

Over the past few years, really since Dad and Dan crashed, I have regular crash-and-burn sessions. This year, let's see, my sister is threatening to sue me, my workload has doubled, my brother is careening closer the edge of collapse, and my money is worth less and less but my debts are worth more and more.
Yep, time for madness. Time for crumbling under the pressure.
And this year, I did it online. Congratulations, Wanda, you blew a tire on the Internet. Not only did thousands see it (and comment on it), but it is preserved until we run out of gas. So, not so bad, about the time I die of old age the lights will go out and my humiliation will vanish with a gazillion other moments stored in 1s and 0s somewhere.
Fortunately, the *other* Wandas take up the top level search results in Google. That means few others will stumble upon my public breakdown by accident.

This too will pass.

Home Again Home Again Jiggity Jig

2008-03-24T13:05:35Z

Back from the land of the ice and snow and the midnight sun (well, I didn't really go that far north) and in the embrace of my own home. The dog and cat have survived but poor M was about to run out of steam for the role as single parent.
I think it's a bit different when they're your own; you've been around for the development of the traits.
I tried to work on the weekend, to get ahead of this tsunami of content I'm creating (or interpreting) but the bloody system kept knocking me off.
This week, though, marks the return to real life™.
I was up this morning at 5, per usual. Stretches, tea, and a bit of sitting (in between feeding, praising, and opening doors for the cat). Now, a few moments of writing (having cleared away the final vestiges of the trip debris from around my chair).
This week, aside from work, I'm gong to upgrade my hard drive. I've already upgraded my memory. There was something next on the list, but I can't remember right now.

I have my new telephoto lens for my DSLR, I think I'm ready for the cruise! I am so ready for the cruise!

on the road

2008-03-16T17:38:19Z

Here I am at my brother's home. Not much has changed. If anything, the lack of movement on his part results in a negative motion. It's the difference between velocity and speed.
I've been down to Kingston to see my best friend and her collection of sons, my godsons. We had a blast, a short blast, but a blast worth having. I was more homesick in Kingston than I am here in Ottawa. I miss Kingston more. The life you want vs the life life handed you.
I'm driving a Smart car, which is a blast, and it's doing fine in the extreme winter.

My asthma is ragged from the tree pollen at home, but here in the great white north it's being exasbated by the cold. I'm surviving.
I loved Kingston. I went to a Frontenacs game and watched them polish the ice with the Sudbury players. I caught a couple of fights on video; I was just trying to track the action. I also grabbed a video of the zamboni dance, my supervisor wants to drive a zamboni.
I am missing the spring flowers of home.

Flying or falling

2008-02-03T22:04:42Z

I'm doing a bit of writing, not as much as I'd like because I have to work, eat, and sleep. And I have to muck about in WoW. Now, I'm thinking about getting more memory for my laptop so I can spend longer periods of time in Second Life.
I do have stories that I'm writing. Several, in fact, I can't seem to settle on one and go through it. There is something about each one that demands to be told.
I'm also eating ice cream like it is the only food available. I'm having trouble opening my jaw, so ice cream fits in nicely. Chewing is difficult, oh look, ice cream doesn't have to be chewed!
Enough, already.
I feel like this is a big year for me; but I often feel like it's a big year for me. Every year is a big year, even when nothing seems to happen.
Today, I settled down and wrote, briefly, starting on a story of stories. Maybe that's how I'll get all those stories told, eh?

Bound

2008-01-06T19:56:17Z

I'm a reasonably intelligent person. There are some things I can understand on a conceptual level that I cannot make work on the concrete level, and vise verse. My coordination is great, unless I'm thinking about it. The day I put my lawn mower together was a magnificent day. As far as I was concerned, I'd climbed Mount Olympus and won a wrestling match with Hercules all in one fell swoop. My vocabulary is pretty good, but there are days when polysyllabic explanations leave me muddled and frustrated; being frustrated muddles me even more. Then, when I find out that there is a perfectly good, simple explanation for the concept, I stomp. I get pissed when I'm outsmarted by words. It drives me nuts.
I'm working on two, related, projects right now. In one, I'm learning how to use XSL to play with XML documents. When I see the solutions, I can see, exactly, how it works, but I can't get there on my own. My second project involves DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) and there are three types of conversations about DITA that all revolve around how to do something with the structure of DITA. Some of the conversation is easy, authoring issues - some of the conversations are technical, dealing with XSL or the rendering engines - some are just beyond me and I have no idea what they're talking about. My three buckets. One I can follow, and often get ideas from, one that I can peer vaguely into and get the gist of, one I am left wondering just what the writer is saying and what they're saying it about.
I would sigh, in fact I did, but that is not something that really works in this medium.
If the medium is the message, I'm wondering what I'm missing. The whole idea of simplicity, in this case I'm exchanging my reader-facing simplicity for my creator-facing simplicity. I'm balancing a huge technical weight hoping that I will be delivering, to my reader, a clear, focused result. Something that will make their experience simpler.
I just wish it didn't leave me feeling like I've just jumped off a bridge because someone else told me it would be a good idea.

WOW - I'm in

2008-01-01T03:50:47Z

I tried SecondLife, briefly, but found it required too much time. I never even made it off of Orientation Island.
I'm trying World of Warcraft now. I've completed my first quest.
I don't get it. I am trying to understand, but I just don't get it. This life is complicated enough, for me, without creating an entire second existence.
I did enjoy wonking the critters on the head, but it took about 10 fights before I figured out that my frantic mouse clicks were having no effect on the outcome. I realized that I had to see what I had to improve my chances without depending on my ability to click on my opponent faster. I wish there were guides, in world, who could take you, like Yoda, into a training camp and prepare you for the world. It seems to be learn by dying.
It's not that I'm out conquering worlds, online or off, because I'm really not interested. I like a puzzle, a challenge, something that I can figure out. Watching an avatar wonk another caught me up, but I was frustrated that I didn't seem to be able to change the outcome.
Maybe there is a SecondLife group for World of Warcraft players?
These worlds have actually given me an idea for a story, so I guess I do get them on some level.

Victoria!

2007-12-31T00:35:06Z

I just spent a couple of days with my niece, nephew, and my nephew's wife. I have always felt close to my nephew and that relationship feels like it has developed distance over the years. I felt disconnected from my niece until she grew up and moved to Korea to teach English. It was odd, then, to spend the weekend with the two of them. That confluence of change left me feeling quite confused and, in an odd way, lonely.
So much in life happens and you can't really communicate it. Everything seems so complicated; there are all the contributing factors which are, regardless of what anyone else says, unique to you and that moment, that experience, that perspective. Everything is flavoured by the family, as well. Personality, character, and physical characteristics travel in a family. You can see your brother and your mother in your cousins and others.
I wish I could say to them, my nieces and nephew, that they should embrace the joys and sorrows with equal enthusiasm. But, I don't know how to say that in a meaningful way. There are too many examples in my family of people who have taken that concept and ended up as so much flotsam on the beach of life. There is a lot of mental illness in my family and I don't know how common it is, but if I were a generation younger, I'd be seriously worried.
The effort it takes now to achieve anything in life seems far greater than in my parents' generation. Perhaps this is untrue, but I see that advantages that even I had are gone, cut away in the frantic streamlining and cost-cutting spree of the past twenty years (or more). By becoming a less community-minded culture (here in North America), we're creating a division that prevents individuals from changing their circumstances by rising. It is so much easier to fail and fall. There are fewer safety nets and a greater sense of predestination. There is less of a sense that we all rise and fall together; perhaps my perception is tainted by my own experience and by my current location. I rose from poverty not just by the dint of my own effort, but by a communal sense that provided the rungs in the ladder I used. There are those who cannot climb even with assistance but that is not a good reason for removing all assistance from the realm. Relying solely on the contributions of non-governmental agencies does not provide the same, leavened leg-up that a well-reasoned and well-funded government-run assistance program.
Aside from this rather deep, mind-bending aspect of the visit, we had a blast. If you get to Victoria, check out Miniature World. I was, at first, a bit shy about asking to go, but everyone seemed quite taken with the idea. We admired the handy work, the complexity, and the shear magnitude of the obsession that produced the small museum of miniatures. The interactive bits were delightful and I was just a little sad that the fire department regulations had put an end to the miniature saw mill action. The model is still there, but the workings are not activated. We wondered if the creator had used this tiny sawmill to create the boards for some of the other displays. The doll houses seemed a bit uneven in execution, especially compared to the dioramas. I want to go back with a decent camera, a King Kong doll, and a Godzilla figurine so I can act out and capture it in its full glory.

Scrabble

2007-11-24T19:49:27Z

I can't believe how bad I am at Scrabble. I look at my tiles and I'm stumped. I stare at the letters, I move them around, I fiddle, I grab a dictionary and start reading, and I just can't make the letters into words of any character. Give me a crossword puzzle any day. Without the letters there bothering me, the clue and the number of spaces make a pattern in my head; it's easy. Give me a pile of letters and no other guidance, and I'm lost.
I can do jigsaw puzzles.
I can do sudoku puzzles.
Scrabble doesn't fit my brain.
How does that work? I know so many words that I have to take care when listening to people talk. Words take on new meanings, new nuances, as people use them. And then there is connotative and denotative meanings to work my way through.
I am much better at writing than I am at listening.
I'm losing every scrabble match I'm in. Maybe I should choose my opponents better; maybe I should stick to games with small children?

Happy Birthday

2007-11-20T18:59:57Z

In a few days, it will be my mother's birthday. She's not alive to see it. She died, alone, in bed last spring. So thoroughly had she isolated herself that she laid, undiscovered, for perhaps two weeks.

So, I find myself feeling restless and agitated. Work is fast-paced and I have deadlines looming, home is filled with the sounds and sights of the repairs, I've not been able to settle into any sort of rhythm.

For my mother:

How sad, the most kind mother
Wandering the three realms of Samsara
May she be led to the path of Avolokitashivara
Om mani padme hum hri

Back into the swing

2007-11-19T20:23:04Z

After all the coming and going recently, what with the brand-engagement day at work and the leak in my east-facing wall, with the death of my cat and my own neck injuries, with work piling up like a snow-drift in 1968 Ontario, I just have not done much of anything with my NaNoWriMo project.
Quel dommage.
How sad.
I've promised my godson that I'll write all week and finish something. I've promised to send it to him.
I can hardly sit still these days, so that was quite the rash promise. But, I'm thinking novella and I think I can do that. I'll just get neurotic and go like stink. The end result will probably be a bit ripe, but there will be a story there.
I could just keep a journal, but my life, in truth, has such a broad story arch that people would be bored before they got to the critical bits.
Besides, I want to try something more interesting than chewing over my own wretched existence. I want a story in which the hero achieves some sort of resolution.
Speaking of which, I had an idea for one of those reality competitions that are so popular: short story writing. But Martha said it wouldn't translate well. So, maybe short plays. Each week, contestants write a short play, present it, and get marked on their skills. The judges would talk about the story structure and so on. I'd watch.

The Big Day

2007-11-16T18:16:11Z

Well we had our big day! Wow. As you may have known, I was dreading
this horrid exercise. I imagined it largely as a coercive effort. Some
new management trick bought from expensive consultants to beat us into
submission using fear and anger. I could not imaging what they wanted
from us even though they sent out countless emails encouraging us,
informing us, and cajoling us.
I worked hard to figure out what they wanted from this day. Was it
some bizarre effort to create a conformist atmosphere, adopt the
company as country and family, or just a gesture to placate us by
appearing to care about our relationship with the company. What did
they want? I'm a suspicious person when dealing with non-individual
entities. People, individuals, I'm quite willing to take at face value.
But one to one changes nature when you add even one more. The texture
of the relationship changes and it changes even more dramatically when
one of the three represents not themselves but a larger non-existent
entity, like a belief system, a country, a company -- a governing
body, as it were. They enter into a relationship with you that is not
one of choice between two individuals but one that is horribly
lopsided because one individual is not individual, they are
representing a collective. The decisions of the collective, the
mysterious governing body, become the motivations of the person
standing in front of you. Even I think this sounds paranoid.
Twenty years ago, I wrote a poem that included the lines:

I don't believe in no government,
And I don't believe in no god.
I believe the way that it all comes
Down, is a fraud.
-----
I don't want to die, for god or country

Clearly this is not a new anxiety of mine.

All that said, my willingness to be curious and willing got me to work
in time for the start of the second kick-off session. We gathered,
standing (thereby indicating it was going to be a short, fast session)
in the large room used for such gathering (and sports when meetings
are not happening). The lights went down, a screen lit up, and our
CEO's voice boomed out over the loudspeaker. Our CEO is a tiny woman,
small in physical stature only, and she had cleverly started her
speech from the back of the room; while talking into a lapel mic, she
wound her way through the shuffling herd ( which cleared around her
like gazelles scenting lions) speaking.
She, and the two shills in the audience who responded to her call for
contributions of personal commitments, chatted their way through a
fast set up. We were to look for ways to enhance our interactions with
coworkers, make life better for our customers, and thereby improve the
company as a whole. On one level, I understand that if the workers in
a company are all pulling in the same direction (led either by fear or
dedication) the company, as a whole, moves in that direction. Think of
galleys, the ancient sailing vessels with their rows of vassals
pulling on their oars per the direction of the man who took his
direction from above. The sailors were volunteers and the adventure
they sought was facilitated by the need for sailors. Circular, just
like now where a company needs employees to take care of customers
(Max Barry's book Company aside) and those employees are also
customers. It's a very involved relationship one has, especially with
a large corporation.
The first third of my professional life was spent working for small
companies. Then I went out on my own and found it was still small
companies that needed my work. Now, I work for a corporation (in all
senses). It's an international corporation of mind-boggling size (at
least to me). It's employee count, excluding contractors and
consultants, and outsourced departments, is about the population of a
mid-sized city.
Once we were into our breakout sessions, I was faced with the duality
of my own sense and apprehensions about the day (and the motive of the
company). Two coworkers were bantering and one declared this day to be
a colossal waste of resources (money and time, specifically his time)
and he worried that this was how the company was spending his bonus.
The other coworker responded saying he preferred to see it as an
investment the company was making; the company thought so much about
the exercise that they were willing to spend the money. We figured,
just taking the population of the company and the amount of time taken
on this particular day alone, it was costing the company at least
$10,000,000. I think the room, by the time the 15 people had gathered,
were fairly evenly split between resentful, passive, and curious.
The facilitators were all management level employees who had received a
couple of hours of training prior to being assigned a room. The
facilitators, during their training, managed to inject changes into
the structure of the day. First, they reduced the amount of time to be
spent and they eliminated the requirement that employees attend the
session led by their direct supervisor. This changed the outcome
dramatically.
First, people were dispersed and were now working with people with
whom they did not have close working relationships. Second, the goal
changed from a commitment the team would make to a suggestion for a
project to be undertaken to achieve the goal of the day.
The goal of the day was identifying a project that could be
accomplished in a 3 month period that addressed an issue that blocked
the delivery of simplicity. That delivery may be something in-house
that prevented the delivery of product or make the work difficult to
perform. That delivery could be something about our product that made
it difficult to sell, use, or maintain.
We started with identifying some place in our own lives, outside of
work, where we had made things easier for ourselves. We went around
the room and chatted that up. Then we identified some areas on our
work life where things had been made easier (usually by another
employee, it was, at this point, shifting from what have you done for
me lately to what has someone done for you lately). Then, we sat down
with sticky notes and wrote down areas, in our work life, that
presented problems, opportunities for improvement, or created road
blocks to success. Then we worked with one other person and chose two
of the issues from our collections. The selected issues were posted on
a board and we voted on them. We selected one as the focus of our
suggestion.
The discovery and exploration phases were handled with a very six
sigma style of working. The facilitator in my group was very good at
giving us enough leeway to explore our thoughts and feelings without
devolving into a harsh complaint session.
We were all happy to leave the meeting, but we were also satisfied
with our contribution to the day. I think that is what the corporation
was looking for.

Circles

2007-11-10T03:31:38Z

By the end of a day of work, I'm beat. This is the period of details. I sit there with two documents filled with details and then I try to compare them to a partially completely simulation of the product. I'm mostly down to the details that show up in the product but not in any description (that I can find) of the product. So, what does that option mean? That one, third from the left, second row down..
Whoever wrote the option label knew EXACTLY what the option was intended to do. They wrote the best label they could given the circumstances.
It's a bit like trying to figure what is inside the egg by reading a description of the DNA.
Sometimes, magically, I get it and I'm right. More often, I wander through the company directory looking for someone I know to help me figure out who is the right person to ask. Occasionally, the person I know is also the person I need to talk to which makes everything so much easier.
I'm finding it impossible to think about murders in Ontario or complex politics on a fantastic province.
So, instead of writing, I'm listening to Laurie Anderson and I'm doing jigsaw puzzles (I tried Sudoku but my brain couldn't wrap itself around that).
Tomorrow, I go off to judge technical manuals for a competition.
I'm really looking forward to the 4 days off at the American Thanksgiving. A relief.

Does life use metaphors?

2007-11-03T04:48:12Z

I have a crappy neck. Push comes to shove, I'll blame it on my mother.
Yesterday I undid some very expensive work that I've had done on my neck. Oh no! Oh yes!
I drive to work (bad me, bad me, I live 3 miles from work... I used a very helpful website that crunched numbers, ostensibly to show me that commuting with others would be better... the only way cheaper than my 20 year old car is my 4 year old bike... that I can't ride until my neck is better). Where was I?
Oh, yeah, I drive to work in my 20 year old car. Yesterday, I puttered along the highway and at the junction where I pull into the left turn lane, my car stalled. Really stalled. Would not start stalled.
I stand here before you and say, this is the first time I've been in this situation. I want you to know that, thanks to countless hours of television and my driving instructor, Tom, I was able to leap into action. I called AAA for a tow, I called my wife for the phone number of the garage, I phoned the garage and told them to expect my car. That took 15 minutes. Then I sat in the suicide lane for another half hour waving at people to go around my useless hunk of metal. A very sweet cop pulled up behind me with his lights flashing (only the second time that's happened, I'm a very boring driver). We chatted and he used his cruiser to push my car out of the middle of the highway over to a bus stop. Well, first I locked my steering wheel and almost banged into a light pole. He was very sweet to me. I'm sure I looked borderline mad, as in insane, and totally freaked. I didn't know how to be pushed, I didn't know I had to have my key in the ignition to make my steering wheel turn. And, with my crapped out neck, cranking that steering wheel (once I got the thing about the key figured out) sent me back into traction (well, metaphorically).
So, what does all this have to do with the question about life using metaphors?
This: At a number of key junctures in my life, vignettes play out and reveal to me the choices I have ahead of me.
Most times they're very clear...
Is this one?
Does life really grab your shirt collar and give it a shake when you're steering off course?
If it does, what did this all mean?
A reluctance to participate in the collective hypnosis of a large group of adults. I can't steer my own course. I must allow authority to assist and direct me.
Nah, that's too weird, but it would make a great short story... I can see it now.
Oh, great, something to add to my NaNo word count.

Apply the company brand to your life...

2007-11-02T02:36:13Z

Hmm, okay, so I'm being asked to give examples of the company brand statement and it's supporting pillars as it is expressed in my life and work. Okay, first we're actually supposed to know what the brand is and what the pillars are. Now, we've been given a homework assignment.
We got the official low-down today, in the form of a six page memo. The memo outlines the various exercises we're to do on the special day. In one, I'm supposed to bring a story that describes how our brand statement is played out in my life. Life is better because I am a brand ambassador. In another, I'm supposed to talk about how the pillars and the brand show up in my work.
There's more, but I can't remember the whole six pages.
My coworkers and I have spent a number of hours flailing, railing, and wailing about this enforced voluntary activity. We've been informed that we cannot go into the exercises with snarky statements, sarcasm, or other unworthy contributions.
I told a group of folks at work that I actually felt better about the whole thing since I've spent time mulling it over in this blog.
The corporate big wigs have been evangelized. They have the spirit and it compels them to spread the good word. I must accept the corporation into my life. Once I do, I will be healed. I will grow fluffy wings and ... oh, wait, wrong story.
I do feel like I'm on one of those reality television shows. I wonder, some days, where the hidden cameras are and I try to remember, in that huge stack of papers I signed when I was hired... was one a release form?
Seriously, although I think I'm getting an idea of what the idea is, I still don't get it. I still really feel like I'm being sold something that requires faith, belief, trust. How can I trust a non-existent being? Is the corporation going beyond country to god?

November Nuttiness

2007-11-01T14:20:25Z

While I pound the keys writing about products so users can use them, while I review statistics and processes and design improvements, while I determine what the brand day means to me, I am starting a new novel. I haven't finished last year's novel (though it is shaping up).
I couldn't stay up and wait for midnight, so I spent some time this morning updating my blog about work, updating my blog about branding, and writing a few hundred (552) words in my new story.
My keyboard is growing tiresome; it's not keeping up with my fingers. More and more often, the key strokes simply don't register. Maybe I should take it apart and clean it. But NOT NOW!!

Brand Bombshell

2007-11-01T05:34:48Z

All this focus on the day of exercises to explore the company's brand and how I integrate it into my life and work has gotten me thinking, a lot, about brands. When I look at an ad or a product, I look for its brand. How is the brand expressed?
And I've been doing some reading on branding to discover just what it includes.
Here's what I think so far: branding can be the logo, a phrase, or even a look that conveys some ideal that the company uses to identify itself and its products in the marketplace. With this definition, the company is attempting to connect to the consumer, to have the consumer identify with the company. There is, for example, only one brand of swimsuit I'd consider wearing. The brand is forever associated with my father, with excellence, with the push to do better each time you swim. No other brand says that to me even if the suits are otherwise indistinguishable. I can recognize the suits on swimmers. The brand is seared into my brain on more levels than I can begin to fully enumerate.
That, clearly, is what a company wants to do with a brand.
It can go against them as well; a brand can become synonymous with an event or experience that results in an intense, and equally irrational, feeling of repulsion.
It makes sense, then, that the company would want its employees to relate to the brand when the brand identifies the company. Loyalty to the company as a facet of the agreement between you and the corporation. Loyalty is an idea that has been treated, in recent times, as something quaint and antiquated; loyalty to an employer is something that went out of fashion with my father's generation. My generation is smart, mobile, and dedicated to self-promotion, self-satisfaction, and self-realization. Loyalty to the corporate employer sometimes requires actions that do nothing for me, the individual.
Corporations are having to convince employees that they belong to a community managed by mysterious powers in some remote location. Corporations are, like some countries, a collection of territories taken in acquisitions that are decided not by the employees but by the leaders. Some leaders have made their territories ripe for acquisition; others have struggled mightily, with few resources, to protect their territories. Now, the larger collective has to be converted from a disparate collection of identities into one, monolithic culture. The great melting pot theory.
How reciprocal is this loyalty? My citizenship grants me certain responsibilities and benefits. Will pledging my allegiance to the corporation bring me benefits? I wonder what they are. I get a paycheck without pledging my allegiance. I get a paycheck by doing my job. So, what will the corporation give me in return for integrating myself and pledging allegiance?
What if I branded myself? What if I had a statement that identified me? What would I want it to be? Clearly, I have a new project.

The ROI on Branding Employees

2007-10-27T19:49:03Z

One of the concepts that is promoted at work is the idea that change must provide a return on investment. There must be an actual, measurable result that has, as a benefit, a monetary savings. I'm deep into this culture; I'm working on my Six Sigma Green Belt. I can see that the rationale is, well, rational. Don't just make change for sake of making change. At the last place I worked, they did that and we called it churn. In 18 months, I had four different managers, belonged to two different division (without changing my job), had five different directors, and three different VPs. Each time one of these changes happened, we had to go through the whole introduction, analysis, and goal setting for my work. My work didn't really change, but I had to spend an inordinate amount of time educating new bosses as to what I did and why it was worthwhile for the company to let me keep doing it.
So, the focus on evaluating processes before deciding to change them, then measuring the processes to discover where the problem actually is, and fixing that instead of flailing about changing every thing on the fly, seems good to me. But, given that, what's the problem they're trying to solve with our buy into the brand day?
How much is it costing to design and deliver this day of wooing the employee? What is supposed to happen at the end of the day? Am I supposed to fall in love with the corporation? Is this religion? A corporation is an ethereal thing, like a god or demon. Since it has no consciousness of its own, what can I fall in love with? But, people are patriotic, which is kind of like being in love with your country. A country, like a corporation, is non-corporeal. I mean they both have physical manifestations, but they aren't sentient beings, they aren't aware; they are collections of people who have come together.
So, maybe the idea is to create an agreement, a sense of connectedness, like people from the same country feel some link to everyone else who calls themselves by the same national or cultural name. When news talks about travellers, I look to see if any are my countrymen. The chances of me knowing them personally are shatteringly slim, but, I will feel more concern about a fellow countryman in danger than just another human tragedy.
Is my company trying to become a country?

Buying into your company's mythology

2007-10-27T02:28:26Z

My philosophy is that work is like Disney World, an approximation of real life that requires the suspension of disbelief.
Now, the corporation that employs me want me to be engaged. I'm already married, I protest.
I'm afraid, now, that I'll be encouraged to do calisthenics with my coworkers each morning (I am encouraged to perambulate the campus, they even provide three routes with distances so I can live a heart healthy life). Perhaps I will be reciting the brand pledge each morning along with the loudspeaker leader piped in over my head.
I want to buy copies of Jennifer Government for the senior management to read. Or at least suggest they get a grip.
Here's the deal: I have skills, the corporation wants them, I enjoy what I do, they need what I do; they pay me, I put up with their bizarre culture. I would do what I do for free. I love what I do. Of course if I were doing it for free, I would not show up every day and they wouldn't be able to count on shipping product on time.
As it is, the branding experience is feeling a bit odd. And frustrating. We're going to spend an entire day in workshops and group exercises, becoming engaged and committed to the brand philosophy. None of us, in my group, belief the brand philosophy. We just want to get our job done.
That's it.
We want to get our job done, and done well. We take pride in our work. We work as a team, we're comfortable with each other, we trust each other, and we can move the work along with little friction and tussle. We aren't each other's best friend and we don't want the company to try so hard to make us be its best friend. It's work, for crying out loud.

wetcoastwriter @ 2007-10-17T15:36:00

2007-10-17T22:43:26Z

Today I euthanized my cat. He was 17.5 years old, blind, and dying. In a 5 month period he'd developed liver cancer with a tumour large enough to feel. He was starting to waste away and gain weight. It was very strange to watch. For the past week, he slept heavily for 23 hours a day. The other hour was spent demanding chicken or trying to find me for lap time. He was uncomfortable. I didn't want to let him go. It's breaking my heart.
My cat was dying.
When I got back from my mother's death visit, we had Ninja checked out because he was drinking way more water than usual. His blood work came back fine. The vet was impressed with him. 5 months later, the tumour was taking over.
There is one bizarre bit to all of this: in the x-ray, he showed up all confused. His intestines were bunched up next to his heart, in his chest cavity, and his stomach was huge, swollen with gas, across his hips.
If he wasn't dying, I'd be laughing. Amazing kitty.

He was allergic to pretty much everything, including his own fur, so we've made his cat food for the past six years. No more.

I don't know if Spooky will notice his absence, but I will.

What a week!

2007-09-23T22:32:59Z

Okay, I'm having a melt-down. Hands-down the wildest melt-down in years. And I have no idea what it's about.
I missed Friday's writing. I took drugs and went to bed.
Saturday, I woke up okay but kind of distant. It's my wife's birthday weekend, so I've been wandering around watching her be happy. I feel a distant wash of pleasure from that.
I am working on a short story idea that I've been kicking around for a while. I've managed 1400 words today. I think about half of them will end up in the story. Or their cousins will. But, the story is started.
It's finishing I'm having the hard time around. If I never finish you'll never know how bad it is. Therefore, if I never finish, you'll always think I'm at least potentially cool.

Another Day

2007-09-16T23:43:23Z

Today I'm sitting here wondering what I'm going to do with this story. I did write another scene, but I'm kind of dazed and confused. It might be that I was up late last night and the rain has my arthritis going.
I tried writing Friday night, got some done, but I got more apple pie than I got writing done. I even went back this morning for more pie.
I think I'll go on to reading the book on wikis and teams and so on.
I'm having another one of those days.

News Real

2007-09-15T18:45:05Z

I'm a bit stuck with the story. I was thinking last night about how to get past this problem I'm having and I started thinking of the story, not as the novel, but as a time line. This morning, I sat down to write the time line as a series of news articles.
Why does the killer kill? What events in the past draw the killer to kill and to kill these particular people? This is stuff I know. So, then I can write these news stories and see what information is hiding in my head.
I want, very much, to finish this up and get it out to readers. Then, what?
I think I need to get back to the writing workshop and get some input from others on where to go from here.
We few, we happy few...