.Thursday, April 11, 2002

making parts

"Les querelles ne durearaient pas longtemps si le tort n'était que d'un côté."
François, duc de la Rochefoucauld

Quarrels would not last long if only one party were in the wrong.

I work. I have only one meeting. It's one I can and often do, skip. However, I am trying to engage people. I do make it through lots of my reading and I respond to a few e-mails. Oh, and my latest boss asks for MBOs. For the record, I think Management by Objectives is a waste of time. Things change so fast that often you can't predict what you absolutely should be working on. But what if you could? Then you should have a schedule and estimates. And manage to it? But if you have interruptions and they take priority or things have to be reconsidered, then you should do that. In other words, management should already have the tools to judge employees for retention as well as bonuses. So why add a layer? So I take about five minutes to say what I've done and what I might, all other things being equal, be able to do in the quarter now fast disappearing. End of story. Will I get a bonus for either quarter? Who knows? It depends on how the company did and how this brand new face perceives it all. I can't be bothered with it. I try to translate what I do into the long-term success of the company. If I feel properly remunerated, I stay with the company. I have always thought I got enough money. Now, I may have believed that others got too much money. That's another story.

So my (few) readers are, some of them, concerned with my depression and yesterday's stream of consciousness diatribe. One states that we are friends. She is right. We are and for a long, long time. But not the kind of friends that you are in contact with daily or even weekly. Not a tennis buddy either. I need a tennis buddy. She did play racquetball with me at one time. The ideal thing would be for me to find a tennis buddy who was OK, not too good, maybe won half the time, and belonged to my club and worked so that he/she wouldn't want to play when I was working. I've always said you need friends and acquaintances for different purposes. (Not that I use people. Shut up.) Over the years, tennis buddies have provided entertaining friendships beyond the fuzzy yellow ball.

At lunch time, I go over to the parents. I restore a missing tool bar for my mother and fix her printer only nothing is wrong with it. On the phone, I thought maybe it needed an ink cartridge. Dad tries to get me to eat some lunch, but I'm not really interested. I go to Randall's and get some cheese and onions and some cookies. Back in the office I have some nachos and some cookies. Three cookies. I need to eat better. Salad for lunch tomorrow.

In the evening, FFP asks about dinner. I joke that I'd like veal because I'm listening to a mafia novel on tape in my car. I'm thinking lemon veal with capers. He actually comes up with veal with fresh tomato sauce from Cooper's along with a twice-baked potato. He brings some deviled eggs, too. I'm pretty full after it all. My lower back aches. I heat up this buckwheat-filled pillow we have and put it on my back and watch TV and read the paper. I stay up too late. I still can't go right to sleep and so I read some more. I turn out the light but I toss and turn...and yet, once I get out of bed, I will feel better in the morning. It's funny how that works.

JUST TYPING
Finding a happy medium.
Between dissatisfaction.
Leading to improvement.
And despair.