Crappy Hour

The words began flowing out of me as I wrote my first piece on being ineffective.  For a writer, that is the best feeling in the world.  Damn, I’m good, I congratulated myself.  Maybe I’m not so ineffective after all.  I finished up the writing (and the pinot noir) and was ready to create my new blog, but I couldn’t remember my Gmail username and password.  So I tried logging in using various combinations of user names and passwords which I might have created but none of them worked.  Then, I decided to ask Google to reset my password on a user name that could only belong to me.  Success!

I was so excited to start posting to this new blog and attempted to create it under my Gmail account using my real name and default (MSN) email address.  This is when the fun started because the Google Team decided I must be a spammer and blocked me at every turn.  After about two hours I threw in the towel and created the blog under my default email account even though I had wanted the blogs to be completely separate from each other, because my other blog is about Serious Topics. I am willing to bet big dollars that Highly Effective People can do whatever they want with Google and never get accused of spamming. How I envy them.

A few years ago, I took a part-time job as an “executive assistant” to the executive director of a small local orchestra under the delusion that this would be a fun job.  Judith, the executive director, considered herself a computer expert and had set up a peer-to-peer network in the office which allowed the three computers to share a single printer.  She was a fan of a data management product called “File Maker” and had created a database of the orchestra’s subscribers with it.  The problem with File Maker is that it is easy to use and because it is easy to use it is unable to handle the sort of elegant file structures that a frequently-updated database requires.  Judith’s approach was to keep adding fields to each record for each new subscription year.  After about three years, a subscriber’s record was approaching maximum record size.  Even worse, trying to figure out exactly what data each record contained was an exercise in cryptology.  For example, what exactly did the field “0405msub” contain?  No one could remember, but it was important so the field had to stay.  

A major problem with being a Highly Ineffective Person is that even when you are right, no one listens to you. I, a former database designer, explained to Judith how the database might be redesigned in order to simplify data management and provide more useful information, she then explained to me that her database worked just fine and was easy to use and understand and I should just do my job.  Judith's database was, she made clear, the highly effective product of a Highly Effective Person.  

File Maker has a lovely mail/merge function which saves countless hours of clerical time, a high priority for Highly Effective People like Judith.  One of my first tasks was to create a mass mailing to all past and present (and living) subscribers offering them a discount on the coming season if they bought their tickets early.  To Judith's eternal dismay, it became immediately clear to her that not only was I was a Highly Ineffective Person, but I could bring her beloved network to its knees simply by turning on my computer.  She had to leave for a meeting, so I rolled up my sleeves and tried to make File Maker work for me.  After two hours of frustration, I ended up doing the mailing the hard way (i.e., printing each letter and envelop individually) because in the end it took much less time than doing it the easy way.  When I was about 75% finished, Judith returned and demanded that I stop what I was doing and use File Maker, so I pretended to comply until she left for another meeting.  Thirty minutes later, the mailing was done but File Maker had thrown down the gauntlet.  It was a long four months until Judith had hired my replacement.

Here I am, eight years later, attempting to create a blog using a user-friendly (idiot-proof) blogging platform and being accused by Google of being a spammer.  I am tempted to haul out the IBM Selectric and put my posts on the Publix bulletin board.

 Copyright 2012 Teresa Friedlander, all rights reserved

Happy Hour

I have reinvented myself as a writer because that is a good job title for someone who accomplishes very little on a given day.  Today, for instance, I had planned to clean Daughter #2’s room because it hasn’t had a visit from the vacuum, dust rag, and toilet brush since April or May.  But first, I had to feed the dogs and make coffee, two things I do every day.  You might assume that I can do these tasks blindfolded and in my sleep, but you would be wrong.  This morning, I assembled the coffee carafe, put the paper filter in the basket, filled it up with ground coffee, and moved on to the next thing.  The dogs know to wait while I make the coffee, which is a very endearing trait.  I picked the dog bowls up from the floor and put them on the counter and stared off into space for about 30 seconds while I tried to remember what it was that I was supposed to be doing.  Dog food – right!

Feeding the dogs is very rewarding because the dogs enjoy eating the same disgusting food day after day.  Their food is truly revolting which makes me wonder WHY I am spending $150 per month on dog food I can only buy from the vet.  That’s a topic for another day.  This morning after successfully feeding both dogs AND providing clean drinking water, I was ready for my coffee, my little reward for getting out of bed and feeding the dogs, except I had forgotten to turn the coffeemaker on.  Minor glitch, I decided to put the time to good use and make my breakfast while the coffee brewed.  

Something about this morning was off and I couldn’t put my finger on it until I went to pour that first divine cup of java:  I had forgotten to put water in the coffeemaker’s reservoir.  I hadn’t heard the gurgling of the water, that glorious morning music which heralds the beginning of a new day.  I can’t eat breakfast without coffee, so I filled the reservoir and did some tidying up while the coffee brewed for real this time.  I must have lost focus somewhere in the family room while picking up newspapers and empty glasses because the wheat germ on top of my yogurt was completely soggy by the time I remembered that I had not yet had coffee and breakfast.  

By the time I had finished my breakfast and poured the third cup of coffee into a thermos for later, I was an hour late for my riding lesson.  Merde.  My trainer had already come and gone, thinking that I had stood her up, so took my horse out to let him run around with the cattle in sand arena.  He had a great time and we ended up in the round pen where we did some work on human-horse communication.  Unfortunately, the poor equine got overheated so I had to walk him around for an hour after hosing him down in order to get his heart rate down.  Then I noticed that he had cut himself while galloping madly after the bovines.  Merde, again.  I had to wash out the wound and fashion a bandage out of sterile gauze and duct tape.  By the time I had finished with this, it was close to high noon.  That was OK, however, because I still had plenty of time to clean my daughter’s room and make the dentist appointments which were overdue.  

I returned home dripping with sweat, stripped down in the mudroom, and headed straight for the shower.  Just as I was about to step in, the phone rang and it was the mortgage specialist who was helping me refinance the mortgage on our house.  He had a few questions he needed to go over with me, he said, it should only take a few minutes.  An hour later, I was still naked and answering questions (which I had already answered at least twice before).  Once everything was resolved, I took that shower and changed into fresh clothes.  A second shower was in my future because my daughter’s room was truly fetid.

First, I needed a quick bite of lunch so I made a PB&J and ate that while checking out the Sunday crossword puzzle which was created by a crazy trivia freak.  I couldn’t even figure out the three letter words.  Then my cell phone rang and it was Daughter #1, the one who lives in Savannah.  “Mom!” she said.  “I NEED YOU TO SEND ME MY CUSTUMES FOR DRAGON CON RIGHT AWAY!!!”  Uh. OK.  I didn’t have anything better to do (actually this sounded better than cleaning the homegirl’s room anyway).  It took a good 45 minutes to find all of the various components of the costume which included an enormous hoop skirt, red wig, bejeweled skirt,feathered bodice, and several pieces of unwearable jewelry.  “PLEASE PACK EVERYTHING CAREFULLY – I’LL CRY IF ANYTHING GETS RUINED.”  Uh.  OK.  

Three trips to the car with the costume stuff and away I went to the local pack-n-ship store.  “I need to send this stuff to my daughter in Savannah,” I said to the young and helpful-seeming young man who was on duty.  “UH, do you have a box for any of this?” he asked.  “No, that’s why I am here!  You guys are supposed to know how to pack stuff.”  “Uh. OK.”  Another highly effective person.  I hope for Daughter #1’s sake that everything arrives intact, un-damaged, and as she hopes it will be because I do not think I can survive her grief if a single pearl comes unglued in transit.

Fast forward to 8:00 pm.  I decided that the only way I could make sense of my ineffectiveness was to write about it, so that brings us to number 9 on the list of 7 Habits of Ineffective People:  happy hour.  I’m enjoying a glass of pinot noir while I wait for dinner to cook.  Merde.  I forgot to turn on the oven.

Copyright 2012 Teresa Friedlander, all rights reserved