[Written on May 27 and backdated] We had the second half of our “retreat” Friday morning. Overall, I think it was successful, but time will tell for sure. I had lunch with Derrick and Pam on Friday, which was fun. Our CIO let everyone go home at 3 PM in order to get a head…
I had the main day of my work-related “retreat” yesterday. We got started at 8 AM sharp and finished up just before 9 PM. I felt like a limp noodle when it was all over. Sitting around in a conference room all day and talking can be extremely draining. We were well-fed, breakfast, lunch and…
Context: over the last several months, two of my major projects at work have been building prototype applications that allows units within the company to maintain a database of ongoing research project portfolios. The database essentially contains metadata about projects, and in the two prototypes we have done, the response has been very positive within…
Not old in years, you understand, but as in “past”. I had wall-to-wall meetings today and in and among them were the usual array of voicemail message. (A terrible invention, this Voicemail Beast, like a tiny demon that resides inside your phone sadistically ensuring that you get all of your messages!) However, one message, from…
I was sitting here minding my own business, working on the final steps of a software rollout, when my great-grandboss stopped at my door to tell me he’d been speaking with some of the people for whom I am doing this project and they said they were all very pleased with what I have done,…
My take is that honesty is always the best policy, even where it might hurt you. Thus, when I opened my pay stub today, I noticed right away that the amount of money that my company contributes to my retirement was wrong in my favor by more than $60. I could think of no immediate…
Things are getting busier at work. I’m getting ready to deploy another application I have completed this week. It is about to go into regression testing (the re-testing of bugs that have been fixed) and then it’s more or less ready for release. In addition to that, I’m involved in a similar, but much bigger…
People trying to call me this week have occasionally expressed their frustration in the fact that I always seem to be in meetings. If they feel frustrated, imagine how I must feel. I change my outgoing message everyday, giving people an idea of when I am going to in meetings. In order to defray some…
Today is national Administrative Assistant’s day, or something like that and I sent flowers to my assistant Cathy, who works in Santa Monica. Actually, she is the department assistant, doing the jobs of nine or ten people in her quiet and remarkable way. She is one of my favorite people at my company and she…
Moments ago, one of the office assistants came up to me in order to schedule a meeting with me next week. We went through the usual dance, and I finally told her any time on May 1, 2, or 3 was fine. A few minutes later I received an email that said: How about May…
[Posted on April 20th because of problems accessing LJ last night.] Whew! It was one busy day today. All week I’ve been preparing for an important training session that I was running today for software that I have been developing for one of our research divisions. Today was training day. It went well, but I’m…
I had a fairly productive day today and I have, to some extent, thank Norm and Vicky for that. They spent at least part of the weekend listening to me pour out my work sorrows in mawkish tones that I would have found unbearable were I listening to someone. But they put up with me…