Tuesday, November 13, 2007
And Now, A Special Bonus Post!
Because I'm in a sharing mood today, I thought I'd leave just another random thought I had. I was listening to people talk about learning to play instruments as kids. That's when I realized that my OCD didn't just arise recently.
In fifth grade, we started playing instruments. I picked the saxophone. I was trying to decide between that and the trumpet. I picked the sax because my brothers played the trumpet. Even back then I was trying to distance myself from them....
To make sure we practiced, our music teacher gave us little slips to take home. We were supposed to fill out how many minutes we practiced each day. I vividly remember writing down 180 minutes a day. My music teacher naturally thought I was lying. He called my mom to confirm. I think he could tell by the anguish in her voice that I wasn't lying.
Turns out, all that practice was good for me. I became pretty good at the sax, becoming first chair later in junior high. I'm not terribly creative though, so I had a hard time coming up with solos for jazz band. Music is very mathematical when you're playing other people's music. When you're coming up with your own, it's downright scary. I'm not the most creative person in the world, which drives The Wife nuts whenever I'm playing with Legos and can't build anything other than what's on the box.
Anyway, this need to learn (or master) things is bleeding into work now and I have to learn to repress that urge. I have a project coming up where we're going to be working with a lot of data in Access, which is Office's database program. I don't know Access at all. But I'm supposed to manage someone who does. For some reason, I feel the need to learn Access so that I can do the work myself. They're grooming me to become a manager, which means I'll really stop doing any work myself. I keep telling myself that it's okay to not know everything. But I don't think I'm falling for it.
Speaking of which, we have this piano in our frontroom that's just taunting me. I wonder how The Wife would feel about 180 minutes a day of piano....
In fifth grade, we started playing instruments. I picked the saxophone. I was trying to decide between that and the trumpet. I picked the sax because my brothers played the trumpet. Even back then I was trying to distance myself from them....
To make sure we practiced, our music teacher gave us little slips to take home. We were supposed to fill out how many minutes we practiced each day. I vividly remember writing down 180 minutes a day. My music teacher naturally thought I was lying. He called my mom to confirm. I think he could tell by the anguish in her voice that I wasn't lying.
Turns out, all that practice was good for me. I became pretty good at the sax, becoming first chair later in junior high. I'm not terribly creative though, so I had a hard time coming up with solos for jazz band. Music is very mathematical when you're playing other people's music. When you're coming up with your own, it's downright scary. I'm not the most creative person in the world, which drives The Wife nuts whenever I'm playing with Legos and can't build anything other than what's on the box.
Anyway, this need to learn (or master) things is bleeding into work now and I have to learn to repress that urge. I have a project coming up where we're going to be working with a lot of data in Access, which is Office's database program. I don't know Access at all. But I'm supposed to manage someone who does. For some reason, I feel the need to learn Access so that I can do the work myself. They're grooming me to become a manager, which means I'll really stop doing any work myself. I keep telling myself that it's okay to not know everything. But I don't think I'm falling for it.
Speaking of which, we have this piano in our frontroom that's just taunting me. I wonder how The Wife would feel about 180 minutes a day of piano....
Due to Popular Demand
I'm getting really bad at blogging here. It's now been over a month since I last wrote something. And due to popular demand (from one person), I'm now writing something else.
The good news is that the reason I haven't written anything lately is because I've been super busy at work. It's an odd feeling, to be honest. All of my previous jobs have sucked. Some have sucked a little. Some have sucked a lot. Some have sucked big fat donkey balls. But my job right now is awesome, and frankly, I'm a little taken aback.
The biggest problem I have with my job right now is that I don't seem to be able to take a vacation. I get something like 15 vacation days and 2 floating holidays a year. I think I have 12 of those left to use this year. It's not that I don't go anywhere or take time off. It's that I invariably end up doing work while I'm on vacation.
What's scary is that I don't mind doing the work. For once in my life, I'm actually not self-centered. I'm thinking about the team and being client-focused. (God, if my boss could only read that.) And so it's hard for me to just put a project down and go off on a vacation. Of course, having two little kids at home doesn't help. If my option is to work on pensions in my free time or spend some "quality" time with two screaming children, I'm taking Option A.
Anyway, I'm due to take next week off from work and I'm looking forward to it. I don't have anywhere to go or anything to do (besides finish the basement). But it'll probably be my last break from work until April or so. The next 5-6 months are going to be nothing short of insane. But, I'm sorry to say, a good kind of insane (that I'm really looking forward to).
The good news is that the reason I haven't written anything lately is because I've been super busy at work. It's an odd feeling, to be honest. All of my previous jobs have sucked. Some have sucked a little. Some have sucked a lot. Some have sucked big fat donkey balls. But my job right now is awesome, and frankly, I'm a little taken aback.
The biggest problem I have with my job right now is that I don't seem to be able to take a vacation. I get something like 15 vacation days and 2 floating holidays a year. I think I have 12 of those left to use this year. It's not that I don't go anywhere or take time off. It's that I invariably end up doing work while I'm on vacation.
What's scary is that I don't mind doing the work. For once in my life, I'm actually not self-centered. I'm thinking about the team and being client-focused. (God, if my boss could only read that.) And so it's hard for me to just put a project down and go off on a vacation. Of course, having two little kids at home doesn't help. If my option is to work on pensions in my free time or spend some "quality" time with two screaming children, I'm taking Option A.
Anyway, I'm due to take next week off from work and I'm looking forward to it. I don't have anywhere to go or anything to do (besides finish the basement). But it'll probably be my last break from work until April or so. The next 5-6 months are going to be nothing short of insane. But, I'm sorry to say, a good kind of insane (that I'm really looking forward to).
