Feline Formal Shorts

Oh my good gracious… I just taught my first class.

Well, gave my first lecture, anyway. I’m not sure it counts as a class if there’s no followup.

Ooooof. I am so tired. Two and a half hours of talking absurdly fast (it was a long presentation), fielding strange questions, and trying to keep people interested in something most of them are sure is never going to apply to their professional lives.

… I liked it. And I think I did well, because I got two rounds of applause and people kept coming up to talk to me at the end. I think they were just glad for a change from the usual, though.

Anyway, this is just a followup from my Special Needs post.

I’m attaching the PowerPoint in case anyone feels like looking. E-mail me if you want to see the PowerPoint. WordPress is apparently not compatible with the latest version of powerpoint yet, and I’m way too lazy to see about hosting it elsewhere.

I’m not sure it has the same effect without the handouts, though, and I’m too tired to post links and stuff. Suffice it to say that each person got about 3/4″ of paper from me, if not more. Almost every slide had a handout, and some had two or three.

Edit: Aha! I figured out how to make it compatible. Here it is: Wheeee! I’m fairly sure I managed to give attribution wherever it’s due, but here’s a preemptive sorry if I missed anything.

Scene: A spacious office in what was once an old mansion. Rich wooden flooring contrasts with the creamy white walls, a vase of silk flowers sits on the mantel above the fireplace, and sunlight streams in through the wide windows. A large L-shaped desk dominates the back corner. Seated in the crook of the L is Our Heroine, typing busily away at her computer. Behind her, on the back tail of the L, sits the printer/photocopier/fax machine. Her Boss walks up to the machine and begins a fax.

[Boss]: We should move this.

[Our Heroine]: Hunh?

[Boss]: This fax machine. I feel like we’re invading your space when we have to go back here to fax things. We should move it so we’re out of your way.

[Our Heroine]: Melts.

My new job is pretty awesome. It’s a lot of work, of course, and there are many things I find frustrating (lack of funds, insufficient infrastructure, lack of information) and some thing that are just hard to deal with (language issues, traffic, rising gas prices), but I’m really liking my time here.

I’m currently the Executive Assistant to the CEO. It’s the exact same job I had at the other place, technically, only it shares almost nothing in terms of actual job responsibilities. Frankly, my actual job is “Admin-of-all-trades.” I do what needs to be done to keep the management running, and pitch in where needed elsewhere. Sure, I check the mail periodically, copy papers and type memos, but that’s almost incidental to the real work I do. I’m writing/designing (though not coding, thankfully) the website, clarifying policy, doing research, grading papers, sitting in for teachers, and Making Things Happen. I like it. If I weren’t going to school, I could see doing this for a while.

So what’s all this about special needs?
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In my head I keep mulling over all the different things I should tell you guys. About getting into school. About resigning from this job. About still not having a car. About the books I’m reading, the projects I keep wanting to start, my character hitting 70 and getting geared up… about everything, really.

But you all know me, and as such you probably know that such an update is likely to come long after the events are relevantm right?

Right.

… besides, that’s not really what I want to talk about right now.

Right now, I want to talk about rationality. Or rather, common sense. You know, that set of ideas you’ve internalized about what kinds of things make sense, what kind of ways you can expect to be treated, and the way the world works. That sort of thing.

Because, see, that’s part of why I resigned this week.
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… I offered my resignation at my awful job yesterday.

I got in to Long Shot University! (And I’m not dead, I promise! Just… busy.) 

Or, “How low can our hiring standards possibly be?”

I know that e-mail can be problematic as a communications medium. Hell, any kind of communication can get fouled up, under the right conditions. And, of course, people are busy and often skim written stuff, even when they’re short and sweet.

I get that, sure.

Still, I find that working here gives me a renewed understanding of just why people always stress “not being an idiot” as a major job qualification. Seriously. People send unintelligible (and unprofessional) e-mails, letters, and other correspondence to people we need to impress. My boss writes angry letters, appends a few lines to the top, and pronounces them policy-setting memos. (You’ve gotta love memos that call staff “unreasonable” and their policy recommendations “illogical,” “sketchy and inconsistent” (for a 10 page, well researched and cited set of recommendations with broad support and strong precedent), and insists that anyone wanting to change a policy based on new state laws was being selfish and not thinking of the client base.)

I … mostly roll my eyes and try to make my own personal-profesional correspondence as proper as I can.
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(or: “Sometimes, I <3 my coworkers”)

A friend of mine at work just forwarded me a link to this article:

Yes, you can be happy at work
By Alexander Kjerulf Tue Jan 22, 3:00 AM ET
Copenhagen, Denmark - On a recent tour of several well-known American corporations, one thing became painfully obvious to me: The concept of happiness at work is alien to most American workplaces.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

“You get paid to do your job, not to like it,” seems to be the attitude of most US managers and workplaces. What’s worse, American employees seem to be willing participants in this arrangement. When I ask Americans what makes them happy at work, they rarely talk about the work itself – many tend to see it as a means to an end, rather than as something to enjoy.

The result is that US workplaces are dominated by status-seeking career climbers, where the paycheck is the only motivator, where employee turnover is shockingly high, where bad management is never challenged, where burnout and cynicism are the order of the day, and only Dilbert comic strips provide relief.

This unhappiness at work is causing serious harm. You spend more time at work than with your family, friends, and hobbies combined. Hating your job is not an inconvenience, it’s a serious problem. It can cause stress and depression. Ultimately, it can kill you.
(Read the rest.)

I have to admit it: I laughed. What else could I do? It’s that or cry, sometimes, and I think I’ve done enough crying about this job.
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I’m waiting for a call. Well, technically I’m waiting for an e-mail, but it seems like it should be a call. After all, that’s usually how these things are done, right?

Heh, let’s back up a bit. The e-mail I’m waiting for is my official job offer. For some reason, the meeting last week was to.. um, ask if I was still interested? Go over the vague outline again? I don’t know. It was a good meeting, but I’m not sure I learned anything about the position that I didn’t know before, other than that they do intend to hire me.

So. The President/CEO says that they’ll e-mail me with my official offer today. Buuutt… it’s 4:30, and no such e-mail has arrived. Nor have any phone calls.

Good thing I haven’t turned in my letter of resignation yet, eh?

*waits*

… instead, I’m going to complain about SBC Yahoo!. And some other stuff.
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