Recently in personality Category

This originally appears as a guest post at the Home Office Warrior.

In walking to the parking garage with a co-worker recently, the conversation turned to telecommuters. At some point, the mention of the “office camaraderie” and friends at the office was mentioned, and how those working from home were missing out. In my usual fashion, I made a sarcastic comment, “I’d like to think that I am more qualified and better at choosing my friends than HR. Furthermore, I’d hope that HR has the job description in mind more than my preferences on music and cigars.” We got to our respective vehicles, and went about our lives. But the conversation still stuck in my head. Where did the idea of the “office friend” come from? Why do people think it is so important?

Ryan Paugh over at Employee Evolution just posted a blog regarding his personal experience with dealing with anxiety at work. While I don't have that issue personally (I've been told I am calm to a fault), it brings up an interesting point, and something I've been struggling with lately. How do you relax?

It used to be easy for me. I smoked a cigarette. I began smoking when I was 10 years old, and quit when I was 25. Minus the 2 weeks preceeding my wedding, I haven't smoked a cigarette since. Any for those who want to know how I did it, it's simple. I stopped. Period. No extra effort other than that. But I digress.

There is one thing I miss about smoking, however. It was the forced 'break' that I took when I would slip outside and light up. Living in Florida, there weren't many times that it was too cold outside, so for most of the year, going outside for a smoke was a pleasant experience. Not only that, it MADE me stop what I was doing, actually get up and change my surroundings, and sometimes even socialize. Now mind you, I am not saying that smoking is good. It's bad. Bad bad bad bad bad.

With tomorrow (today) being Easter, I like to sit back and think about all the hypocrisy that I'll deal with tomorrow. You see, I am going to church with the family. My father is a protestant minister, and my mother is Irish Catholic. From the age of 11 until 23, I was an atheist. Nothing to do with my parents, because they are good people, not to mention incredibly liberal (my father HATES the religious right, and my mother is pro-choice).

But back to my point. I had a 'experience' when I was 23 that changed my perception of life. I came to believe in god (notice the lack of capitalization), but here's where it starts and ends: There is a god, and I'm not it. Anything beyond that is someone else's ideas. And I'm not really into other people's ideas. So no Christianity for me, thankyouverymuch. And tomorrow's zombie celebration (religion or not, rise from the dead = zombie. That's how it works) will be filled with a bunch of people who assume, by my attendance alone, that I agree with them. And I don't.

I deal with this at work, and in my life, more than I'd like to admit. How often have you just stood aside and allowed a policy or a decision to be made, without even voicing a single thing about it? It's one thing to have a discussion with co-workers or friends and be out-voted, or if nothing else the disagreement mentioned. But to say nothing? Does that mean you agree?

Think about that before communion.

I think I've have enough status bars for one day. I've been watching little blue bars go across the screen, over and over again. Then the inevitable restart. There really isn't a good reason for me to be awake right now, other than the fact that I am letting the Microsoft Fairy do it's update magic.

You see, someone (i.e. random junkie) broke into my truck and stole my laptop, digital camera, and iPod the other night. Not cool on many levels. So what I did yesterday is what every good consumer does. I replaced the items. Personally, I did it for America. Since our president wants us to help kick-start the economy by cutting us a check, I decided to spend that check (early) on a new latop. Problem being, it came with the Pinto-esque Windows Vista. So I've been spending the last 5 hours wiping out the PC, re-installing Windows XP, Office 2007, Adobe CS3, Visual Studio 2005, and the litany of updates, patches, and various personal tweaks that go along with that.

So besides the obvious (encrypt & password protect your stuff. Period), it got me thinking. Are you just watching the status bar on your life, waiting for someone or something to come along and tell you it's time to update? Or are you actively looking for the next change to make?

We recently brought on a second investment officer in my department, and the bulk of the training has fallen on me. And I don't like it. The new hire has 8 years with the firm, but no investment experience. Hence, a lot of questions I haven't had to answer to anyone in a while. And to be perfectly honest, I don't much like training people. I've always been one to train myself to do things, and there's a translation gap between me and others. That being said, she'll be the one who will make my job easier, by knowing what I know, and allow me to not  be the "source" for everything, and give me the time to work on some special projects.