care bears share

tuesday is my favourite day of the week. not for the cheaper pizza (which i've just ordered) and not because heroes comes out (which i'll watch sans pizza). its the day i make a difference

but first a slice of psych

if you give a hoot about personality profiling im an INTJ or Mastermind if you follow Keirsey (who doesn't?). We account for less then 1% of the world's population and do not feel bound by established rules and procedures, traditional authority does not impress us, nor do slogans or catchwords. As such, challenging the status quo is my status quo, if you try to manage me with authority we'll end up discussing your shortcomings and catchwords or slogans translate to "distractionfrommyproductandorservicenotspeakingforitself". We tend to come across as uncaring due to our biting sarcasm (im sure you knew this already dumbass) and natural tendency to distance ourselves from people (it helps to take in all your flaws and pass judgment with a wide angle lens). most importantly, we like to hang out in the background until others demonstrate their inability to lead.

after watching management promote turnips who were intent on damaging everything in their path, i decided to take an active role in succession planning and gather together a group of induhviduals that were capable of wiping their own asses and hadn't been damaged beyond repair. At the time this was an opportunity to build my very own clone army that would take down the existing inefficient manager population and eventually thrust me into a high-level position that would require minimal effort for maximum pay. a solid plan.

i had what i wanted, an audience who were appreciating a bullshit free environment and were attentive to everything i could imprint on them. as i downloaded my agenda in weekly installments, something unprecedented happened.

they were displaying independant thought. my direction was evident, but the ideas were their own. i was able to witness what accountability and ownership looked like in others for the first time. i realized two important things:

• these people are rare and must be supported at all costs.
• the inner care-bear inside me had awoken at the sound of competence.

im finding myself wanting to spend more and time with these people. i followup with them individually to see how they are tracking and when they come to me for advice or to let me know how they went with some advice im all ears. im going out of my way for people and it's not part of the plan. sarcasm has been replaced by obi-wan like wisdom, i'm sharing flaws and im enjoying it.

27 years later im learning to give a rats. go me.

one small step for man

on a man scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being jodi foster and 10 being 300's king leonidis, i'd normally rate about a 3 or a 4. i don't follow sport, but i do feign an interest if in the presence of other men as this seems to be a key talking point. i have no knowledge of cars but could find the dipstick in a pinch and will recycle comment's i've memorized from the last awkward car-talk moment. i drink beer (now) but generally it's imported and never from a can. i have minimal manual abilities, i can change a light bulb and last year i fixed a blocked sink after 4 days (thanks to howstuffworks i can now tell you the basic principles of how they operate and have a selection of tools available for the job)

recent event's in my life have caused me to re-evaluate my rating for the better

• i brought a 4 burner bbq with side cooker. i built it myself in an impressive 4 hours. when i cook meat, i am hunter/gatherer and the feeling is akin to killing a saber tooth tiger bare-handed. if anyone knows how to refill a gas bottle, please tell me before i make a knob of myself at the service station.
• i left the seat up recently. when i noticed this i beamed with pride and refused to put it down until later that afternoon
  
• my presence was requested at a recent staff-firing in case things got violent. she left with little fuss
• i couldn't remember my GFs eye color. i'm not proud of it, but forgetting important details is a sign of manly man
• i purchased a business shirt with cuff-links. while some may say this could result in a point deduction, the cuff-links look like screws and i look powerful. patrick bateman wore them, and you'd have to say he's manly....or he'd kill you
• the hulk surfaced in me when i heard that GF's colleague had made a declaration of love at her a week after meeting me. hollow threats were made and he can expect harder then normal handshakes and a raised eyebrow when i see him next
  
• after seeing a friend's macho display of pushing the drunk man out of his face on the weekend, i puffed my chest up, barry-whited my voice and appealed for reason. if i remember correctly, i distinctly positioned myself slightly between this threat and GF. protect the clan

of course this rating is pure speculation, i'll need to wait for the next Cosmo survey to see how i officially score

/fin

fate and the man-wife

today started with a great idea and ended with a can of salmon to the head. fate is a cruel mistress with an odd sense of humor. i'm pretty certain it wasn't justice, she's blind and i'm very quiet

before i begin it's important that i explain the relationship i share with the manager who works opposite me. he will be henceforth referred to as my man-wife as we spend the large majority of our waking hours together. whilst there remains some speculation about who owns the wife and husband title, it's my blog so i say who's who. my position as man-husband is further strengthened by:

• the team recently organizing Father's Day lunch and a true gift of love, a Nerf set.
• the team planning a mother's day lunch for him. by them I mean that I'm leading the campaign and since he missed out of Father's Day its the next best choice
• his "happy to help, let me wipe that off with my hanky" approach vs my "learn to wipe your own ass, you're an adult now and I'll teach you to be one" style
  

like most of my relationships, the inner sadist kicks in and tells me that i should routinely poke the other person with a stick to test their limits. rational me (a wallflower compared to the other versions of me) will often highlight the potential drawbacks of such actions, ranging from a lifetime of loneliness to a being beaten to death with a toaster. despite these obvious disadvantages, i cannot for the life of me stop this behavior. previously, these moment's with my man-wife have been limited to snappy 1 liners at his expense, attacking his masculinity and the occasional thought provoking discussion designed to make him think his girlfriend should be cheating on him because he's a bad person. he is my Dwight Schrute and i am a sick version of Jim Halpert. due to increased boredom and lack of opportunities to channel my powers for good, i've recently upped the ante somewhat.

today's prank involved:

• thought provoking discussion several weeks ago about how he interacts with another manager
• a series of followup chats asking "how did that go?" every time they had spoke with each other
• him including that manager as in his out of office forward
• letting other manager in on the plan, using "its Friday and you're bored" as my key negotiation tactic
• sending and email to man-wife about this manager stating that he was right all along about her and that it was hard to believe
• oscar winning performance when i "realize" in front of man-wife that email has been forwarded
• oscar winning performance when other manager realizes "betrayal"
• bribing our manager with leftovers to pull man-wife into a room and "tear him a new one". an important step as prior abuse causes man-wife to believe that i'm manipulating things around him for my own sick entertainment. he knows me well
• directing a dependent to alert man-wife to the "fight" that was currently going on in one of the meeting rooms

i wish i planned my life this well.

we let him in on the joke after he had worked 2 hours overtime trying to repair the situation. as i laughed about it at him later, the can of salmon which he was casually tossing in the air rebounded off the roof, hitting me in the head with sufficient force to leave a lasting mark and killer headache. as i write this blog and my memory returns, it occurs to me that we have unusually high ceilings, that the last toss in the air was more of a hard throw and that man-wife did seem to step out of the way very early on in the throw.

it would appear that fate is innocent and that my next man-wife prank involves framing him for a crime that carries a prison sentence.

/fin

obey the red man

as i sat at my desk eating my breakfast and pondering if taking sleep-ezy pills at 6:30am would result in a relaxing day, it occurred to me that putting effort into planning a lazy day was somewhat ironic. the plan looked something like this:

• conduct a coaching session with a dependent with sufficient self awareness to identify their own development needs so i could sit and nod.
• insert cup of tea and kitchen chat
  
• clean my desk. as a guy, this means piling up paperwork, putting everything at 90 degree angles and wiping down the empty desk space which is roughly the size of a post-it
• insert cup of tea and kitchen chat
• sit back during afternoon meeting and watch the construction going on outside

a brilliant plan that still gave the impression that i'm working hard for the money.

this plan was ruined by dependents crying "hey i cant login to....". being part of a multi-national we of course have our own tech support team available 24 hours. fortunately for support, dependent's don't call them directly using the numbers plastered all over the place as this would require independent thought. instead, they relay error messages such as

• you cant login. check your supervisor
• the server cannot be used
• the server you are using cannot be used
• verification filed

all of which are extremely helpful albeit not endorsed by the manufacturer. although we were potentially losing millions of dollars i carried myself with an air of confidence and calmness, so much so that people were able to ask me useful questions such as "hey did you get a chance to read that email I sent 1.3 seconds ago about getting some time off in 2014?"

after hours of online chats with the 20 odd people it takes to fix anything, taking calls from people who wanted to ask the same question they had asked seconds before in the online chat, the problem was solved and my lazy day could begin.

after a quick run around to obtain kudos for saving the day, i decided to take a trip to the pharmacy to reassure myself that taking a pill is a good substitute to regular exercise and eating right. as i stood at the lights considering if i'd actually taken any life-saving vitamins in the last 6 months, a contender for Father of the Year appeared alongside. as i passed judgment on this leather-faced stranger and his child which bore an odd resemblance to dakota fanning, he proceeded to yell abuse at a woman driving past who was smoking in her car with a child in the front seat.

as i watched him cross the road through traffic with his child in tow despite the little red man's insistence, i couldn't help but notice the cigarette in his other hand and the smell of beer that followed him. winner.

/fin

kodak moments

for the last 9 month's I've survived on a diet of VHS rips of the x-files and a host of shows that would normally fill the lucrative 11:30PM onwards time slot thanks to greedy writers wanting a larger cut.

all that changed tonight when our torren....tv's were graced with an eclipse, an emo-hero and the soothing sounds of a indian voice over.

the memory of this moment has now been added to the list of 2008 moments that I'll compile in my mind-montage, complete with acoustic guitar soundtrack:

• being frisked for stubbie holders by my best friend's new husband at their wedding
• a disturbing series of recurring dreams involving the end of the world, broadcast in HD with 5.1 channel surround sound. most disturbing was my colleague and I watching our girlfriend's die and my first reaction was to get annoyed that at Armageddon I was still spending more time with him then her.
• convincing GF to sign up a mmorpg account for "just the trial period"
• watching GF upgrade said account to a full version (thus proving my awesome-ness)
• building a bbq in less then a day without serious injury or anything that would require skin to be removed from my butt and grafted to my face
• hitting 150+ successive notes in guitar hero iii. this may or may not have been on easy mode playing pat benetar
  
• explaining to a dependent (staff member) that he does not have a cervix

/fin

hi I'm ____________

Vilfredo Pareto observed that 80% of Italy's wealth went to 20% of the people. I'm guessing he was part of the 80% that didn't get paid.

in 1941 Dr Joseph "Duran" Juran took this principle and applied it to quality issues, stating 80% of a problem is caused by 20% of the causes.

today, middle managers such as myself are ruled by this principle

• 80% of their time is spent with 20% of the company's idiots
• 20% of their time is spent doing the remaining 80% of their workload
• 80% of their waking day is spent either at work or on the way to work
• 20% of their waking day is spent emotionally eating or taking some form of legalized drug to numb the pain
  

80/20 rules my life.

hi I'm pareto.

by day I'm a late 20's something call centre team leader working for a large multi-national company whose reputation with the public is somewhere between minky whale hunters and parking inspectors. if you thought finance company, you'd be correct.

between swimming in our Scrooge Mc'Duck-esque vault and finding farmers to foreclose on, my duties include:

• counseling. "pregnant again?"
  
• tech support. "shut up and reboot"
  
• coaching. "try not to screw up so much"
  
• recognition. "see that trained chimp over there"
• rewarding. "have a banana"
  
• mentoring. "wearing pants is a good step forward"
  
• reporting. "here's an excel spreadsheet"
• project management. "who's not here today?"
• time management. "I'd love to attend a meeting on water cooler safety"
  

at night i return home to my modest 2 bedroom rented house to ponder why the most expensive thing i own is l-shaped and rhymes with "ouch". it is here where i entertain my partner with Stories of Stupid People (TM) that I've encountered and compare against her Stories of Stupid People: Public Sector (TM). the main difference here is that they pay more money for the people we fire, then can't get rid of them for fear of discrimination. "lazy tosser" is now a medical condition and must be treated with paid leave and light duties.

after a moment of silence for the death of our social lives, we log in to a mmorpg and spend the night unleashing our fury killing 30x something or collecting 10x something for several hours. whilst we are shunned for our failure to understand Chuck Norris inspired humor; the fact that our bed-time is a full hour later then theirs makes us gods amongst men.

rule number 1 of a modern day relationship:

couples who raid together stay together

this blog is cheaper than a therapist and helps me believe that I've contributed something to the world other then the pie sandwich concept. back off, it's my idea.

ดูข้อมูลส่วนตัวทั้งหมดของฉัน took the URL I wanted. When I learn what language that's in I'll babel fish him a strongly worded letter that loses all context when translated requesting he release it to me.

/fin