Okay, you have to check this guy out!
Mr. Deity
--Wag--
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Load yourself up!
As a kind of corollary to the post below about efficiencies of organizations with lots of people, I was thinking back on the days when I was most efficient.
Simply put, the more shit I have to do, the more I can get done and the better I get it done.
It's about focus and intensity, I think. When I was working 50 hours a week and taking 18 units in school, I got straight A's and got great reviews at the office. I got everything done, too. That's the amazing part of it.
At times when I didn't have the workload, I got less done. Free time, for some reason, doesn't have the impact on me that lack of time does. Don't get me wrong; I've overloaded from time to time and done poorly. Likewise, there have been times when I had a lot of free time and got a lot done.
There's just something about the urgency of several pressing needs drawing your attention and forcing you to be efficient, organized and to prioritize effectively.
--Wag--
Simply put, the more shit I have to do, the more I can get done and the better I get it done.
It's about focus and intensity, I think. When I was working 50 hours a week and taking 18 units in school, I got straight A's and got great reviews at the office. I got everything done, too. That's the amazing part of it.
At times when I didn't have the workload, I got less done. Free time, for some reason, doesn't have the impact on me that lack of time does. Don't get me wrong; I've overloaded from time to time and done poorly. Likewise, there have been times when I had a lot of free time and got a lot done.
There's just something about the urgency of several pressing needs drawing your attention and forcing you to be efficient, organized and to prioritize effectively.
--Wag--
Pessimism
Is pessimism a defense mechanism? The HR director at my new job asserted that it is.
People who are pessimists don't run the risk of getting hurt by plans gone awry. I suppose that if they believe things will go badly and then things DO go badly, they are not disappointed. They may fear that if they hope for something good to happen and it does not, they have to deal with the problem of how to confront the disappointment. Of course, that requires effort. It requires thought and work.
Are pessmists just too lazy to confront their disappointments in a productive way? I leave that to others more intelligent than I to decide.
Pessimists and optimists are born, not created. Look around you. There are those who are optimists in spite of any string of bad luck or in spite of their circumstances. Maybe it's the optimists who are lazy 'cause they don't take the time to review the real horror of their situation! Figure THAT one out, eh?! There are plenty of people who are in dire straits but they're still smiley and still happy. A pessimist would say, "What the hell for? There's no point to it." An optimist would say the same thing about a pessimist, of course!
Still, the pessimist has a good defense mechanism. Just assume everything is fucked and you'll be right quite a bit of the time.
On the other hand, an optimist can look at all the same problems in their lives and assume that everything is still pretty good, okay, and all right and better yet, they're going to improve at any moment!
Gotta love that!
Now and then, you'll see an optimist who has lived with let-downs for an exceptionally long time and they start to exhibit some of the behaviors of the pessimist for a while. But as soon as circumstances improve, they are right back to their usual optimistic self. The pessimist, on the other hand, waits for things to go to hell in a handbasket, of course.
I was born an optimist and raised in a pessimistic envrionment. I learned all the right behaviors of a pessimist. Over the last few years as I've gotten out of that environment, I've been able to realize that maybe I'm an optimist after all. I should rephrase though. I THINK I'm an optimist. The jury is still out on it! We'll see what the verdict is if my life goes to shit for some reason!
--Wag--
People who are pessimists don't run the risk of getting hurt by plans gone awry. I suppose that if they believe things will go badly and then things DO go badly, they are not disappointed. They may fear that if they hope for something good to happen and it does not, they have to deal with the problem of how to confront the disappointment. Of course, that requires effort. It requires thought and work.
Are pessmists just too lazy to confront their disappointments in a productive way? I leave that to others more intelligent than I to decide.
Pessimists and optimists are born, not created. Look around you. There are those who are optimists in spite of any string of bad luck or in spite of their circumstances. Maybe it's the optimists who are lazy 'cause they don't take the time to review the real horror of their situation! Figure THAT one out, eh?! There are plenty of people who are in dire straits but they're still smiley and still happy. A pessimist would say, "What the hell for? There's no point to it." An optimist would say the same thing about a pessimist, of course!
Still, the pessimist has a good defense mechanism. Just assume everything is fucked and you'll be right quite a bit of the time.
On the other hand, an optimist can look at all the same problems in their lives and assume that everything is still pretty good, okay, and all right and better yet, they're going to improve at any moment!
Gotta love that!
Now and then, you'll see an optimist who has lived with let-downs for an exceptionally long time and they start to exhibit some of the behaviors of the pessimist for a while. But as soon as circumstances improve, they are right back to their usual optimistic self. The pessimist, on the other hand, waits for things to go to hell in a handbasket, of course.
I was born an optimist and raised in a pessimistic envrionment. I learned all the right behaviors of a pessimist. Over the last few years as I've gotten out of that environment, I've been able to realize that maybe I'm an optimist after all. I should rephrase though. I THINK I'm an optimist. The jury is still out on it! We'll see what the verdict is if my life goes to shit for some reason!
--Wag--
New Job
Started a new job on Monday. Nice company, lots of opportunity and potential. I'm looking forward to how it develops in the near and long-term future.
It's a lot bigger company than what I'm used to working in. They have 50 employees and I've been in the habit of working in companies with less than 20 employees. With me, it was always, "The smaller, the better."
After a week at it, I have several observations. One of them is this: With all of the people working there, I find that I and others are hugely burdened with the interruptions of people coming and going and starting extraneous conversations, etc. etc. I find that I have about half as much time to get things done. So far. Also, the burden of communications is increased a great deal which also impairs my ability to get things done.
Here's how it has worked for me in the past. I've always worn several hats due to the small size of the companies I've worked for. I love doing that. I have a lot of power and that translates into an ability to get a lot of things done and get them done quickly. If I put a task on my to do list, it generally only lasts a moment or two because I'm the head of several departments and instead of asking other people questions, I simply answer them myself, tie up the loose ends and move on.
In this larger company, I've discovered that because I have fewer hats to wear, it's more time-consuming to get things answered and resolve the issue at hand. My task list gets a LOT of churning because each task needs to be updated every time something happens to affect that task. Finally, after several trips through the list, a task here and there will pop out which has enough info to finally wrap it up.
Incredible. Different. A learning experience. A challenge in the extreme.
People running around here and there is a problem. Impromptu conversations happen a lot more often and socialization takes up a significant amount of time. Interruptions, both business related and non-business related occur regularly. I'm not 100% sure about others but for myself, if I'm working up to my elbows in a project and I get interrupted, even if it's for a business item, it takes me quite a while to regroup and return to the project when I'm done dealing with the interruption.
So, it got me to thinking: Do business owners and company HR departments attempt to calculate the cost of having MORE employees added to their personnel lists? Is there a cost to having too many employees? Every time you add an employee to your company, are you increasing the amount of time lost to them? What are the costs of more communication interactions between employees?
Are these costs mitigated by narrowly defining the scope of each person's position? If you have a guy whose job is sticking tab A into slot B over and over and over again all day and he only has to interface with one boss, is he going to be the most efficient and effective employee in the company?
Just some basic thoughts. I dont' have a lot of reason to complain about anything just because it's too early in the game to tell. These are just observations generated due to the culture shock I'm experiencing! The reality could just as easily be that I'm having to learn new skills and it's going to just take a little time.
With any luck, I'll come back to this in a year and readdress the questions and the conclusions. I like the long experiments, I just have to remember to follow up!
--Wag--
It's a lot bigger company than what I'm used to working in. They have 50 employees and I've been in the habit of working in companies with less than 20 employees. With me, it was always, "The smaller, the better."
After a week at it, I have several observations. One of them is this: With all of the people working there, I find that I and others are hugely burdened with the interruptions of people coming and going and starting extraneous conversations, etc. etc. I find that I have about half as much time to get things done. So far. Also, the burden of communications is increased a great deal which also impairs my ability to get things done.
Here's how it has worked for me in the past. I've always worn several hats due to the small size of the companies I've worked for. I love doing that. I have a lot of power and that translates into an ability to get a lot of things done and get them done quickly. If I put a task on my to do list, it generally only lasts a moment or two because I'm the head of several departments and instead of asking other people questions, I simply answer them myself, tie up the loose ends and move on.
In this larger company, I've discovered that because I have fewer hats to wear, it's more time-consuming to get things answered and resolve the issue at hand. My task list gets a LOT of churning because each task needs to be updated every time something happens to affect that task. Finally, after several trips through the list, a task here and there will pop out which has enough info to finally wrap it up.
Incredible. Different. A learning experience. A challenge in the extreme.
People running around here and there is a problem. Impromptu conversations happen a lot more often and socialization takes up a significant amount of time. Interruptions, both business related and non-business related occur regularly. I'm not 100% sure about others but for myself, if I'm working up to my elbows in a project and I get interrupted, even if it's for a business item, it takes me quite a while to regroup and return to the project when I'm done dealing with the interruption.
So, it got me to thinking: Do business owners and company HR departments attempt to calculate the cost of having MORE employees added to their personnel lists? Is there a cost to having too many employees? Every time you add an employee to your company, are you increasing the amount of time lost to them? What are the costs of more communication interactions between employees?
Are these costs mitigated by narrowly defining the scope of each person's position? If you have a guy whose job is sticking tab A into slot B over and over and over again all day and he only has to interface with one boss, is he going to be the most efficient and effective employee in the company?
Just some basic thoughts. I dont' have a lot of reason to complain about anything just because it's too early in the game to tell. These are just observations generated due to the culture shock I'm experiencing! The reality could just as easily be that I'm having to learn new skills and it's going to just take a little time.
With any luck, I'll come back to this in a year and readdress the questions and the conclusions. I like the long experiments, I just have to remember to follow up!
--Wag--
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