Grumpy Coworker

Month: July 2011

  • Embrace Your Inner Lackey

    Have you been given a crappy assignment?

    Is your job your field’s equivalent of disassembling the drainage pipes in the building and cleaning them?  Is it beneath your skill set?

    Pride goeth before the fall.

    News flash: No one’s hiring people with PhDs in operating an abacus anymore. The same may go for your skill set, too.

    The key thing to remember about crappy assignments is that very few people embrace them well enough to get good at them.  Yes, it’s true that if you get really good at a job that nobody else wants, you might be assigned to that job for a very long time. Unfortunately, if you do a mediocre or bad job at it, you may not have any job for very long.

    Maybe you’ve been assigned this crappy job because people believe that you can turn things around. Do you want to prove people who believe in you wrong?

    Maybe you’ve been assigned this crappy job because people expect you to fail. Do you want to prove those people right?

    Embrace your inner lackey.

    Find the angle that you can own and attack it.

  • The “I don’t want to risk taking action” Blockade

    Iceberg floating in Lago Argentina broken off ...
    Image via Wikipedia

    Apparently, conventional wisdom has decided that if you don’t take action, you can’t be blamed for anything:

    Sure, you’re about to hit an iceberg. However, if you try to steer the ship, and it ruptures, you’ll be at fault. If you hit the iceberg head on and your ship withstands the hit, you’ll have warded off disaster. If your ship starts going down, well, you can possibly pretend you were unaware of the problem. If you take action, you have to acknowledge the problem.

    Why must departmental silos treat problems like toothaches: Because there’s a fear of going to the dentist, everyone waits until the tooth abscesses and a trip to the emergency room and an emergency extraction is needed. A little infection or cavity turned into a week-long course of top-tier antibiotics and a missing tooth.

    Maybe everyone’s hoping they’ll be laid off before having to take responsibility for a problem.  After all, being laid off assumes far less personal responsibility than possibly failing when attempting a fix.

    Let’s all be powerless.

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  • Automate Blatantly Repetitive Bureaucratic Tasks

    AutoHotkey Logo png version
    Image via Wikipedia

    (No, this isn’t a paid advertisement, unless they decide to pay after the fact.)

    Ever have one of those tasks on your computer that you feel like you could get a robot to do? I found that AutoHotkey works well for this purpose.

    You can record tasks in specific windows that you have open and have them repeat the next time you need them.  Recording tracks mouse clicks and keyboard presses and records them to a readable script file.  You can then edit the generated script and add delays.

    This sometimes proves useful when you have to set up detailed time sheets through a slow interface.  You can record what you need, press the button, and let things go.

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  • How to Make Coffee

    Obviously, automatic coffee makers with hot water supply are too challenging, so here is a step-by-step guide:

    1) Pull filter basket out
    2) Put a new coffee filter in the basket.
    3) Open coffee packet.
    4) Pour coffee in basket.
    5) Put filter basket back in place.
    6) Rinse out near empty carafe.
    7) Put carafe back.
    8) Hit green/start/brew/on button.

  • How to Make Coffee

    Obviously, automatic coffee makers with hot water supply are too challenging, so here is a step-by-step guide:

    1) Pull filter basket out
    2) Put a new coffee filter in the basket.
    3) Open coffee packet.
    4) Pour coffee in basket.
    5) Put filter basket back in place.
    6) Rinse out near empty carafe.
    7) Put carafe back.
    8) Hit green/start/brew/on button.