Still Alive. Mostly.
Nov. 13th, 2007 03:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lauraanne_gilmanThanks to everyone who sent cheering thoughts and healthy vibes. Discovery; strawberry-flavored lozenges are so much better than cherry. Ugh. I blame my dislike of cherry-flavored anything on cold meds when I was a kid, because, ugh.
I have spent the past two days alternating between bed and sofa, with a brief foray out to the office this morning to take care of the things that had to be done there. I still sound like Lauren Bacall, but now I have sneezing, too. Tea and soup are the order of the day. Interestingly enough, I feel better when I'm upright and doing things than when I'm trying to lay down. This probably says much about me.
Also, I woke up this morning to Boomer stretched out along my side, his chin resting on my shoulder, looking at me with a look that might have been adoration. Or "are you dead yet, can we eat you?" Either was possible.
Massive amounts of small things being taken care of. Large things still loom, but I have given myself permission to ignore them until Saturday. Monday looks to be...insane. In, hopefully, a good way.
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Random thoughts:
I watched the 60 Minutes segment on Millennial kids, and how companies can keep these uber-self-assured, self-centered new workers happy and productive. Basically, by agreeing with them that personal issues come before work, and they are more important than the company.
I have sympathy, I do. And we all know the pendulum swings the other way, toward work-obsession, no-life, far more often than not. But isn't there a happy medium?
And all that reminded of how wonderful it was, in the early years of my previous life, to work for bosses who believed that fun=productivity, that improvisation=improved profits, that joy in our work=pride in our work. And we responded by working our butts off, having fun and taking pride in the fact that we could do More with Less. That all ended when the uber-corporate bosses came down and said "get more money out of everyone. Stop throwing Spring Fling parties and taking people out to the movies for a job well-done, spending an afternoon for office bonding is a bad idea. Don't encourage people to come in costume/decorate for Halloween, it lowers productivity for the weeks leading up to it. Have them spend more time in meetings, making spreadsheets instead of making books. Get a larger profit margin back to us by year's end, and never mind the fact that this industry has always had crap margins."
And with that, it all went to hell. Morale died, productivity tanked, our esprit d' corps was spent muttering about how to get out instead of how to get things done. All to squeeze out another bit of profit for the shareholders. Not us, mind you -- we didn't see the money, and lord knows consumers didn't see any benefits. All for the price of company shares.
Not that I'm bitter or anything. Any more.
Maybe the pendulum is starting to swing back a bit. I hope so. I honestly believe that the only way to get the best work out of someone is to make them feel that they are valued for that work, even if the work itself may not seem important to anyone else. Is it that difficult, to be a decent manager, and a decent employee? Even after being on both sides of the equation, I still don't know.
I have spent the past two days alternating between bed and sofa, with a brief foray out to the office this morning to take care of the things that had to be done there. I still sound like Lauren Bacall, but now I have sneezing, too. Tea and soup are the order of the day. Interestingly enough, I feel better when I'm upright and doing things than when I'm trying to lay down. This probably says much about me.
Also, I woke up this morning to Boomer stretched out along my side, his chin resting on my shoulder, looking at me with a look that might have been adoration. Or "are you dead yet, can we eat you?" Either was possible.
Massive amounts of small things being taken care of. Large things still loom, but I have given myself permission to ignore them until Saturday. Monday looks to be...insane. In, hopefully, a good way.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Random thoughts:
I watched the 60 Minutes segment on Millennial kids, and how companies can keep these uber-self-assured, self-centered new workers happy and productive. Basically, by agreeing with them that personal issues come before work, and they are more important than the company.
I have sympathy, I do. And we all know the pendulum swings the other way, toward work-obsession, no-life, far more often than not. But isn't there a happy medium?
And all that reminded of how wonderful it was, in the early years of my previous life, to work for bosses who believed that fun=productivity, that improvisation=improved profits, that joy in our work=pride in our work. And we responded by working our butts off, having fun and taking pride in the fact that we could do More with Less. That all ended when the uber-corporate bosses came down and said "get more money out of everyone. Stop throwing Spring Fling parties and taking people out to the movies for a job well-done, spending an afternoon for office bonding is a bad idea. Don't encourage people to come in costume/decorate for Halloween, it lowers productivity for the weeks leading up to it. Have them spend more time in meetings, making spreadsheets instead of making books. Get a larger profit margin back to us by year's end, and never mind the fact that this industry has always had crap margins."
And with that, it all went to hell. Morale died, productivity tanked, our esprit d' corps was spent muttering about how to get out instead of how to get things done. All to squeeze out another bit of profit for the shareholders. Not us, mind you -- we didn't see the money, and lord knows consumers didn't see any benefits. All for the price of company shares.
Not that I'm bitter or anything. Any more.
Maybe the pendulum is starting to swing back a bit. I hope so. I honestly believe that the only way to get the best work out of someone is to make them feel that they are valued for that work, even if the work itself may not seem important to anyone else. Is it that difficult, to be a decent manager, and a decent employee? Even after being on both sides of the equation, I still don't know.
