Apparently, much to my surprise, today is the first of March. It seems only yesterday that it was January. Now that this delightfully insightful comment is over I shall move on to something even less interesting.
With March first comes another release of the product that I oversee at my place of employment. There are a million things that could be said, both good bad and indifferent about it but in the end it all comes back to one simple truism of life in this working world. At their hearts, their very working souls, all employees want is a way to succeed. A long time ago my former boss recommended a book to me. This was back in the days when it seemed I might take my career in a more managerial direction than a technical one. The book described, in a nutshell, what made people happy at their jobs. Not surprisingly, the crux of the whole biscuit was that people wanted some way to actually feel successful. It’s not necessarily important what the job is so much as it is the ability to have some simple metric to distinguish between “I’m doing great!” from “I’m fucking up big time!”. That’s it.
The developers of video games have this down big time. Every damn time I log in to the xBox I’m reminded that I have 4480 points all-time on the grand scheme of game playing. When I sit down to play a game, in some utterly fucked-up way, the bo-doop sound of achievement points really does motivate me. Never mind that I’m doing something totally asinine like jumping around in my front room like an idiot to navigate a fictitious plastic raft down a fictitious river. Again, the activity doesn’t make a damn bit of difference. What’s important is the metric. In a good development shop, this tendency to think numerically is used as a lever long and strong enough to move the Earth (given a place to stand). The well-organized development shop is filled with prioritized lists of “things to do”. In the poorly-organized and unsuccessful one it’s filled with multiple lists, frequently not updated and generally in conflict with each other.
As a related aside, allow me, for a moment, to wax completely sexist and address the ladies in the crowd. Hello, Ladies! OK, so you gotta guy, eh? Can I offer you a piece of advice? You want to get the most out of your dude or significant other? The answer is simple. (It should be noted that this is also an acid test for whether you should date a guy or not.) Give him a list. Say you have a list of things you have to do in a certain timeframe. Gotta get groceries. Need to scrub the floor. Desperately need to fix the cat because it’s become hopelessly broken and yowls all night long. If you mention this list to your gentleman friend and he says, “that’s a lot. Good luck!” then dump him. He’s not only an ass but he’s lazy. Nothing’s more useless than a lazy guy. If he smiles at you and plucks the list from your hands and says, “Oh, honey! Let me take care of all that for you” then dump him. He’s cheating on you with 27 other women. If, however, his eyes light up and he says something closely akin to, “hey, can I help?!?!” then marry him. A good guy loves nothing more than a list. To one such as this there is no more satisfying feeling than throwing away a list of TO-DO items because they have all been most meticulously crossed off. This is not only a test for a good husband but also for a good employee. Give them a list and they’ll do it because nothing is more satisfying or delicious than measureable progress.
Since I’m already rambling, I see no reason why I should not continue in some earnest. There is a term in the music industry that any good song has a “hook”. It’s that unmistakable series of notes that somehow draws the listener in and forces them to listen to the rest of the song. The same, it seems, can be said of television series. Traditionally I have observed a 10-year rule on visual media. I don’t actively pursue anything on the tele until at least a decade has passed. I still enjoy Monty Python’s Flying Circus despite the fact that it’s very nearly as old as I am. What can I say, I’m very unintentionally retro. However, working with younger people I’ve recently started to get the itch. Their witty banter about modern modes of entertainment have made me diversify my interests and I’ve finally caved in. Much like the BSG debacle of ’08, I watched episode 2 of ‘Heroes’ and now I feel the grim compulsion to watch the whole damn thing. I have no idea if it’s still on (luckily BSG had discontinued itself when I started watching so I was able to play it out in one fell swoop) but whether it is or not, I feel I’ll have to add it to the list of things to actually try to watch along with “Big Bang Theory”. Very… very sad. *sigh*
Lastly, and totally unrelatedly, a few days ago I took a look back at the previous history of this blog. To use a worn-out phrase, I can’t help but feel that The Tattered Thread has “jumped the shark”. If the highlights post is anything to judge by, I utterly fail to see how I could match my previous postings. I’m not sure that my life was any more interesting at the time but I certainly seemed more opinionated and determined to share. Perhaps the advance of years has dulled the sword of my prose. In any case, the mundaneness of my recent entries makes them seem simple hollow shells of previous works. Perhaps I’m out of practice. Perhaps my commute is too short. Perhaps nobody is asking the right questions. Whatever the case, The Tattered Thread is in a serious lull of epic proportions. As George sang, this too shall pass. Or, it won’t, and nobody will care. Either way…
4 comments:
Nice posting Rob. I was happy to see that I was mentioned in the blog although anonymous. Yet another footnote to add to my collection.
You're definitely on to something with how important it is to feel a sense of accomplishment, or even that you're doing well, that your efforts are valued. As for your litmus test on what makes a good husband, I'm not so sure... Sounds more like what makes a good worker.
But, good post. I need to read your blog more. Again. :-)
Brad,
Yes, indeed your influence is not forgotten.
Charlie,
I would argue, I suppose, that a good worker and a good husband are more closely related than one might think. A good relationship is about work. Not of the traditional kind but you have to constantly put energy into it to get anything out of it. It seems like the same thing to me. Further, a good worker will take up the third option. They'll simply do it all. A good worker says, "let me do everything!". That's different than my definition of a good partner. A partner realizes not only that there's value in work but also value in letting the other person have work and thus feel good about themselves. *shrug*
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