|
|
|
nametag necessity
Friday, December 10 1999
Today was a fairly easy day at work. Circumstances (particularly the de-prioritizing of an ill-fated project for which I was the only developer) have placed me between things right now, and I can kick back and be lazy as my brain reorganizes for its next big assault. That's in keeping with the way I've worked at this company from the very start. My productivity follows definite cycles. During ebbs such as the one I'm experiencing now, I might as well stay home. Normally no one even notices when I'm slacking, but the two youngish channel developers on either side of me have a keen eye for such things and they've been light-heartedly teasing me about my lax attitude. They're cool guys though; it's not like they're putting a massive type-A guilt trip on me or anything. And besides, the evidence of my recent productivity is everywhere. In this week's global email (i.e. member spam), for example, all the links were to things I alone had developed.
In the afternoon the ASP developers all met with a group of salesman from a Microsoft competitor trying to sell us an alternative front-end web server solution. I was dismayed by how ill-prepared they were. We, potentially their biggest client yet, were mostly interested in scalability issues, yet these salespeople had brought no benchmarks or load test results.
In the late afternoon two kegs of beer were wheeled into the office and we had a sort of social mixer. The company has grown so large that nametags were necessary. Of course, I've been around long enough for everyone to know my name, but I'm socially crippled when it comes to the names of most of my colleagues, so nametags were definitely helpful.
We played a game of "people Bingo" in which the squares of a bingo sheet were filled with personal descriptions such as "this person doesn't own a cell phone" or "this person attended an East Coast College." The idea was to get people talking to people they didn't know, and it appeared to be working amazingly well.
Next came Energy, that long arduous event for which I don't usually stay. This evening I was there but not participating, choosing to hang out in the back and listen in on parts of ritual. The recipient for the bulk of the E-commerce team's Energy was particularly interesting to me. It was the girlfriend of the Grand Pooh Bah, a tireless graphic designer who, unlike me, never shows even the slightest interest in management-system bonus money. While I'm complaining and asking what's in it for me, she's calmly cranking out the graphics. The difference, of course, is that without bonus money my salary is pathetic. She, on the other hand, is personally connected to the founder and CEO. Her motivations are unrelated to vulgar proletarian bonus checks.
I was kind of drunk as I rode my bike the dozen or so blocks to the Victoria Rose, where Kim's shift was just ending. We headed up to Galoka in La Jolla for another evening of drink & vegetarian food. The place was a little more alive tonight, populated with a few random people whom Kim actually knew. Unfortunately, the night's featured attraction (a San Diego jazz/world outfit) bailed at the last minute, citing "car trouble."
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?991210 feedback
previous | next |
