Monday, October 21, 2013

Winding Down


I work in a group with people who are located in every time zone in the United States and a couple international ones as well. This has its pros and cons. As I write this, I can’t think of any pros, but I am sure some must exist. I just happen to be at a loss at this moment. 

There are a lot of cons to this setup; One of them is the time zones differences (wait, this might actually be the biggest con!). People in India are hard to get a hold of almost any time I am online. People in other Asia Pacific countries need to be accommodated almost entirely outside of my 9-5 schedule. People in Europe are mostly reachable during my morning time. If I miss them by noon, I know I’ll have to catch them the next day. This often results in a waste day when it comes to communicating with them. Grrr!

I have a few colleagues in the Central time zone. I often have to wait until 10 am to be able to even reach them. Getting in touch with people is really difficult on this global model. Because the team covers the globe, there are a lot of meetings scheduled to try to get everyone ‘in the same place, at the same time’ (and no need to tell me how ridiculous this phrase is!). It becomes an exercise in futility but I’m preaching to my own choir

This component is also frustrating because when the clock is getting close to or is at 5 in my time zone, there’s still time left in my Central Time Zone colleagues’ day. But that doesn’t mean I want to hear from them as I am about to shut my computer down! And I definitely don’t want to have a call from 4 to 5 during my day even if it is 3 to 4 in their day. I want time to get work done and finish up before calling it a day. 

And why? Why? Do people often instant message me when I am about to log off for the day. Is there some kind of cosmic wave that goes out in the universe and says “ooooh Angie is logging off, let’s ask her a really complicated question even thought it’s past 5 in her time zone.” 

I have been in the workforce for quite a while. This aspect of it is beginning to really get my goat. I am not sure how to rectify this except by perhaps looking for another job where I don’t have to be on a 24 hour clock. In the meantime I’ll just block my calendar from 4-5 in hopes that I don’t get called into any late day meetings.

Father Knows Best


Having grown up in the 80s, I watched the first episode of ‘The Goldbergs’ a couple of weeks ago. I wanted to see what they would do with a family comedy set during that time period. My viewing was partially nostalgic and the other half was scared that I lived through so many horrible things – mostly the clothing. 

I can’t say it was the best comedy I’ve ever seen but it did remind me of a lot of awkward moments. One scene resonated very loudly with me. It reminded me of my own experience. The moment is when the father teaches his son to drive a car. I felt as though I was living that same moment right on my sofa. 

The father yelled at the son and the son yelled back. I flashed back to: 

“Angie!!What are you doing?! NO!!!!! “ screamed my father as he grabbed the steering wheel from the passenger seat. 

“You are smarter than that”, whenever I made a move that he didn’t think was correct.

“Use your head!!”, if I didn’t focus and follow ‘the rules of the road’. 

Ohhh I remember it well. I don’t mean that in an entirely good way. All the times I spent arguing with my dad in the car were so painful when they were happening but so funny now when I look back on them. It’s so present in my mind that I’ve written about it before (c.f. GP(api)S). 

The way the father reacted in the show also reminded me of my dad. The Goldberg dad seemed to constantly blow a gasket. When I was growing up, I wanted to stay as far away as possible from my dad when he was angry. Although he was a very tiny man, his voice bellowed over great distances. I often wanted to go to the Grand Canyon with my dad to see if his gravelly smoker’s voice would carry across the immense caverns. I guess I’ll never know now. 

Another thing about the show that reminded me of my dad was how the dad called the kids ‘idiot’ or ‘moron’. Whenever the father said something to his progeny, there was a subtitle to explain what the father meant when he said these mean things. It really was horrible to see the father’s inability to communicate effectively with his kids. However my dad was no better. He said many choice things to us in his own special way. Of course they sounded better being in Italian. 

Now that I think about a lot about what he said and look for meaning in those phrases, I do see that good intentions were there in his messages. Because he never had anyone express their emotions to him growing up, he had no idea how to do it for us. He definitely tried his best and sometimes it was good and sometimes it left much to be desired. In the end what I saw in that episode of “The Goldbergs” and in my dad’s communiqués was that perhaps subtitles are needed when it comes to understanding some people.

Sunday Best (Maybe)


I am an early riser and there is nothing I like better most weeks that Sunday morning. Most people are slumbering when I get up and go grocery shopping. There are no lines and just a few people so I can get it all done in a half hour. Unless everything goes wrong, like it did yesterday.
I knew that there was a charity walk but I figured it would be later in the morning…not at 7:30. When I got to my local coffee house, the line was incredibly long that I decided to skip it altogether. I figured that if I got on the line and got my coffee, I’d be late at the store. And just a few minutes makes a big difference in the amount of people at the grocery store.

So I forewent my caffeine, which normally relaxes me (yes, I get the irony of coffee relaxing a person) to try to get to the store. But the streets were filled with packs of people in pink who were screaming and yelling and hoarding up the sidewalks. No one should be subjected to that much noise on a fine Sunday morning. Trying to get around and to avoid these herds just put me in an even worse mood. 

Luckily, the store was very quiet and there were only a few people. I got my shopping done very quickly but as usual, I went a bit off my shopping list. This veering off led to my grocery bags being heavier than I anticipated. (Did I really need those potatoes? I thought in hindsight.)

Normally I could have walked home, even with the heavier weight, in a few minutes. But between the heavy bags and the charity cattle, it took me 20 minutes to get home. Needless to say, I was pretty perturbed when I walked in the door. Even though I was greeted by cuteness in every way, I was in a very bad mood due to my numb arm and lack of caffeine. 

I tried to remediate the situation by going to get coffee elsewhere. I thought I’d visit a mom and pop shop to encourage small business. I was very excited to try the roast that was described to me. I put in my sugar and continued my walk with M. When I finally sipped the coffee (because I wanted it to cool down a bit), it tasted like bitter rust. It made me even more upset than I already was. I decided to cut my losses and I tossed out the rest of the coffee. I decided that perhaps today just wasn’t my coffee day. I went all day without coffee. Needless to say, I was grumpy and tired the rest of the day. Those two adjectives do not make a nice girl in the least. 

It just goes to show you that little things do mean a lot. A nice cup of coffee is a morning ritual for some (ahem Me!) which set the stage for the rest of the day. And people should not be so obnoxious, no matter the reason, any Sunday morning. It is the day of rest for a reason. It is a rest from the chaos of the week so people just be quiet!