Author Archives: Joshua

Still Groggy

I’m still pretty tired after the con.  It certainly doesn’t feel like it’s only Tuesday.  I’m tired, my brain is full, and I’m not really motivated to do much other than sit on the couch and surf the Intarwebz.  Luckily I don’t really have to do much else.  Agents of SHIELD is on soon complete with the new trailer for Avengers: Age of Ultron.  Yes, I know it leaked least week, and no I haven’t watched it yet.  Weird, right?  It’s like I have self control or something!

Anyway, that’s about all I’ve got today.  I’ve got some half-thought-out things to say about the con and fandom, but that may have to wait until a later date.

Post-Con Fugue

Mile Hi Con was great.  I had a good time with friends, caught up with some old ones, and saw a few interesting panels.  But I’m exhausted.  I’m not sure if it was the walking around in costume all day or staying up until midnight for the Rocky Horror Picture Show, but I’m beat.  So this is all you get from me today.  I’m still alive, I had fun, and I’m pretty sure there are pics of our costumes on Facebook.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I sleep need to go more some.

Twiddle Those Thumbs!

It’s weird, not having anything to do at work.

I used to not think it was weird; when I worked in a computer lab, a large chunk of my time was spent passing, well, time.  Whenever work popped up (tech support call, A/V event, etc.) I did it, but for the most part I was left to basically get paid to surf the Internet.  And believe it or not, that can get really old pretty quickly.

But I haven’t had that experience at my new job yet (that I’ve been at for all of two months).  The past few days we’ve had an odd lull, where the various projects we have are in various stages of review or waiting for feedback.  So yesterday, while I lamented the lack of time to finish my projects (not the kind I could do at work, of course), I allowed myself to get sucked into the black hole that is TV Tropes.  But I found myself a little perturbed, like I was worried that I should be doing something more productive.

Why does this sort of thing bother me so much more now?  I think it may be a combination of forces: recent events and documentation.  For instance: when I was working at Costco, there was always something to be done (well, almost always).  Finish stocking one pallet?  Move on to the next!  Answer one member’s questions?  Well, there’s three more behind them!  Done all that?  Time to start cleaning glass and dusting televisions!  Spending two years in that sort of environment does tend to instill a certain sort of work ethic, or at least guilt over not “working.”  At least it did for me; maybe if I had been there longer, I would have finished having my soul crushed by retail work and wouldn’t care.  But I’m still enough of a lapsed overachiever that I trended towards the guilt response.

In regards to documentation, one thing about my new job that I hadn’t experienced before is an itemized time sheet.  Every week, I have to turn in a spreadsheet with the names of the projects I worked on, what sort of work it was, and how much time I spent.  This makes sense, when you think about it: I spend a good portion of my time drafting various schematics and construction documents, and that sort of thing can be billed to our clients (directly or indirectly, depending on the financial agreement [above my pay grade]).  Of course the company would want a way to keep track of that.  But doing so has the side effect of making me very aware about just how much time I’m spending on various tasks.  And I’m still new enough that I worry if my “billable” hours aren’t high enough.

These two factors have made me much more conscious about the “lack” of “productivity” at work than I used to be.  For one, I’m much more in the habit of working constantly.  And two, there’s written evidence of just how I’ve spent my time.  So when there’s literally nothing to do (and I checked), it feels weird.  Like we’re all just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

And this lull probably is going to be short lived.  There’s a good chance that all the projects we have out for commenting will come back around the same time.  So while a part of me is eager to enjoy the downtime as long as it lasts, another part feels bad for doing so.

Demand Matches Supply

Have you ever noticed how no matter how much time you try and leave yourself to complete a project, you always seem to be rushing at the last second to get everything done?  Or is that just me?

I used to think that this was just a result of poor planning on my part, or another case of my inherent procrastination working against me.  But the more I talk to others, the more this seems like a fairly universal problem.  In fact it even has a name: Parkinson’s Law.

Plainly stated, Parkinson’s Law is the adage that “work expands so as to fil the time available for its completion.”  Time and again, I’ve seen this to be the case in my life.  Even if I deliberately set aside more time than I think I’ll need, I always manage to somehow fill it up.  Maybe I expand the scope of my project, or maybe I spend my time procrastinating.  But no matter what, it seems like things always get pushed to the last minute.

And if that’s the case, what motivation is there to start things early?  I found this to be especially true when it came to writing papers for school.  If a paper I wrote the night before got the same (or better!) grade than one polished and refined over the course of weeks, what reason was there to avoid putting it off?  After all, things worked out in the end anyway, right?

Maybe I just don’t have a good concept of how much time various tasks take to complete.  Or maybe I overestimate my ability to stay on task.  Or maybe both.  Maybe I’m just completely inept at planning and execution.  Or maybe everyone is just as incompetent as I am, they just hide it better.

All I know is I have what feels like quite a lot of sewing to do, and not enough time to do it.

Don’t Worry, I Still Have My Hat

The night is fast getting away from me. Mile Hi Con is this weekend, and my costume is not nearly complete enough. In fact, I’m probably going to miss both SCA practices this week to make sure I get everything done. And here I sit, at my computer, ostensibly performing “research,” when it’s suddenly much later than I anticipated. Such is life, I guess.

What is Mile Hi Con? Well, it is a science fiction and fantasy convention, where fans of nerdy things can congregate and share their love of popular culture and get a chance to see some of their favorite creators.

Being so close to Halloween, it’s also a great excuse to put on a costume with a group of friends.

You may have heard of the various Comic Cons; Mile Hi Con is much more laid back. The past few years (when work, school, or finances haven’t put the kibosh on it) my friends and I have made an effort to go and hang out, often with a group theme for our costumes. The past few years we’ve been pretty fascinated by Steampunk (think Victorian science fiction: Jules Vernian flights of fancy, magnificent efforts of steam engineering, airships, brass, and of course, goggles), so we’ve often gone with that as a general idea. I made myself a pretty sweet lab coat last year, complete with papercraft goggles with a working iris lens.

This year, the Steampunk craze continues, but with more focus. It turns out that some of the Guests of Honor for the con are going to be Phil and Kaja Foglio, the creative team behind the wonderful webcomic Girl Genius. So we’re going to be going as characters from the series: Jägermonsters!

Now, we’ve done specific characters from the series before (as one of our first group costume themes, acually), but decided that having a bit more flexibility to work within a theme would be more fun. And it has been! It’s really interesting to see everyone’s slightly different approach to the project, with some focusing on makeup and accessories, others on costuming and clothing. I personally have been leaning more towards the latter, making myself a nice military-esque uniform (complete with epaulettes and pants piping!). But I may yet experiment with some temporary hair color, and maybe even nail polish, which is certainly odd for me.

Anyway, I’ve put off work for long enough. Might as well get to the productivity-ing-ness.

Stop Moving The Goalposts!

As much as I love this time of year, it does get difficult for me when it’s full dark by 6h30.  And of course, Daylight Saving Time just exacerbates the problem.  In a little more than two weeks, the sun will set a full hour earlier, for no apparent reason other than a misguided, habitual attempt to “save energy” or some nonsense.

For as little as I spend time outside, I am apparently very sunlight-driven.  If I don’t have ambient light when I wake up in the morning, it freaks me out; I can’t use blackout curtains, otherwise I tend to wake up in the middle of the night with no idea what time it is, which means I start freaking out about missing work/school/whatever.  Combine this with the fact that it’s very hard for me to fall asleep once I wake up, and it’s a recipe for badness.

In a related way, I assume that when it’s dark outside it’s time for sleeping.  Whether I want to or not, I start winding down as it gets dark, which makes it really hard to do anything remotely productive when it’s dark before I even get home from work.  Once it’s dark, I don’t want to do much else except read and play video games.  The day is done, and so is the day’s work.

And to top it all off, I start to get all wonky without enough sunlight.  The time I spent working in a windowless office was especially bad, since I would occasionally get to work before sunrise and leave after sunset.  But my exposure to sunlight, even indirectly, has a noticeable effect on my mood.

I complain a lot about not having much of an internal concept of time, and I wonder if these habits and preferences are related to that.  Is my body taking its timing cues from the sun, whether I want it to or not?  That would make sense, but it doesn’t make it any less annoying.  My inborn productivity drive isn’t the greatest to start with, so anything I can do to trick more motivation out of myself is kind of important.  It’s just hard to do so when your body is telling you it’s time to go to sleep.

Another Late Post

The night kind of got away from me, yet again.  A variety of forces kept me from getting to the project I wanted to, and it’s making me feel kind of down.  That’s not to say I didn’t get anything done, just that I didn’t make progress on things I needed to.  So I think I’m just going to go to bed.  My brain is starting to lie to me, and that’s a sure sign I need to do something to kick it out of the rut.  And given how my options are either “work on project” or “get a good night’s sleep,” it’s probably better to do the latter.  I just hope I still have enough time to finish what I need to, even if it means skipping practice this week.

Ivory Tower Baggage

Well, the project that was freaking me out last week is out for review, which means my bit is done for at least little while. I think one of the things that made it so stressful is it was a different type of project than our firm usually does (retail rather than restaurant), so the people in the office I’ve been relying on for advice were just about as clueless as I was. But as I tied up the last straggling loose ends, I had a bit of an epiphany.

Work is not school.

There is no “right” or “wrong” way to do things, at least not in the ways there are in academia, where you’re trying to earn a good grade. There’s no syllabus that’s been used year after year, refined until most of the bugs have been squashed and everything is internally consistent. There is no set beginning and end to a project like there is when you hand in a term paper. And your coworkers are not the same as all-knowing professors who know their aforementioned syllabus inside and out.

This may seem extremely obvious, and I feel a bit embarrassed that I didn’t notice it sooner, but it’s something that I’m still learning to grok. I think a lot of my stress came from when I would ask the local office’s project manager (not technically my boss, but they do have their own office whereas I have a cubicle) for advice or clarification. Too often, the answer was a shrug or something along the lines of “I’m not sure either.” It was even weirder when they turned around and asked me for advice in response to one of my questions.

That’s when I realized that I had truly left the cut-and-dry world of academia, and had entered a much more messy and ambiguous realm. I was no longer a subservient student, I was another professional (albeit inexperienced), with the tacit assumption that I knew something about what I was doing.

That assumption is kind of flattering, but also kind of terrifying. After all, if I know enough to work on my own, then it falls on my shoulders if something goes wrong or gets missed. And I know just enough to realize how much more I don’t know. And of course there’s my inherent perfectionism, worrying about doing everything right the first time, never mind if I’m still learning the ropes and developing my skills.

But I’m trying to let that go. Going forward, I’m going to try and remember that I am capable of doing things based on my own knowledge. I’m going to try and not worry about not having the answer all the time. I’m going to try and not worry about whether or not I did something “right” when doing it “well enough” would have been sufficient.

And if I miss something, that’s what the permit and client review stage is for, right?

But Wait, There’s More

One of the most annoying things about my job is how there always seems to be something else to do. I don’t mean that in the “Oh, you finished one project, let’s move you on to another.” That would be the case regardless of where I worked. No, what I mean is the way things have a tendency to snowball: “I have to to X, which means I need to do Y. But that requires A and B to be taken care of. Alright, I think I’m done. Oh crap, what about Z?”

Maybe it’s my lack of experience that’s preventing me from seeing everything that I need to accomplish. Grad school gave me a taste, of course, but actual practice is several steps above even that. And in school, you had a more-knowledgeable professor checking in periodically to make sure you were on the right track, to direct you towards the questions that needed to be answered. In the real world, you don’t even have that. You’ve only got your coworkers, who may be more experience than you, but not necessarily in the things you need help with. Or you may not know who to ask. Or your oversights may not become apparent until the deadline has come and suddenly the goalposts rocket up into the sky and land even further away.

I guess what I’m saying is that I know there’s a lot I don’t know. But I don’t know what that is, or where to find it. It’s a really discouraging place to be. Like I said, I keep getting to a place where I think I’m almost done, but all that does is allow me to see how much is left. It’s like when I went to Great Sand Dunes National Park as a kid. My dad and I decided to hike to the top of the tallest dune we could see. At the time this was quite an accomplishment; I don’t remember how young I was. But I remember being so proud that I had made it to the top! I had set a goal, and achieved it!

And…

And once I got to the top, there were more, larger sand dunes as far as the eye could see. There was no way I was going to make it to “the top of the tallest,” especially with the sun setting. So we started our climb back down, slightly dejected (there’s only so dejected you can be, after all, slipping and sliding barefoot through the sand).

I guess what I’m trying to say is, the more work I do, the more there seems to be. And that seems really counter-intuitive. Maybe it’s lack of experience. Maybe it’s short-sightedness. In any case, I’m trying to not be too hard on myself, but that’s easier said than done.

Stress Reactions

Stress sucks.  I know, I probably don’t have to tell you that, since you live in the same modern era that I do.  Like anyone else, I do my best to avoid getting stressed.  But of course, I’m not always as successful as I’d like; something about there being exterior factors outside your control or something.  I get stressed often enough that I’ve noticed a common set of symptoms keep cropping up.  Like headaches and lack of sleep.  Or canker sores.

Of course, these reactions aren’t warning signs that I’m getting too stressed.  No, that would make too much sense.  Instead, they’re warning signs that I’ve gotten too stressed.  It’s too late to do anything about it, by that point, so why not pile on the added stressors of chronic pain and discomfort?

Help deal with stress by piling on more stress?  That sounds like a GREAT idea! </sarcasm>

I think that’s one of the reasons I’ve been feeling so down this week.  Work deadlines stressed me out last week (I’m still within my new-hire probationary period, so am especially worried about appearing incompetent), which blossomed into wonderfully annoying symptoms this week.  It’s hard to be in a good mood when every time you go to speak, chew, or swallow it sends a sharp shooting pain through your mouth.

I suppose I should consider myself lucky; canker sores are fairly mild as far as these things go.  I don’t get migraines, for instance.  I don’t have “an ulcer the size of my fist,” as my girlfriend is fond of pointing out.  I just don’t like that my body seems to be saying “You screwed up.  Let’s make sure you remember and feel bad for as long as possible!”

I will say this: my girlfriend introduced me to the wonderful thing that is topical oral painkiller.  For as often as I get canker sores, you’d think I’d have sought out something like this years ago.  But no, I usually suffer in silence and wait for the things to pass.  But no more!  Using the stuff has allowed me to eat relatively pain-free (I was letting my blood sugar get low because eating hurt, further exacerbating the stress issue), and made me a much more pleasant person to be around.

I still hate my body sometimes, though.