I've been saving this up.

Last Thursday and Friday we had our "Process Simplification Training" with the consultants. That was a who shitload of fun. Want to have a "conversation for opportunity"? I promise to "listen generously" and "enroll" you with a "conversation for action" if you have a "breakthough goal". I distinguished myself right off the bat when, as part of the first exercize we had to rate a number of things on a scale of 1 to 7 (seven being the "good" end of the scale) about what we thought and hoped to get out of the seminar. Everyone rated everything in the 5-6 range in an effort to appear keen, but not too keen. What did I do? I rated the that I figured the seminar would be a "2" for usefulness: not completely useless, but damn close. I gave myself 6's on the risk I was willing to take and how much I planned to participate, and I meant it. It's pretty clear that the only guy willing to say uo front "this is going to be next to useless" is willing to take some risk and isn't afraid to speak up. As is typical I hung back until things started getting intensely stupid and then started "empowering" people with "conversations for action" to actually get some actual planning done so there would be something to show at the end of the two days.

The usefulness and practicality of the consultants can be nicely summed up by a freakish power outage that occurred Friday afternoon. There was a moment of stunned silence from everyone, followed by one of the consultants observing "the power can't be out, all the laptops are still running." To which the room full of assorted I.S. professionals replied nearly in unison, "Batteries". "Now what?" The consultant who at that point was presenting to us was using an easel, paper, and a marker to give her presentation before the power had gone out. "Move the easel over by the window where we can see it and keep going," I said, finsihing the thought in my head with, "so we can get this uselss crap over with and go do some real work."

At the end of the day some work had been accomplished and I took the lead on the communications integration project. In fact I pounced on the project as a calculated career move. After taking on this responsibility, being able to cut loose at Retroactiv at what was once The Twilight Zone was most definitely needed.

This, however, has led to a rather stressful week so far. Basically I am responsible now for getting two offices and seven mills working together on an integrated communications system. September 2005 is the goal for this and the proposed costs are in being measured in hundreds of thousands of dollars. Want stress? We're not talkng, "I think I did badly on my midterm" or "I still have five more pages to write on a paper due tomorrow" type stress here. That kind of stress would be a vacation, a veritable stroll in the park.

So I have been working extra hours lately, and, as you may have noticed, haven't had the time to fart around on LJ much. In an effort not to burn out I've been taking "lunch" breaks and coming home in the middle of the day to hang with Elaine and the cats for a bit, which would work a lot better if our apartment wasn't a fucking construction zone. They've been hanging the new fire escape this week, which on the one hand is a good thing because it will soon be done, but it doesn't make for a relaxing break to have steelworkers yelling, clanging things, welding, tromping through the apartment, et al. Add to that the electrician in and out to repair the work that didn't meet code and the drywaller fixing the gaping chasm left by the electrician.

As is typical the drywall job has been left half-fiished and is, so far, sucking. He cracked a huge chunk of wood off the door trim that I spend quite a bit of time repairing be re-sculpting the missing bit of trim in plaster. I also sanded and filled enourmous chips made in the trim near the area being drywalled that I just know from experience would never have been sanded even or filled before being painted over and I don't want my entryway looking as shitty as the paint job on the balcony. ¼" drywall is being used to patch the hole in the plaster, only the wood slats behind the plaster are also gone and the drywall isn't anchored well enough: it moved when you push it with your finger. The holes for the electrical fixtures are a mile off and will need serious filling. These two things combined mean the the first time someone leans up against the wall to take off their shoes the filler around the breaker box, light switch, and fire alarm with crack and probably crumble.

I'm stressed out at work and my home is a disaster area rather than my sanctuary, so I'm staying stressed out. Fuck am I ever looking forward to C10 and a some industrial strength stress-relief.

On the plus side of life, however, Elaine has actually pushed me into sending a couple slides off to a magazine competition. There is no way I would have done it otherwise. I would never have found the time to have looked up the competition in the first place, let alone get slides ready for it and send them off. I've been resisting doing anything that feels remotely work-like after work, thankfully I have someone here to push me when and where I really need to be pushed.