11:31 p.m. - 2004-05-10
Traffic
Pleasant ride into work today. Not the weather - on Saturday it was in the mid 70's F/20+ C, on Sunday we woke up to a blanket of snow. Today was rainy, windy and grey. However, the bus and train were only partly full. Maybe because our hockey team won their first away game in the conference final and too much partying made for a "sick day" for a lot of workers today. Don't know. The rest of us benefitted with a quiet, fast trip into downtown. At the elevators, two young ones with their Dad in tow heading for daycare. The big thrill was pushing the elevator button. I don't know when it is that our society changes from taking joy in small pleasures, to thinking that there is never enough and that constant pursuit of junk, simply because it has the cachet of the day. It was good to see that spoiling of wonder hadn't set in with those two yet. Their Dad stood and waited with them until there was a free button to push - good parenting reinforcing that attitude.
Work was, well good, I think. I had sent in our first weekly report on Sunday after receiving and verifying my co-worker's stats late the Sunday evening. It is a small world - he was telling me he had been at his parents for Mother's Day. Turns out his Dad was one the recruiters who had called me a year ago January to see if I wanted to have them find a position for me. Their fee was $5000, so I said no, I thought I could manage on my own, but thanks anyway. I'm glad to hear his Dad has left that firm. I don't think he felt very comfortable with the role. I wonder if my co-worker has seen my resume. It might explain a few things about him. He had made a very odd comment on Friday when he came by my office. I had my headphones on and was concentrating on the data I was editing. He flicked the lights on and off a couple of times to get my attention and muttered something about keeping things professional. Whatever that means.
Anyway, we met at the coffee station and I asked him if he had read the report. I had sent him a copy when I was done and asked him to review it then send it back with any comments or concerns. He hadn't, so I was curious about whether he had checked it or not. He obviously didn't like what I had sent in. I explained that our supervisor just wants a statistical breakdown of the work done and a listing of the problems we've encountered. Two pages is his maximum most days - unless of course there are real problems. My co-worker had sent a day to day chronology of the work he'd done. I understand that there can be value to that, but doubling up the text for the two of us, the redundancy of mentioning some activities or challenges two or three times, as he had done, in his report and detailing the nitty gritty work sometimes file by file, is just way too much information. We are each supposed to keep a daily diary and that is why. The detail is there if clarification is needed, but not otherwise. He just said he wanted to write the next one. Oy.
I decided just to continue on with what I was doing. I had asked our liaison for feedback on the work we have done so far so that if there are any wobbles early in the process, we can adjust our routines accordingly. She said she was very happy with the work. I asked if she was comfortable with the quantity of our output. She said yes to that too. I'm not going as quickly as I might, because of the amount of detail in some of the files. Correspondence on a particular issue between several partners can take some time to summarize tersely. Some of the technical documents are so similar, that it takes a lot to find markers that are unique only to them so that researchers can find what they want easily. Also there are a lot of errors in the cataloguing that has been done to date. Those have to be documented and flagged for follow up as well. A said she would rather we take the time and get it all correct now - save the company time and money down the road. My kind of co-worker.
Lots more e-mail from old friends tonight all wanting to talk or get together. Must be that breath of summer that's lurking just beneath the snow, eh?
�
�
