seventhe | Entries tagged with totally serving up powerpoint realness

I come home from work every day with the intention of working more. I realize this sounds dangerously pathetic or pathetically dangerous - choose one! - but it's the way I get myself out the door: go home, just bring this one thing, NOT EVERYTHING, just this one thing; working from home is much more comfortable and productive than being in the office anyway, you can have no pants on and cats get in your lap and there is always wine and music and more comfortable chairs and your wife the hot pad! don't you love your wife? DON'T YOU LOVE YOUR WIFE SEVENTHE DON'T YOU

it's a fine compromise that I am actually more than willing to make: the workload never stops, but it's much nicer working from home, PLUS it's much nicer to come home and be able to focus and do a much better job on something. it's nice to come home to an hour of catching up on email, or 45 minutes of pulling data into a report: I don't work all night; it's just small individual tasks I can get done in a low-key and helpful way.

But lately. BUT LATELY: lately, I come home and my brain just won't focus on the work. I have this report about all of the kerfuddlefuckery that has taken my plant down for four weeks already that the CEO asked me to write and I am all yes sir please let me hand-deliver this horrible news to your office, shall I seal it in my blood now or later like I actually do want to write this report and show what we are doing, what we are fixing, what we are facing - what the dumb godsbefucked people before me left to us, what I have sacrificed the last fucking six weeks to defeating which is like running a thousand goddamn marathons all at once on three hours of shitty sleep because I have been up at night worrying about my plant and my people because everything is goddamn fucked right now and -- and anyway, I want to write this report. But I get home and I open it and my brain gives this long-ass, horrible groan-sigh noise just like : reeeeeeeally, Sev, we are going to do this?

I am not going that way. No.

I'm trying, I want to, I'm in a comfy chair with the laptop on my lap right now. Come on, fucker. I just need an hour of your energy and we'll be ok.

Crossposts: http://first-seventhe.livejournal.com/367692.html

in 10 days I get the keys to my house. I am sort of in disbelief-land still.

talked to the dr about my neck on Thursday. Turns out the news is better than I'd thought; the dr said that any kind of improvement is a good sign (I had been evaluating a 50%-75% improvement as "not 100% and therefore failure"; he said that 50%-75% is actually very promising), that he wants me to have a series of three shots with additional focused PT following the second shot, that whatever activity I can give it without pain will be good for it, and that he also wants me to stay on the painkillers until it is 100%.
So the forward plan right now becomes using gentle exercise to remind my neck/shoulders/back what it's like to not be all fucked up, then to have another shot ~end of March/early Apr and a third ~end of Apr. He seems really hopeful that since it did respond to the first shot that subsequent ones will be even better. I'm trying to take hope from his optimism.

I'm very happy to have been "cleared" to get back to working out, and am trying really hard to take it slow and gentle rather than just diving right in (and probably hurting myself again because my body is a jackass). I've been feeling very broken and lumpy lately - a very complex and complicated feeling, but generally not a good one - and I think this will help.

meetings this week with the Japanese Overlords. I have my project review this morning; at the advice of a few of the managers I've added a slide pretty boldly and blatantly requesting the targets and direction we still lack in two main areas; I am not sure how this will go over. send help

I've been playing FFIII. For now - until I make an official post - you can watch me here on tumblr. Basically this game:

Yup.

I still really want to write.

DOINK! Final Fantasy Exchange 2013 is coming up. That's right, stay tuned for your yearly dose of "Sev has officially lost it". Timing this round: impeccable; sign-ups open the day I get the keys. clearly I am a professional

what else do I even do anymore?

Crossposts: http://first-seventhe.livejournal.com/343325.html

1. I have figured out, through some intense reflection during a boring meeting I wasn't involved in but had no chance to escape, that the answers I actually need to manage my project are an entire layer underneath the questions that I have been asking. (WORKCEPTION????) I've been asking for targets; what I actually need is a more clear fundamental understanding of the way work is supposed to flow from conception into production, and the role my project plays in the entire process, where communication goes and where priorities are. There isn't a process, by the way, and that's why I always feel so goddamn lost, and why even asking for clear targets isn't going to fix the mess I'm wading through. I actually need to go deeper.

I've set an appointment with the visiting Overlords on Monday and I plan to basically bang heads against a table with my newfound understanding of the situation I am in until someone cries uncle and gives me what I want.

2. I just emailed my advisor. I am back in the game. Thesis complete and Masters Degree by spring semester 2013.

Because fuck everything.

3. I am super stressed at the moment. :(

4. Icon (DW) has never been more relevant.

Crossposts: http://first-seventhe.livejournal.com/329562.html

I make some fucking good presentations. I complain a lot about making slides, mainly because a) it doesn't feel as ~productive~ as being out in the lab and making goop and b) I have to make a fuck ton of slides, often for things that seem worthless -- but honestly, I have to admit, not only do I make some fucking amazing slides, but there is actually something satisfying to putting together a good scientific presentation. Selecting which data to show and how to show it, aligning and arranging your slide to best explain your experiments with the most pictures and the least words, drawing out conclusions you may think are obvious but other people may not understand: there's a science and an art to it, and even though having the most badass presentation won't necessarily get me anywhere, I am actually finding some satisfaction in the normal bullshittery today.

It's strange, because this has become such a huge part of my job, and it has taken me until now to actually stop and breathe it in and find that communication of scientific data has just as much worth if not more than the generation of the data. You can't really have one without the other - my slides all tell you important things about my data, and if they don't, I delete them - but this is part of what moving up in the organization is: becoming a communicator rather than a generator. I quite like it, in a very strange sort of way. Or maybe it's just that my OCD really likes lining up all the text boxes and making sure every red is the same red and the fonts have stayed consistent between slides (not always the case when I am collecting drafts from 5 different people who should be using the same master template but aren't).

I am, however - disappointingly - starting to make slides like a Japanese businessman. AKA: CRAMMING 8000 THINGS ONTO ONE SLIDE COVERED WITH ARROWS AND AWFUL COLORS IN UR FONTS EVERYWHERE AND TONS OF FUCKING SEQUINS. I realize I am presenting to the Japanese so maybe this is a good thing, but I legit just had to step away from the computer because I tried to cram a series of text boxes into each other making them varying shades of (a very readable) blue. NO.

Seriously though, I wish I could show you guys these. But I can't, because I would get fired.

Crossposts: http://first-seventhe.livejournal.com/329216.html

THINGS I HATED IN SCHOOL: GROUP PROJECTS

THINGS BEING A PROJECT LEADER IS LIKE: FUCKING GROUP PROJECTS

Sure, I can edit your 10 slides down to 5 and fix all of your typos

why not

that's certainly what they pay me for

Crossposts: http://first-seventhe.livejournal.com/314547.html

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