It is 5:31 AM on Friday, October 28th, 2016. I woke up at 3:00 AM, went to the gym, put the dishes away, had a shot of wheatgrass, meditated and did my Japanese class flashcards. So far it has been a very productive Friday. It is also raining which I love since we rarely get rain; it is nice to have a change in the weather.
I’ve made it to the gym twice this week and am glad to be starting up that routine. Karate class is later today then a double session (kids and adults) tomorrow so I’m getting more exercise than I ever have since HS wrestling. It feels great both physically and mentally and seeing changes in my body is a fantastic motivator. It also helps me deal with stress from work so much better: there are so many things in work that can bring me down and ruin a day but after a good workout I’m extremely confident and all the worries just seem to float away.
Speaking of work I’m now covering that other territory again since the new hire didn’t work out. That and the fact that the company has slashed the staff makes pushing things through internally also a challenge. Management used a consulting company and that company consulted that management should fire a bunch of people and make those left do two to three times the work. Most consultant outfits these days are full of shit; “based on our bullshit analysis we recommend that by firing x amount of people you’ll save y amount of money.”
Another gripe is that we now have to do no less than five reports that give the same information. There was a LinkedIn article a while back that said most managers are just “totally winging it,” and I’ve found that to be very accurate. But no use in griping in this day and age, employees do not last longer than three years at most, so complaining really is a waste of time. Just do your best and move along is the way companies are run these days so no sense in fighting the current.
I would to mention that we had a sales training class a while back and we all had to group ourselves into what type of people we were. The categories were: Amiable, Analytic, Drivers and Expressive. Most of the guys went to the driver group of course because they get results, are “action oriented” and are “driven to succeed.” Of course they are, because that is what many believe are the best type of salespeople here in America: pushy, demanding, “with a sense of urgency.”
I went to the Amiable group where there were only two others because I’m honest, I am an amiable person. One of the exercises involved us saying what we did and didn’t like about our opposite group. For the Amiables the opposite group is the Drivers. When it came time to say what we didn’t like about the other group the Drivers apologized to us before rattling off a few things. I was the spokesman for the Amiables, and said, “Now we must apologize to you. Your complaints about us stayed within a business sense but we are going to attack you personally.” I then had a laundry list of items and capped it with “you’re just bad human beings.” Then for the finale I used the quote from Maya Angelou to prove that Amiables, those who care about others, are the best people:
People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
Enough about work. The time is now 5:59 AM and the rain continues; I can hear it dripping in the gutter as I sit typing in front of my fireplace TV.
My fireplace DVD has four different types of fireplaces. Today I’ve got it set on “Castle,” because we’re almost to Halloween and I still haven’t gotten in to the holiday spirit. I blame work for this but the exercise is helping me out.
Today I’ve got a number of things to accomplish in the morning, a 10 o’clock conference call then a 12 noon lunch appointment down in Redwood City. I need to also remember that it is Friday! So I expect today to be a pretty good one so long as I don’t receive any e-mails full of nonsense.
In fact, I’m going to get started right now so I can get the unpleasant stuff over sooner than later.
