At the German school, the kids get dismissed for five minutes between every class to go outside and get some fresh air or have a smoke, some of the younger ones play on the climbing bars and hang upside down… Read More ›
work-life balance
The importance of turning back
In the first draft of my memoir, which I left behind in the States because it has a bad energy objects sometimes can, I began with a scene from 1993 that traces the start of my career to its source,… Read More ›
The problem with the Internet is it never turns off
I had to watch myself on Skype last night, which was hard. The beard’s gotten so long it gets in the way of my food, I get moustache hairs in my meat which feels barbaric — and unemployed now for… Read More ›
Lay vs. Lie
BELLEVUE, WASHINGTON 20 JANUARY 2009 Dawn and I sat in the car in the Macy’s parking garage discussing what we’d do if I lost my job, decided we’d move to Germany, liked the idea so much we agreed we’d go… Read More ›
No Christmas in Germany
At the end of 2009 we returned from a four-month sabbatical in Germany, France, Ireland and Italy. I was eligible for another sabbatical seven years later, which would make me 46 the summer of 2017, and seemed too far away…. Read More ›
To be on the safe side
Now that our cats are gone, the native wildlife is starting to re-emerge: rabbits, squirrels, moles, mice, and everywhere, birds. Which makes me admire the cats for how much they beat back the wildlife to the edges. They would never… Read More ›
Putting the man in project management
The weather has been like a Greek play and I don’t understand what’s going on, one moment it’s calm and there’s singing, the next it’s like the world will end. And you would have thought with all this fussiness I… Read More ›
The 1,000th time
A part of me died that day in the conference room when I botched it with the process decomposition. I had a plan going in, aligned on it with my business owner, and the plan was to plot the as-is… Read More ›
Brandenburg in F-ing Flat
My boss and I have an 8 o’clock stand-up meeting every day. The stand-up is meant as a quick, informal check-in on your progress. What you got done yesterday, your priorities for today. The thought is if you’re standing, it shouldn’t… Read More ›
Arriving: mid 40s
We’re getting displaced at work, because they’re sub-dividing our cubes. It means we have to pack up our things and vacate for a month, and work from home. I don’t work from home well, because my home is my work,… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 