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 ›
work-life balance
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 ›
It’s better to be sweet than to be bright
Roxy’s not that smart. Her name is Roxy, she’s a cat, sister to the other one. She stands in the light of the laundry room while I feed Ruby, quarter to six. She stands there looking at me while the… Read More ›
Bad work day rant, what we do for money
Almost as bad as a bad day of work is reading about somebody else’s. If you can make it funny and I can laugh at your pain, that’s different. If it becomes a form of therapy for you to cut… Read More ›
