a wolf angel is not a good angel

Oooh, I’ve been tagged. I think everyone else has done this already.

What I do in order to be successful.

1. Limit my excessive use of the internet. Surfing is fun and easy, but less fun (and more easy) than things that I feel better about long-term — even just reading or watching movies. I am generally not as successful at this as I would like.
2. Get places on time. Tardiness is very associated with depression for me, and sometimes being on time even when I am not feeling it can help turn things around a bit
3. Get dressed in the morning, even if I am working at home.
4. Write stuff down. I don’t need to keep looking at it, but I do need to have written it down.
5. Give myself defined goals (I will do x number of ys) and rewards. (I also don’t let myself stop except in multiples of x. Depending on the task, x might be as little as 10 or 15 minutes work.) This is probably the most effective thing I do.

From a letter in the Gazette: As a senior manager, I arrive at my office at 7:15 each morning: Half of my staff has already been there for at least half an hour, alert, switched on and productive. We usually eat lunch at our desks and don’t leave the building until at least 5 p.m., often later. There is no griping, no grumbling, no anger at “the bosses.” It is perceived as normal. He later goes on to say how no one takes vacation days, either. Amazingly, these people who work 50 hours a week at least, do not actually complain to their bosses about the amount of work, and therefore they don’t complain at all.

On the CBC: a Harvard professor talking about how overwork is really bad for productivity, so companies should take pains to avert it by not letting anyone work more than 80 hours a week.

A comment caught in moderation:

Work Environment: Work at Place of Business

Year Salary: Less Than $100000

Job Description: On permanent and temporary job of the Removed agent are required people in age of 18-60 years in USA. We need people who are ready to cooperate with world medical centre.

Duties: You should recieve donations on your personal bank account and distribute them to a disabled people in different countries.

The basic requirements:Skill to communicate,Ability to work in a command. Ability to put interests of company higher then own.

If you really want to help this people and cooperate with us, send a resume on e-mail: REDACTED
With best regards, administration.
More info you can find : REDACTED

I’ll get right on it.

More discussions about moms, and where they do and should work, and what is and isn’t feminist, from Dooce. I have no stake here: I don’t have kids, though I might, one day — one never knows — and I know that, if I had the entirely free choice, I wouldn’t work, not fulltime. (No choices are entirely free, obviously, and I don’t in any way have this choice anyhow.)

But she asks: what did your mother do? Did your mother stay at home? Did she work? And how did you feel about what she did? If you could change anything about what she did what would that be?

My mother worked until we got my sister, then she stayed at home for a while, worked again, stayed at home. She now works — from home — and loves her job. (She has generally enjoyed her jobs, as has my father.) Apparently when she decided to stay at home when my sister was a baby and I was almost 5, I told my carpool, very excited, that my mother would be at home all the time. I do not remember this, it’s just a story I was told.

What I do remember is loving my babysitters so very much. (Except a babysitter I had later, who was verbally and — though I don’t remember this — physically abusive. I actually have an amusing-ish story about this. Well, amusing to me, but I have bad taste.) I remember being *so excited* when I got to visit my mother’s office.

And now — both my parents say they wouldn’t stop working their current jobs if they won a huge lottery. This is what I’d hope for: that you have the chance to do something you really love.

It’s much less bad while I’m here, during the days, anyhow: I have things to do and people to speak to. I like working in an office occasionally, though fulltime I find it a little tiring, since I am essentially an introvert. And I have lots of things to do.

It would be even better if the internet worked in the hotel room, because then I could do more stuff in the evenings, but it has historically had problems. Maybe I will try again anyhow. Still: not such a huge deal. Plus I got to have Ethiopian food today, and I love Ethiopian food.

The worst thing is that I will be having a review tomorrow, and though I am fairly sure I know more or less what will be said, I am still horribly horribly anxious. I guess on the good side it is tomorrow and not, you know, Friday.

Mostly I am spending the evenings reading, or online, or watching endless Law & Order. The problem with working in an office: too much interaction for me, and by the evening, I do not wish to actually *do* anything.

This is one of those times I do not have much to say. I am away. At the same time, I’m at work. Perhaps the real reason is that I am in fact only on a computer during work hours, and there’s just not that much time. Though also, when I do have a moment, I am not writing.

Only a few more days. Two work days, a day off (for which I have a few too many plans), and then home. A long plane ride, featuring Monster-in-Law, no window seat unless I get lucky at the airport, but many books and hopefully a nap.

I finally have a few spare minutes at a computer! How exciting. (I have had a whole day full of not-spare minutes at a computer.) I am going to be far less computered than I had thought: perhaps I will actually be back Sunday or Monday.

I am not, however, sure what to write about. I want to write about here, but I haven’t decided what to say about it. The bathrooms all have little occupied signs on them, like airplanes, which is useful once you figure that out. Paper towels tend to be coloured, greens and blues. People at this office dress better than the one in the US.

As for me: I am on and off not unhappy, but I am better here than before, so at least part was location. I am busy, which is good in that it keeps me from being unhappy, and bad, in that it tends to exacerbate things when I finally unbusy. But I am okay.

There will eventually be lots of photos.

After some time, the overwhelming scent of perfume left my hotel room; I can only hope that there won’t be more perfume when I return this evening. I woke up far earlier than I had wanted to, but didn’t get out of bed, unwilling to get into the cold (the air conditioner must have kicked in overnight: it was certainly not cold when I went to bed). So I read, which was also fine. Reading is indeed a lovely, lovely thing, even silly books. (I recently read something about how all those spy/detective/whatever novels where the ordinary looking/old/ugly man has a beautiful young/younger woman fall in love with him — a genre which has good books in it too, just like chicklit — are just romance novels for men. Sounds reasonable.)

Today I take a shuttle to work. I am told the shuttle was spotty at best, but the car which was rented for me was rented from a place which shuts after business hours. How totally useless. I bought a pastry for breakfast today; there was already coffee in the room. I will hopefully buy somewhat better food tonight. Hopefully.

Today is also reading the documentation day. I do much better reading than listening, or I do better listening if I have already read the stuff. Is that a visual learning style? It always seems not, because I don’t particularly like visual instructions, except about putting furniture together, and that only if there are also words. Small blurry diagrams are not a universal language, Ikea.

I’m sure I should be excited, and I guess I am, but mostly I am sad and tired and scared.