I love how discussions at meetings always degenerate just as the meeting ends. An example from this morning:
Person 1: We've submitted all of our paperwork [when things reopened at the start of the fiscal year] but it looks like it's at the bottom of the pile, so it'll probably take a couple of months to get processed.
Person 2: What? We weren't at the front of the line to submit it? We didn't camp out like to get Grateful Dead tickets?
Person 3: You know, they're not grateful anymore, people just call them the Dead these days.
Person 2: Well, yeah, that's cuz half of them are dead already.
Branch Chief: O-kay! It's 11 o'clock. If there's nothing else, meeting dismissed!
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Overheard at Work #5
"I bought some pinecones for my house yesterday, and..."
Really? You bought them? Just...wow.
Really? You bought them? Just...wow.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Overheard at Work #4
The office was abuzz this morning after the Kanye West-Taylor Swift debacle at last night's MTV Video Music Awards (and rightly so! Who picks on a teenager like that?), and my coworker pops into my office saying, "Hey, you would know this. What does 'keeping it real' mean?"
I'm a little bemused as to why I'd be so likely to know this, and a little sad to say I honestly have no idea what it means. Ideas, readers?
I'm a little bemused as to why I'd be so likely to know this, and a little sad to say I honestly have no idea what it means. Ideas, readers?
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Overheard at Work #3
From the kitchen, I hear two people collide. Startled, one of them says:
"Well, I guess now I don't need to worry about retirement. You just scared me to death!"
"Well, I guess now I don't need to worry about retirement. You just scared me to death!"
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
commuters crack me up
A friend reminded me a few days ago it's been forever since I've written. Things have been busy - I graduated, went on vacation for a bit, started a new job, moved to a new house, and more, but (thankfully) it's starting to settle down again.
And I'm starting to get into a routine. As you might guess, that new job I mentioned entails a new commute. It seemed like a hellish change at first - my previous commute was all of a six minute walk. Counting elevator time and waiting at stoplights, I would leave my apartment at exactly 8:52am to get to work by 9. These days, not only do I have to be in by 8:30, but I have to leave my place nearly an hour earlier to get there on time. There’s a half-hour metro ride on the dreaded red line (wmata.com says it’s 20 minutes, but we all know better), and from there, a 20-minute walk to my building. Notice I say it seemed hellish at first. Now, strangely enough, I’m starting to like it, and the route itself is becoming autopilot. I’m actually able to take time to smell the roses, as they say. Or in this case, watch my fellow commuters (and unfortunately, smell some of them, too. Not quite so rosy. Please guys, when it’s 99 degrees outside, either shower or don’t sit next to me).
Which brings me to today. I thought it was just an ordinary Tuesday morning as I slipped on my iPod, started blasting the Taylor Swift, and began walking in time to it, feeling like the main character in a dance movie montage (c’mon, you know you do it too). But the characters I encountered, and the fact that I actually paid attention to them, made it just a little less ordinary. It all started with my decision to act like a Rockville local – when in fact I basically know nothing but the route to and from my office, and from my office to Panera – and take the shortcut path behind the hedge that cuts approximately two seconds off my travel time. As it happened, this decision probably added five seconds today as I nearly got bowled over by the guy running to the metro.
I should explain something here. I don’t know why, but the sight of adults in business clothes running always makes me laugh. Particularly when they’re carrying a briefcase, when there’s no apparent deadline (today’s guy was nowhere near the signs saying when the next train was), when they’re not doing that cutesy/annoying skipping thing that women in heels do, but full-on sprinting. This guy fit all three of those. But I have to give him credit – my sudden appearance in his direct path did not faze the guy one bit.
Little did I know this would not be my first near-collision of the day. It seemed today was a big day for Rockville-ans to take the metro (don’t you all have cars?) and they were all so eager to get into the spirit that they started obeying the metro escalator rules a whole block before the station. To be specific, they were walking on the left side of the sidewalk like it was their job. Correct me if I’m wrong, but since we drive on the right side of the road, we walk on the right side of the sidewalk, right? The result of all this was multiple surprised looks at me as I jumped onto the grass to avoid being hit. I know you’re excited, guys, but you’re not on the escalator yet!
Anyway, I made it past that obstacle course and it seemed like my fellow pedestrians had calmed down. But it was a morning of misconceptions. I’d just turned off of Rockville Pike when I encountered part two of running men in business clothes. Like most sequels, this guy totally outdid his predecessor. Not only did he have the bag and no obvious deadline, he was wearing a suit (a suit!) and running across the middle of Old Georgetown Road. As anyone who’s ever walked with me knows, I have nothing against jaywalking. In fact, I embrace it; it’s my little way of rebelling. But across a four-lane road during rush hour? That takes guts.
After making sure my suited friend survived his little sprint, I continued down Old Georgetown when I had my first run-in with a driver. It was bound to happen; unlike DC, this area is ruled by cars. Which the driver I was about to cross in front of (at the cross walk – I know where I can and can’t jaywalk) was well aware of and clearly wanted to make sure I knew, too. She was a mild-mannered motherly type emerging out of a shopping center parking lot, so I thought I was safe. Not so. I take one step off the sidewalk and she whips her head around, looks at me deer-in-headlights style, steps on the accelerator, and zooms off in front of me. You think I’m exaggerating? I wish I was.
I continued along my usual path, which for the next several minutes was pretty uneventful, until I hit Executive Boulevard. Like a Silicon Valley office park (seriously, it’s like I’m back in California everytime I go to work), this street has driveways leading to each building complex about every hundred feet. Thanks to crosswalks and the somewhat bewildering fact that hardly anyone seems to actually turn into these driveways, it’s generally pretty safe. Although, like California, you have your usual set of people who don’t signal when they turn, what makes things a little more suspenseful in this part of town is that rare breed of people who do the opposite: they signal but don’t turn.
Fairly harmless other than sometimes making me wait unnecessarily, these people fascinate me. I just can’t figure out the motivation. I’ve gone through several possibilities. Maybe it’s left over from a curvy road or an earlier turn, but that doesn’t really apply when the road is stick-straight and has been for quite some time. Maybe they hit it accidentally during a rousing session of driver’s-seat aerobics, but wouldn’t you notice the sudden clicking, or I don’t know, the fact that your hand hit something? Maybe they’re just overachievers, all prepared five hundred feet before the actual turn. That one’s a possibility, I suppose. Unlike the ones who don’t signal at all, these guys definitely aren’t lazy; they’re actively doing something they don’t need to do and gain no benefit from doing. Maybe it’s like my jaywalking, just their little way of doing something they’re not supposed to do before beginning a long day at work. After all, drivers need to rebel once in a while, too, don’t they?
And I'm starting to get into a routine. As you might guess, that new job I mentioned entails a new commute. It seemed like a hellish change at first - my previous commute was all of a six minute walk. Counting elevator time and waiting at stoplights, I would leave my apartment at exactly 8:52am to get to work by 9. These days, not only do I have to be in by 8:30, but I have to leave my place nearly an hour earlier to get there on time. There’s a half-hour metro ride on the dreaded red line (wmata.com says it’s 20 minutes, but we all know better), and from there, a 20-minute walk to my building. Notice I say it seemed hellish at first. Now, strangely enough, I’m starting to like it, and the route itself is becoming autopilot. I’m actually able to take time to smell the roses, as they say. Or in this case, watch my fellow commuters (and unfortunately, smell some of them, too. Not quite so rosy. Please guys, when it’s 99 degrees outside, either shower or don’t sit next to me).
Which brings me to today. I thought it was just an ordinary Tuesday morning as I slipped on my iPod, started blasting the Taylor Swift, and began walking in time to it, feeling like the main character in a dance movie montage (c’mon, you know you do it too). But the characters I encountered, and the fact that I actually paid attention to them, made it just a little less ordinary. It all started with my decision to act like a Rockville local – when in fact I basically know nothing but the route to and from my office, and from my office to Panera – and take the shortcut path behind the hedge that cuts approximately two seconds off my travel time. As it happened, this decision probably added five seconds today as I nearly got bowled over by the guy running to the metro.
I should explain something here. I don’t know why, but the sight of adults in business clothes running always makes me laugh. Particularly when they’re carrying a briefcase, when there’s no apparent deadline (today’s guy was nowhere near the signs saying when the next train was), when they’re not doing that cutesy/annoying skipping thing that women in heels do, but full-on sprinting. This guy fit all three of those. But I have to give him credit – my sudden appearance in his direct path did not faze the guy one bit.
Little did I know this would not be my first near-collision of the day. It seemed today was a big day for Rockville-ans to take the metro (don’t you all have cars?) and they were all so eager to get into the spirit that they started obeying the metro escalator rules a whole block before the station. To be specific, they were walking on the left side of the sidewalk like it was their job. Correct me if I’m wrong, but since we drive on the right side of the road, we walk on the right side of the sidewalk, right? The result of all this was multiple surprised looks at me as I jumped onto the grass to avoid being hit. I know you’re excited, guys, but you’re not on the escalator yet!
Anyway, I made it past that obstacle course and it seemed like my fellow pedestrians had calmed down. But it was a morning of misconceptions. I’d just turned off of Rockville Pike when I encountered part two of running men in business clothes. Like most sequels, this guy totally outdid his predecessor. Not only did he have the bag and no obvious deadline, he was wearing a suit (a suit!) and running across the middle of Old Georgetown Road. As anyone who’s ever walked with me knows, I have nothing against jaywalking. In fact, I embrace it; it’s my little way of rebelling. But across a four-lane road during rush hour? That takes guts.
After making sure my suited friend survived his little sprint, I continued down Old Georgetown when I had my first run-in with a driver. It was bound to happen; unlike DC, this area is ruled by cars. Which the driver I was about to cross in front of (at the cross walk – I know where I can and can’t jaywalk) was well aware of and clearly wanted to make sure I knew, too. She was a mild-mannered motherly type emerging out of a shopping center parking lot, so I thought I was safe. Not so. I take one step off the sidewalk and she whips her head around, looks at me deer-in-headlights style, steps on the accelerator, and zooms off in front of me. You think I’m exaggerating? I wish I was.
I continued along my usual path, which for the next several minutes was pretty uneventful, until I hit Executive Boulevard. Like a Silicon Valley office park (seriously, it’s like I’m back in California everytime I go to work), this street has driveways leading to each building complex about every hundred feet. Thanks to crosswalks and the somewhat bewildering fact that hardly anyone seems to actually turn into these driveways, it’s generally pretty safe. Although, like California, you have your usual set of people who don’t signal when they turn, what makes things a little more suspenseful in this part of town is that rare breed of people who do the opposite: they signal but don’t turn.
Fairly harmless other than sometimes making me wait unnecessarily, these people fascinate me. I just can’t figure out the motivation. I’ve gone through several possibilities. Maybe it’s left over from a curvy road or an earlier turn, but that doesn’t really apply when the road is stick-straight and has been for quite some time. Maybe they hit it accidentally during a rousing session of driver’s-seat aerobics, but wouldn’t you notice the sudden clicking, or I don’t know, the fact that your hand hit something? Maybe they’re just overachievers, all prepared five hundred feet before the actual turn. That one’s a possibility, I suppose. Unlike the ones who don’t signal at all, these guys definitely aren’t lazy; they’re actively doing something they don’t need to do and gain no benefit from doing. Maybe it’s like my jaywalking, just their little way of doing something they’re not supposed to do before beginning a long day at work. After all, drivers need to rebel once in a while, too, don’t they?
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
don't even know what to say
Anyone who's ever taken a psychology class would be able to tell the story of Kitty Genovese and the societal observation it gave birth to, known as the Genovese effect or the bystander effect. Her story is not easily forgotten. According to Michael Dorman of NewsDay, her 1964 murder in Queens - witnessed by 38 neighbors, none of whom acted to help her - became "a symbol of Americans' failure to get involved." Two weeks after the murder, the New York Times' Martin Gansberg described that failure to get involved as an example of the callousness and apathy of the big-city environment.
But why am I writing about this today? Today, on my way home in my own big-city environment, my mind occupied by trivialities like my upcoming thesis, I saw the Genovese effect proven wrong. It was about an hour ago, and I'm still shaken, but I'm hopeful. Two men were hanging around the benches near my home metro station, and as usual, I took care to avoid eye contact with the loiterers, thinking you could never be too careful after dark in the city. As I got closer, I noticed that there was a third man on the ground. The back of his head was bleeding freely, and his eyes were closed. Glancing up at the two men who were standing, I noticed a little ruefully that they were not in fact loitering, but discussing what to do.
I stopped to ask what had happened and what I could do, and thinking about it now, I'm so glad it didn't occur to me to walk on. Apparently, he'd hit his head pretty hard and fallen. Neither of his helpers knew him, I realized, as he regained consciousness and looked up at them in confusion. Within a few minutes, and with the support of nearly every person who passed us and stopped to help, an ambulance was on its way, and we'd propped up his head with a towel from a nearby building, coached him not to move, and enlisted a security guard's help. The man was conscious and talking - though a little incoherently - and it looked like he'd be okay. Though I didn't do anything useful but summarize the situation for the security guard, it was only after her arrival that I felt I could leave.
And I wasn't the only one, I was happy to notice. All but one of the passersby stopped, and not one of us who stayed felt comfortable doing nothing to help. And thanks to the help of total strangers, I'm pretty sure he'll be okay. As unfortunate as the event was - and I still don't know what he hit his head on or how - it's so good to confirm my faith in the people around me. I saw tonight that we are basically good, even if we lose sight of that once in a while. In a big-city environment, we're so ready to isolate ourselves with iPods and the Express on the morning commute, and so quick to clutch our bags when a friendly tourist smiles or says hello. But when it counts, we do care about and help each other, and even better, we don't think twice about it.
But why am I writing about this today? Today, on my way home in my own big-city environment, my mind occupied by trivialities like my upcoming thesis, I saw the Genovese effect proven wrong. It was about an hour ago, and I'm still shaken, but I'm hopeful. Two men were hanging around the benches near my home metro station, and as usual, I took care to avoid eye contact with the loiterers, thinking you could never be too careful after dark in the city. As I got closer, I noticed that there was a third man on the ground. The back of his head was bleeding freely, and his eyes were closed. Glancing up at the two men who were standing, I noticed a little ruefully that they were not in fact loitering, but discussing what to do.
I stopped to ask what had happened and what I could do, and thinking about it now, I'm so glad it didn't occur to me to walk on. Apparently, he'd hit his head pretty hard and fallen. Neither of his helpers knew him, I realized, as he regained consciousness and looked up at them in confusion. Within a few minutes, and with the support of nearly every person who passed us and stopped to help, an ambulance was on its way, and we'd propped up his head with a towel from a nearby building, coached him not to move, and enlisted a security guard's help. The man was conscious and talking - though a little incoherently - and it looked like he'd be okay. Though I didn't do anything useful but summarize the situation for the security guard, it was only after her arrival that I felt I could leave.
And I wasn't the only one, I was happy to notice. All but one of the passersby stopped, and not one of us who stayed felt comfortable doing nothing to help. And thanks to the help of total strangers, I'm pretty sure he'll be okay. As unfortunate as the event was - and I still don't know what he hit his head on or how - it's so good to confirm my faith in the people around me. I saw tonight that we are basically good, even if we lose sight of that once in a while. In a big-city environment, we're so ready to isolate ourselves with iPods and the Express on the morning commute, and so quick to clutch our bags when a friendly tourist smiles or says hello. But when it counts, we do care about and help each other, and even better, we don't think twice about it.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
gchattiquette
Isn't it funny how a website or piece of software can acquire a personality? I came across this article a while back that discussed the different types of kids - back then, it was mostly kids - who used Facebook and MySpace. The past couple of years, I've seen the same sort of thing happen with instant messaging applications. AIM's the one you keep since you've had it since middle school, Skype's the one you downloaded when your close friends started studying abroad, and gchat's the one that's sort of legit, the one you can sneakily use at work. Because hey, I was just checking my email! It's not my fault my friend decided to IM me.
Not that I would ever do such a thing, of course...
However, there's one pesky (but sometimes, so convenient) thing about gchat with great potential for awkwardness. You know what I'm talking about. That option that for most of us came with the default settings, which Gmail phrases as "Automatically allow people I communicate with often to chat with me and see when I'm online." Combined with another default setting, this one called "Show in chat list: Most popular", this means that exchanging emails with someone can put them in your chat list, and you on theirs. The kicker? If your usage of gchat is uneven, or if your friends are always online and theirs aren't, you might not even know it. It's fine in a lot of situations, like when a friendship develops naturally or you don't want to be so obvious as to "want to be able to chat with" a crush. But when that person is the random guy who bought your couch on Craigslist or the HR contact at the company you want to work for, this may not be the greatest thing.
Which brings me to my story. A couple of weeks ago, Michelle Obama came to speak to the employees of the federal agency where I work. After standing in line for an hour and in the room for another hour, and seeing her for an (oh so worth it) fifteen minutes, I came back to my office cube ready to share the excitement and discuss what she wore and what she said (yes, in that order. This is Michelle O. we're talking about, after all). Naturally, I changed my gchat status to "I saw Michelle Obama today!" In the flurry of IMs that followed in the next few hours - it was the most popular I'd been in ages - I noticed a couple of interesting things:
Not that I would ever do such a thing, of course...
However, there's one pesky (but sometimes, so convenient) thing about gchat with great potential for awkwardness. You know what I'm talking about. That option that for most of us came with the default settings, which Gmail phrases as "Automatically allow people I communicate with often to chat with me and see when I'm online." Combined with another default setting, this one called "Show in chat list: Most popular", this means that exchanging emails with someone can put them in your chat list, and you on theirs. The kicker? If your usage of gchat is uneven, or if your friends are always online and theirs aren't, you might not even know it. It's fine in a lot of situations, like when a friendship develops naturally or you don't want to be so obvious as to "want to be able to chat with" a crush. But when that person is the random guy who bought your couch on Craigslist or the HR contact at the company you want to work for, this may not be the greatest thing.
Which brings me to my story. A couple of weeks ago, Michelle Obama came to speak to the employees of the federal agency where I work. After standing in line for an hour and in the room for another hour, and seeing her for an (oh so worth it) fifteen minutes, I came back to my office cube ready to share the excitement and discuss what she wore and what she said (yes, in that order. This is Michelle O. we're talking about, after all). Naturally, I changed my gchat status to "I saw Michelle Obama today!" In the flurry of IMs that followed in the next few hours - it was the most popular I'd been in ages - I noticed a couple of interesting things:
- First of all, the chat list unevenness I referred to earlier came up. One group of my friends, when planning an event, tends to send out mass emails and "reply all" with anything they have to say. As a result, though I hardly know some of them, I have exchanged a number of emails with all of them. Their IMs asking about Michelle were what first alerted me to the fact that I can show up on someone's chat list without that person showing up on mine. I wondered how many previous status messages they had seen, mentally going through what I may have unknowingly revealed in the past few days.
- Secondly, people have two distinct ways of responding to an interesting gstatus. They either refer to it explicitly, saying something like "you saw Michelle? I'm so jealous!"; or they take it as part of the context, saying something like "awesome!", which would make no sense if, say, my chat list was minimized (as it often is) and I forgot what it said (as I often do). To draw a Facebook parallel, it's the difference between writing on someone's wall in response to an interesting status, and commenting on it directly.
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