Conferencing

Am I the only person who gets really excited about work training opportunities? Yes? Oh well. It just really gets me excited to sit in a room and be chatted up by some lady in HR for a few hours about some inane topic like how I get pay raises at my job.

Facilitator- We're going to be role playing a scenario between the boss and her under achieving employee.
M: Will whips and chains be involved?
Fac: I'm sorry?
M: Just a little humor. I'm sorry.

I have an idea that I should take a year off of work and just spend it going to various conferences and grading the material and food presented.

We had a pretty decent spread today. The vase full of oranges was a nice touch, though the flowers at the top were being pushed at odd angles by the oranges. I thought the pita chips were a nice touch. The real lemons in the lemonade were certainly a nice touch. And so on....

Actual requirements of being a good employee-Integrity, reliability, accountability interpersonal skills, diversity....Did I read that correctly?

Do I actually have to be diverse in order to have this job? How does a person go about being diverse? Do they mean like juggling a bunch of knives while delivering a lecture on quantum physics? I mean, it's diverse, I suppose. Or do I need to express myself in a multi-ethnic manner while at my job? Will I be fired for not expressing diversity? This is the sort of stuff that just freaks you out during an HR seminar.

Interesting things I learned while conferencing. I have the capability of changing my expected outcomes during the course of the performance year.

Ex: Currently: Access online articles help assess impact on workflow et al. I love sentences that include words like "assess impact on workflow." It just gets me fired up to be human being. Look at what we've created! I think when God looks down upon the mountains and the sea he's probably a little disappointed that he didn't just create a nice spreadsheet instead. He could have just plugged in a nice Adam and Eve formula and had a much easier time.

Edited version to appear tomorrow: Employee is expected to develop a mastery of all local wines, learning to distinguish, on company time the subtle difference between various grapes. The employee is expected to drink at least a full bottle a day in order to fulfill his work for this week.

I'm thinking it's a great idea to give employees editing privileges to performance tools.

Outcome vs. effort
We then ran a scenario where we had to decide whether outcome or effort was more important for PMP purposes. Though it we decided as a group that it was hard to measure. I can tell you from working over the past few years that the trophies for everyone model of child rearing generally doesn't go over as well in the work place.

Boss: Did you send those articles out?
M: No. I really f-cked them up. Sent them to like Japan or something. You should have heard the calls I was getting. Where are my articles and stuff. Do you know what I told them?
Boss: No?
M: I'll tell you now what I told them. I gave it my best effort. I tried really hard.
Boss: Oh. Then forget it, let's have a beer and talk about our weekends. Trying hard is really all that matters in the world. Like say, invading a country on a false premise. Sure, it makes you look asinine, but as long as you tried really hard to get all the information ahead of time no one really gets hurt.
M: Trying is all that really matters. (At this point we begin to simulate a European dance where a bunch of men hold each others shoulders and kick feet into the air. Oh, and also the Care Bears are shooting rainbows from out of their stomachs).

In which we learn the three most desirable things for people when it comes to jobs.
Friendly co-workers-Seems kind of obvious. Though hard to assess before you start at at a company. Besides what might be friendly to you might just be a creepy guy who won't leave me alone. How do you measure friendliness? Amount of teeth shown in a typical smile?

Desirable commute-Obvious. That's why the devil invented freeways. But then jammed them chock full of cars to teach people a lesson.
Good boss-Obvious. Michael Scott.

Shockingly important things like money were left off. And, is asking for a live in nanny too much? It just seems like the sort of thing that might come in handy at a job. Hell, I'd settle for Mr. Belvedere if I had to. Though I'd like to see him in a bit better shape if he's going to be sharpening my pencils.

What I really learned today.

I learned that when you begin yawning in excess of thirty or so times that it's really imperative to keep the jaw tight, so you can continue to pretend to be listening without your mouth gaping wide open. This is obviously also a valuable technique to learn whenever you are listening to boring people or a boring story. Everyone should conference for a week or so just to really nail the "What? me, oh no, I'm not yawning, my cheeks just tighten like that when I'm really interested" face.

I don't like cold weather. Ie, anything below 50.