5′2″

So we have been taking Bill to this daycare place when we leave on vacation and, in the words of the owner, “daycare is not for him.”
Apparently, Bill has a beef with large, black dogs. Which he expresses by biting them. And sometimes they bite back.
He’ll be OK, everyone says, but he looks pretty damn pathetic.

Home again, home again

I’m in the apartment of a couple of my best friends, hanging out after having some of the best Indian food (from a cart) and the best beer (Deschutes) in the country.
We’re relaxing in the sun and about to head out to one of my favorite breweries (Hopworks) to meet even more of my closest friends for some more fantastic beer.
I can’t believe how great this town is.

Considering the Lobster

As part of my process of personal development I am Attempting to address my previous dislike of any kind of reading other than current affairs. To that end I bought some books that I would not normally consider owning.
First, Farenheit 451. It’s small, short, entertaining, and a good story, though scary in its accuracy. And I have enjoyed it thoroughly during my daily commute. This is my first time reading it, surprisingly, and I’m glad that I’ve finally gotten around to it. I have known the story for years, just never read it, despite the fact that I did go to an American high school, where, I believe it is required reading for most youth.
Second, is Consider the Lobster.
Until he died last year, I had never really heard much of David Foster Wallace – I don’t read Premiere, Esquire, or The New Yorker.
But in NPR’s lenghty coverage of his death and writings, he sounded like someone whose writings I would really enjoy. Since then, I have made the occasional overture towards finding his books, but failed. I didn’t mind failing at this for so long because I am very good at starting new books before (and often instead of) finishing old ones.
This morning I started reading this collection of his essays and have found that I really do enjoy it. He’s funny, critical, thought provoking, and generally a good read. The first essay is a lengthy one about the yearly Adult Video News awards, and the personalities involved, and their relationship with the American consumer. Pretty damn interesting.
I think a number of you, my dear reader(s), (one is a number), will really enjoy this when I’m done with it.

Personal and Professional Development

So, my employer finally hired a director for our department. After two years without anything resembling leadership, we have someone who has the skills and authority to drive significant change in my office.

Finally.

One part of this is working with everyone in the office to improve their personal and professional development to enable all of us to grow into better people and employees. He’s definitely into the mentoring thing.

I’ve always considered myself a good employee, but I have some shortcomings as far as personality goes. I’m not especially good at making personal connections quickly with people at work. I get along with everyone on a professional level and am polite and courteous, but do not put a lot of effort into converting co-workers into friends and don’t put any stock in playing the politics games.

The good part is that I’m self-aware. I know that I have this problem and I know that it doesn’t help me. It wasn’t until my boss pointed it out to me, though, that I realized it was actually hurting me professionally. Especially here, where there is so much emphasis on “playing the game.”

So, I’m working on that. Not the “playing the game” part so much, but the making personal connections part.

And I’m not just doing it because it will be better for me professionally, but because I know it’ll make my personal life easier and better, too.

Documentation is not a substitute

Documentation is not a substitute for usability.

The more Microsoft products I use, the more amazing it is to me that people are choosing to inflict this pain on themselves. This is a great post about the multitude of shutdown options for Windows. While his point is that Windows is over-inflated with options so that no one can complain that the option they programmed didn’t make it into the final build, my point is that after someone does all that programming, someone else has to write documentation for what each of those options are. So instead of having a single, clear option, you have many unclear options, documentation for each of those, and a support department for all the people who won’t read the documentation and don’t understand why there are many confusing options.

That’s where I come in.

I am the one that gets the privilege of explaining the difference between “Sleep” and “Hibernate”. And while I do know the difference, I don’t know why anyone would ever care enough to be dissatisfied by having only the single option. And while I can point out that there is plenty of documentation answering any question someone may have, I know that it won’t be read.

All the documentation in the world won’t do anyone a bit of good unless people have a desire to read it. There is a very small demographic of people who have that desire. And we make (pretty) good money reading the documentation and then explaining it to everyone else.

If a product can’t be used without reading the documentation, the product will only be used correctly by that very small demographic. Everyone else will use it (or break it) as much as is completely obvious without reading the documentation. This is the difference between iMovie, which comes on every Mac and never includes a manual and Final Cut, which costs as much as another Mac and comes with thousands of pages of printed manuals. The documentation is so important to the correct functioning of the product that it gets printed.

So guess what I’m reading.