things
This week has been a whirlwind for a number of work related reasons. First, we gathered as an entire company for the first time since pandemic so it was great to see and interact with everyone. When I started almost ten years ago I think I was the seventeenth or eighteenth employee in the building and now we are eighty-three. I had a weekend filled with out of town friends who all wanted to do things. Solo Tom is not used to all of this pre-scheduled fun so that was a bit of an adjustment. Last Sunday finished up with a golf outing that found me scoring lower than I had in more than twenty years. It turns out my coworkers have the ability to crack me up AND improve my golf game. Good stuff.
All of those folks in one place also meant that this week was weird. We are now officially back to work but my company has gone to a modified workweek. I come in every day because I like it and there is no benefit from working out of my apartment 1.6 miles away. Other than, well, pants. My boss and I were the only two in the office for the first almost two hours during the shutdown and we developed a nice pair of hermits living on opposite hills rhythm. That hermit thing is the best I can come up with because we exchange pleasantries while we get morning liquids of choice and then its back to our individual caves.
We both use the morning to get things done. Once other humans get added into the mix productivity is a slippery mistress. Add in the fact that those not used to being in the office feel a strong desire to make up for lost small talk. If the person across from me is not my friend or someone I am tasked to working with my annoyance manifests like a GO AWAY forehead tattoo.
Our organization is entering a new era of HR and that has added another layer of weirdness. As we approach 100 employees new laws become applicable so we are starting early in preparation. This means that we have to do stuff like post all jobs internally and externally. If you want to see me at my peak of annoyance/discomfort you need to watch me interview a spoiled no experience youngster who feel like they deserve a shot at every open position in the company. When the well meaning people at Human Resources are explaining things like this to me I feel like Michael Scott interacting with Toby "Why are you the way that you are?"
It's not really the rules that annoy me but the delusional coworkers. Here is where I sound like the old man that I am but nobody wants to earn anything. Every time this happens I see participation trophies and the word fair. I'm working on an idea for a volunteer unpaid High School position that I think cranky adult people like me would sign up to do called LIFE.
A black tee-shirt with the word LIFE in bold all caps white letters on the front and back is the uniform. These individuals roam the halls dealing in the unfair. Privileged idiot is complaining about the relative carb count or nutritional value of school lunch; it gets knocked off the table and they are forced to go without AND clean up the mess. Someone complaining about a grade that they obviously didn't earn, LIFE walks in, stares them right in the eyes, and simultaneously slaps both ears, thus giving them something real to focus on like the future status of their hearing.
This idea is in its infancy but I think it has potential. I even see parents signing their offspring up for the program if they feel like they might have accidentally raised someone incapable of surviving out in the world.