Thursday, January 29, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
How to wade through it all
I have been in a media tar pit for the last year and a half or more. Right before that period, I was in a six month slow-down in the project work I was doing. I had plenty of time on my hands while waiting on new projects and direction. I became a Google News -aholic reading articles on all kids of news, both political and social. I was getting caught up on personal email. The endless supply of jokes and crap in Yahoo mail was getting sorted out and read and only the truly funny stuff was going on to my friends/family list. I was writing pretty regular and my typing was getting faster than ever. I had some streaming shows I could listen to daily and keep up with.
All of a sudden, bam, I'm told my only choice is to start working full time in the helpdesk. Doable as I've done that stuff before, but there is so much to do there on a constant basis that there is no time to do anything else hardly ever. I occasionally get a few tech articles read or half of some funny story and I can keep up on certain segments of my personal email. It is kind of a shock to the system when you can explore, absorb and comment most of the day long and experiment with new software and ideas and then all of a sudden you are running your ass off to keep up with phone calls and on-site break/fix. (How can a group of users break so much in a short time?)
So I was forced to start to prioritize the info I read and respond to while at work or after I get home. I can't stop the live human interaction with wife and kids, but sometimes I must read email while talking to them or while on phone at work. I glance instead of read carefully, I skim for important or key info, I truncate my responces to the absolute necessary characters to convey the thought.
Here I am in the middle of the night, wound up from the day still and mulling this all over in my mind and trying to find out where to squeeze the time to get the input my hungry mind wants and thrives on. If only the dream of Wifi everywhere ( the holy grail of geeks) would come to fruition. If, and that's a BIG IF, I could actually take my laptop everywhere and be connected while waiting places and eating out, then I might have a chance of seeing stuff that is cool, watching funny videos, listening to music, getting the 2700 unread Yahoo mails dealt with and the uncounted Gmail msgs filtered better and dealt with. Gmail helps with their unlimited filters and labels, but Yahoo limits me to 15. I've got other ideas that would help, but I keep getting pulled in many directions. My time is often not my own.
Right now I'm risking burning my leg by having this Core 2 Duo laptop actually in my lap.
All of a sudden, bam, I'm told my only choice is to start working full time in the helpdesk. Doable as I've done that stuff before, but there is so much to do there on a constant basis that there is no time to do anything else hardly ever. I occasionally get a few tech articles read or half of some funny story and I can keep up on certain segments of my personal email. It is kind of a shock to the system when you can explore, absorb and comment most of the day long and experiment with new software and ideas and then all of a sudden you are running your ass off to keep up with phone calls and on-site break/fix. (How can a group of users break so much in a short time?)
So I was forced to start to prioritize the info I read and respond to while at work or after I get home. I can't stop the live human interaction with wife and kids, but sometimes I must read email while talking to them or while on phone at work. I glance instead of read carefully, I skim for important or key info, I truncate my responces to the absolute necessary characters to convey the thought.
Here I am in the middle of the night, wound up from the day still and mulling this all over in my mind and trying to find out where to squeeze the time to get the input my hungry mind wants and thrives on. If only the dream of Wifi everywhere ( the holy grail of geeks) would come to fruition. If, and that's a BIG IF, I could actually take my laptop everywhere and be connected while waiting places and eating out, then I might have a chance of seeing stuff that is cool, watching funny videos, listening to music, getting the 2700 unread Yahoo mails dealt with and the uncounted Gmail msgs filtered better and dealt with. Gmail helps with their unlimited filters and labels, but Yahoo limits me to 15. I've got other ideas that would help, but I keep getting pulled in many directions. My time is often not my own.
Right now I'm risking burning my leg by having this Core 2 Duo laptop actually in my lap.
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