Oh, yes, I remember Office Hours

Filling in at my old job and am enjoying my "office hours" once again. I'm working, I've even already finished the main task that I was here to execute. But I'm also blogging, have balanced my check book and have emailed a few important emails that needed to go out. Office hours do quickly and easily turn into "Tiny Task Time."

In Christine Kane's blog and newsletter, she cautions about not letting email become an all day affair - that is, if it's open on your computer, it will be a distraction from other work and accomplishment. How many times do I swap tabs when I see that my email inbox goes from zero to one? Pretty often. And it's probably revealing that my inbox is in a near-constant state of zero. It's not that I don't get a lot of emails, but that I obsessively read them as they come in.

I'm going to throw email into a category of important, but not urgent tasks called "Tiny Tasks," which include organizing, scheduling, prioritizing and list making. These are relatively important and I will even argue that the are vital to me getting anything done, but I think that when I'm doing Tiny Tasks all day long, I'm not really accomplishing my larger goals.

I'm not sure where blogging fits - at work, on my work blog, that is, it's less of a distraction and more of a job, because I do need to do a little research and take the time to write something reasonably well thought out, but my personal blog...? Well, it's more for my personal entertainment, so it's probably not a task at all. That is, it's not on my To-Do list for the day, but more like taking a good friend's phone call.

In any case, I think I need to schedule Tiny Task Time and in that time, figure out what I should be doing during the rest of the day to accomplish my larger goals and to focus on items that are important but not urgent.

The worst thing I do at work today...

I may have written 10 blog entries by the time I leave work today. I also will have done research on various topics online (probably a little research on Jane Austen and maybe reserving some books at the library), balanced my checkbook, made various lists on the backs of scrap paper and probably refined, clarified and confirmed my plans for tonight.

I will also have drunk 16 ounces of coffee, eaten a donut, a bagel with cream cheese and probably some mac and cheese, all of which are things I'm trying to avoid while on a cleanse. I will pick up some freebie veggies, though, all of which are totally legal on the cleanse but none of which I will probably eat tonight to make up for my work hours debauch.

I might even cry at work today, though I'm doing a good job not going there just yet. My eyes have teared up a few times, but I've managed to deep breathe them away. Not sure why I'm crying all the time right now, but in a way, it feels good, cleansing. In another way, it feels like something must be seriously wrong with my life for me to cry more days than not. And in the way that matters most, it feels like I made myself sick crying and sobbing for too many hours last night so that my eyes are swollen and my throat raw this morning.

But I will also have met all of the goals of my being at work today. Not even half-assed-ly. Is that wrong? If I get my work done in less time, shouldn't I be able to steal a few moments to gather my thoughts? I think my employers would say yes to the first and no to the second. I think they would say that if I have more time at work that I should be helping out, contributing more, lending a hand to my coworkers.

It's a sad irony that my best down time is achieved at work. And that when A and I try to come up with solutions to my serious lack of money and time, that quitting this job seems the most viable solution. And that in my opinion, the worst thing I will do at work today is to have eaten that stale donut.

Interviews

Had 2 interviews this week - no, A is the one who's getting laid off, I just decided to apply for a promotion. With all the uncertainty of his job position and where we might land if he gets an offer out of state (or country), I really should probably not have applied, but I was thinking that getting upgraded at my job might help, even a little, should he decide to stay on the closing crew and work through the bitter end.

So, two interviews for me this week, too. I had almost decided to call and cancel them both and say that I really am not interested, but was advised that that would look flaky and that I should go ahead with them. The benefits, I was told, would include: 1. practice interviewing and 2. making contacts. Seems that way, but I almost think a bad interview can make you look more flaky than just canceling it altogether.

I did learn a lot, from my first interview, especially, but I also found the exercise somewhat ill-timed, coming right on the heels of my vacation as they did. I don't know about the contact part of things, but I guess you never can anticipate when or how someone's good opinion of you will come into play. A perfect example of this occurred serendipitously when my coworker spoke with one of the managers I was applying to work with and gave me a glowing recommendation. I would never have thought she would or that that the opportunity for her to do so would arise. So, maybe meeting those folks will be practically useful one day in a way I can't anticipate.

Another way that this process may prove useful is that now my current managers know that I have aspiration and would like to move up in the company. My application may not be very strong considering that I am currently in a "clerk" position and there are a couple of other layers between clerk and the positions for which I applied. If nothing else, I feel like clarifying that point also creates the case where I can ask for more training and more responsibility.

The depressing thing about these interviews is that I don't think I will be offered either of the positions. My manager had explained the scenario surrounding one of the positions, so I knew that one was unlikely, but I did not expect that fact to be spelled out to me during my interview or to be spelled out to my coworker. (And I guess it's too much to ask that my application for that position be kept confidential, too?! I guess confidentiality is not a universal concept.)

On the other hand, maybe I should just be happy with my current job - my schedule just got shifted around to one that fits my life a whole lot better, I know my work, it's easy work and I get plenty of time to surf the web, catch up on my blogging and check my Facebook...yeah, I love office hours.

Shuffling

I'm packing for my move and find myself shuffling my stuff about. Shuffling, shifting, moving from here to there, sorting, filing, recategorizing, organizing. There's so much I can do with my stuff. I sold the couch, it's gone, so there's more room in the livingroom to lay everything out, although time is short, especially now that we've scheduled more remodeling on the other house, my new house, my new home...he wants me to call it 'our house.' I've never had trouble claiming other people's belongings as 'ours' or sometimes even 'mine,' so I don't know why this is hard for me. Maybe it'll feel more like mine when I wake up there on a regular basis and go home to there after work. Maybe it'll feel more like mine when I stop worrying that he's going to be mad if I drop something on the floor or leave a mess in the kitchen.

That's one kind of stuff, but not the kind on my mind today. Today I'm noticing, while I sit at my office hours (yes, I have office hours, again, hence the blogging, again), how much electronic shuffling I'm doing. Not the electric slide, mind you, but the electronic shuffle. I started a second Google account in order to have a profile up for my other blog that shows my name, after all, the other blog is about my business and to stimulate business so it doesn't make sense to stay anonymous there. So I shuffled info onto the new profile and off the old, I clicked and okay'd and entered the codes so that I have a new account, but don't ever have to go there, except for the purpose of writing for that other blog.

I also shuffled photos the other day - just creating folders and subfolders so that I can find photos more easily. All the while keeping in mind my idea about scanning in all the paper photos I have, so planning for even more photos going into all these folders.

I started creating groups in my Gmail account and assigning people's emails to the groups, so that I can email group emails, which I find so annoying and usually avoid, to specific groups. What to do with Jefe or Ree or A or E? They defy categorization - either that or they fall into multiple categories. The point is to simplify group emailing, or so I tell myself, and they deserve more than that or at least my ability to remember to send them something individually if I leave them off a group. And what about those people I don't remember, not just to send emails to, but truly have no idea who they are? What should I do with those people in the Contacts list that I cannot place? Deletion seems drastic, after all, Google says not to delete anything anymore, just archive it all and search. But wow, talk about clutter.

So I shuffle information and groups and photos and people, but it's a lot of work with little to show for it. The next couple nights I need to start physically shuffling, putting my precious belongings in boxes and start moving them to A's house, our house. And when they get there, shuffle his things to make room, mix some of his and some of mine and call it ours, call it home. For now, I'm going to shuffle my attention back to the tasks at hand and accomplish some organizing and shuffling here at the office, instead of shuffling my hours, shuffling my papers whenever anyone walks in the room.

By Appointment Only: Office Hours Cancelled!

Things are looking up. It took so little, but one tiny thing going my way makes the whole world a little brighter. I spoke to the SGA VP and cancelled my office hours for the remainder of the term - students will have 30 fewer minutes per week in which to not visit the office to send faxes.

But the result for me is much greater - I no longer have to stress and coordinate with my housemate since she usually waits up to an hour to carpool home after class. I get that extra time at home to play with the dogs, make a healthy lunch, relax and work on my studies. I can shed that extra ounce of resentment that builds up for joining SGA in the first place, because I did, in fact, think it would all be fun and games and didn't have any idea what a drain it would be on my time.

So today, I came home right away after skipping my office hours yet again. I made a delicious lunch with many vegetables. I took the dogs out then pampered them both with some extra affection. And now I'm laying in the bed blogging and getting ready for a nap. Yes, I think cancelling office hours was a very good decision.

By Appointment Only: The Futility of Office Hours

Being a minor government official (okay, it's student government, but you could probably guess that), I am required to hold office hours once weekly. I come to our little basement office every week for my 1/2 hour (I know, that's ridiculously short!) and balance my checkbook, write my blog, catch up on emails, make my lists and generally do things to help organize my life. I occasionally answer the locked door to allow students to come in and send a fax - I think I can count the number of times I've done this on two fingers.

I understand the reasoning behind SGA members holding office hours and I actually appreciate that I have a scheduled time set aside to write this blog and balance my checkbook as I consider these essential tasks that I might not otherwise have time for, but I can't help but consider this a bit of an exercise in futility.

Because I read the SGA minutes on my email whenever they arrive, I don't have to spend my 30 minutes doing that and no other members with whom I share business are available to visit with me during my hours, so I can't work on our committee projects. Students rarely come into the office on any business other than the very rare faxing which doesn't actually require my presence for anything more than unlocking the door and while the fax machine may require protecting, it seems like keeping it stationed in the always manned library may actually serve students better.

Moreover, with my goals of being an educator in future, I question the use of office hours amongst faculty members. I rarely visit my professors or other faculty members during their office hours, preferring to pester them during the 10 minute breaks we have between hours of class or hounding them at the end of class as they attempt to flee the scene. I wonder if other students visit these professors during their office hours or if they spend their hours catching up on email and blogging about that annoying student who chased them down the hall at the end of the last class?