vinduhl’s foggy mess

If there’s one thing I can say that I’m good at, it’s typing. I learned how to type in 4th grade when personal computers weren’t very common. My parents had this white Olympus typewriter that was as loud as a jackhammer. My mom taught me the basics of typing, after my being overly fascinated by how fast her keystrokes turned into a page full of paragraphs in a matter of minutes. It was my dad who drilled me.

“The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” I typed this over and over again per my dad’s instructions. Summers were long and boring when I was growing up. It was either practicing the piano or practicing typing. The latter was more fun and less irritating to the ears, so I thought. By the time school started again, I was a pro! I wrote tons of ridiculous stories just so that I could say I wrote them using a typewriter like Jessica Fletcher on “Murder She Wrote”. None of my stories ended up on TV, though. My mom often had that puzzled look on her face after reading them. I copied news articles, letters, bills… the possibilities were endless! I was getting so good at typing using proper keystrokes AND without looking down at the keyboard that I was feeling proud of myself. So proud, I was giving myself a natural high. It was like teaching myself how to skate when I was in the 3rd grade, only without a bruised rear end or without being called a sissy by the neighborhood kids.

When I got to high school, needless to say, typing class bore me to death. It pained me to watch my classmates struggle over “aaa bbb ccc” exercises that I had to close my eyes and pretend I was somewhere else. It was like watching your dog eat his vomit… you don’t do anything about it; you just turn your head and pretend it didn’t happen. You can imagine how some of the classmates who sat beside me marveled at my speed and accuracy. The “How come you’re done already?” was often met with “I don’t know. How come you’re not?” I was done with the exercises minutes ahead of the rest that I often wondered, What the heck did these people do in grade school after watching “Super Friends” and “The Jetsons”? I should have been writing titillating novels right there with some of my classmates as the characters while waiting for the others to finish their basic exercises. OK, maybe not titillating. Maybe just slightly scandalous like someone ended up getting pregnant without having to go into the details on who did what and how and if other parties were involved.

Later on, I realized that typing so fast could be too much of a good thing. Like some kids started to ask me to type their term papers for them. “Only after you make sure what you have written down is final, and I won’t have to edit your paper for grammar, punctuations, interest or relevance,” I told them. That was a mistake. And I didn’t charge them–another mistake. I could have made hundreds! But they were friends, who only happened to be lazy and smart enough to know that I could be taken advantage of. I couldn’t tell friends to pay me. In a way, I bought their friendship.

When I was in college, typing papers and programming assignments was a breeze. But of course, being a college student also meant I was broke and needed some cash. So I put my money makers to work! While some people I went to college with (I won’t type their names here) worked the pole or gave massages and such, I made my fingers do their stuff. I got a part-time job at a government agency. Before you get oh so impressed by the sound of that, let me explain: it’s an agency that loans money to farmers. And the office, or whatever they called that dingy brick building that often stank with an odor that resembled a fatal combination of burnt popcorn, Windex, and mold, was one cough away from being closed down for health violations or maybe a sex scandal. I was hired there as a typist/clerk. I spent my half days typing letters to loan applicants on a prehistoric dinosaur they called a “computer” that had an old green screen that I swore did a full cranial X-Ray on me every time I used it. All the letters I had to type started with, “Pursuant to…” for some reason. I didn’t question it at first because I thought that was how government agencies wrote, like Abe Lincoln who started with “Fourscore and seven years ago….” Then as time went on, I started putting my own twists to the letters to make them sound less tuxedo and more pullover polo shirt. My boss didn’t appreciate that at all and ordered me to stick to the format I was given. Not that the format they gave me was the right thing, but it was “what’s been done.” No matter how obedient I was, I had managed to sneak in extra, unapproved punctuations in some of the rejection letters for added dramatic effect.

I think I averaged about 30-40 letters a half day. They could have used “mail merge” to make my life easier. Like I said, that computer was a dinosaur. Like I said, it was a government agency. Like I said, they made loans to farmers. Like I said, I needed a job, so enough of that mail merge babble and let me do all the typing! I was such a good typist that I was running out of letters to type before my shift was done. My phone didn’t ring, either; I wasn’t that important. “You’re too fast. Slow down.” This lady kept telling me to change my pace a bit because I was making her dizzy. Like that was the intention. I reminded her that it wasn’t me that made her dizzy and nauseous as she laughed and rubbed her pregnant belly. She often talked to me about moving to St. Louis because her family lived there, her childhood home. I often talked to her about the need to clean the office because it was depressing me. So in my “spare” time, after all the letters had been typed, I organized the closets where they stored the government forms and government paperwork and government this and government that. Their whole organization scheme was basically non-existent. A cat with 6 newborn kittens has better organization skills than they did. Someone had to step up and do it and that person was me. This was the “clerk” part of the job that I thought I had to fulfill. Come to think of it, I should have been paid more to clean up their mess, not to mention disinfect the microwave oven that was encrusted with weeks, maybe months, of lunch explosions. After there was nothing left to organize and letters to type before each shift was over, I kissed that job goodbye. Miraculously, I didn’t contract any communicable disease from that place. In fact, I think the low radiation from the computer screen zapped the germs I picked up.

Starving and in deep need of cash for gas and movie rentals, I had to find another job. “Why don’t you temp?” a friend asked. That had never crossed my mind. I had tried all sorts of retail jobs at Target, Sears, OfficeMax, and a couple of days waiting tables at an expensive seafood restaurant where snotty rich diners growled at me and threatened me with a penny tip when their drinks weren’t filled at the precise moment of their liking, or when I forgot to curtsy and say “Your Majesty” in their presence without looking them straight in the eye. A temp job sounded very interesting and less damaging to my self-esteem. I went to the temp agency and listed typing, telephone, reception, 10-Key, and polite customer service as my skills. They asked for my typing speed, which at the time I had no clue about. “Well, that’s OK. We’ll have to give you a typing test, anyway.”

I sat in front of a computer where they gave the typing tests. As I began to read the instructions on the screen the lady interrupted my reading to say, “Read the instructions on the screen and follow what it says.” When the test ended, I was asked to step into a small room with an empty desk and a chair to wait for my results. Minutes that felt like hours passed. I thought me sitting in a room eavesdropping on conversations that seeped through thin walls was part of the test. Then three ladies appeared at the door.

“There must be something wrong with the computer. You need to take the test again,” one lady said, while the others looked at me like I was some sort of carnival sideshow, smiling at me in delight for whatever reason that wasn’t apparent to me. So I said, “OK, is it going to be the same exact test? Because the story that computer made me copy on the screen didn’t have a good ending. And it was kind of boring.”

The second test was the exact same test, boring story and all. Except this time, all three ladies stood behind me, watching my every move. Come to think of it, this was a glimpse of what I had to endure years later under a micromanaging boss who stood behind me uttering “Is it done?” as I worked frantically to fix a program that blew up.

I found myself in the same room after the second test, listening to conversations happening elsewhere. One woman was laughing hysterically while a man’s voice interrupted her saying, “That wasn’t funny. Here’s what’s funny….” Another voice was engaged in another conversation, but I was hearing only one side of it. It must had been a telephone call. The three ladies appeared at the door again.

“Well, I guess it wasn’t a fluke,” one of them said. She handed me the typing test report. The report said I typed 99 words per minute with 94% accuracy. I looked up and asked, “So does this mean I get the job?” The tallest one said that they had never seen anyone type that fast. And she said that I probably exceeded 99 words per minute but the computer could only go up to 99. “And,” she added, “I think you broke the computer. We had to turn it off and turn it back on.”

Long after my temp job days, typing became my best friend when I started working as a programmer. One thing I realized that being a programmer doesn’t mean you come with good, if any, typing skills. I can’t stand seeing programmers who have the keyboarding skills of a monkey. Wait… monkeys, with proper training, might gain highly-developed dexterity, but that’s not the point. How the heck do you survive typing hundreds of lines of codes a day using the two-finger approach? I worked with this guy who typed like a newspaper reporter in the 1950s, minus the smoke-filled office, steel desks, and non-diverse workforce. I wasn’t around in the 1950s, but what I’ve seen in old movies from that era, newspaper reporters typed only with their index fingers while holding a lit cigarette between their lips. I couldn’t imagine having to live with myself with that programmer guy’s lack of typing skills. I’d be better off dictating it to someone else. Or work in management. Or recruit programmers with good typing skills.

Typing up this blog entry was pretty easy. Only if my brain were as quick to match my fingers’ speed. But if it were, who knows what kind of trash this blog entry would contain.

As I glanced at my next week’s calendar to see what to look forward to at the office, I thought to myself, When can I find time to do actual work? As you can see in the screen shot below, meetings have been booked pretty much back-to-back. (For obvious security and privacy reasons, I had to block out the meeting details using green rectangles except for those labeled “Lunch”, and had to gray out some text in the folder section.) **Click on the image below to see a larger version.**

There are quite a few half-hour intervals scattered all over the place where I can do some “actual work”, while my Friday looks more promising for “catching up” activities–things I’d rather not do during the weekend.

It’s interesting to see how we’ve become so obsessed with meetings, video conferences, and committees, because they’re supposed to be group- and team-oriented activities that emphasize active communication, and therefore they must be good. Never mind last meeting’s action points that were supposed to have been done that we didn’t get a chance working on before the next meeting because of other meetings, but darn it–we’re going to meet to talk about why we were unable to get anything accomplished.

Oh, and those blocks I labeled as “Lunch”–they double up as “Read E-mail” as well. Anyone can type with one hand and hold the fork with the other. As long as food residue doesn’t get trapped in the keyboard, you’re good.

Don’t you admire those people who have the guts to invite you to an impromptu meeting over the phone? They don’t even have to schedule one–they just reel you in after you take the bait. The scenario goes like this… let’s say you’re doing “Lunch” (or “Read E-mail”, or whatever you choose to substitute) and the phone rings. You pick up the phone. It’s Bill. He says he found something that he has a question on, and you’re the only one who can help him out. So you answer a few questions, and then he says, “Hey, since you’re on the phone, do you have a few minutes for a quick conference call?” You politely say, “Sure,” and he then calls two other people into conference. So you’re staring at 30+ e-mail messages while you participate in an impromptu phone meeting, type with one hand, and shove food into your mouth with the other hand. You chew slowly and quietly, of course, and occasionally press the mute button when munching on croutons or downing that big gulp from the cafeteria. You just hope that you won’t be required to speak the second you bite into that greasy cheeseburger.

To make the best out of the meeting blues, here are my 10 tips:

1. If you always have food at meetings, then you won’t have to have “Lunch”. You can then use that time slot for more meetings (or real work, if you feel guilty about it).
2. When you receive an invitation for a meeting that is adjacent to two meetings, check if there’s an agenda specified in the invitation. If no agenda is written there, decline because the meeting may not be that important–there’s no way to know in this case, but you’d assume the worst, anyway.
3. Create phantom meetings (those that you make yourself) on your calendar. When someone schedules a real meeting that will cover the phantom slot, you can decline and write, “Sorry, I’m double-booked!” You’ll appear very important at the same time.
4. Always bring your laptop or any mobile device to the meeting to keep working on more important aspects of your job. If you get evil looks from others in the room, tell them they shouldn’t feel special because you do that in all meetings you attend.
5. During 10-minute breaks, ask the person sitting next to you for notes and copy them like crazy. Remember–you’re supposed to work on your laptop or any mobile device during the meeting, therefore you can’t pay attention, take notes, and work at the same time, unless you’re that talented and have an extra set of hands or cranial hemisphere. Breaks are meant for catching up.
6. When you’re asked a question and you happen to not know the answer because you’re too busy working during the meeting, always say, “Bob, I think I’ll have to rethink that one and get back to you. Shoot me an e-mail, will ya?” Might work, but is not guaranteed.
7. Never apologize for choking on your grilled chicken sandwich while on a phone conference. Doing so is admittance to guilt. You were multitasking. And besides, the cafeteria overcooks the chicken breast, making it too dry without the mayo.
8. Always say no to follow-up meetings, especially if they’re scheduled the same length as the original meeting. Question the point of meeting face-to-face, as opposed to summarizing everything, including updates, in a nice little e-mail to add to your exploding inbox.
9. If the meeting will require you to drive to another building or another campus of the company, always ask the meeting organizer for an ROI based on the gas mileage you’d spend on your car. That’s to see if driving to the meeting is economically sound to your wallet. Otherwise, ask for the conference number and work from the comfort of your desk.
10. Announce to everyone you work with that you’ll be in several meetings that day and that you won’t have access to e-mail. That will keep them from sending you additional e-mails you’ll have to read on top of the unread e-mails from the past 4 days.

Can hardly wait for Monday!