Most days at work anyone that seems me would describe me as the furthest point from stress that you could possibly be. I’m good, no… I’m great at managing my daily tasks into a workflow that doesn’t cause stress. However…, right now, ..this very moment, I feel stress.

I would describe this stress as the impending doom deriving from knowledge that someone else has directed the forces that be to focus on you as to why a project is not completed, … or not well underway. Simply put, when something isn’t done in a timely manner, generally nobody wants to be at the end of the proverbial finger. But, someone will be, and this is where this ‘Stress for Dummies’ lesson begins:

1) Make sure that as a project progresses, even if you aren’t on the action items list (yes, we have those), that you communicate along the way to everyone that is part of the project.

You communicate to everyone on the list because everyone needs to know what is going on, especially if their portion of the project is dependent upon something you’re responsible for. In my case, I wasn’t communicated to. There were two meetings, one of which I was told about to late to make. The other, I was out of the office that day. I was emailed one set of meeting notes, and I didn’t have any actions items with my name on them. Granted, you have to be careful here. Just because someone didn’t list an action item that you would end up owning doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t know that it was missing, and recommended to the project leader that you should be doing this. It’s a very tricky business managing stress.

2) If you observe that the appropriate requests to complete a project that involve your time and resources have not been communicated to you or even thought of, make sure that you either a)take on the initiative to be ‘brigher’ than the project manager and get your time scheduled for the task before they know they need it (not something I excel at), or b) prepare a defense list that covers all of the reasons why you havn’t done item a).

I’m very good at preparing the list above. However, there are others here that are even better than me at displacing responsibility in this company when:

This concludes today’s lesson. Thank you for your time.

From MySpace to murder
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10272868/

This disturbs me. For a number of reasons…

The first one that jumped off the page immediately is this headline that somehow implicated MySpace and a big image of an online profile that ISN’T a MySpace profile. And now that I think about it, a story in the most recent People Magazine (w/ Brit and baby on the cover) quotes this profile image exactly and stated it’s from her MySpace. Now, she could be lazy like me and just copy/paste all that stuff but still, if you are going to point out MySpace like that at least show the profile from there and NOT Xanga.

Another thing is that Kara and David didn’t meet online. Nobody has disputed this fact. Her family, her friends and police all agree they met through a Home Schooling support group. Whatever the hell that is. Sure they talked online and chatted online but when this first happened I took the time to look over David’s MySpace profile and I really didn’t see anything from Kara that would have been a cause for alarm other than an age difference. Little messages that were superficial and tweeny and harmless.

Can’t we just blame the MURDER and not a website? I can’t get over the media’s NEED to place blame wherever they can to sensationalize a story. Kara’s parents had forbid her from going online. But she still did. They told her that she could not date an 18 year old. But she still did. They told DAVID not to come around anymore and he shot them in the head. Shooting Kara’s mother in the back of the head as she sat there in a chair, covered in a blanket.

If David had killed Kara and not the parents, the media would be persecuting them for not doing enough. They’s say that Kara’s parents should have been keeping better tabs on her. Or that their extreme Christian beliefs drove her to rebel. But, they didn’t get that chance and they needed a story so they blame a website for driving the kid to murder. Because that’s much easier. That’s more sensational. That will create more of a panic and bring in more readers. That will mask the fact that there are people out there that are so fucked up in the head they’d shoot two people point blank for… what, puppy love?

These parents were doing the right thing. They cared about their daughter. They did all the thing the media tells parents they should do. Monitoring web use, keeping tabs on boyfriends, stepping in. And I feel like that sacrifice has been cheapened by the media’s attempt focus on and “blame” a website for this and not the man that shot them.

/rant

Christmas is such a fun time of year. All the colors and the lights and the SHOPPING! Its also a given that I will make the website festive this time of year.

I thought of a silly idea and will finish it up tonight. And just to make my dad happy I will NOT be putting up the construction page. And if I do I will at least make it more entertaining…

My coffee is hot.
It is strong and bold and dark.
Like Ben, only wet.
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The Avon Lady has on a bracelet with jingle bells. Like 142,000 bells that jingle every time she moves any part of her body. When she wiggles her toes, her bells ring.

I’m talking the kind of bells you see on those cute little sweaters with a big Santa face and twinkling red and green lights for eyes. The kind of sweater a kindergarten teacher wears the entire month of December annoying the sanity right out of every one of her students with the flashing eyes and the jingling bells…

It started getting annoying at about 8:00AM. Right now I’m counting the seconds till the jingle stops. If she has them on tomorrow morning there’s a good chance she’ll be passing them by bowel movement tomorrow night. And I might be looking for a new job. Or in jail. One of the two.