Ponderings and Musings

There’s a popular misconception that people working from home are lounging around in their pajamas, feet propped up on a cat, with Sally Jesse Rafael blaring on the television playing Solitaire on their over-powered company laptop. They answer an email or two just to look productive. They then join a conference call on a sketchy VoIP connection, asking repeatedly if they’re on mute or not and then proclaiming that they have a hard stop at a random time that ends in 2.

As a full-time telecommuter I can safely say this is not how it works. At least in the circles in which I travel.

When it’s time to start my workday, I am up, showered, dressed and ready to tackle my career responsibilities at the beginning of the workday. Admittedly, it takes a good amount of discipline to maintain this structure on the darkest of winter days, but the rewards of telecommuting force me to stay focused. I don’t want to lose this gig because of bad work practices. That would be such a petty reason to lose a job.

The key to productive, at least for me, is being properly dressed and more importantly, not working barefoot. Back in my 20s I would work barefoot in the office. I worked at a radio station at the time; the office was in the basement of the owner’s house and I would pad around from studio to workstation in my bare feet like some hippy wannabe. That worked for my 20s, it does not work for a man at the very end of his 40s. I write lots of code, I lead a team of seven, and I am often part of video conference calls, after all, they’re all the rage now. I need to look my best but more importantly, I need to feel like I look my best to be productive. It’s the leader to a great state of mind.

Now, having Virtual Office IL1.02 (my official designation) has its perks. Earl makes me breakfast and lunch 95% of the time. My schedule allows me a little bit of flexibility; I am able to work my most productive hours of the day. I know I need to get my meetings out of the way in the morning because I write better code in the afternoon. I’ve worked from the car on more than one occasion as Earl and I have made our way back east for the holidays or something. Conversely, when I solve a coding problem in my dreams, I can get up, fire up the computer, and write the winning code and then sleep a few extra minutes the following morning. Personally I am most productive working from home. I don’t need the socialization of an office environment. I actually find it very distracting, though when I have worked in the office those around me mean well.

Ideally I want to do a little more of the Digital Nomad thing during the summer months but work replaced my beautiful MacBook Pro with a Dell Ultrabook with a horrible screen resolution (1366×768). I don’t mind Windows 10, but the screen resolution is like trying to write code on an Etch-A-Sketch. This can be frustrating. I hope to have that rectified before the nice weather rolls around.

They say we need to dress for success; dress for the position you want, not the position you have. Working in my PJs would run contrary to this. I might even slip on a tie before the end of the week.

It feels good to look good.

The forecast says we’ve received the last of the snow that was predicted for Chicagoland this weekend. The skies are starting to clear a little bit. Forecasters are saying we’ll see temperatures above freezing in a day or two.

This photo was taken yesterday morning after the plows made their first pass early in the morning. The wall runs along the embankment of the nearby METRA tracks.

Another 6 to 8 inches fell last night. Folks are cleaning out again today. With three separate bands of snow passing through since Friday, some folks waited until today to start cleaning off their cars.

The heavily traveled streets have all been cleared by the city, but the side streets haven’t really been cleared yet. There’s a lot of street with just the tracks of multiple cars passing through.

Some folks have cleared out their traditional parking spot on the street, and in the tradition of Chicagoans, they call “dibs” after cleaning out their area. Dibs are marked with lawn furniture, shovels, children, and in the case, blue tubs.

One never takes a spot that someone has called dibs on. In some parts of the city that might result with a brick on your front seat or something. Don’t take the spot when someone calls dibs.

I’ve been enjoying walking around the surrounding neighborhoods. As people clean their sidewalks, shovel out their cars, or sweep their stoop, they seem pleasant enough. A lot of people have still wished me a good afternoon. That’s nice.

I have to admit that while winter is not my favorite season by any stretch of the imagination (it comes in at number three on the survey), the snow this winter isn’t really bothering me. It’s not a lot, at least by the standards set by my hometown (eastern Lake Ontario snowbelt) and more importantly, Earl and I have a condo and our Jeeps are parked in a heated parking garage.

I don’t mind snow, I just don’t like shoveling and plowing out driveways that are a couple of hundred feet long.

We are approaching mid-February. Spring is not a horrible amount of time away. We’ll be loving the sun soon enough.

In the meantime, say hello to a neighbor.

It’s winter. There’s snow on the ground. It’s quite chilly. On the bright side, there’s not nearly as much snow on the ground here in Chicago as when we lived in Central New York, but as I’ve been telling people today: I’m ready for warm breezes, pubs having their entire front facade open, sidewalk cafes and enjoying life outside.

Hopefully it’s not too far off.

In a recent conversation I mentioned that I was not a fan of Aretha Franklin. I referenced a blog entry I wrote about the subject a while back and I was a little surprised to hear that my friend had read the blog entry furthermore, he thought that my reasoning for sort of bashing ‘Re ‘Re was a little weak.

Look, I’m not a fan of the woman or the way she sings. But do I have to broadcast this to the world? Sometimes I do it for humor, if only to crack myself up.

The fact of the matter is, if there’s something that I’m good at and also somewhat ashamed of is that I can be a hyper-critical guy. My thought processes, moving at Warp 8 (insert early Star Trek ‘disco warp’ special effects here), tends to notice a typo or a badly sung note or a poorly dressed person or a fart faster than many people and for some bizarre reason, 70% of the time I feel compelled to comment on this.

Of what value is this?

Who knows. At nearly 50 years old (you’re hearing that phrase a lot for the first half of 2018), my observations are probably unnecessary. As a woman once said when I was younger, “don’t stare at people, they know where their problem is located.” Does making such a comment make me feel superior in some way? Probably, but looking at myself in the mirror as I type this, any critical comment is probably a defense mechanism coming from a sense of inadequacy that I have felt for most of my adult life.

I swear I’m not lying on an analyst’s couch at this moment.

I’ve had a couple of flight instructors say to me, “You are a very skilled pilot. When are you going to realize that”?

Honestly, there’s little value to being hyper-critical in today’s chaotic environment. This is something I’ve been trying to be more aware of since the beginning of the year. Am I succeeding at not thinking negatively or making critical comments? I’d like to think I am but the person that could probably answer that best is my husband.

When you read these little snapshots of my life in this, by Internet standards, ancient blog, I sometimes paint myself as a guy that is mean and snarky all the time. I probably don’t give myself credit because I’m critical of my own actions and ways of thinking. I don’t see the world with gray, cloudy glasses on all the time. Quite the opposite.

I just need to articulate the brightness a little more.

So I hadn’t shaved in 2018. It’s been a while since I really let my beard grow out and 18 days was enough for me to see that there is way too much gray in my beard right now. I could handle if my beard was all gray, but this cinnamon and sugar mix is making me feel like I look old.

I’m turning 50 years old this year. I’d say that I’m 90% on board with this; I certainly don’t feel like I’m over halfway through this life, but the reality of the fact is this is the case. I told Earl that I’m concerned that I’m on the downslope. Like the smart, silver bear that he is, he told me that it just keeps getting better.

I can handle being 50 years old but I can’t handle having a lot of gray in my beard right now. I’m not one to dye it so I’ll go back to clean shaven in the morning. My dad once said that a good, disciplined man, like a pilot, shaves every day. He might have been on to something with that, though I know a lot of great men that have beards.