About Bozos

Today I discovered what's a bozo. I have seen them before, I have had them in my life, but I didn't know what were they called. Normally, I just call them by the generic name of "idiot". Well, the thing is that a very,very good friend of mine - Shimmy Gin -  got a job a couple of months back at Intel. I think it was like in November-December or so, because we've met for a long overdue coffee... somewhere between Sabbaths (he's also into Paganism, like me, only more autoctonous, than me), and we promised we would never again allow a Sabbath to pass before meeting... and two have passed, so... it must have been sometime before the end of May. By that time he was head over heels with Intel and all the great things they had.

 

Shimmy Gin has always been employed in the private sector and has moved around a lot. He's a brilliant programmer who has had the chance to work with many companies, and who's reputation preceeds him. Seldom has he resigned a post for personal reasons, but usually, when he leaves a job is because he has been offered something better at another place and his current one can't equal the offer. He's that good. Then, normally he works several years at the same company, though it has happened that he has been snatched up from a company within months of having signed with it. I mean, come on, the man is a genius!

 

Well, he resigned to Intel. At first I didn't know what to think. I just got the message through facebook: "I resigned to Intel". I was worried. He's as word-profuse as I am, and such a suscint message boaded no good. "What happened, Sweetheart?" I asked him. Slowly - which shows he's deeply upset and trying to manage his anger - told me that he had no choice but to resign to his job. Not because he didn't like the company, but because he's boss was changed some 22 days after we've met and the new guy is a bozo. To explain to me what's a bozo, he showed me an article by Forbes titled Why Every Company Needs a 'No Bozos' Policy, by Eric Jackson. In short, a bozo is the kind of person (normally a boss) that has no idea about what they should be doing, but likes to pretend like they know what they are doing better than anyone else. Furthermore, since they really have no idea of the job, they ae exremely narrow minded and refure to take anyone's opinion that isn't exactly theirs. Dear Reader, whomever you are, I pray to God, the Gods and Goddesses, The Divine and the Universe that you've never, EVER have had any sort of encounter with this discusting type of... thing. I have and it isn't pretty (sadly, I must say that the public sector is sadly overpopulated with bozos. The private sector is too, but in there people tend to accept them more).

 

Shimmy Gin's run in with the bozo at Intel came in the shape of mobbing. This bozo started putting down Shimmy Gin's work, claiming that the guy that was there before did it better, and did much more in less time. Shimmy Gin had actually checked that guy's work and it turned out completely useless, so before he could even start his own job, he had to go on measuring up the damage hs predecesor did and then work from there, redoing stuff. Bozo wouldn't listen to that, but instead kept praising Guy and how Guy had made this many things and so on. All the while, Shimmy Gin's other superior would listen to their discussion and say nothing, inspite him knowing of Shimmy Gin's outstanding results before Bozo arrived. The final straw came when Bozo had Shimmy Gin's benefits removed because he deemed Shimmy Gin needs to improve his work. That was that. Shimmy Gin handed his job back to Bozo, again told him all the crap Guy made, how more than half of it was useless and the other half was incomplete and didn't stand the tests.

 

Weeks after Shimmy Gin entered Intel his old boss was still calling him back to his old job, which he loved, which sent him abroad often and where he had grown a lot. He moved to Intel because of the chance it gave him to grow in his field, and instead, it turns out that the company favours assholes who can't care less about the company, because all they want is to milk the company for their own and their friend's benefits. Nobody stopped Shimmy Gin at the door, there's no news on anyone taking a closer look at Guy's work, because as it is Bozo would have no idea what to look about in it - he sees only the number of products rolled out, not whether they work or not - and it seems Superior has no idea either about what should he be looking at it.

 

Bozos exist everywhere. They get to a place and they stay, like bubblegum on the sole of your shoe in summer. Bozos don't like smart people - really smart people - nor hardworking people. The reason for it is basic survival instinct: smart, hardworking people put them in evidence and so they can't climb up in teh company high enough so that their ignorance can be safely protected by a cohort of counselors - better known as the people that will take the fall for them. Bozos also exist in the form of counselors, and they misguide and pretend to be the bosses, and when things fail, they always have someone to place the blame on. It's never them.

 

The thing is, bozos are toxic, wherever they are. They are full of cheap wisdom - all of it pulled from business magazines, books from the "business" and "self help" shelves at popular bookstores (you will NEVER see a bozo digging in a used books bookstore or antique bookstore. No, they only go to the popular ones, and they go not because they like to read, but because they like to pretend they do). Recently - though then I didn't know this type of person was called a bozo - I realized that bozos also have a distorted concept of what being smart is.

 

There's this woman where I work - I won't even come up with a fake name for her, she will remain nameless - who is the ultimate bozo. Once we were having lunch with some coworkers, and she started talking about some local politicians who are very well known for their  corruption and shamelessness. It's people who have made a great damage to the country, ripped the National Treasury of lots of money and then escaped abroad, where they live in great luxury, giving conferences for huge amounts of money. This people, who have used trickery and more often than not, bullying to get their way, were being brought up by her as The Most Intelligent people of the whole country. Granted, she said, they "didn't use their smarts for good, but they were nevertheless incredibly smart". Any person with a working brain could tell you that you don't need much of a brain to come up with trickery to embezzle money from the government, specially if you have spent years in it, getting to know all the weak points. I mean, it only took me two months working as a teller at a bank to envision a perfect plan to put on an indetectable money laundry system. No, I never put it to use, but in two months I just saw through the system. Trickery isn't a matter of brains. Criminals do it all the time, everywhere, in millions and millions of levels. Being part of a pervasive political system, with agents already embedded in every level and power position, and then doing your shenanigans, paying off the right people and knowing that enough people is dirtied so that no one will talk about it, yes, that's not being smart. Then, when we talk about getting on with your way because you've used bullying... well, that's definitively not a sign of being smart.

 

The examples brought up by Bozo-lady, however, show something important about the nature of the bozo: they seek to trick and steal things, grab as much as they can from what they haven't earned, for as long as they can. I coworker of mine also told me of some acquintance of his, who used to steal from stores. This person when to stores with discounts, took something that didn't have a discount, mix it with the discounted stuff and then pick it again and go for with it to the cashier, then make a scene until the store charged him the undeserved discounted price. When my coworker asked him why he did that, the guy just said "You have to be smarter, because God don't like stupid people". So, as you can see, it's not really a matter of being smart, or a matter of using intelligence for bad, it's a matter of plotting to exploit others, to take from others, abuse the system and get away with it. Just as you wouldn't call smart people who beat their spouses because they know that if they frighten them enough they won't talk, so you wouldn't call smart someone who simply abuses the system.

 

Being intelligent doesn't mean you are good. You can be bad and be intelligent too. Being intelligent is about having the capacity to build something new - whatever it would be -, solve problems, improve things and so on. An intelligent person is reflected in the creation they are capable of. Bozos, however, can't see that, because their whole world is about abusing the system. Slow advancing, learning, hardworking is stupid for them, either because they feel uncapable of doing so, or because they "see" a way to get "results" faster, even though their mockery of results has no basis, stand no ground. You see, when someone is intelligent builds slow but over strong basis. They won't be known as corrupt, people would have nothing ill to say about their work. About them, yes, but never about their work. About bozos... the thing that gets more criticizm is their work, and that's because their either do nothing, or they do it so bad it's mindblowing, or because they stand in the way of others doing their jobs.

 

Not everyone can resign when they get to be under a bozo, so here are two of the best tips I can give you when you encounter one:

 

1. Look for another place to transfer to. Sometimes there are openings of chances to go work with other people, other bosses who might not be bozos or might be less bozos. It's worth trying.

 

2. If the first option isn't an option, then follow the protocol and BACKUP everything you do. And hold your ground. It can be a very taxing thing to do, but you must develop a thick skin for this. Do the job as you know it's well done. Refuse doing things you know you can't do. Like what? Well, if you are a lawyer in a building company, refuse to supervise and sign the job of the architects, because you evidently have no idea whether those are good or not. It's important to always hold your ground, and to do so, borrow some bozo-tools, such as not listening. You are asked something unreasonable, so you smile, say "sure" and repeat the task as you know it should be done. It might require several repeats, until the bozo understands that you won't do it any way other than the way you said you would. Then, as part of the back up, get all the commands of the bozo in written. If something is said verbally, you go to your computer and write it down in an e-mail, make your comments on it, all your observations and send it to the bozo. If the bozo calls you again, and again verbally go over their flawed view, you get back to the computer and put it in writing the same way. Your out of this is if they put it in written, then you have evidence against them. Proceed to save and print out the e-mail. in several copies.

 

Bozos normaly don't stay long in the same position, they need to move before their idiocy sinks the floor beneath them, and then they leave the mess for someone else to patch up. This is good in the sense that, if you can't escape the bozo, but you make their life hard enough for them to choose to ignore you, all you'll have to do is keep your head low and in a while they will be replaced with someone less of a bozo. It's mathematic, they'll actually need someone who can somewhat solve the crap. The bad thing is that enough bozos in the company can sink it.

 

Yeah, don't but that stupid liberal crap about how companies only keep their best workers in order to be the bests in the market and do profit. Please! That only exists in Economics and Business textbooks. In real life corruptions, lobbying and under-the-table contracts, often seasoned with gifts and bonuses are what keep companies seemingly making money. And companies seem to make money thanks to creative accounting based on a heap of estimations, that not necessarily need any basis on real life unless the company suddenly bankrupts or gets an auditing. Or what do you think? If successful companies were really that good by the service or the products they make, why would they need accounts for "representation"? Why would they need to assign their top salespeople with money for lavish dinners for clients? Why pay for trips, dinners, stays at fancy hotels, gifts and so on? I assure you, none of those play any role in those textbooks I told you about. Lobbying is excluded from any economical theory I know of (granted, I don't know that many of them, but still, none of those came up in any I was taught about in the five years I spent to get my degree).

 

Sometimes it can get really bad, sometimes you might be tempted to become like them, be a bozo yourself too. Hey, if it works for you and it helps you, well, who am I to stop you? But if you are like me, the sheer thought would make you vomit. To live knowing you have betrayed yourself? That you've sold your  integrity so you can get by? Unthinkable. Use tools like hypocrisy if you must - often it's the onl way to sail through the social surface of a sea full of bozos - but never, ever gve up what makes you you: the integrity of your work. And you must leave in the end, do it like my friend Dragonfly did, with your head up high, knowing people may call you bitch and unssuferable, but no one will ever have a bad word about the quality of your work.

Going Through Some Changes... Again

I knew it had been a long time since the last time I wrote, I just wasn't aware that it had passed such a long time! Which is bad, because if I think of all the penpals I've neglected, it means that I've become a legendary Bad Penpal. Of course I won't go here whining about how all of them took their time and effort to write to me, and what a meanie I am for not writing back to them, not letting them know how things are... please. Delays in replies are one of the many, many risks all penpals take when they step upon the path of Penpalhood. Plus, I send postcards here and there to let them know I'm alove, though not enough to sit down and write to them.

So, what has happened since I was here last? Well, I came back to Costa Rica, as you all know, since I was in Hungary for the holidays with the family. This trip offered me a unique chance to gain some perspective on a lot of things about life and life choices and got me thinking about the next steps I should take regarding my future. No, I did not came up with a plan for total world domination. Geez, I would never do that! Too many tasks, too much hassle and the responsability alone! No, no, no I don't want to build my very own Panem. No, the decisions and plans I came up with actually are falling more in the line of the expectations I had some six or seven years ago, concentrated mainly on procuring ease, leisure, fun, stability and professional growth - the way I understand it, of course, not the way the world understands it, which is wrong, by the way. Sorry world, I'm the one who's right, as always.

One of the most important lessons I re-learned was that Integrity should always be above everything. Altruism is overrated, and sometimes you have to stop being good, stop being understanding and stop trying to help others out of the fucking shithole they dig themselves into. I learned that, as ugly as it soulds, Altruism isn't in my nature and shouldn't be in my nature. I'm just too good at what I do and at what I can achieve to afford any altruism. You see, when you are good or you are doing well - be it in life, at school, at work, or whatever project you are in - it may happen that people who are doing less than well ask for your help or start relying on you to get their own load on. Sometimes then, these people - counting on your help or support - start taking more than what they can affort and keep piling on your "because you can help them". Perhaps you helped them but where also expecting to get on with your own program, your own projects, and that stops happening out of the blue because these other people are stopping you from moving forward. I know a penpal of mine with whom this happens more often than not. Well, believe it or not, this happened to me too. Yep, world known Wicked Witch Me. And believe it or not, I actually was wondering whether I should continue helping them in any capacity or leave them in the crap. Honestly, I wished to leave them in the crap, just drop the weight off my shoulders and look at them and tell them: "You wanted this, now you have to shoulder it. I have my own life to live and my is way to amazing to miss out of it". My life is amazing, actually, and I would hate missing a single minute out of it. As usually, I ran a Consulting with some of my friends, just to make sure I was covering all of my basis, getting other P.O.V.s, and then reached a decision: it's time to dig myself out of the situation.

And this is how change begins.

After pretty much a year working at the Legal Department of my company as an Economical Adviser, I've realized that this position doesn't really fulfill my needs. Yes, it is exciting, I love my cubicle in the Central Building overlooking the city, with my ceiling-to-floor windows, kind coworkers (even though they are weird, too "Christians" to my liking, quite close minded, give much to appearances, and tend to be back stabbing, attention whores and their shabbiness in certain aspects that mean a lot to me is getting to my nerves [like why can't they drop the flourish-peppered language when their grammar and spelling SUCKS big time]), and some parts of the job are truly fabulous, BUT there's no maths involved, and after a year, I realized that I'm still a Finance-girl at heart, my mind goes that way, and it's disgusting to try and make me think like a lawyer when that's not what I learned, that's not what I should be doing (understand this: one thing is to learn the laws and how they work, and yet another to give an opinion as if I were a lawyer. I can understand the law and see that as my frame and make my economical analysis considering that scenario, and yet another is to see an economical scenario and give my opinoin about which laws apply and how should a lawsuit be issued. I am not entitled to do so. By Law.), nor is what I want to do. I am an Economist, and that's what I love being, what I love doing and what I want to continue doing.

Las year, when I moved to the area, everything was about getting settled. Things were strange to me but I thought that with time I would settle into them, find my niche in things and be happy. However this year, as my perspective changed, I realized that I was fooling myself. Just because I'm friends with my boss and I love the location of my office, it doesn't mean that what I'm doing is satisfying. I actually felt my brain shrink due to the lack of mathematical thinking. It hit me as a bucket of cold ice to realize that the only type of maths and Excel sheet working I was doing was for my Accounting homework. In the few price-related cases I received, I realized that I was trying to do the analysis of the calculations, the cost construction evaluation, not reviewing whether these were legally regulated or non-regulated services. More than once I was scolded for "butting into stuff that don't belong to us", namely the financial analysis, so in the end I didn't quite understand what they wanted me to do with these documents that a lawyer couldn't do. Yes, it's most upsetting. The style is also completely different, though that's a mostly management question (at one point I was actually asked to say the least possible. It seems I make too many observations for the liking of the others. In plain English, I was asked to do a more shallow work, instead of my bone-cutting disecting style of analysis).

On the other hand, ever since I moved to Legal, my old boss - whom I love to madness, as you all know - has been asking me to go back to him, now that he's in the Financial Management Area. Also, from the same Area but in different departments, people has been asking me to join them. What can I say? People, whatever you go and whatever you do DO ALWAYS A GOOD JOB, BECAUSE PEOPLE WILL ALWAYS NOTICE IT! Never, never let anyone - no boss, no directive, not anyone - drag you into doing a lesser job. Even if you have to swipe the floor, do the best floor swiping you are capable of. That's why I get the requests, that's why departments want me with them, that's why not one of the bosses I've ever worked with (including Moron Lady) has ever let me go willingly. I stand out because of the quality of my work. So, after receiving offers, and also after knowing from the Director of my current department that the new politics for this Area include a need to cut the budget, thus anyone wishing to leave can do so freely with the fix postion we have, I started thinking harder about this whole thing. And so I did a Balance.

I Would Move Because:
1. Working in the Legal Department isn't adding to my career. I had the experience but now my skills are suffering. I know what I am good that, what I'm perfect and top-notch at, and that's not something I can do where I am now. My mind doesn't work the same way with laws as it does with numbers. I can't remember and interpret laws the way I do accounts and costs and figures. That many words and changing rules and illogical fixings and even that "it doesn't matter if it's mathematically or logical wrong, if we can use it to win, we should"-kind of thinking irks me.
2. Going back to my old boss (if I can manage so) would help me continue improving my experience, knowledge and skills in Fees, Costs and Economical Analysis of Service Projects, which happens to be a passion of mine.
3. I don't want to become one of those people who gain some haphazard knowledge of a career they have no paper to prove, and yet loose all their experience and skills of the career they have papers of. Many people agree into that, and consider it becoming "experts in many areas", and never stop to consider the kind of professional suicide it becomes. If I were to look for a job, could I apply for a post as an economist when my working experience is in law? Or could I look for a job as a lawyer when I haven't passed the Bar (the only bar I've ever passed is the Pub kind of bar), and have no diploma that says I am a lawyer? See my point? I am an economist, and I want to put a lot of experience behind that diploma. I believe I have earned enough insight in the law to continue my job as an economist, anymore iddling around would become a waste of perfectly good time.
4. This job doesn't make me happy. I have never before realized how much I need maths and Excel sheets in my life to feel accomplished. I need to put my mind to work in numbers, to find the logical connections between numbers, reseach costs, find the ways to make numbers fit together and get a good result.

I Should Stay Because:
1. They saved me when I needed saving. Yeah, except that I don't do "gratitude" that costs me my personal growth, so fuck that reason.
2. If I go my boss won't have enough people to tackle all the tasks they have to shoulder. Yeah, except that that's my boss' problem, not mine. I am not HHRR, so the lack of employees isn't mine to solve. I'm not Finance to manage their budget problems, and I'm not her boss to manage the workload issues. In other words, yes I know it is a freaking bad situation, but you know what it isn't? My Problem. So fuck that reason too.
3. They do work with two topics I love. Yeah, except that my boss gave those two topics to my other coworker (who has bad spelling, grammar and does a sloppy job compared to me). So that reason also gets fucked.
4. I really like the building.
5. Staying in Legal I'm sure I would never have to work with Moron Lady again.

So, after my balancing of my reasons to stay and to leave, I realized that the only reason for me to stay is the building, and that's the worse reason of all! Yes, I hate the building in which my dear boss - okay, former boss - is located, and the parking there is a nightmare, but isn't it worth it to suffer a little for it in order to do soemthing I really like? The fifth reason, though, is one that really gets me thinking, that really has me considering the whole thing, and I wonder if it is powerful enough to ruin my whole career for. I've been investigating, for as a new change comes to our Government, and thus a change in our Company (we are a public company after all, and the President of the Country always handpicks the people who would manage us, and their friends get to all the power places, thus chips change and fall as result of it), I believe that Moron Lady would be shifted soon, and I would really not want her in Finance in any capacity.

On Monday I'll talk to my old boss, lay the cards for him, and talk it over. I'll be honest and tell him that I had to realize that he's not God, I can't expect him to protect me always from her, and I can't work with her, so if he can give me a fair certainly that we will be away from her, and if he still wants me in his team, he can count on me as fast as HHRR can arrange the move.

I want to go back to Finance, and one way or the other, I will.

Welcoming A New Year

Well, here it is 2014, and I haven't even been able to catch up with my new filofax, the segments and all the new plans and ideas one has as soon as December 31st becomes January 1st. I'm still on vacations, which is a big, big plus right now as I need time and patience to map out this new year. Already have some Resolutions, to call them somehow (wrote more in depth about them in my Hungarian blog), which could be quickly resumed as it follows:

1. Continue my studies to get my degree in Accounting.

2. Work harder at the office, which in this particular case is a Resolution more oriented to the organizing of my work, which I haven't been able to figure out just quite yet.

3. Keep working on my Filofax. Basically, it means to make it more functional to my needs, and this time add two (maybe three) definitive sections: Work and University (and Finances).

4. Keep practincing archery. My goal hear is to get to 2015 shooting at 70 meters.

5. Read 24 books.

6. Keep doing the List of 13.

Yes, it would have been magical to make 13 of them, but 6 is quite enough, wouldn't you agree?

In this spirit, I have spend my whole day trying to organize in some fashion the files I keep in my computer and erase everything I don't need... and the work isn't even finished yet! To my horror, I realized I had created similar folders for the same thing in different locations and none of them made any particular sense. That's also something I want to tackle, but I won't make it into a Resolution, because it could take years and years of my life. I just know the way I do things. Then worked on some templates and some inserts for my filofax, and haven't even finished and already realized that I've planned so much this new binder would be again bursting at the seams. Hopefully the paper I purchased from filofax will be thin enought to make it manageable.

January is pretty much a month of hope, of dreams, of energy, of plans, where the year seems full of attainable possibilities. Hopefully we won't forget about that. It is, indeed a chance to make things better, to try harder, to make something different, to change something, to get rid of something or gain something. As we have artificially created these cycles, we have in our hands a way to measure our actions and our efforts. What can we manage in a year? Well, let's try it out. It didn't work last year? Well, it could very well work this year! Who knows? Now we at least have the experience we gained in 2013, right? So let's use it!

Now, there's something I would like to take from last year, a little something, a comment really, that could work as a warning for all of us. By the end of the year I came across some people with whom I've had a sort of disagreement years ago - and whom I haven't seen since then. The dispute had been unpleasant, but nothing nearly mortal, or so I thought. They were - how should I say this - well, determinated to ignore my presence, but in a way that came a bit... childish. I was taken aback by their actual effforts to ignore me in a group where the rest of the people wasn't doing so, which, well, came out quite awkward. I did greet, did smile - don't like them at all, but you know, there's a certain level of "hypocrisy obligued by politeness" you must exercise from time to time - but they didn't. Oh well, that's them, life goes on, and everyone behaves the way that makes them feel better. More power to them. Anyway, the next day they talked to someone who was in the previous event and apologized to them (weird, right? Because that person wasn't even the host!), and said that they behaved the way they did because they couldn't forget what I posted about them maybe some five or ten years ago in one of my many, many blogs (actually, not in this, but in one that's hardly read).

Now, I'll be generous and assume that they came up with the first thing that came to mind to cover up some other, shameful reason for their behavior (got into a fight and didn't want to admit to it, had a terrible setback, are under a lot of stress, etc.). However, I must say that my first reaction was disbelief. Could it be that my simple, subjective, humble opinion is so powerful that it actually has the power to mark other people's lives? Because in order to do that, it would mean that my opinion has much more strenght than the opinion people have of themselves. Am I perceived as a sort of Guru of Life? Am I an Oracle of Personality? Or perhaps a Conjurer of Tempers? Actually, no, I am not, but you all know that. Nobody can simply talk someone into change, or alter their selves by simply speaking words. Some words can be hurtful at time, or astonishing, or flattering, or even surprising, but the effect they have on you depend only on you. People only have the power you give them.

They made me think of the Moron Lady, you know, the terrible Director I had in my previous department, the one that harrassed us all. When I was under duress, I did send all politeness out of the window and ignored her as much as I could, even refused to look in her direction when I wasn't speaking or spoken to, basically to be able to keep my composure, and got to the point where stress went to my jaw and I couldn't open it to talk or eat. However, now that I moved on and happy at my new department, I see no reason why not to greet her or smile at her politely. It doesn't mean I like her or that I agree with the way she manages her team - and as a unionist, I plan to work forward to help people under her and other bosses like her to get free of their reign of terror. You don't have to agree with some people or the ideas some people uphold, and you don't have to ignore the damage done to you, but that doesn't mean you must let that harm, those words or that episode take over your whole life. If you do, then that event, those words, that opinion, those actions will become your reality, and you will make them more true than they were ever meant to be.

Well, thing is that this happens all the time: we let publicity convince us and shape our lives in ways that take it out of our hands to become something that suits the needs of a company that leeches on us. We let magazines tell us what to think about our body, let them rearrange our priorities to their convenience, often going against what would be best for our own lives and our plans for it. Sometimes we hold so much and get hung up on something someone said and dwell in it. How many times had it hurt us when some acquintance or just anyone tells us something like "you are fat" or "your hair is quite messy" or "those clothes make you look ugly" or "your nose is too big"? Someone says we are stupid and we fall for it. Then person we have a crush on says we are not attractive (or start dating someone else) and we believe we are no good and nobody will ever love us. We tend to make opinions into inmutable, absolute truths, when they are not. They are simply a point of view of a person. Not true or false, simply a subjective, personal appreciation. Think of the following: just because I say blue is an ugly color, it doesn't make blue an ugly color. Blue is a color, just as lovely as any other color in the chromatic scheme, so my opinion of blue doesn't define the truth about it. Same with everything else. Same with everybody else.

In this sense, I'd like to call upon this curious situation for all of us to reflect on, to take a moment to analize those elements that seem to define us so much, and think of them, determinate if they are really such milestones, or if we have blown them out of proportion, giving them a power taht do not belong to them.

2014, sounds like a good year to recover our power over ourselves and our lives.

Boss or Leader

A lot of people currently are in jobs they hate. They may hate the activity they have to work with, may hate the schedules they must keep, the payment they receive, the things they have to put up with, and often they hate the people they have to work with. Problems with the people at work are so common and often run so deep, you can find lost of sites where people rant about it. Sites like coworkers suck on livejournal open a door that sheds light on a world you knew it was out there but wasn't sure, or perhaps didn't want to realize it was really there. Stories and letters written (but never sent to!) about the abuse of assistants with too much power, or too much ambition to be in power, about bully coworkers that just want to make you quit because you make them look bad, or want you do to their job, or those who can't care about their own job and as result jeopardize the job of others, people from other areas of the company who can't get past their morning coffee if they haven't done something to make your life miserable, HHRR coworkers who can't live without plotting a way to spoil your day and put you in danger, destroy your chances to get the promised trip or promotion. Yes, all of them are creatures from hell that you'd like to see purified in the heavenly fire extremist Christians talk about. Oh man, they can make you dress like a Puritan, fall on your knees, hold into a Bible and pray in the middle of the street from the top of your lungs if that gets them purified sizzling!

However, no matter the types and the stories and the most twisted and fantastic ways and ideas, in which a coworkser can get under your skin, no stories are more abundant, nor more cases more prosper in discomfort that those centered about a boss. Now, I've a question: Have you had a good boss? You know, the kind of boss that made you want to go to the office, that made you want to work hard, but not for a promotion or to avoid a reprimand, but simply because you felt such a flaming commitment you shared your boss' vision and you wanted it to come true. My guess is that most people would say "no". That kind of boss is most likely seen as a fairy tale of the kind that's included on Business Administration books. Probably you'd think that you have more chances to run into a pink dragon and a rainbow unicorn than finding a good, inspiring boss.

Well, I know for a fact that good bosses exist. In fact I have been so blessed through my life that I have had three of them. :-) I have had 24 bosses (I'm counting also the bosses of my bosses as often bosses have a direct effect over workers two to three, even four levels down). This means that only the 4% of my bosses were good. 13 of them were particularly bad bosses, which means that the 54% were a scarring, bad experience. The remaining 42% were pretty much either absent or uninterested on the team. Now, this 42% aren't "middle ground" bosses, for bosses are supposed to be leaders of their teams and responsible for what they do, and though it was nice that they weren't abusing us and mistreating us, not being there and letting others pick on us. Absent bosses, those who seek to be as far as possible from their teams, give space to create other ills and evils in the group, such as mobbing, turning co-worker against co-worker. This can happen also with bad bosses, particularly when they are caught in the ill habit to picking favorites and patronizing their mistreating of the rest of the team.

It's not a secret that many people get to become a boss based on the favors they've done to others rather than their actual aptitude to be a boss. Some people actually see becoming a boss as a necesary step to move forward in your career. (Well, that depends on your concept of career. If you think a "career" is making money, then yes, it is a step forward. But if you think that a "career" is becoming better in your field, gaining experience and learning, then becoming a boss - as it takes you from the field - could actually mean a set back.) Thus anyone with the right connections can become a boss, anyone in the right place at the right time, but that doesn't make them right for the job. 

Becoming a boss means that you are responsible for everything the whole team does. In this sense it is the job of the boss to lead the team and inspire it to be productive, to get the job done, and make sure everybody is making their part in such a way that every member contributes to the result of the team. The boss should also be the first to see the job of the team for what it is: a group effort, not their personal effort. This is important because if the boss is capable of concentrating on the team, focusing on the group result and detach his or her personal success from the job of the team, then the members of the team will be able also to see their efforts as part of a bigger scheme and work together. If this fails and the boss considers the job of the team as their own personal job - for instance, once the team has finished a report or a proposal, the boss puts his or her own name on it as if they would have done the whole thing - then the members of the team alienate from the group and start working as separate elements and often working against the rest of the team.

If you have had worked with terrible bosses - and you probably have - then you know what's like to feel like working for your worse enemy, back upping everything, not taking a single step unless you can cover your back from every angle, taking each order or request with suspition, and first running it through every possible filter you have, asking around and thus wasting precious time, just to make sure you are not being set up for some shenanigan that will secure your boss or your boss' patron some illegal benefits while you'll be the one taking a long vacation in the shadow for alleged fraud. You may know about plotting for hours and scouting for a recorder small and inconspicuous enough for you to take on meetings, specially when you must be alone with your boss, so you can record the verbal bashing or the orders to do something that's specifically against the law. If you have googled for recorders or browsed on Amazon.com for these, then you know what I'm talking about. Filed complaints against bosses pile up high in different places, and those are only the filed cases!

Seeking desperately for better results - or just to spend more company money - seminars and workshops on "leadership" have become a must for many bosses and companies. The topic has also been added to the curriculum of BA's and MBA's, but it doesn't seem to do the trick. What do you get with memorizing the characteristics of a leader, or any of those lenghty lists BA books and leadership seminars are so full of (with a list of the Features of a Leader, Goals of a Leader, Personality Traits of a Leader...) when none of them go beyond the surface? Many bosses sent to a Leadership Workshop or Seminar at a five star hotel, come back after two days of eating free catering food, sitting at tables covered with long white tablecloths with a smaller cloth of a darker color (blue, red, orange) on to, freezing under overly working air conditioners, and sipping water from pitchers, with the sense that they are now leaders. Oh yes they are. They speak in plural, they start each conversation looking into people's eyes (because that makes them feel important, involved), start with pleasantries like asking about their families or any other personal matter, and then turn to the "matter". They make sure to "compliment" before laying on the blame or pointing on mistakes, because that's what leaders to, according to the $50.000 per day seminar the company paid for them.

Posters and pictures on the net can say that "bosses say 'I', leaders say 'we'", or "bosses say 'Go', leaders say 'let's go'", the difference is much deeper. Bosses can say "we" and can say "let's go", and can look at you in the eye and can walk everyday by your cubicle to greet you, and they still will be crappy bosses and far from being seen as leaders. Leaders don't need to learn tricks - they are the real deal. They don't need to keep the protocol and choose the right order and the right words. Leaders Inspire, leaders see you as people, as someone who is valuable, with whom they WANT to cooperate, to cowork with. Leaders don't act as if their team were the group of people assigned to them, subordinated to them, but for a leader THEY themselves are part of the team. Leaders breathe it, are "it", the very essence that makes you want to be better for a bigger goal.

Those bosses keeping the external signs only come out worse. Their rehearsed tricks make people uncomfortable. Their words and the way the choose so stiffly to follow an order of what they are going to say,  come out as fake, phony, and even down right hypocritical. It comes to the point where when people hear them ask about their families or praising them for something (usually some generic thing such as "you are a very good worker/ you are very valuable for this company/ you are very smart/ I admire very much the way you work"), the compliment turns sour in their ears and they prepare with an ill predisposition for soemthing bad, and thus often seen as an unfair distortion of facts. The boss won't stand well if they neglect to show up and meet with the team, as people will perceive it as distant and detached from work. However if it starts everyday by greeting everybody personally, it will come out as controlling and taking notes on who's there on time and who isn't. Are people being unfair? Are the subordinates being mean and don't giving a chance to the boss to show interest? Most of the times that's not the case.

A poor boss can't expect people to trust them over night. Also, people have a sixth sense to perceive honest intentions and feelings. You can say if someone is greeting you honestly or because they are on a mission to be perceived as a leader and thus have the power they want to move the masses to do their will.

There have been a very long discussion about whether leaders are born or made.  Some are born, buut it order to be made, you have to start with the right material, and if you don't have what it takes to be a leader, the best thing you can do is be honest and don't take any position that demands you to be a leader. Just as you won't become a surgeon if you don't have the skills required to be precise, nor you'll become an accountant if you don't have the inclination and skill to pay attention to very small details, and remain foccused amid a terribly rutinary job, then you shouldn't either become a boss if you don't have it in you to be a good leader, if you can't inspire people, if you can't see outside of yourself and assume the role of a hero.

Yes, a leader is like a hero: they are not motivated for their personal glory, they are the first in battle and the last ones to leave the ship. They are empathic with every single person in their team and see themselves more as the one serving them all, helping them all, often seeing their own job as complimentary to that of the others, than thinking of themselves and their success, and considering their team as a flock of aids that compliment their job. A Leader, just like a hero, puts the goal and the team ahead of themselves. They see themselves as the tool, the spear that opens the road, the wall that protects and contains, the messager that takes the important cargo so diligently produced by the team they have been entrusted with.

Not everybody is a leader, but all of us can be heroes in our own courts.

Chillin'

This is one of those days I don't really like. It's a hot day. Too hot for my liking, and going hot during the morning is a sure way to make a day not my kind of day. Yes, I know, I have bitched about the hot days a lot, and guess what? I'll keep doing it, so if you don't like it, go read some other blog! Nobody is forcing you to read this one! (Well, heat got to me officially. I'm in such an unsufferable mood I pick fights with... nobody.)

There's a lot of work to be done in this week, and - as it should be - none of it is really some easy pie. I'll have to wrestle again with a project for which my best and most honest recommendation is "file it and behead all those involved with the idea", yet I still have to make this surface one way or the other. Thanks Chuck I have an idea about what could be done, but for it I'll need "input". Do I have those "inputs"? I do not. Oh Goodie. But looking at it from the bright side, it's just Monday morning, and I have until Friday to work some magic on the proposal. Ideas? Well, I just hope I won't have to make use again of the Nauthilus Spiral to get things done.

Good thing is that I'm off the loop with another project, which I took home on Friday and spent all weekend working on. It wasn't easy, it wasn't small, but I managed. To my utter delight, today as I presented it to my boss, he was happy with it, quite pleased and decided that not even a comma should be changed. This lifted my spirits, not to mention that by having this done, some layers of work will be shaved off my in-tray. Right now a slim in-tray would make me happy, but that's not my case, specially when I have a deadline for a project, to be done by Friday, and there's another one that's "Super-Urgent" according with two different areas outside our area, not to mention the other scattered 3 projects that loom in the shadows over there, some of them taken over by people in whose capable hands I don't quite put all my trust. so yeah, that's my share, and top it all with the possible moving to the Babel Tower in this week, which won't be as pleasing as I would hope, specially since there have been quite some Earthquakes in these days and though in the second floor they feel horrible, in the 15th they should feel even worse.

So this is the moment when you grab your coke by the neck and pour some into your gutter. Sure feels good. Then it doesn't matter how long the day takes to cool off, because it does. It doesn't matter the workload you've on your back or your in-tray, because you will get ahead of it sometime. It doesn't matter either because I've a great boss, not some moron with a dysfunctional pea-brain, like the one I used to have (who now torments some of my friends, all hiked up on the fact that they are naive fresh meat, right from the private market grinder, and would do his obnoxious bidding in the same overly exploited slave-driving fashion Chinese slave work force does). So this is when I pop out of those magical chill pill, take it and let the world grow groovie. My chill pill is my coke and a nice vid to slow down the rush. What's your chill pill?

Summarizing The Week So Far

After almost a week, maybe less, of not having a clock on my desk, I finally have one now. It's a rather cheap, little "typically Made-in-China" kind with thermometer and hygrometer. Now, if Kari asks me again how cold or how hot is it, I can tell him... as long as he asks me at home. I've been working hard on my agenda, penciling up a lot of tasks and apointments, watching how a rather clear, lightly programmed week packed up to capacity.

Tasks upon tasks, everything written down in pencil so I could change it when it was change, which happens a lot.

In this week, so far, I have got to like my boss even more, as he has proven to me that he does treat me with respect and takes his time to talk to me about the projects I'm holding, explains me his observations, doubts and listens attentively to my explanations, seeking to understand. I realized how blatantly rude and lazy some people are. I had the chance to be amazed by the shamelessness of some people who believe that it is perfectly acceptable to escape responsability by placing the blame of the task on other people, or simply claiming ignorance based on not fulfilling another task, a BASIC TASK anyone should take by granted.

A meeting programed from a while ago was cancelled, and I shouldn't be amazed at seeing someone push so hard to reprogram it when he belongs to group that has done everything in their power to push the meeting appointments further, further, further. I really wanted to concrete that meeting so I could cement down a few things, things that continue to escape, and at the begining I was upset for it. However, when the whole scope downed to me, I realized that it doesn't matter that the meeting won't be held tomorrow, because that was I do now when I'm finishing at the office, and so I can arrange a meeting with my friends, and I did!

Tomorrow I'm meeting a very good friend of mine, taking a coffee and sharing thoughts and small gossip. Things like that make me happy, things like that make my week.

It's Not "Slacking", It's Busy!

Well, I've finally entered into the mistical 33 year-old period. I'm still inclined to say I'm 35, but 33 it's such a fine number, I guess I'll keep it while it lasts. However, from next year and all the way to 2011 I'll be 35, and then 40 until 2016. Rounding up a few years is so convenient!

Inspite of me really, really wanting to write and write and write, I couldn't. Thanks Hyne I've developped the "Nin complex" a few years ago, and so I've my journal with me for me to delve and write whenever the time is right but the Internet is not available. Inspite of Mr. B behaving as the inssuferable s.o.w. he is, I had a wonderful time. Mr. B, thinking that inspite of me being a real little angel and not complaining about what an amazing, outrageous m.f. he can be 24/7, not to mention loading me with "urgent stuff" such as "make a project file out of this Excel sheet"... sheet which has no activities, btw, only articles from a regulation; decided that "we are too busy" for me to take half a day, even though I offered to work the hours off (an insana amount of 3 hours!), because I, in all honesty, and respecting our new agreement of "transparent conversation", told him that a few friends of mine wanted to celebrate with me, and he said that "there's no way I can give you permission for that because I can't explain it". Well, I thought that's what "personal matters" were for. But then again, a birthday is not explainable, like it is to take a day to take the car to the mechanic.

Of course, then I decided that if we are "so busy" I might as well make myself busy... with a meeting. And a meeting I've got, which turned into a HUGE blessing, because that way I could spend part of my birthday away from the s.o.w. Of course, unhappy because I "managed to escape" the s.o.w. did everything humanly and inhumanly possible to load me up with annoying tasks, such as adjusting over and over and over a project schedule, which his reduced, tiny brain-oide couldn't understand. Yeah, he finds it so hard to understand that tasks take "time", that "time" is "limited" and that ONE human being is able to do only a CERTAIN amount of work during a GIVEN period of time. Yeah, in his puny little brain, the job of twenty dedicated people with an arrange of different special skills can be done by one single person who has other duties too, and has none of the requiered skills or knowledge, within the same period of time, if said person "works hard".

Knowing that I had a meeting in the afternoon in San Pedro, my dear, dear, dear coworkers arranged a lovely celebration in of the offices with a huge, beautiful yellow cake, which looked like a smiling Sun and had scribbled on "Felicidades, Su" (Congratulations, Su). They've got bread, cheese and made this delicious hot, melted cheese sandwiches, brewed coffee and sang "happy birthday" two times for me. ^_^ Then I've got this deluxe "Casillero del Diablo" Historic Vintage 2007 bottle of wine. To say that I was impressed and swept off my feet would be a crass understatement. Really, my coworkers are simply adorable! I broght them some brownies and coke because I thought the wouldn't celebrate my birthday (I'm from a different department), but I wanted to share a little something with them.

I planned to be out by 11 am, since the meeting was at 1 pm, and I had to get my lunch before that (and the trip from Sabana Sur to San Pedro at that time of the day does take 1 hour, at least). I ended up leaving later, since I had to bound some documents, but I still made it in time, and had a wonderful meeting filled with reminiscense, tight, warm hugs, huge smiles and the camaraderie of those who once belonged to the same area and still think of themselves as "us, the Mobile Service area". Dude, those were hard, difficult times, but it was beautiful, the work hard and chellenging. Those were my best years in this company.

The meeting was amazing, not to mention I realized that my boss had lied about several things, have hid information, lied about who sent what and orchestrated a gigamontic chaos. It's only sheer luck that no one respect him, therefore no one followed his crazy ideas and kept working the way that has been done and has worked all this years.

Beauty came when I met with my dear, dear friends and workmates. Smiles, greetings and hugs from my old boss, Manuel Córdoba, and one of his men, Manuel Ramos, then there was Ivannia Conejo, Tavo, Melissa, David, Kenneth, Karol Núňez, Tatiana, Sonia, Pao, Ana Teresa...

I had a small lunch with my dear friend Skylar, who helped me get the meeting so fast. She surprised me with a lovely gift: a leather bound journal (in time, since I'm reaching the last pages of my current one, besides you never have "too many" journals), a bookmark so beautiful I'm afraid of removing it from the case, and the most interesting and funny book ever: a Harry Potter philosophy-like book which has been written assuming Aristotle ran Hogwarts, not Dumbledore. That might prove interesting. My Jetty hasn't changed a bit since we used to work together. She's ever so thoughtful! I gave her her birthday present with MONTHS of delay: brownies, Mozart Kugle, an Oriflame hand cream and Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5 in English.

After the meeting I went to see my dear, dear friend Dragonfly, who had written an entry for me yesterday and made me a happy birthday card, God Bless her giving heart! Just as I did with Skylar, we sat and talked and talked about work, boys, stuff going on, and then oogled on the blog of a friend of hers, María Palito, who actually designs jewelry. I tell you, this Mary-girl is one talented person! My Dragonfly is preparing to go to Mexico, and she told me that she got the ticket in such an amazing price, I've been thinking in telling my beloved Kari to forget Panama, and let's go check out Mexico. ^_^ Dragonfly had a present prepared for me too. She gave me a lovely green bag (because green is my absolute favorite color) with a beautiful crocheted green scarf, made by her mom with a technique I have never seen before, a green bead keychain made by here, with a large medal-like bead with a design much like a rose, which is perfect because it's not only my middle name, but also my favorite flower... and in my favorite color! Green! With it was another gift, a prize I won on her blog for suggesting the most popular name for her laptop. It was a white and green mug with a spoon, all in ceramic. It was so surprising that I won and that the mug was precisely green, since she bought it before the poll was started.

My beloved, beloved, beloved boyfriend, God may forever bless his precious heart, called me like three times or so to greet me. He got me an amazing Mont Blanc fountain pen, which I started using yesterday (I never use my birthday presents before my birthday), and I guess it will be the only pen I'll use from now on. I totally adore my fountain pen!


At four or so, I met with my friend Carrie, with whom I usually spend my birthday, for a small celebration of sorts. We went to the Terramall, a land of evil, where we went to our usual bookstorem where there were no worthy books, and add to it, the changed the conditions of the Birthday promotion, which upset me terribly. The Swatch store there had no decent Swatch, and those that were nice, I already had. That was terribly disappointing, but then again, I guess I'll have to extend my "hunt for my Birthday gift" for a few days more. After all, I do deserve a 22dn Swatch. ^_^

Carrie surprised me also with an extremely amazing birthday gift. I almost cried in joy and spent the whole night telling her how much I love her. She got me the Third Season of Supernatural, John Winchester's journal and a tiny, lovely bunny, which she explained to me, is a plot bunny, therefore will be known from now on as Plot.

My friend Jules called me, as usual, and it was lovely to hear his voice. Laura called me, but she had her personal tormentor on her back, so she couldn't say much, but hinted that her personal s.o.b. was driving her up the wall. Roo called me at night, when I was with Carrie, and told me, God bless her heart, that she was sending me the trilogy of the Sleeping Beauty from Anne Rice.

Carrie and I had coke and some foccaccia, but then we had to leave because my folks were waiting for me at home to toast for my birthday. Carrie's sister, Isis, wasn't half as dismissing as she usually is with me, which I found it... strange. Is she... getting to like me? Nahhhhhh....

The traffic from Cartago to Heredia was murderous, and even though we left rather early, I've got home by 10 pm. My mom and dad were waiting for me with an amazing present: a beautiful huge blue cord bag with white mooses, which I started using today, very, very comfortable and cool, really, a dream come true, and two CDs: one of Strauss and one of Baroque Music. Oh my Hyne! It made me remember when I was a child, and an early teen, when all my friends and cousins were crazy for groups as A-Ha, Wham, Menudo, Los Chicos and all the stuff from the eighties and the only thing I listened and the only thing I liked was classical music and my favorite above all was Strauss. Johann Sebastian Strauss. More than Bach, more than Brams, more than Mozart (have never been a big Mozart fan), more than Bethoveen or Franz List.

You know, this has been an AMAZING birthday! ^_^

Self-Help and Easy-Read Makes Assholes

I won't argue the fact that there are loads and loads of crappy books out there. There are LOADS of shitty novels and crappy essays, but the absolute worse books ever printed, ever conceived are the "self-help" and the "management for managers" books. They are even far worse than this novel I had the disgrace of buying and reading: "Province of Hope", which only good feature is the dude on the cover. That's bad. So anyway, there's this Mr.B, who thinks that it's actually a very normal thing at work to stop all activities, because there's this super-duper important thing to be done: put a "title" above a listing (even though for the one who reads it's perfectly clear what the fuck is going on), print out ten copies, bond them and put them on his desk. My Hyne... really a very, very important job to be done... wow.

The motherfucker has the habit now of always asking you, before he actually starts to talk about "job", about how you are feeling, what was your weekend like, and such personal stuff. It's not like he's interested, and you can see it, smell it: it's part of some strategy communicated in some Business book, designed for managers to be "successful", or on one of those $2000 three-day seminars where they get thick binders, a pen and sat in an airconditioned "conference room", staring at the carpet, the long draperies and spending the day looking for the coffee breaks and the lunch break.

Yesterday I was still a bit upset about an argument I had with my boyfriend, and so, when he summoned me to his Glorious Presence, I was less than gleaming.

"How you doing today?"
"Fine." I said shortly. Really, I thought it was enough to let him know it was time to drop the bullshit and get down to business. Ha.
"With that face?"

I rolled my eyes for myself. Talk about empathy, right.

"Trunks was killed by Cell."

That's my standard get-out-of-my-hair answer.

"Hahahaha! What does it has to do with anything?"

Being presented with the limitless stupidity of this motherfucker, I leaned forward so his tiny brain understands that I AM TALKING TO HIM.

"It's my answer to 'I don't wanna talk about it'."
"Why? Something wrong?"

Okay, I'm at loss here: does anyone, and I really mean ANYONE!, please you, stranger reading this entry, friendly crybernaute stranded here, if anyone at all has ANY suggestion to make this asshole understand the "direct speaking", please, PLEASE let me know.

I'm positive he's so accomplished with his behavior, after all he's applying the teachings of whatever book sold for $40, those of hard cover and glossy jackets, big letters and two-page chapters full of pointers for "managers", because today a manager is not a smart person, but only some asshole who pretending not to have time requests everything to be given to him in "bullet format". Short, filled with graphs, few numbers and seasoned with some amusing success of failure story. Management must be the chronical stage of ADD, for what I see.

Finally, I feel compelled to make a Public Service and let people know, particularly all the dumbasses that think they can become successful by reading a book, here's the thing: the only "business" in the business books is in the selling of them to all the dumb, gullible idiots who run to buy them. It's a hoax, you get it? A HOAX! Then again, if you are as stupid as to get one of those books and believe it, you deserve to be stiffed.

Standing for What's Right

On Monday we had a conversation, which he himself started. I believe I told him what I feel, what I think, what I see, with no filters. No consideration for his feelings, his situation, no diplomatic approach, but down right the Status Qvo of my labor. It took a good part of the morning, mainly because I led the conversation and cut him off his wondering by showering upon him all the flaws of his chieftenship, the often mistakes in the job, the undervaluation of my profesional time, the fact that he takes me for a secretary or an engineer when I am not... and I didn't even had the chance to talk about his attitude.

He didn't learn. He didn't understand. He went back to do the same.

"Prepare my presentation for the Quality Group."

Fuck, I wonder how does he do it, to be so shameless. How can he pretend for over a year to lead a quality team when he doesn't know about quality, and then how does he pretend to talk about "Customer's Experience" when he doesn't even know the meaning of "decent human treatment". He's going to preach about the right way to treat the client when he can't wait to exploit others? When he lives only to abuse those he can in any way abuse?

He's hurt. I can tell that. Too bad I'm not affraid.

So it happens that Azrael is kicking the shit again. So I had to ask the IT to come look at it, and then ask for the HP people to come and look at the computer. I called the Director's asistant and requested her to do the contact. She did and the guy actually came today in the morning (and fucked up the computer even more). I sent the mail, with copy to my boss, so he knows what's going on. Well, he sent a mail, with copy to HIS boss saying that it was imperative that my computer was fixed because I had "almost a month's delay" in my job. What a motherfucker.

That was yesterday. I took a day to think on the matter, and then today I replied the mail. I started saying that the asistent had fixed me with the HP tecnician, who would be coming today: I added also that I noticed he said my job was delayed a month due to the problem with the computer, and that wasn't entirely the case. (That's not the case at all.) He had to consider that we had problems with the provider, who wasn't sending us the reports on time, which was delaying us, which I noticed, but nothing has been done so far, plus the fact that there was no order, no priority with the tasks at the process. A lot of small, instant jobs had to be done and that delayed greatly my regular work, which was postponed until after smaller tasks, unplanned, smaller tasks were fulfilled. Add to it, I was out the past two weeks. Finally, it was important to keep in mind that all these smaller jobs were properly fulfilled and rendered in time, therefore there was no ground to say that all my job was delayed, or that it was delayed due to the computer.

I sent it to everybody who had received his mail.

A lot of people would say I shouldn't have to do it, but Giselle said it was the right thing to do, when I commented it to her. She's a lawyer and she has been advising me on this matter. Like I felt it, she found that my boss was placing the blame on me for the not delievered work, which is mainly his fault. By copying his boss and the asistant of his boss' boss, he was making me look like some slow poke worker, who has this "excuse" of having problems with the computer to cever her delays in meeting deadlines of rendering any jobs at all. It did pissed me off that I am working as fast as I can, shouldering the stuff that has to be done, making it on time, because, sorry, I do not do "delays", unless I am delayed, and I want to stress that out very clearly that all delays in my job have been thanks to him, and him not being able to handle the job.

What would happen if I let the mail go unanswered? His boss would think that if the computer is fixed, he can depómand for all the jobs, not to mention that he would think that all de delays my boss has incurred on are due to me. Baloney! A lot of things can be said of me, but being a bad worker is not one of them.

A New Week, a New Month and a Brand New Bullshit

You are all going to have a blast out of this. Yes, it's work again. It's again:

"I want you to do (for me) several proposals for a project, with the definition of the tasks and in the first stage I want the people to study if we are complying with the requirements of the new rulebook, and then some second and third stages... and I want to see something for all four... well, maybe you can put the Customer Experience in the third, yes, and draw me up a Responsability Matrix..."

"Boss, if you remember the (FUCKING!!!) expensive workshop of three days (to which you made me go, because I didn't want to, and it was a total waste of time, but you thought it was Mana from Heaven and even asked for all the FUCKING didactic material and the SHIT pasted on the walls for the teams to do their STUPID dynamics, and on top of that I had to SIGN some FUCKING contract promising I'll stay in the company for two more YEARS!), it was clear that we (meaning YOU, you lazy ass motherfucking moron) have to prepare the the theme and the main objective, and the team prepares the schedule, draws up the tasks and define the responsability matrix."

"But I need something to do the proposal!"

Yes honey, YOU need it, well, how about this: YOU DO IT! It's your job after all, now isn't it? If you can't do it, don't get into it, do not commit to it, stop trying to be someone you are not or something you are not. Want some news? Dude, nobody respects you. You are a clown at the building, and many other buildings. No matter the proposal you bring to the table, the problem is that it comes from YOU. Nobody will ever take you seriously because you are nothing but this little son of a whore whose only Hyne given talent is "complain". You open your big trap and it doesn't close. You go yapping and yapping and people is already tired and want to shoot you in the head and they have stopped paying attention to you a long time ago, or they are thinking: "what a LOSER!", and so, no matter what you try to say, you could warn Troy of the Wood Horse of the Greeks and nobody would listen. Haven't you noticed how people avoid you? Haven't you noticed that from the moment you utter the first word people turn their faces and lift their eyebrows? You don't need to read minds to know what they are thinking: "Here goes the LOSER again." You think you are so bright and so smart and have such great remarks and bring systems down because you know "truth" and you can show them that "that system won't work in your environment". Motherfucker, then why in the fucking hell do you go in the first place? And haven't you thought it doesn't work because of you? Because you and your stupid head can't apply it?

Think about it, LOSER!

My friend Christina Blake tells me to ignore him, and well, dude, that's what I've been doing for a year now. He simply gets to my nervs. What I can't really understand is how does he expect to get anything with his inexisting level of organization. How does he pretend to be a boss? What does he think being a boss is about? Ordering people and cashing the big checks? Dude, you gara hear this: the other day he went arguing with me that the boss is not responsible for what the team does. Fuck, of course it is! No, no, no... he simply gives the orders and the people is each responsible of what they do. Dude, but if you are the boss and you put them to do this or that task, it is your responsability that they succeed because you gave them the task, you chose them based (allegedly) on their capabilities. If you put an inadecuate, ignorant person to do a task, and that task fails, well, it's not the ignorant's problem because he was ignorant and wouldn't know how to do it in the first place (of course, the ignorant must say before head that he or she has no idea how to do it), but the MORON's who put the ignorant there in the first place. Add to it, bosses are supposed to supervise the job, so if a flaw passes through, dude, YOU are responsible!

Well, he wasn't willing to understand this basic true, so I told him that that's the way it is in the Internal Control Law. Law, btw, which has been corrected according to International Internal Control Standards, such as COSO, which was developped after the Enron case. Well, you know what was his answer: "Well, the Law is wrong."

Dude, you couldn't be more dense even if you wanted to!

###

Other than that, my February starts with colors. ^_^ Yep, I wrote up some of my tasks with coloured pencils in my desk calendar, so they look happy. The month started a bit rocky and emotional, but nothing that can't be handled. Had a horrible nightmare last night, and woke up all scared at 3 in the morning, because I was dreaming of this house that was so unsafe and vampires and other evil things were trying to break in. Yeah, yeah, yeah... MAYBE I shouldn't stay up to ... FUCK!!!! I missed yesterday's episode of Supernatural!!! And it was fourth season!! T_T Well, that's disappointing... I really dislike Warner Brothers now because I don't get a chance to see them some other day too. It's so unfair because this season is a killer! Has some lame assed chapters, you mind, but it has a lot of good stuff. BTW, season one... Sammy has some bod!! ^_^ Good grace, he's one smoking piece of ass! I'd have him anyday with French Fries and a big coke.

My plans for this month, so far, are simple:

1. Get the thesis advancing into chapter three, which is the processing of the data, for which we will need to get ahead with the visits to the ISLAND, now is only one, not two. We are going for Venado, which reminds me I'll have to rewrite the entire thing. Good thinking. Why Venado? The fuck knows. Nobody knows with this dude.
2. Do something for my German, because I'll need to push up that one FAST. (Specially with some alternate plans I have...)
3. Do some Spring Cleaning and throw away as many things as I can.
4. Sell the batch of books I don't need and don't read anymore. (Should really start considering selling all my mangas, or at least a good chunk of them.)
5. Get my job and my groups organized, which leans heavily to the side of the SLA's.
   

You know, this fourth point is important for serveral things. As I wrote it down, I thought about my future, my wishes and desires, and well, it includes going back home. I guess I better start getting rid of all unnecesary stuff and remain light for travel. There are a lot of things I don't need to go with me home, and so, I could start already getting rid of them, don't you think?

My life home is closer and closer, and less of a dream each day. I love that!

Bagel For Breakfast

The day I move to Hungary, to my beloved birth city, Budapest, I hope they'll have a Bagelmen's or some sort of bagel shop that does express delieveries or I don't know what will I do for breakfast. Usually I try to have something really healthy and good for breakfast, such as oatmeal, which I really love, but lately, since I have no cash on me, and the only credit card I still carry around (only Hyne knows why, though) has the astonoshing amount of 900 colones left to be used. (How do I do that? It's one of those mysteries of nature science is still trying to understand.) I order from this store with the number of a still working credit card, which I don't carry around with me, or most likely I would have pumped up long ago. Not like it would be something bad, you mind, but that's not the point.

The point it that it's becoming a daily ritual to heat up a cup of water to make a cup of strong coffee in my French Press, and wait until 7 am to pick up the phone and call Bagelmen's Escazú and ask them for my breakfast.

Two regular cokes, this is a MUST. All my orders have permanently incorporated these two. Coffee or no coffee, I live for this stuff.

Hot bagel, not toasted. It remains softer, though by the time it arrives is kind of cold again.

Bagel with poppy seeds or sesame seeds. Recently I've been going for the poppy over the sesame, but from time to time I make the change, because I like sesame seeds too.

Cheese cream to the side, not on the bagel! they send me more cheese cream than what I can put on the bagel, but I like to dose the amount of cheese cream on my bagel.

Chives or garlic and herbs for cheese cream. I have tried once the pesto and the sundried tomato, but they weren't that good. Lox is a lottery: sometimes it's good, but some other times the fish has a rather "fishy" taste to it. It's simply too stale and too bad, and stinks like the 3G project. I wouldn't go for the sweet cheese creams because it's already too odd to think of raising cheese cream or cinnamon cheese cream, but then, after tasting their tooth-breaking brick coockies, their brick-and-dust-no-flavor brownies or their what-the-hell-is-this muffins, you kinda learn to stay away from their sweets and stick to what they know the best: their bagels. And my sweet Gaia, do they KNOW about bagels! Hmmmmmm.... it's an awesome breakfast every single day!

I think, right know I could answer to you that one question I never know how to answer: what's your favorite food? BAGELS!

Well no, I actually love Hungarian food much better than bagels.

Today the morning started on the sour end, since I was so pissed thinking that my boss was once again thinking I'm some sort of secretary or assistant of him. I am not. Then again, someone who has no idea what should he be doing wouldn't even be able to make the difference between his job or any job, and all he can think of is how to get someone to do all these things he wouldn't understand even if they were explained to him using games and crayons. Maybe he's just too stressed out by... realizing how inadecuate he is to the position or something, but for instance, I was telling him that some people made a mistake by saying that an index was a brief. I thought it was clear the mistake, but he said:

"Well, they are very, very similar."

O_O Ex...cuse me? So I tried speaking slower. Really, slowly and enunciating.

"No boss, I mean, they wrote in here that THE INDEX is a BRIEF."
"I see nothing wrong with that."

So I explained to him that a brief is a document where you summarize several observations, maybe several indexes, or maybe no indexes at all, and concentrates only on relevant items, and explained them, analized them and exposed the influence or effect on other items, WHILE an index took a number of variables, always fix and defined by the very construction of the index, and showed always information with the same composition. An index shows a relation between variables, or the status of a given variable, while the brief explains it.

"Why are you trying to such fine level of detail?"

My... Goodness. Better not to try and explain him the difference between a house and a cardboard box. I felt totally like a pre-school teacher bringing up funny examples. I had to use bones and exrays to explain to him the difference between a brief and an index, and even then it took him half an hour to understand. It did. I know. By the time I came out of his office (and I'mnot entirely sure he did understood the difference), it was almost MY lunchtime.

Anyway, I asked him to read the documents, write down his comments and so I could work using his expertise and point of view as well.

"But I have so much to read already!"

O_O .... Dear Hyne, is he for real? No, really, he DID said that. I mean, if some ant like me complains that he or she has so damned much to read and so damned much to do, it's kind of acceptable because we are ants. We deal with it and all, and juggle our responsabilities, but basically, the only solution for us, if we can't take it, is to quit the job. However, when someone who wants to be a boss complains about all the work he has to do, dude, step down! Didn't he know that the job of a boss entitled a hell lot more than that of an ant?

I feel like watching Supernatural. Yep, I'm addicted. Hopefully today after the class at the University, I'll meet Víctor and we will go over to his place and watch the next chapter. Can't wait to see it!

On other news, thesis news, I've been checking the documents I've got from Carlos Manuel about this reseach they did in 97-98 and it's not only astonishing, but I would dare to say it's exactly what we were looking for. Kind of outdated, but it gives us a nice footprint to follow. It's amazing, but the more I learn about this activity, the more I love it and the more I want to know. My mind is spinning around the subject, and though I'm not much into the research of production, I kind of start thinking of it. Yesterday I found myself thinking of the Commodity Chain of the embroided goods made by the women of Mezőkövesd. You know, things like this can make you feel alive. These are the things that really matter. Doing what you like, living your vocation, developing in the area you have chosen, there where your soul lives. This is something a lot of people can get.

Recently, dear Husband was questioning me about my wish to live alone and give my head to my career. According to him, Hyne bless his innocent head, that was the sure road to depression and eternal sadness. He claims to believe that only a stable partner, and stablished, sedentarian "lovelife" can provide you with happiness, and a job could never fulfill a person. Well, it is not my desire to change his mind (thanx Hyne I'll never be caught dead getting married to him! Eww!), but one must understand his circumstances: uneducated, lazy, dependant of his environment, his only creative work is to make up lies and alternate lives for himself, where he's a maffia don, a condecorated, high ranked army official or karate kid. He's, the poor thing, completely unable to make an actual living for himself. Probably it fills him with dread to see how his actual life is so different from the life he brags about and the one he wants to have. My poor dear Husband, may the world have mercy of his deranged soul, is the kind of person who lives hoping for a miracle, winning the lottery, getting an unexpected inheritance, marrying a rich woman (now you start to see why I was the dear Wife, right?), or just finding a bag full of money on the metro. Well, with his education, and the muscle he actually puts in it, the speed with which he retrieves whenever he should make an effort, and then stays at that instead of trying to find a way to get around things, it's rather unlikely he would EVER move out of the slump he's inhabiting.

For someone like him, who really has no preparation whatsoever, talking about a "career" is like trying to explain... my boss the difference between an index and a brief. For someone who has no vocation and develops none, a "job" is an impostion he must endure in order to get money. A job it's entirely about getting money. So, getting "satisfaction" out of your job? How can that be possible? My poor thing probably wouldn't understand while would someone do something pro-bono. For him you change of jobs if you can get more money, but the idea of going to a new job that pays you less than the one you are living, or passing on a job offer that pays you more because it doesn't fulfill you as professional (or in my case as scientist), or because it doesn't allow you to grow career-wise, this not being a chief position, but to acquire more knowledge of a given area of interest... that's absolutely demented.

I pity him.

I do not seek a relationship or any kind of formal, semi-formal or informal-but-sustained-in time relationship because my goal, and the source of my happiness is my career. I don't need some guy, no matter how steaming hot and how good in bed, soft spoken, independent and out of my way he might be, to wake up with me, to be with me all my life. I have friends, I don't need a "partner". Some people need it, but I don't. What I want and need to be happy, is to be given the chance to work my field. I believe there are among you those who know what I mean. It's that sheer, bursting pleasure at working with something you love, you are passionate about. The way your brain feels inside your head, and the surge of something great from the back of your head to the front and down your chest and back as you figure something out, and start builing up something new, finding answers, turning here and there and create, just create something so magnificent! It's not only knowing that you can help a lot of people with what you do, but above all is the feeling of finding something, learning about something and realizing that you could use this in this way or that way, that you can explain now this or that and, since you understand it, you can also help fix this or that or make something entirely new and absolutely fabulous!

From my point of view, it's kind of hard to understand how can someone prefer a person with whom someone has ocasional sex and makes commitments and have to give up a lot of things one like, to something as extended and magnificent as science. Science is HUGE and new, and changing and full of so many mysteries and details you'll never get bored. You don't need to be young or beautiful to work with it, and it's intense and dynamic and fulfilling. People get boring. People get in fights with you. Science is... always building you, making you grow and be bigger, better, brighter... and I sound like a nerd.

I do would like to work on research, particularly on the areas of social welfare and technology applied to labor and it's macroeconomical effects. That's my thing.