management skill: to know when to do nothing

A wise coworker replied to me today,

"Some of us just do not know when to do nothing to accomplish things."
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From: hanapbuhay
Sent: Monday, November 21, 2005 3:51 PM

Si simmons hindi mapakali … kasi hindi ko pa ginagamit yung bagong build at nandito pa ako sa kube ko. Marami pa nag bisita sa akin … ikaw, si bish, si balog...

Anong karapatan niya kung ayaw ko munang gamitin yung bagong build?

let's take this offline

this was used in last week's meeting. the big boss told simmons to basically shut up. he kept talking back, trying to win the conversation and they went back and forth for about a couple of minutes. probably, a couple of minutes too long! so big boss abruptly ended it with, "let's take this offline."

when the big boss said offline, that made me think of about how people use computer terms instead of normal english.

offline? are we connected to the matrix? to the borg collective? how did this jargon come about?

googled, "let's take this offline" and the fourth item brought me to the microsoft lexicon gp. this site basically explained term.

it reads... offline: outside the confines of a mass meeting, so as not to take up the time of attendees not directly concerned with an issue. example, "let's take this conversation offline." a synonym for "in private" or "confidentiality".

the last part of the definition was the best.

"often used as a semi-polite way of saying, 'shut up about that, you impolitic idiot.'"

that was the best part of last week's meeting.

visibility

simmons came to my cube this last week and asked if he could talk to me in the lab. I quickly finished up what I was working on, got up and walked over to the lab myself. simmons was halfway to the lab by now and he noticed I wasn’t following him, so he turned around a little upset. "what are you going to do? hold my hand?" I thought to myself. so he spots me walking up to the lab, turns and continues into the lab. he raised his right hand, as if to ask a question, but instead places it on his head. "uh," he stuttered, "it's 10 o'clock and there's no one in the lab. we need to have visibility here. so you need to be in the lab." I explain that I can remote desktop into the lab computers. I don't think he really understood or knew how I was able to do this. so he continues to yammer about "visibility". I look him in the eyes and silently yell.

"I understand," I tell him, trying to end the conversation, but he doesn't stop. he keeps yammering. I do understand the reason for "visibility" but as long as work is successfully accomplished and on time, what else is there to yammer about? it's possible his own paranoia is kicking in since he doesn't do much around here except piss people off.

background, simmons is a dumber version of lumberg.

pamilihan ng bayan

view from quiapo bridge
originally uploaded by Q'em-Iqal to flickr.com

if you haven't been to the philippines, here's their version of
the farmer's market. it's usually open before dawn.

they have live fish, live chickens and sometimes live dogs (they're scrounging for a meal too). you'll find fresh vegetables and expensive fruits. whenever i go there, the fruits they're offering always seem so expensive. people usually make $5 to $10 a day and an apple is a $1?

and we just take apples here for granted, spoiling away in our fruit baskets.

this reminds me... once, i rode around the palengke with my uncle. we bought a couple bags of freshly baked pandesal. brought them home and, with the early morning elders, shared the tradition of dipping pandesal into sweet instant coffee while the sun came up.

starbucks can't beat that.

tivo and yahoo team up

here's my first xanga post. tivo and yahoo teamed up today. you can now schedule your tivo recordings via the yahoo site.

you could always schedule your tivo from their own site, but now this colaboration will help out both parties market to a wider audience. hopefully this will help out tivo's struggling profit margin.

digg this!

added digg feed to my blog tonight.

indian food is good stuff

i've been craving it for a couple of weeks now. luckily, we had to go out and buy some scrapbooking and gift wrapping tape, so on the way home, we ate at, tamarind, an indian restaurant. yum yum.

they have a pretty good mango shake, too.

split shifts!

my first post. what to talk about? well, it's my first day of split shifts and no one is at work, this early, except for dan. dan the surfer who's taking lessons to become a pilot. dan the contractor whose daughter is fixing up her own car, i think it's a mustang. i have to get more details later.

do i want to blog my life? a part of me wants to, and another part think it's an invasion of privacy. but how can it be an invasion when i allow others to view the blog. what a dilemma. we'll see how this goes.

as of today, i'm working from 7 am til whenever for two weeks. after two weeks, i go on the second shift. 2pm til whenever (hopefully i'm home by 11:30pm).

i hope this will help quicken the testing that has to be done. off to work i go. happy all saints day.