Seventeen things

Rosemary

I was feeling completely overwhelmed by everything that needed my attention, and harked back to my productivity training, deciding to make a list.

I discovered that there were seventeen discrete things, each of which was waiting for a decision before any actual action could be taken.

Upside: I now have a list of seventeen decisions to make.   Lists can be ranked by priority, and assigned time frames; amorphous clouds of responsibilities and expectations and duties and desires are much harder to tackle.

In other news: Hey, if you got a voice mail saying that someone whose office was on the same floor as yours passed by your office door and saw that you had left the window open, and that papers were blowing around everywhere, and that on top of that it’s going to rain after midnight tonight, so they hoped you would get this message before all the rain blows in and ruins your papers and furniture; and you then got the message and went to your office and closed the window, thus saving papers and furniture from ruin —

If, all that… wouldn’t you then, say, knock on the door of the helpful person who was nice enough to alert you to the problem, and oh, I don’t know, say “Thanks!”

Because the first part happened, but the last, oddly, didn’t.  I was right there. They walked in, walked by, walked out, not a word.

 


3 Responses to “Seventeen things”

  • madscientistnz Says:

    I can think of a few reasons to not say anything:
    1 – can’t remember your name (that would be my reason – I am so bad at remembering peoples names/faces)so don’t know it was you that left the voice mail
    2 – didn’t catch the name on the voice mail (I find voice mails are very hard to hear)
    3 – didn’t know what to say, overthought the whole thing, panic!, pretend it never happened
    4 – office is shared, only one person knew about the voice mail
    5 – embarrased to have not been perfect, pretend never happened

    And that’s without getting into timetravel, spys, clones, identical twins etc…

    • Rosemary Says:

      Ah, all possible. But you left out:

      6. They think I’m weird and creepy.

      It could be, and I would hardly blame them…

      See, the other offices in this building are being used as offices. Make your phone calls, file your stuff, meet with clients, interact, present yourself to the business world. There’s a tendency for offices to be decorated with impressing the incoming client in mind, and doors (which are mostly glass) are habitually left open to the hallway. Business clothing is the norm — casual, but professional.

      My office functions more as a studio. My desk is a big table, and it faces the windows with my back to the door, so I can look out while musing. I’ve got whiteboard-type dry-erase wallpaper on one wall with maps and notes and arrows drawn all over. Not only do I keep my door closed, I’ve put white paper over all the glass, so people walking by don’t see what’s on my immense computer monitor.

      I arrive in jeans and change to yoga pants. I come at the end of the day, and stay who-knows-how-long.

      I wear little, if any, makeup.

      I have an inexplicable haircut. No one here knows I was treated for cancer last year, so the fact that when they first met me I was just this side of bald, probably had an effect.

      Without judging them negatively, I do have to say they are deeply of the Mundane world (as we SFF fans call it). People who don’t fit their expectations give probably them pause… I suspect that I just don’t make sense to them.

      The one exception: The free-lance computer programmer in one of the littlest rooms. Despite the fact that he’s in his twenties, cute as a bug, dresses modern-professional-metro cool — a sort of mutual recognition passed between us. He’s a nerd, I’m a nerd. We get it.

  • Lindig Says:

    And you play with lists forever, thereby procrastinating even more. You know:
    oh look, these six things sort of go together
    but I can break out these three into a subset
    and these eleven can be figured out into sets based on where they can happen
    two at day job
    three at writing office
    four in bedroom
    but wait
    the bedroom ones might go with two from the first set
    and on and on
    and never have to do anything at all.
    Take a nap and decide later.