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Surprise!
My boss tells me that the Registrar told him that I am smart. Apparently I made some interesting and helpful remarks at our last meeting. He's only just noticing me now because we never interacted before. Surprise!
Part of me is used to this. People (co-workers) often come up to me long after we first meet and tell me things they just learned about me. Usually it's, "I never knew you could talk" or "I never knew you had a sense of humor."
But part of me wants to tell him that there are a lot of smart people he hasn't interacted with. Just because you're not a bigwig (or a programmer) doesn't mean you don't have a brain or don't know anything. Which is the whole point in involving us in issues like those at the meeting we just had.
The reason we never interacted before is that when I have an issue I go through channels. I talk to my boss, and if he can't help, I send an e-mail to the helping group, which consists of me, my boss, and our programmers, but not the Registrar and not the head of the programmers (our Registrar's old job). This is just the way it happens. Sometimes I have to talk to people outside the Registrar's Office.
Am I doing something wrong? Are all good employees supposed to approach the biggest bigwig in their area often enough that they get to know each other? Don't those guys not have time for all that?
My boss tells me I can be expected to be invited to more committee meetings or something now. Great.
In other news, the Registrar has made it known that he would like to clean up our pending problems before promising to do new things. And he asked for lists of these issues! So maybe all of my dreams are about to come true. (My boss alone gave him a list of 39 issues. Oh, yes, he did.) Surprise!
And there's a rumor that the programmer who was our first programmer (before the guy who was the programmer before our current guy) has been added back to the team. He's retired and now working half time, but he's still around.
Meanwhile, this job still has very odd psychological effects on me. There's an issue which I asked my boss about, then someone in Records, then someone in Admissions, then someone else in Admissions, then a third person in Admissions. That person contacted his programmer, who, in turn contacted my (most recent) old programmer (who now works in Admissions). I just had a question about why one thing didn't match another thing. The answer is that part of the process was broken, so my old programmer fixed it. That messed with my head. We bother that old programmer all the time because he's the most knowledgeable about our system, but this wasn't supposed to be something I bothered him about!)
Then I'm trying to clarify what I mean when I say that the processing order of DF rules is whole courses first. Now, in rules that look for required courses, it means it counts 3-hour courses first. In rules that toss some, but not all, of a certain kind of course, it means it tosses 3-hour courses first. But a DF rule makes sure than any college courses used to take care of a high school deficiency do not count toward the degree (although they are still required because there is a deficiency). So I decided that if many courses could be used to satisfy the deficiency, the system would select and then toss the 3-hour courses first. It seems so clear now, but at the time, it messed with my head.
I have been half asleep all afternoon--very little physical or mental energy at all. Even at lunch. And now there's a headache. With two ibuprofen it should be gone by 5:00, right?
I want to be like the new Treasurer of an organization I'm in. She said, "Man, this job is hard! But I can do it!"
Journal Entry of the Day - Stop Buying Crap #16 - Pets, subtitled "Annoying Little Dogs That Cost More Than Your Mortgage Payment." This one cracks me up. "Pets are hardly crap, but if you're buying them as a spur of the moment 'please forgive me and come back to me' gift to your ex-girlfriend, please tell me where you live so I can go kick your ass (or if you're bigger than me, lecture you from afar)."
My favorite comment (so far): "Uh, if you don't buy the dog, then what good is the Louis Vuitton bag?
"Duh."
A Girl Named Lucky just wrote a (nonpublic) post on the same topic with a link to an interesting and powerful (but not at all funny) web page on everything you never wanted to know about cockatoos.
Other Link of the Day - "Are Crunches the Wrong Move?" by Martica Heaner, M.A., M.Ed., for MSN Health & Fitness - A good article about belly exercise, from which I actually learned something. What I learned is that belly exercises that bend or twist your back are more dangerous for your back than exercises that don't. The main example they give of an exercise that doesn't require bending or twisting your back is the plank. This is where you act like you're about to do a push-up but then you just stay there. This is harder than it sounds after not very long at all. Actual push-ups are fine, too. And there's a side plank where you get off your toes and onto the sides of your feet and then let go with one of your arms.
Part of me is used to this. People (co-workers) often come up to me long after we first meet and tell me things they just learned about me. Usually it's, "I never knew you could talk" or "I never knew you had a sense of humor."
But part of me wants to tell him that there are a lot of smart people he hasn't interacted with. Just because you're not a bigwig (or a programmer) doesn't mean you don't have a brain or don't know anything. Which is the whole point in involving us in issues like those at the meeting we just had.
The reason we never interacted before is that when I have an issue I go through channels. I talk to my boss, and if he can't help, I send an e-mail to the helping group, which consists of me, my boss, and our programmers, but not the Registrar and not the head of the programmers (our Registrar's old job). This is just the way it happens. Sometimes I have to talk to people outside the Registrar's Office.
Am I doing something wrong? Are all good employees supposed to approach the biggest bigwig in their area often enough that they get to know each other? Don't those guys not have time for all that?
My boss tells me I can be expected to be invited to more committee meetings or something now. Great.
In other news, the Registrar has made it known that he would like to clean up our pending problems before promising to do new things. And he asked for lists of these issues! So maybe all of my dreams are about to come true. (My boss alone gave him a list of 39 issues. Oh, yes, he did.) Surprise!
And there's a rumor that the programmer who was our first programmer (before the guy who was the programmer before our current guy) has been added back to the team. He's retired and now working half time, but he's still around.
Meanwhile, this job still has very odd psychological effects on me. There's an issue which I asked my boss about, then someone in Records, then someone in Admissions, then someone else in Admissions, then a third person in Admissions. That person contacted his programmer, who, in turn contacted my (most recent) old programmer (who now works in Admissions). I just had a question about why one thing didn't match another thing. The answer is that part of the process was broken, so my old programmer fixed it. That messed with my head. We bother that old programmer all the time because he's the most knowledgeable about our system, but this wasn't supposed to be something I bothered him about!)
Then I'm trying to clarify what I mean when I say that the processing order of DF rules is whole courses first. Now, in rules that look for required courses, it means it counts 3-hour courses first. In rules that toss some, but not all, of a certain kind of course, it means it tosses 3-hour courses first. But a DF rule makes sure than any college courses used to take care of a high school deficiency do not count toward the degree (although they are still required because there is a deficiency). So I decided that if many courses could be used to satisfy the deficiency, the system would select and then toss the 3-hour courses first. It seems so clear now, but at the time, it messed with my head.
I have been half asleep all afternoon--very little physical or mental energy at all. Even at lunch. And now there's a headache. With two ibuprofen it should be gone by 5:00, right?
I want to be like the new Treasurer of an organization I'm in. She said, "Man, this job is hard! But I can do it!"
Journal Entry of the Day - Stop Buying Crap #16 - Pets, subtitled "Annoying Little Dogs That Cost More Than Your Mortgage Payment." This one cracks me up. "Pets are hardly crap, but if you're buying them as a spur of the moment 'please forgive me and come back to me' gift to your ex-girlfriend, please tell me where you live so I can go kick your ass (or if you're bigger than me, lecture you from afar)."
My favorite comment (so far): "Uh, if you don't buy the dog, then what good is the Louis Vuitton bag?
"Duh."
A Girl Named Lucky just wrote a (nonpublic) post on the same topic with a link to an interesting and powerful (but not at all funny) web page on everything you never wanted to know about cockatoos.
Other Link of the Day - "Are Crunches the Wrong Move?" by Martica Heaner, M.A., M.Ed., for MSN Health & Fitness - A good article about belly exercise, from which I actually learned something. What I learned is that belly exercises that bend or twist your back are more dangerous for your back than exercises that don't. The main example they give of an exercise that doesn't require bending or twisting your back is the plank. This is where you act like you're about to do a push-up but then you just stay there. This is harder than it sounds after not very long at all. Actual push-ups are fine, too. And there's a side plank where you get off your toes and onto the sides of your feet and then let go with one of your arms.
ab moves
(Anonymous) 2006-09-15 03:49 pm (UTC)(link)Personally, what I do for abs is to treat them like I do all other muscles for strength training purposes, which is to say, I do them with weights and fairly low reps. (This is advocated by this woman (http://www.stumptuous.com/cms/index.php), whose advice I generally really like.)
Currently, my abs routine consists of 2 sets of 12 curls using a 17.5-lb weight (a hand weight that I hold with both hands under my chin), and 1 set of an oblique-movement (standing, leaning over with this weight in one hand, then straightening). Now that I can do 2 sets of 12 curls with that weight, I'm ready to move to the next size of weight (20 lbs).
I think doing hundreds of curls as a form of strength training is as pointless as doing hundreds of any other light-weight move. (That is to say, it's probably not pointless at all, but you can get the same results with fewer reps of higher weights.) And of course if I'm going for aerobic exercise (where high reps are needed), sit-ups or curls are not my idea of a good time.
I find that the curls I do also strengthen my neck muscles, which seems important to avoid recurrences of my neck injury.
Tam
Not really a major surprise
(Anonymous) 2006-09-15 05:16 pm (UTC)(link)I also don't think there's anything unusual or wrong about you only just now having registered with the Registrar. You've had your first interaction with him, he came away with a favorable impression of you, he mentioned it to your boss, and your boss shared the compliment with you - this is all good.
Oh yeah, planks and many other Pilates-type moves are a lot harder than they look.
-sally
Re: Not really a major surprise
Second paragraph: I know. Only the snarky part of me feels like that.
Third paragraph: And Robin's probably already told you about the one where you hold your arms out to the side for a while, so that you're in the shape of a "t." This gets hard after less than a minute. And try standing with one foot directly in front of the other, one toe touching the other heel, with equal weight on each foot--this isn't quite as easy to balance on as you might expect.
Re: Not really a major surprise
(Anonymous) 2006-09-18 03:07 pm (UTC)(link)I also like the wall squat in which you slide down until your thighs are at 90 degrees and hold for as long as possible.
-sally