Archive for July, 2010
Behind the Mask
Photo by Ben Fredericson (xjrlokix)
We all have many roles to play in life. You may not only be a parent, but a child. A subordinate, and also a supervisor. A charitable person, but maybe a cheap bastard from time to time. A loyal, hard-working employee, or a misanthropic blogger. ;-) Each of these roles require us to don a mask, to help differentiate between the parts we play.
Most of the time, I’m an agreeable sort. If I can help someone out, I will help them. Most of the time. But there are times when I have to “dumb it down”, and that requires another mask. It’s my “regular guy” mask, the one that I wrote about in this post: Incognito. Nobody likes a know-it-all. So, I put on my regular guy mask and clam up. People tend to get uneasy if there’s someone smarter among them.
Then there are the masks that I put on when I have to ream someone out. One is irritated but civil, and the other is similar to Dave Schultz dropping his gloves without actually hitting anybody (I’m a Rangers fan and hate the Flyers, but Schultz was the ultimate badass). I use the first when there’s a discrepancy on my electric bill. The second one was used on my son the other day. Kids need to fear something, especially sometimes-snotty teenagers. They need, on occasion, to straighten up and fly right. So if he thinks the old man is a little crazy, so much the better. I repeat: I go nuts without hitting anyone!
Think of all of the different roles that you have to play in the course of a day. At work, maybe you’re the person who every comes to for personal advice. Or, you’re a sounding board for the disgruntled in your office. Maybe you’re the authority in some particular field, who gets called into the middle of a meeting to help clarify an issue. There are masks for each of these roles.
And then there are the masks that we hide behind. These are our disguises. Like my “regular guy” mask, they help keep people at arm’s length. I don’t like to disclose everything about myself (which is why I don’t do Facebook), so part of me remains a mystery. Just like Alfred (albeit a younger, sexier, female Alfred) is to Bruce Wayne/Batman, only my wife knows that I write this blog (and she’ll kill me for comparing her to an elderly butler). I don’t think my friends would get the whole idea, so that’s another mask that I hide behind: The Luddite. When they ask a computer question, I feign ignorance.
So, what masks do you hide behind? Let me know in the comments, as I’ll look forward to reading about them. Until then, I remain:
Mysteriously yours,
The Corporate Barbarian
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The Oil Spill
Photo by Deepwater Horizon Response
Well, now that BP finally installed a cap on that leaking oil well, I guess we won’t see those undersea views of oil gushing out of the broken pipe. It seemed that every time I turned on CNN, there was the cloud of oil, billowing towards the surface. It was almost like watching that aquarium screensaver that came with my PC: tranquil and monotonous. It kind of takes the edge off of what the short- and long-term effects caused by the leak.
I know that they’ve shown images of oil-covered birds, and I feel for these poor creatures. But they should do something that shows the real tragedy of this spill. Put the cameras on schools of dead fish. Or the poor bastards that are trying to burn up the surface oil - let’s get an x-ray of their lungs after they have to breathe in that shit. How about a time-lapse view of the Gulf fisherman and their families? We can watch as they shrink from weight loss, waiting for BP to make reparations. The possibilities are endless, I tell ya!
If you think I’m a ghoul, you’re only partly right. I think of the long-term effects, not only on the environment and the economy, but on the health of those poor residents. What strange diseases and conditions can their children look forward to over the next few years? Just look at the health problems that the Ground Zero volunteers suffer from.
Gratefully, the one camera angle that we’ve been spared is of the BP big shots. We haven’t seen them blowing their bonus money on toga parties, or cavorting on their yachts. No, the biggest tragedy is that they aren’t suffering nearly enough.
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George Steinbrenner, Rest in Peace
I’ve been a Yankees fan for my whole life. Last week, The Boss died. From what people close to him hinted at, he hadn’t really been himself for the last few years. There were no loud diatribes about the handling of Joba Chamberlain; no pitching coaches twisting in the wind after a bad road trip;
no lower-level parking attendants getting fired for not paying enough deference to His Highness. Things had gotten very quiet in Yankeeland. It was something I was not used to in the thirty-plus years that Steinbrenner owned the team.
Before The Boss purchased the Yankees in 1973, the team’s roster was filled with the likes of Celerino Sanchez and Jerry Kenney, a third baseman who, in three years as a starter, slugged a whopping six home runs. Steinbrenner exploited the free agent era, and with the help of Gabe Paul, built the Yankees into a powerhouse, by trading for the likes of Graig Nettles. If Paul did nothing else in his career, getting Nettles to play third was accomplishment enough. That guy could pick it. He was also quick with an insightful quip. Who can forget his observation of Sparky Lyle going from “Cy Young to sayonara”?
Nettles making it look easy
Steinbrenner was a tyrant and a bully, and I hated many of the moves that he made, and the shit that he stirred up just for the sake of stirring the pot. He meddled too frequently, undermining his managers, and his hasty decisions led to lopsided trades, like Jay Buhner for Ken Phelps. He created an atmosphere of fear, and changed pitching coaches on a whim. I was furious when he let Buck Showalter go, just as there finally was a feeling of stability after an era of terrible baseball in the Bronx. But you can’t argue with his overall record, and I’m sure that history will be kind to the man. Winning will do that.
His good deeds seem to have been overshadowed by his bombastic persona. Each year, he hosted a Grambling football game at the old Stadium. He was a philanthropist, and gave many outcasts a second or third chance (Darryl Strawberry, Doc Gooden, Steve Howe…). Rest in peace, George. I’m sure if he gets in a position of power in Heaven, he’ll be banishing angels to the far reaches of the universe if they fall short of his expectations.
I would expect nothing less from The Boss.
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The Softball Commitment
Photo by geishaboy500
I think I’m pretty good at making, and keeping, commitments. I try to be a man of my word, and people know that they can count on me, whether they’re family, friends, or coworkers. Once I commit to something, I’m in for good, thick and thin. Which has me scratching my head over a silly issue: softball.
I played on slow-pitch softball teams from my first year in high school through my mid-20’s. These included regular teams in men’s leagues that played twice a week, various tournaments with other teams that needed an extra guy, and company teams that played after work. They had many things in common, including the increased absence of players as the season wore on.
Everyone is gung ho in the springtime. Rosters are bulging with willing participants, and some guys are told to stay home, that they won’t be playing in certain games. By the midpoint of the season, though, we’re usually scrambling to field nine players so that we don’t forfeit. Forfeiting a game sucks for both teams; to me, there’s nothing worse than having your plans scuttled because the other team couldn’t get enough guys to show up.
Even if you do get enough players to field a full team, it’s the postgame comraderie that suffers. At its formation, my men’s league team was self-sponsored by its players. We chipped in for the league entrance fee, which covered the umpires, official scorer, and softballs, and also paid for our own uniforms. After a few years of bar-hopping after games, we asked one of the bar owners to sponsor us. After all, we brought in good business; each guy usually had a girlfriend in tow, so the bar filled up quickly. It was nice for the bar owner to get a big crowd on an otherwise quiet midweek night.
Then something strange happened. After we settled down to one bar, we had trouble filling it after games. I guess the girlfriends grew tired of the quaint little gin mill, and the more henpecked of our group began skipping the postgame round at the watering hole. It came down to five of us picking up the slack at the pub. This not only became expensive, since we had to make it look good to our sponsor, but we felt compelled to stay later to make up for the no-shows. Getting up for work the morning after a softball game became a real challenge. We practically had to beg guys to stop down for one drink, just to fill the room with our jerseys for a brief time.
The same thing happened on my company’s team. At the time, I worked for a large company that had its own intramural league. Teams were formed by the various departments, and we even played on diamonds that were on company property. How convenient was that? No league entrance fee, either, as the company picked up the tab for field maintenance and umpires. A sweet deal. But come midseason, no matter how well we were doing in the standings, we’d face a critical shortage of players. By the end of the season, the league resembled the wartime major leagues, with old guys playing out of position, and bases on balls running rampant. Thank God for the Mercy Rule.
I guess the difference between the expectation of playing on a team and the reality sours people on the idea. Then, once the first guy skips out on his commitment, it’s easier for the second and third guys to follow suit. You’re left with the core group of committed guys, who probably should be committed for putting themselves in this position year after year.
Which is why I don’t play softball anymore.
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Dandelion Wine
Photo by Vince Alongi
Feeling nostalgic, I gave in to the urge to read Ray Bradbury’s summer classic Dandelion Wine again. For those unfamiliar with this work, it’s a novel based on Bradbury’s remembrances of his summer as a twelve year-old. Although our childhoods were separated by over half a century, I could relate to his longing for the good old days.
Days that were filled with baseball tripleheaders. We’d choose up sides, and if we didn’t have enough guys for a full team, we’d make right field serve as foul territory. There always seemed to be plenty of kids around, as none of us ever went to summer camp. After spending ourselves on the dusty baseball diamond, we’d swim in my friend’s pool until dinnertime. We didn’t make dandelion wine; the Scotts Turf Builder killed all the weeds in my lawn.
The summer nights of my youth were mostly spent outside. We played baseball until we couldn’t see the ball due to the creeping darkness. After that, it was tag, or hide-and-seek, where we tried to dress in our darkest color clothes (the better to hide with). I remember our mothers calling across the neighborhood to summon us home. My father would usually be sitting out in the sweltering humidity, smoking a White Owl by the light of a citronella candle. He didn’t worry about mosquito bites; for some reason, they didn’t like the taste of his blood. Or maybe it was the cheap cigars.
I remember catching lightning bugs, or fireflies, and putting them in a jar. After a few minutes, when the novelty wore off, we’d release them. I saw a bunch of kids the other night squishing them on the sidewalk, the better to see their day-glo guts. Maybe my youth was a gentler time. I also remember watching a summer TV show called Almost Anything Goes hosted by Regis Philbin. That program has seemingly risen from the ashes, born again as Wipeout. The more things change…
I wonder if my kids will look back fondly at their own childhood summers. I just hope that their memories consist of better things than texting or playing PlayStation. One tradition we’ve started is making ’smores. I don’t think any kid can pass up chocolate and marshmallows melted on a graham cracker.
So, if you want to take a trip back to a simpler time, give Dandelion Wine a try.
Time to make some ’smores!
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Us and Them
Posted by enrique s in Career, Motivation on July 14th, 2010
The division where I work was formed from the merger of two separate companies. Each company had a distinct product line, and there wasn’t much interaction between the two sides. This did not change when the people were co-located in the same building. In fact, I think the close proximity led to a polarization of the two groups. While the people all worked in the same area, there seemed to be an invisible wall between the groups. The cliques were out in full force.
With any consolidation comes the expectation of a cost take-out. For instance, you don’t need two managers for one department. Who stays in control is often determined by who wins the power struggle between the big shots to lead the new combined division. Directors like to surround themselves with their own “guys”; their own people provide a comfort zone in which to operate. My division was no exception; the losers either left on their own or were told not to let the door hit them on the ass on the way out.
As you can imagine, watching your old management team being unceremoniously shown the door can cause morale problems for the losing side. The have-nots start to watch their backs. With no champion in the director’s seat, they have to prove themselves all over again, like new hires. More resentment follows, and the chasm grows. But time heals many wounds, and new alliances are formed as needed. What follows is a period of peaceful apprehension. It’s like that scene in Independence Day, where you see the Israeli and Arab forces working side, fighting the aliens, all the while keeping an eye on each other.
But what can help a group of people to congeal? Is there a magic formula? I think there is, and I’ve seen it firsthand. It’s called a takeover. See, my division was reassigned to a new, larger superdivision. With that came changes to all of our familiar systems, and a shitload of new procedures. Months of mind-numbing training preceded the changeover. The patronizing attitude of the new management towards us made us seethe. It was us against them.
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” - Sun-tzu
So, united against a common enemy, the once-disfunctional division became one. We saw our differences as few, and the things we had in common more important. Like the former enemies in Independence Day, a greater “evil” forced us to work together. We were all “us” now; there wasn’t any “them” anymore.
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Don’t Ease Me In
Photo by antwerpenR
I’ve never been the guy at work who gets in before anyone else. I’m usually the last one to leave at night, but that’s a different story. While I’m rarely late, I do tend to arrive just under the wire. But when I walk through the door, I’m already in 5th gear. I don’t need a ten-minute warmup. Let’s go! But something has been slowing me down lately, and it’s screwing with my instincts.
I worked with an “early guy” once. Clapton liked to get to work early - real early, like 45 minutes before our official start time. He’d unpack, read the paper, and wait for me to come scrambling in before the bell. He’d ease into the day, while I came in with guns blazing. I’d arrive, bags under my blood-shot eyes, strung out from walking our screaming, colic-stricken baby around all night. Early for me in those days was ten minutes late. Where’s my coffee?
I equated myself with one of those rubber-armed relief pitchers, like Mike Stanton, who could be ready at a moments’ notice. Contrast my readiness with Clapton’s, who needed to go through elaborate ritual each morning so that he could get “in the zone”. I could hit the ground running, a skill that I haven’t lost in the years since. Clapton was more like Mike Mussina, who needed all of the stars to align, otherwise, his day would be “ruined”. We’d open the day with the same dialogue:
Clapton: So, how many hours sleep last night?
Me: About two and a half.
Clapton: I don’t know how you do it.
Tell you the truth, I didn’t know how I did it, either. It was probably a combination of too much caffeine, new parent anxiety, and the constant threat of layoffs. Not having a pot to piss in or a corner to throw it in will wake you up pretty quickly. Especially when you throw a baby into the mix. Whatever kept me going back then, I think that I still have it in me to this day (they probably have a pill for it by now). Hence, my newfound irritation.
Something happens when I arrive at work (and it’s not just the stress-induced clenching of my sphincter). I’m able to put the rest of my life out of my mind, and think of only work for the next ten hours. The instant that I swipe my badge at the entrance, I’m on the clock and working. As I climb the stairs to my office, I’ll run through my calendar in my mind. Which is a good thing, given how long it takes for my PC to boot up.
See, that’s the new irritation. My company has installed some God-awful security software that takes forever to load. Yesterday, it took forty minutes to get to my email. This would be perfect for Clapton, who could read the paper while his computer boots. But I’m pulling my hair out, screaming at the goddamn thing to finish loading. So, I have two choices:
- Become an “early guy”, like my old buddy Clapton, and read the paper while the evil software loads, or
- Leave myself in “logged in” status, and only shut the machine down at the end of the week.
I’m leaning toward Option #2. I know that I’m using electricity, which leads to more energy being wasted. But think of all of my energy being wasted, waiting for my PC to boot up. Forty minutes a day of my time could get pretty expensive for the company.
Or, maybe it’s time for a quaalude.
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The other day, the Northeast was hit by a heatwave. It’s rare to have consecutive days in the 90’s where I live, and the forecast was calling for a week-long blast of heat and humidity. For someone like me, who can sweat in the shower, this was not going to be a banner week. My thick German blood was made for the cold, and longed for a visit to its ancestral homeland, which surely must be cooler. To make things even worse, our air conditioner crapped out. I started to wonder: what did I do to offend the gods this time?
So, the perfect storm of hot, humid air and broken HVAC equipment descended upon the Barbarian household. Luckily, I could escape to work, leaving my wife to deal with the A/C company. She showed remarkable restraint, even when they didn’t return her many urgent calls, and I don’t think she murdered anyone, at least not while I was watching. I don’t know if I could have maintained such composure.
The service guy, a long-winded, chatty sort, was able to replace the fried capacitor that was causing the trouble. He also topped off the coolant, just in case. The whole adventure lightened my wallet by about $350, a fair trade, since I wasn’t looking forward to spending another night swimming in my own sweat (I’m sure my wife didn’t relish that thought, either). I think under this circumstance, I’d have handed the guy a blank check, and let him fill in an amount that he thought was fair. And then it hit me…
I was ready to make an impulse buy. I was under duress, like when you go grocery shopping with an empty stomach, and a Snickers bar is calling your name from the rack in the checkout lane. I would have agreed to anything, and I almost did. The service guy suggested that we install a surge protector. It would only cost an additional $175, and we’d never have this problem again. That would put the bill over $500. My first car cost me less than that. Like a cold, hard slap across the face, rational thought intruded.
I told him, no, thanks, but this is the first trouble we’ve had in ten years, and I was willing to live dangerously without the surge protector. After all, $175 is two nice dinners for the wife and I. I made a mental note to budget for a new capacitor ten years hence, and waited for the house to cool off.
So, honey, where would you like to eat tonight?
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Lunch in Bayville
The view from our table
Last Friday, my wife and I had lunch in the small town of Bayville, NY. Bayville is on the north shore of Long Island, and overlooks the Long Island Sound. It’s a little out-of-the-way, but the town is very quaint and picturesque, and our lunch was delicious. And yes, those ARE real palm trees in the picture. They must take them in for the winter. We also had a pleasant surprise after we returned home.
We dined at the Pine Island Grill, which is located on Bayville Avenue. It’s a multi-story building, offering terrific views of the beach and of Connecticut, which is right across the Long Island Sound. To get there, we took the Northern State Parkway to Route 106 north. We made a left on Main Street in Oyster Bay, and bore right as it turned into West Shore Road. This took us north to Bayville Avenue, where we made a right, heading east. The Pine Island Grill is about a quarter of a mile on the left side. The entrance is easy to miss (I missed it), so keep your eyes peeled.
We’d been to Bayville several times before. The fire department holds an awesome haunted house during the Halloween season. But today, we were interested in eating, and the Pine Island Grill has excellent food. There’s something about eating outdoors near the water that makes everything taste better. We split an appetizer of coconut shrimp, and I had the Chilean sea bass, while my wife had the steak teriyaki. They didn’t have the cheesecake that we ordered for dessert, so they provided us with heaping bowls of ice cream, on the house. Nice touch.
Another view of the Pine Island Grill
So, what was our surprise when we got home? Later that evening, we watched the latest episode of Royal Pains, which is filmed on Long Island. I’m glad we Tivo-ed it, because one scene was filmed where we just had lunch. For those who watch the show, it was the scene where Divya helps the little boy who stuck a macaroni up his nose. I guess the producers felt that Bayville looked more like the Hamptons than the real Hamptons. They also use Oheka Castle in Huntington as Boris’ residence.
So the next time you find yourself jonesing for a water view and some great seafood, check out Bayville.
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Don’t Go with the Flow
Sheeple. The tag given to the general population by the outcasts, the unconventionals, the free-thinkers. If you haven’t already guessed, I’m part of the latter crowd. I don’t despise sheeple; rather, I pity them.
I see this herd mentality at work. One of the nervous ones will jump to a conclusion, and proclaim the path they’re going to take. More of the weak-willed will readily follow them on their path. They’ll look on incredulously as I go my own way. See, I’m not going to follow the rest of the lambs in their plunge over the cliff. Call me the anti-sheeple.
A recent example was the result of poor communication. This is where the chaos begins, as it creates a level of uncertainty. The sheeple need clear, explicit instructions, or they can’t proceed. I watch as they work themselves up into a lather, each feeding off of the other’s anxiety, until the herd becomes a force of nature. Then, there’s no stopping them. They become like the Borg, assimilating as they go.
Luckily, I’m not alone in my battle against the sheeple. I can always rely on the Comedian and his razor-sharp wit. He’ll always poke holes through the conventional wisdom that the sheeple embrace. See, if you break the sheeple up into smaller groups, they’re more manageable. You may even be able to reason with a few of them, and get them to see your point of view. I always hold out hope for calm, rational thought.
It’s easier to go with the flow, to be swept up in the current. You have to plant your feet against the tide if you want to be a unique individual. The waves may even knock you on your ass now and then. Just pick yourself up and brush off the sand. Wear your bumps and bruises as badges of courage earned in your fight against conventional wisdom.
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