Category: Family Life

Dilbert Aligns His Goals

Dilbert: I’m concerned that my personal goals do not align with our corporate strategy. For example, I would like to be happy. What does the company want? Boss: Well, nothing along those lines.

 

Wow… how much more true-to-life can a comic get? It’s not that the company doesn’t want you to be happy, but it’s simply not what they are paying you for. This reminds me of one of my favorite Despair posters:

Demotivation Poster from Despair.com - Somtimes the best solution to morale problems is just to fire all of the unhappy people.
Demotivation Poster from Despair.com

 

Ouch. Thanks Dilbert.

 

Really this should be taken as all other things that remind you

$WORK != LIFE

I had a work friend recently pass away. He might have been in his mid to late forties, not much older. Left three kids and a loving wife. Absolute tragedy and an absolute terrible thing for everyone affected by it. The world is worse off without him.

His passing is a terrible tragedy for the people most close to him, but for the people on the periphery of his life, it’s a good reminder that

$LIFE == SHORT

This guy would answer emails at 7pm at night, he would be on the phone with his customers all day and all night. He manually trawled through giant Excel sheets trying to help pick out discrepancies for his customers. All WAY above and beyond what could be expected from any employee.

I miss him, but I can thank him one last time for his help. This time he helped me recognize those things I put off in life, talking more to my Mom, forgiving my sister, playing with my kid. That previous time is worth more than all the money in the world.

 

Source: Dilbert Aligns His Goals

More important than anything else

When I started this blog, at least the original one back in 2000 whatever, it had very little to do with anything other than a place to digitally journal.  I’ve been well aware that I don’t write here as often as I do in my physical journal.  I’m equally well aware that I don’t have the most read blog, or that I don’t put much work into this.  I try to have a sense of humor about it.

Someone has entered my life who is much more important than this blog, and more important than almost anything else that has come before him.  My son has been born.  He’s a cute little guy.

A few weeks ago I had encountered the world of baby-centric tech, along with the predecessor pregnant-mom tech.  I thought these would be a good topic to research and learn more about.  I’ve realized that I’ll have plenty of opportunity to find out about this stuff on the way.  I’ve also realized how unimportant this is.

I’ve realized how unimportant my intentions for sorting my random collection (see messy stack) of maps for the revolutionary war battlegrounds are.  My fascination with FTPing files in the middle of the night is becoming far less important (except backups, always remember to backup!).  That random novel someone gave me months ago because I saw it on their shelf and they didn’t want it:  unimportant.

It’s not that my interests, or intentions for my career, or family have become less valid.  There simply are new priorities in my life.  I see most projects and tasks that weren’t really a priority before, losing ground very rapidly.

I am pursuing the same goals as I was before I had a kid, but I’ve gained a special insight into knowing when one of my projects is a complete waste of time, and when I should cut my losses.

What’s interesting is I feel this is going to give me a renewed joy and depth of interaction with the projects I do really enjoy, but don’t spend enough time on.  Like this blog.  Like calling my family, and long time friends.

Whatever projects I continue, or new goals I find for myself, they will all be viewed through a new daddy-sized lens.