Wednesday, February 05, 2003
It's Beyond My Control
Today just feels askew. I noticed that my neatly trimmed moustache, is in fact, uneven, to the tune of about a third of an inch. Kristin told me the other day she doesn't like it, that it makes me look like an insurance agent. Recently, I've been looking at it in much the same way. I don't look like Freddy Mercury - I look like a used car salesman.
A quick poll at work (i.e. the closest two offices to mine) seems to bear out the consensus. Thus the Great Experiment ends. Time to shave it all off and begin a beard again.
What else is askew? The work environment in general. The next office newsletter focuses on student assistants, so there was a flurry of photo taking to include in the newsletter. Some assistants were not happy about me taking their photos...so I quietly 'lost' those photos when sending to the editor. Today those student's supervisors asked me to come back and take the photos again, to the assistant's (and mine) chagrin. So much for trying to solve things covertly.
Though sometimes being covert can go to far. I identified a problem the other day in an area that I have indirect access to and wanted to bring it to the attention of the Department head. In order to do so, I had to go through a step process email that allowed a supervisor to mention the problem so as to make it appear that I had not directly had access to the problem. Although this might be done to shield me from questions regarding the problem, as I am responsible for maintaining the apparatus that identified the problem, should I not be allowed to present a problem when it occurs rather than going through convoluted channels. Someone once said the office environment is rather like the French Court. I guess it's beyond my control.
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