Category: Work
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Soul Training
I’m two weeks into an eight-week residency in ‘beautiful’ Port Allen, Louisiana. For those not up to speed on their American cities and states, Port Allen is on the other side of the Mississippi from ‘beautiful’ Baton Rouge (and about an hour up the coast from New Orleans – you’ve heard of that, right?). Both Baton Rouge and Port Allen pretty much exist only for the petroleum industry (hence my being here), and both sides of the river are chock full of refineries, tank farms, and barge moorings. Both cities tend to prepend ‘beautiful’ to any mention of their names… Read more
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Corporate America is taking the piss
As a contractor, I’ve been fortunate to work for the same client for some 16 years. Admittedly this has actually been for six different legal entities, and via four different agencies / consulting companies, but always for the same corporation. During those years, I like to think that I’ve built up a good reputation as a solid, reliable worker. So I was somewhat miffed recently to find out that I was now – after 16 years – to be subject to a full background check and drug test. It turns out that this is an annual check, and was brought in as part… Read more
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Card Sharp
Earlier this year I managed to commit all sorts of social and business faux pas by going over to Japan without a stack of business cards. Over there, everyone you meet – from business people to the concierge at the hotel – hands you their business card and expects the same in return. I was blithely unaware of this and subsequently appeared even ruder and more antisocial than usual through my perceived unwillingness to be contacted. I’m due back in Japan in December, and this time I’m determined to be prepared. I do actually have several business cards (one for… Read more
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My Life In The Underclass
After 18 months of development, my current project is finally being implemented at the first of ten scheduled sites. This being a Warehouse Management project, the site is – obviously – a warehouse. Which means that most of our users are forklift drivers, plus a handful of ‘office-based’ supervisors, and a few gatekeepers. My training team (three including myself) has been here conducting training for the past month, and this week the developers arrived in force, deposing us from our training room, and generally riding roughshod over everything we’ve had organized since we got here. Despite having managed to navigate our way around the… Read more