The note above is based on John Oliver’s encouraging note to himself. Unfortunately, I cannot share the video here so go to YouTube and watch the John Oliver’s story during the April 12, 2015 broadcast of Last Week Tonight about the upcoming general elections in the UK and Labour Party candidate Ed Miliband’s crib notes found after a debate with Prime Minister David Cameron. It is a piece of brilliance. I just may frame it and put it on my desk. Don’t let them see your sadness!
I work on a floor in my building with roughly 100 to 125 people of which a good seventy-five percent are men. There seems to be a large proportion of that male population that has an aversion to urinals and instead prefers to do their business in the stalls. More specifically, on the toilet seats that reside in the stalls. I’m not sure if it’s passive aggression or just a bunch of clueless male engineers. Either way, I am now visiting other floors to surf on my phone. Their Delta Tau Chi name is ‘asshat’.
(language alert!) A few weeks ago, I read a great article by Mark Manson called, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. The gist of the article is to carefully consider whether an asshat or asshat-situation deserve one of your very valuable fucks. Don’t hand out fucks like they are candy. It is much calmer way of thinking and living your life. Now, when some asshat or asshat situation is about to make my blood pressure leak out of my ears, I look them right in the eye and tell them that they do not deserve one of my fucks. In my head, I say this. It’s very freeing and I highly recommend it.
Peter Cook in a post on LinkedIn said, “Leadership is not about stopping things happening and pointless administration.” Same can be said about a process. Good ones keep things moving while making sure the right people are involved and informed. Bad ones, things stop and the pointless paperwork drill begins. Try not to step in the process. It’s a bitch to clean off of your shoes.
I was on a conference call the other day and heard a conversation about the preliminary approval of something and the not quite preliminary approval due to concerns and the push for a final approval. I’m sorry, what? Either it’s approved or it ain’t. I was a little dizzy after that conversation.
Stephan Pastis, creator of Pearls Before Swine, had the cartoon world’s equivalent of a Yeti encounter. What’s the highest level of cool?
I watched the end of Bull Durham tonight. In the scene where Annie wakes up to find Crash has left for Asheville, she says a line in the voice-over narration, “The world is made for people who aren’t cursed with self awareness.” Hat tip to the Mrs. for then reminding me of this Gourdo from five years ago. It’s still true, by the way.
I drew this at 6:30 pm on a Friday with a big mug of coffee sitting by my drawing pad. It’s never too late.
I try to keep my PowerPoint slides simple. A few words. Maybe a nice graphic to help get the point across. Sometimes, though, there are those slides that feel like they could bring an indictment for murder. Or at least reckless endangerment.
A recent presentations started out very homicidal. It was ugly. The group pulled together to make improvements by the deadline but it still never was that great. It wasn’t death by PowerPoint but close. It was really uncomfortable-and-miserable-feeling by PowerPoint.
