May 2002 Archives
Annual evaluation time is winding up here in my department, and I must say that all in all, the whole process feels a great deal like an extended month-long root canal. I spent hours and hours taking a template and picking and choosing the tasks that related ever-so-remotely to what I actually do, and then hours more evaluating my own work in each of those areas.
What a waste of time.
I mean, I understand that in a fairly big department like mine, it's important to have a paper trail, to justify rewards or punishments, and in a sense, doing a self-evaluation provides me an opportunity to tell my boss all the parts of my job that she might not have noticed. Our system, though, is far too tedious.
The whole dreadful ordeal finally came to an end yesterday, with my evaluation meeting with my boss. I was a bit concerned, not really knowing what to expect. I try to be fair in my own internal evaluations of my work, and I'd picked out some high and low points that I expected to be brought up. If constructive criticism surprises me, then I'm probably not paying enough attention. But sometimes, that happens, and it's always good to be prepared.
In the end, I shouldn't've worried. My boss had nothing but good things to say. She says she's thrilled to have me on the team. Her first reason for being thrilled was that I'm another female on this team that used to be nothing but males, but she said it wasn't because of that. She said that I immediately integrated myself into the team and that I spoke up at meetings and had good suggestions.
It made me wonder which meetings she'd been attending, because that's not my impression of my first few months on the team at all.
She even brought up the fact that at a recent meeting with a certain troublesome user who shall remain nameless, I spoke my mind and brought up points that he hadn't bothered to consider. I didn't tell her that there were things that I -wanted- to tell this particular user that she wouldn't have found as worthy of commendation.
The whole thing was very positive, and I was beyond relieved. I didn't expect a scathing condemnation, but I expected more points to work on. We actually had a nice conversation about what I feel would help me improve my own work. I mentioned that it's helpful for me at this stage of my development as a programmer to have as specific and detailed instructions as possible. I find it difficult to make the leap from point A to point B without a general roadmap to guide me on my way.
Today, I must say, I feel much more comfortable and secure in my position. It's funny what a compliment or two (or ten) can do for your attitude.
I took the tag-board off because it was apparently generating pop-up ads. On my site. THIS site, which I've paid money for and own, free and clear. *shudder* Oh, the horror.
I've repeated my team's rhetoric so long that it's starting to stick. I spent a half hour of work time today validating this weblog and the index page to the site as XHTML transitional. I'm slowly becoming a web geek.
...courtesy my kid sister.
From the ubiquitous "I have no timeline for that project yet" file:
We're considering bundling some sort of weblog interface into our system's functionality to draw people affiliated with the university into their password-driven personalized homepages. Students, faculty, and staff would log in to the system, then go to a service that would allow them to publish to a public server someplace.
It would require a merging of two different systems, and, as with any project at this stage of the game, there's not really any telling whether we'll actually be able to follow through with it anytime soon, but it's an idea that got a few of us excited.
I saw this headline on the news feed, and the sheer redundance of it made me snicker.
No, I haven't seen Episode II yet, Lloyd. I plan on seeing it -- eventually. I'd like to see it in the theater, because it will almost certainly be better on the big screen. I'm easily swept up into the hype. Harry Potter caught me; so did Spiderman. And, I mean, neither movie was perfect. Harry Potter, for all its hype, fell behind Lord of the Rings when it came to the awards, but it was still a really enjoyable movie. Spiderman had its moments of stupidity, but all in all, the thrill of the movie made up for it.
So it was a bit of defiance against my preppy, hype-swept-up inner-self that sent me to the theater this weekend to see a movie that wasn't Episode II Part of my rationale was that everybody else in the movie-going world would be out watching Attack of the Clones, so the theater would be empty for the new Hugh Grant movie.
Claudia and I went to the Alamo Drafthouse North to see it, and were surprised to see that the theater was almost completely full. Granted, the theater is smaller than the ones you'd find at Tinseltown or one of the huge multiplexes like that, but Hugh Grant is a bit like a dry wine, and a bit of dry wine makes it easier to watch him, too. At any rate, from the crowd, it looked as though there were other refugees from studio marketing hype.
And the verdict was that About a Boy was a nice enough movie -- in that heartwarming kind of way. It deals with topics like depression in a way that isn't seen terribly often in films, but it also pegs the depressed character in a sort of raving lunatic role. And she -is- a raving lunatic, in a sweet hippy sort of way, but maybe that shouldn't be coupled with depression in the way she's perceived.
Attack of the Clones? It'll have to wait until the theaters clear out a bit. Claudia and I are going to see Mr. Sinus Theater's version of that Britney Spears flick Crossroads next weekend.
The sky is grey outside. I can see it from over the cube walls to which I have been relegated. It's a strange perspective, grey walls bordering natural light that streams into the window, despite the grey skies outdoors. I can't see the ground from here, or the buildings that break through the contour of the hills, but I can see the grey clouds, diffused by miniblinds, like another color of paint on the walls.
It's very detached, which matches my mood for the day. I sort of planned to sleep in this morning and call in (or at least e-mail in) to tell them I was sick. I'm not totally sure why, but conscience won out -- that and a desire to use some new bath products I purchased recently. That's a strange reason to go to work.
Strange reason or not, though, here I am, having bathed in new products and put up my hair to get it out of my way. It's been hot and humid lately, the kind of weather that leaves my jeans sticking to my legs and my hair clinging to my neck. It's smothering -- it makes me want to crop it closely. I had a dream the other night that my hair had grown twice as long and twice as thick, and I kept getting tangled up in it, with sweat on the back of my neck.
And the week -- which is quickly drawing to a close -- I mean, really, there's not much I can complain about. My project is -finally- starting to show some progress, after a really long time of planning and stalling, and that's a good thing. I'm going to see Hedwig at the Zach Scott Theater tonight, which is a really great thing, and when it occurs to me what a great thing that is, I'm totally excited about it because I didn't even realize the play was being held over again until last week, and it turns out that the main actor guy played the role in New York for a long time, and I love the play, but regardless, I'm still sort of...
blah.
And tomorrow, at some point, I'm going to Corpus Christi to spend some time with the family for Mother's Day. And I like going to Corpus Christi, and I'm looking forward to seeing my mom, my grandmother, my aunts, the cats, the water, and all the other things I have to look forward to there, but I still can't shake this feeling of...
blah.
And it bothers me that I'm between passions at the moment, and that I can't think of anything interesting to talk about with people, and that I have to move in a month and a half, and that I'm the world's second-worst housekeeper, which means that moving is always excrutiating.
And it's all fast-approaching, and sometimes, I'd like to make the world stop so I can get off, because it really spins too fast. And if not that, then maybe it could slow down some, so that I can take a long nap and kick up my feet a bit, and maybe sit under a big shady oak tree with a big glass of lemonade, or at least do some photography, because I miss that.
Sometimes, I'm just that way.
It isn't so much that I have nothing to say as it is that I don't know where to begin. This is pretty typical for me -- it happens once in a while. No worries.
Claudia and I are going out for sushi on Saturday with Catherine and Leslita. I'm looking forward to it -- it's always nice to have weekend plans.
More later, when I decide where to begin.
