I Don't Miss Working
Nov. 3rd, 2025 08:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fauxkloreIn the course of some living room archaeology, I found what I hope was the last of a bunch of notebooks I’d used during my working years and shredded all of the pages of it. But I did want to make a note of a few things from it. (Last in terms of finding it, not last chronologically, by the way.)
First, there is this picture. It captures a couple of types of my usual doodles. I never understood how people could sit in a meeting and not have a writing implement in constant motion. I did sometimes take copious notes, but there were plenty of margins - and, sometimes, complete pages - filled with either branching lines or what amount to glorified stick figures. My other common doodles involved elaborate interlocking boxes.
I also captured a few quotes:
"We are out of money, so now we must think." - Winston Churchill
I won’t identify the sources for these three, because the names won’t mean anything to you and might embarrass the people involved.
"You’re in the business of creating lies we believe."
"When you talk money, I’m awake."
"I would say I’m a theoretician, but really I’m just inept."
The last one is right up there with the most self-aware thing I ever heard anyone say. To wit, "I know I’m right, but nobody will listen to me because I’m a jerk."
Finally, my boss used to ask me to cover his boss’s staff meetings sometimes. This was over the phone since those meetings were in Los Angeles, while I was in the D.C. area. People were not always good about identifying themselves and I didn’t recognize all of the voices. Which led to my writing notes that say things like "an unknown Asian woman said something went well over the weekend." Somehow, I doubt that my boss found that particularly useful information.
Oh, yes, I love being retired.
First, there is this picture. It captures a couple of types of my usual doodles. I never understood how people could sit in a meeting and not have a writing implement in constant motion. I did sometimes take copious notes, but there were plenty of margins - and, sometimes, complete pages - filled with either branching lines or what amount to glorified stick figures. My other common doodles involved elaborate interlocking boxes.
I also captured a few quotes:
"We are out of money, so now we must think." - Winston Churchill
I won’t identify the sources for these three, because the names won’t mean anything to you and might embarrass the people involved.
"You’re in the business of creating lies we believe."
"When you talk money, I’m awake."
"I would say I’m a theoretician, but really I’m just inept."
The last one is right up there with the most self-aware thing I ever heard anyone say. To wit, "I know I’m right, but nobody will listen to me because I’m a jerk."
Finally, my boss used to ask me to cover his boss’s staff meetings sometimes. This was over the phone since those meetings were in Los Angeles, while I was in the D.C. area. People were not always good about identifying themselves and I didn’t recognize all of the voices. Which led to my writing notes that say things like "an unknown Asian woman said something went well over the weekend." Somehow, I doubt that my boss found that particularly useful information.
Oh, yes, I love being retired.
