Trajectory

The other day in devos they talked about trajectory and the idea of "what were you doing 10 years ago?"

First off, my brain says "Ten years ago? 1990? Still in high school." I have to really fight with it to get it to agree (and even then, it's begrudgingly) that ten years ago was not 1990.

I don't fear aging, I just don't like the idea of being this old. I don't like the idea of looking at the college students who watch our children and thinking that to them we look as old as we must look. Granted, by many stretches of the imagination, I am not really that old. But I'm not 22 anymore, either. When did that happen?

Anyhow, so 10 years ago for real.

Ok, so 10 years ago... newly married. No kids, living in our first apartment together, my third ever. Since then, another apartment, a purchased house and then another purchased house (both times with some financial assistance from my parents). Still driving the same car, still love it, people are surprised to find out it's as old as it is.

At the time, working Warner Bros. Could walk or bike to work, had an office with full-length windows. Had a team of six reporting to me and a few others with dotted lines. Making an unreasonably large salary, plus Lori was working. (Why did we not save more?)

Just starting to attend a really good church that was forcing me to realize some things about my spiritual life.

Ten years later... different state, two children. 15-20 more pounds. Another job with a company with a two digit acronym starting with W. A team one part-time person larger. A salary almost as large (but now our only income). A cube with windows (though they are off to one side, was hard to see when you were at the computer - I've sort of abandoned it, though, only go down there once every 1-2 weeks to see if anything's been left on my chair or if my voicemail light is lit, preferring to work upstairs in our "collaboration space" where there's no windows or assigned workspaces.) Church is ok. Between church and work and having children I've been really convicted to improve my spiritual life and I am growing, but sometimes it's hard to know if it's enough.

But yeah, this was not at all the trajectory I would have imagined. I'm not sure what I thought I would be doing, but I had hoped to eventually be working for Disney in any capacity whatsoever, be living in a good neighborhood in (unsure), California in a house with a more Arts & Crafts style and I'm not sure what else.

So, what does the trajectory look like from here? Ten years from now, not sure if we'll still be in this house. If we do, we'll hopefully have gutted the center of the middle floor to turn the kitchen and living room into a big great-room, a hub if you will. (Though where to put the half bath?) I'll have a 15-year-old, an 11-year-old and hopefully an 8- or 9-year-old. Hopefully be driving a different car by then, one that in today's dollars probably costs $35-$40k and it will be an electric car. If I'm driving a gasoline-powered car in 10 years, it'll be the Intrepid. I'm not buying another gas-powered car.

If retirement from one's professional career life is at 65, then at 35 I'm 30% there and at 45 I'll be 53% there. So my plan is to stay the course. When I committed to this job, I said I wouldn't be lazy, but I also wouldn't be overly ambitious or eager, that I would work hard, work smart and instead of fighting my way up the ladder, I'd wait for someone to extend a hand down to me and pull me up. And so far, that strategy has worked like gangbusters. However, on a more micro-level, some days it can be a serious struggle to remind myself "patience" - that there's no hurry. This is especially difficult when I see what I think are mistakes being made or poor choices or missed opportunities. I have to tell myself that those that are making the decisions have more experience, more knowledge, more insight than me. And so I need to be patient. In some cases, that bears out and I see something I had not expected, and in other cases, I will have been right, but it doesn't mean it's in stone and can't be adjusted later. So I need to remind myself that there are many times where I need to shut up, hunker down, follow orders, work hard and serve as asked. These are often the best times to listen, observe, learn, remember. Maybe because I'll gain insight, understanding and wisdom, and maybe because I'll need to remember it later to address it when I have the authority to do so. But in the meantime, build credibility and trust through working hard, learning everything I can about everything, being pleasant, courteous, and leveraging everything I've learned (good and bad) in my past careers as newspaper delivery boy, clerk in an office supply store, inbound phone order-taker, assistant manager of a college tv station, video store clerk, data entry for workers comp claims at an insurance company, lead developer for an internet startup, lead developer of web properties at a large church, manager of a team of internet advertising placement specialists for a Hollywood studio, copy editor for a college newspaper, graphic artist solely responsible for a daily advertising newsletter, pizza chain employee, all the stuff I'm doing now, not to mention that I feel like I'm leaving stuff out.

But 20 years ago? 20 years ago I would have said that in 10 years (10 years ago from now) I would be working for the Washington State Film commission in a position I created, driving my Jeep Grand Cherokee all over the state promoting filming in Washington, chauffeuring location scouts, helping to negotiate deals with local communities. And that the closest I'd get to Federal Way would be passing it on the 5 between my offices in Seattle and Olympia and my many trips to Sea-Tac.

But 20 years from 20 years ago (now) in that alternate reality, where would I be? Would I be bored? Would I be at war with British Columbia? Would I be spending more time in California while my staff worked deals here? Would I be bringing Oregon and Idaho into the mix?

Ah, well, road not taken and it's on me for not taking it.

And I'm good with that because I'm very happy with the trajectory I find myself on.

Thing That Need Not Be: IHOP To Go

Rolled into the IHOP parking lot this morning and thought "Wow! A parking space closest to the door! Right on!" (It's not right in front of the doors since the building was situated to look good from the street, even though it's not on the street and it's not a pedestrian friendly... well, none of the city is pedestrian friendly, but I digress...

It was then that I noticed the sign indicating that the space was reserved for "To Go Orders" Really, America? IHOP To Go?

First off, what is IHOP? IHOP is overpriced small portions of food that you can frankly make at home really easily.

Krusteaz Mix, Milk and an Egg. Eggs in a pan. Folgers. Peel off some bacon slices, defrost some hash browns and sausage. Turn every radio in your house to a different talk show, the boringer the better, and turn them all up really loud. See? The IHOP experience.

But seriously, you go to IHOP when you want to just hang out, eat breakfast and let someone else clean up the dishes but you don't want "Moons Over Mihammy" or a "Superbird." Mmmm... Superbird. That's what we did, we wanted to talk, to spend some time together as a family on a day when we didn't have a lot of other commitments or things to rush to, in a town that has exactly three options for non-Asian breakfasts.

To my knowledge, IHOP don't have any signature dishes (or at least none they strongly promote... Even "Come Hungry, Leave Happy" (their slogan) can be found in church bulletins and chess club flyers all over Google and could just as easily promote the minibar at a hotel or free sample Saturdays at Costco. As far the experience - it's nothing more than a homogenized chain of breakfast kitchens. Clean, safe, predictable, forgettable. Nothing wrong with that (except the forgettable part), I have a particular place in my heart for IHOP because my parents told me stories of some nice employees in one in Seattle when mom was pregnant with me, or I had just been born or something - I think there was one pretty close to their house that they went to pretty regularly. And the food is tasty, but it's nothing extremely special.

So what's the point of To Go? It's not as convenient as McDonald's where you don't even have to get out of your car, though I suppose McDonald's won't serve you a McGriddle after 10:30 am. And I've already covered how the food is stuff you can make at home pretty easily. The only reason for IHOP is it's a good place to sit around a table and talk, so what are you going to do, sit in your car and scarf down the pancakes in silence? Maybe you are after one of their few specialty items, like the 1200 calorie (2800g of sodium) New York Cheesecake Pancakes and you're so hard-driving that you can't stop to dine, I really hope you're on your way to your cardiologist's office.

Next phase, new wave, dance craze, anyways

9:15 am - Ack. Just spelled received wrong in an email. Spotted it in that split second after you press send and before it disappears off the screen. So tired today, do not know why. Felt like I slept well last night. But at least one eye is bloodshot and my eyes just feel really heavy, hurt a little even. Lots to do today. Wrote out a bunch of it on a whiteboard for clarity, but unfortunately the board blocks my view of the outdoors. Hiding inside my headphones listening to Pandora.

11 am - My red-tape story of the day... so I've been sitting up in our "collaborative spaces" on the third floor for many months now. It's a big open space with lots of tables, power cords and wires strung on the floor - nothing permanent, no cubes, etc. Areas with names like "Treehouse" and "The Library" and "Alcatraz." I still maintain an office on the second floor -- it's a really nice office -- big huge window, lots of counter space, but mostly I just visit it once every week or two to see if anyone's left anything on the chair or if the voicemail light is lit. I figured this would eventually catch up with me, so I put in a request yesterday with the Campus Services Service Desk (I emailed, I was too lazy to walk down to the Campus Services Service Desk desk) asking that my phone be moved. They replied back saying that was handled by the Helpdesk. They even copied the Helpdesk on the email and asked the Helpdesk to handle. This afternoon one of the guys on my team tells me that the Helpdesk called him after being unable to reach me by phone to say that it's in fact Campus Services Service Desk who handles phones. Apparently in the end, they did figure out it was them because I had an email asking me for my cube number in our collaboration space.

2 pm - The Day Porter saw me getting coffee and asked if I was now on this floor. I'll discount the fact that I've been on this floor for months and give her props for being able to remember which floor I (and I assume I'm not the only one she remembers) work on. This building alone has four floors and several hundred employees. Kudos to her for remembering little details like which floor us bees work on.

3:10 pm - Just spoke to someone in another office in the Oakland area with the most absolutely fabulous British accent, said things like "brilliant" and "darling" and "She's not here right now, I'm just her dreadful boss" and "Are you to do with the internet?" Memo to self: Find reasons to call this office.

5 pm - A successful day. A good day. A cleaning-type day. Desk is cleaned, Eight of the seventeen passwords I have here for work have been changed, the rest will have to wait for Monday. I'm leaving things in a good place. I'm behind in reports and documentation and administrivia, but nothing I have undone is keeping others from getting their work done. But not as cool a day as yesterday.

I Get Up and Nothing Gets Me Down

8:00 am - Even before I arrived I had an email from an irate coworker (not mad at me) who ended with "Excuse me whilst I throw a tantrum." Talk about a major juxtaposition there - can one who uses the word "whilst" actually throw a tantrum?

9:45 am - I just declined a meeting. While I had not officially said that I was going to say "Yes" to everything, I had been thinking about what it would be like after seeing that movie last weekend. Of course, Jim Carrey's character got asked a lot more interesting things than I'm likely to be asked.

9:50 am - Earlier today I thought I would just drink coffee all day today so that I could slow down time and move really fast, like in The Matrix. That was before I poured myself a cup of the office drip. I'm pretty sure today's contains no coffee, but instead gets its taste and flavor from strained and recycled sewage.

12:50 pm - Got a second cup of coffee before chapel. This one was made with coffee grounds and fresh water and tasted good. Now, however, I'm jumpy. If I weren't so lazy, I'd go dig trenches and put in a sprinkler system in the backyard. Except I'm still at work. Maybe I'm more like that character from Over the Hedge who drank coffee and then bounced all over. I just spent the last 45 minutes answering emails at my old desk on the second floor on my Blackberry while I ate. So now the Blackberry is dead and needs to be recharged so I'm going to go take a walk. Does my frenetic energy translate onto the page? Because my mind is moving way too fast. Time to go slow down with some music and my book and some walking.

1:45 pm - Good walk. Legs tired. Hard to climb the stairs to the office.

2:40 pm - Ugh. Just gave someone a phone number without the area code. How small town.

2:50 pm - A few weeks ago I talked about writing down words that mean something during an experience and then revisiting later to expand on them. I make these notes during the day in a text file. On some other date, I wrote down "mugs, spoons, pond scum" - no idea what that means now.

5:20 pm - I thought I was going to be out of here at 5. My family will be eating lunch in 10 minutes without me. Wrapping things up now. Had to say 'no' far more than I expected to today. I guess I need to teach people to ask different questions. Third cup of coffee was really good. Do they get better coffee on the third floor?

Name Calling

Not sure why, but I'm struck by the difference between "My name is" the metric translation "I am called" as a way of introducing oneself. I like "I am called," I think because it's different.

But when you really think about it, "I am called" is a slightly friendlier -- or a slightly inconclusive method.

For example:

My name is James (so don't even think of calling me something else!)
vs.
I am called James (and you should feel free to call me James).

Or...

His name is Peter (it says so on his birth certificate.)
vs.
He is called Peter (but who knows if that's really his name).

Fly Me To the Moon

8:15 am - Interesting podcast on the way in. The takeaway was "Don't be a victim of victory" and acting on a dream will mean lots of work.

8:30 am - My boss is getting a new Blackberry. His Q and W keys don't work, but to be fair, it is really old. When he pulls up the clock application, it just tells him to set the phone on end in a sunny spot and measure the location of the shadow. The J key is starting to wear out on mine (quelle surprise) and the screen is a little scratched, but I guess it'll have to do for awhile. His is probably closer in age to the Blackberry I had 10 years ago than to the one I have now.

8:45 am - What was my trajectory 10 years ago? Very interesting question. Of course, my mind thinks "1990" ten years ago and refuses to accept that 10 years ago is a year that starts with 2 and not 1. But that's an interesting question that could be a post all its own sometime.

5:10 pm - Today was a good day. Some good meetings and only one action item. I'm wondering (if my handwriting were improved or I stopped using graph paper) if I could just scan my notes into Evernote.

5:30 pm - Ok, now there are two phones cool enough to be on my wish list. Of course, one of them would still mean carrying a separate iPod.

Drop It Like It's Hot

8:30 am - This year, I'm going to learn to love the phone.  Heck, it might as well be another tool in my arsenal.  And if I want to say I want to be more conversational and mean it, the phone with co-workers is great practice.  The reason for any call will be narrow and defined, gives me opportunity to think on my feet and be clear in my communications.

12:35 pm - No matter how much you might hate cats, this is pretty cool because the cat is so tiny. Video:


12:36 pm - I've been struggling for some time now with "What do you want for your birthday?"  And I'm stuck.  I'm way behind on my reading, I have too much clutter, so I guess anything I want has to be practical and useful.   Which leaves, I guess, only two things... clothes, or a replacement for something I already have.  Clothes are easy and I do enjoy receiving them because people often have a better idea of what will look good on me than I will.  If you take me with you shopping for me (an experience a number of girls participated in), I'll shoot down a number of things until I get weary and then finally agree to buy stuff even if I still don't like it.  And then I'll get compliments later.  But if you go without me, then it's a nice surprise later.   Otherwise, it's replacement and it would be of something that I already use... I no longer wear a watch because I typically carry multiple devices that tell time... my bluetooth headset works great, my phone is ok, my ipod is ok, my car is fine, computer is ancient but replacing it would be too expensive to gift, so what's left?  It turns out that what I really want, still, is a new phone, a particular phone.  The unfortunate part is that it would be the gift that keeps on giving as it isn't the cheapest phone in the world, and it requires an additional monthly fee.  It would, however, allow me to consolidate my phone and iPod into one device.  On the other hand, I hear the call quality isn't that great.  And the minute I get one, a better one will come out.  I guess I should just recommend clothes.

1:42 pm - Tongue burning from the Campbell's Chunky Grilled Chicken and Sausage Gumbo.  Very spicy, very tasty.  Wish I had some crackers. (If this had been a tweet, it would rank up there with some of the lamest ones ever.)

4:20 pm - Well, not as brutal a day as I thought it would be.  Me and Scott Hart had laughed yesterday about taking this week off.  Memo to self for next year....

5:15 pm - Well, I had a tiny fragment of a song stuck in my head.  When I Googled the lyrics, it came back as a Snoop Dogg song I was sure I'd never heard.  Which means I have part of one of Weird Al's Polka medleys stuck in my head.  Yikes.   I actually am not quite sure which is worse.  Probably Snoop.