Wednesday, April 23, 2003
Getting organized
1) Do a piece of onerous paperwork every day.
2) Spend a half hour organizing the day, try to plan the next...
3) knock out some of the backlogged tasks...
4) Exercise
5) Feel better
OK, here's one piece of onerous paperwork. UnumProvident wants me to fill out a form of my education and employment history to find out what I can do whenever I get well. It was due a week ago. I was too ill to handle it a week ago. Without it I don't qualify for my benefits. Without it I can't pay the mortgage. They want a summary of every job I've held since High School. That's going to take some time. There's also a skills sheet I need to fill out - in the case that I can qualify for other sorts of work whenever I'm partially recovered. Some of the questions are insulting in their triviality. The form itself is badly designed, without enough room to write anything. It would be trivial - maybe a couple days of my effort, in my prime, to transport it to the web with a format that was useful...
6) Harness rage so tasks 1-5 become easier. Blog.
Last week I saw the movie "Catch-22". A certain conversation keeps replaying in my head.
| Yossarian | Ground me doc, I don't want to fly anymore. |
| Doc | I can't ground you unless you're crazy. |
| Yossarian | I'm crazy, doc. |
| Doc | I agree. But I still can't ground you. |
| Yossarian | Why, for god's sake? |
| Doc | Catch-22 |
| Yossarian | Catch-22? |
| Doc | Catch-22 says that you can't fly if you are crazy, but you have to ask to be grounded. If you ask to be grounded, you're not crazy and you have to keep flying. |
| Yossarian | What about all the other pilots, aren't they crazy? |
| Doc | Absolutely. They should all be grounded. But they have to come to me and ask to be grounded, and if they come and ask to be grounded I can't ground them, because of... |
| Yossarian | Catch-22 |
| Doc | Absolutely. |
| Yossarian | That's some catch, Doc. |
| Doc | It's the best there is. |
On to this filling out this !@#@! form: The joy of writing this is that I'm submitting the dry, dull, stupid, useless thing on paper, done correctly, in my lousy handwriting because that's how the drones that control my destiny want it and I have just got to get a stamp and mail it off before I'm tempted to scribble all over the thing with red and yellow and green crayon.
| SKILL | Advanced | Intermediate | Beginner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Keyboarding/Typing WPM: 80 | X | ||
| Word Processing: List Below | |||
| Openoffice, emacs, Wordstar | X | ||
| Word, Wordperfect, Applix,vi | X | ||
| Lotus Manuscript | X | ||
| Spreadsheets: List Below | |||
| Excell, OpenOffice | X | ||
| Applix, 123,Supercalc | X | ||
| Multiplan | X | ||
| Databases: List Below | |||
| Oracle, Postgres, Interbase | X | ||
| Mysql, Dbase, others | X | ||
| Other software applications: List Below | |||
| !ls /usr/bin /usr/sbin /usr/local/bin | X | ||
| Web Design | X | ||
| Programming Languages | |||
| C, Perl, Shell | X | ||
| C++, Basic, Lisp | X | ||
| Java, Python, Logo, 6502, 8080, 386, arm assembly... | X | ||
| Public Speaking | X | ||
| Performing/Entertaining | X | ||
| Persuading/Motivating People | |||
| Child Care | |||
| Electronic Repair | X | ||
| Electrical Repair | |||
| Soldering | |||
| Bonding | |||
| Home Repair Electrical | X | ||
| Home Repair Structural | |||
| Home Remodeling | X | ||
| Mechanical Repair | X | ||
| 10 Key Calculator | X - as obsolete as supercalc | ||
| Planning Recreational outings | X | ||
| Foreign Languages: List Below | |||
| Marketese | X | ||
| Corpspeak | X | ||
| Creative crafts/arts: List Below | |||
| I write an internet column | X | ||
| more unfinished projects than I care to think about | X | ||
| Licenses | |||
| Poetic | X |
I keep flashing on Yossarian fleeing the hospital, inflating a dingy, jumping in the water, and paddling madly for sweden, 3000 miles away.
I rooted for his escape in the movie - and at the same time deeply felt the hopelessness and insanity in what he was trying to do. What I'm trying to do.
Orr made it out. Don Quixote made it out. Maybe Yossarian made it, too. There wasn't, after all, a sequel to that book..... ¶ 10:29 AM
