S-M-R-T

I would like a reduction in the "Stuff I Need To Know For Work" category.

 

 

My God...I know a lot of stuff...

 

 

Would any of the stuff I know be useful to you or I if, say, we were stranded on the roadside with a broken-down car?  Or caught in a rainstorm?  Or a zombie attack?  Or been wounded in a knife fight?

 

No, not a bit of it.  It's almost entirely pissy, unimportant crap.  Crap like "average market costs" and "peer decile ranking".  Woo.  Is it any wonder that at the end of the day, I'm gung-ho to stupify?

 

While you do have to be a smarty-pants to do this, I have found that an attitude is more helpful than a degree, especially because most of the people I work for are at least 2 college degrees ahead of me.  When someone with WAAAAY more formal education than I have uses their degree as a shield against reason, in order to be successful, I have to be more stubborn and tougher than they are.  I have to be a bulldog who still uses big words.

 

It's exhausting.

 

What one discovers when speaking almost exclusively to people with WAAAAAY more formal education than you have is that, among other things, smarter doesn't make you nicer, and, also doesn't make you competent. 

 

No surprise there, eh?

 

But it does make you THINK that you are nice, and more competent.

 

As such, it becomes doubly exhausting to have to be smart and tough and stand toe to toe with people who are smart while also being stupid--stupid enough to think that their smart outweighs their stupid, even though it doesn't.

 

 

Beer me.

 

 

 

Anyway....here are some random observations based on my work lately.  Sort of a Random Wednesday, Work Edition

• I have never spoken to, assisted or worked with any bonafide jerks name Jose.  I've dealt with total bitches named Sherry, assholes named Robert, complete pricks named Jeffrey, thoughtless bitty's name Gretchen.....I've dealt with awful people of every name, but one.  Everyone I've ever met named Jose?  Completely nice, without exception.  I just noticed that on Friday.  Weird, right?
• By the way?  Jose says I deserve a raise.  He's nice like that.  And he's also smart, so, you should listen to him.
• The walls in front of my face (right behind the computer monitor) are papered with important data with names like "Confidence Interval Range"  I don't look at them nearly as much as I thought I might, which is an indication that I'm keeping far too much math in my head.  I tell my children that the only advanced math I ever use is converting knitting patterns, and that is true in my life's application; however, I can now rattle off enough math-sounding bullshit to make my high school algebra teacher want to nudge his colleagues and say, "You see that?  I did that!"
• How many databases do YOU look at every day?  Me?  At least a dozen.  Spreadsheets?  Another couple dozen.  How about some useless data?  How about some gossip?  Some crap-talk?  How about, "Person X behaves/spends money/performs a task the same way 99.83% of the time per our data, BUT I also heard that even though he is a great guy (per our data) that he dinged his car backing out of a parking space, his wife is having an affair, and his only son is failing Geography"  See?  Much more fun.
• I think I'm still waiting for the part where the days go faster when you're busier.  Has anyone seen my Time Acceleration Device?  If only my desk were a Tardis.
• Wait a minute....if my desk were a Tardis, I could jump back in time and fix all of the stupid problems that we're solving now, before they occur!  Then I could take vacation days instead of wondering what how Person X is behaving, per our data.  I will present this idea to the higher ups, and hope that one of them is named Jose...