Tag Archives: Job Satisfaction

Hibernating and Updating a Kitchen

Posted on August 7, 2011 | Leave a comment

After months of preparing to sell a house and frantically selling and moving out of said house I’ve shifted into a completely different mode for the time being. For the last two weeks we’ve been living in a fully furnished 2 bedroom condo right on a golf course in Sunset Beach. Have I played golf? No. Have I gone to the beach, just a couple of miles away? No. What have I done? Right now I am partial to 3 hour naps. Heh. The cats LOVE hanging out with me. We’re in a holding pattern, there isn’t much to do and I’m conserving my energy for the next round of craziness. I haven’t even had the energy to do much reading which is very unusual for me. I suspect that the next two weeks we’re here will be more of the same before we move into our home.

We’ve been renting our beach house during the summer for the past 7 years. At the end of every rental season we tear the place apart. We steam clean the carpets and furniture, we wash out every cabinet and everything in the cabinets goes through a sanitize cycle in the dishwasher, we wash all of the comforters, pillows, and mattress pads, we power wash the exterior decking, furniture and clean the windows. Even with all of that maintenance there are things that just *need* to be replaced in order to make this house a home. We’re in the early planning stages right now… and lately the focus has been on the kitchen.

Here’s a picture of the kitchen as it exists today:

In general it’s a decent, functional kitchen. It has custom made solid maple cabinets and a tile floor, but the appliances are pretty low end. We upgraded the countertops to granite a few years ago after the renters burned the formica. When we did that, my husband and I installed the tile backsplash as well. That was a fun project.

This round of improvements will replace the dishwasher that is incredibly loud and is starting to make a strange death rattle at the end of its cycle. I had a Bosch in Raleigh and it was the best dishwasher I have ever owned. It uses a fraction of the water and electricity of a standard dishwasher and it is so quiet that sometimes you don’t even realize it is on. Yep, I am getting another one of those – cost be damned.

I also fancy myself somewhat of a good cook and I do my best work on a gas range. The electric burners are hard to work with. They don’t provide instantaneous adjustments, and they don’t have the heat output to boil water quickly or sear well. In Raleigh I had a 36″ FiveStar commercial range with a gas oven and open burners. It wasn’t self cleaning and the open burners were a bitch to clean and to light… but oh did it cook! I had planned on downgrading somewhat at the beach. Part of the reason is that I’ve only got 30″ to work with – a standard size range. The other reason is the cost of a commercial quality range. Well, so much for that nice thought. This week I ordered a 30″ FiveStar dual fuel convection range. This time I’ve upgraded to sealed gas burners and an electric convection oven. The microwave will also be upgraded to a stainless steel hood. I am so excited!

Yes, there was some rationale behind this decision. My last FiveStar was 14 years old and it was going to last for another 30 years. Quality. Period. The main reason behind this shift from a cheaper product is the fact that with my new diet cooking is an integral part of my life now. I gain a great deal of satisfaction from preparing most everything from scratch from fresh ingredients. This range is a tool that will provide me a lot of benefit and a lot of joy. It’s also a boatload cheaper than a Thermador or a Viking and it has very similar capabilities. It has a lot more burner output than a Kitchenaid, LG, Bosch and GE that I looked at – though it costs a bit more than those. C’est la vie. I don’t usually buy things to make me happy, but I buy things that I know are good quality and that will last as long as I need them to.

For now, the refrigerator will have to wait. I left a nice stainless steel counter depth fridge in Raleigh. I learned I don’t like side by sides in general and I don’t like GE appliances, specifically how they are laid out. When this fridge starts to act up I’ll get a nice french door model. Unfortunately we’ll probably need a crane to deliver it to the house… another reason to wait. Yes, a crane. The small model we have now barely made it up the staircase and our home has a reverse floor plan and it is on stilts. That means the kitchen is on the equivalent of the 3rd floor. Delivery men hate us. :-)

For now I sit and wait and plan. There are going to be a lot of before and after pictures coming over the next few months as we reconfigure the house from a “rental” layout to a “home”. I can’t wait to see how it turns out.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Health and Fitness, Personal, Technology

Tagged , ,

Spring Is In The Air – Or Is That Just The Smell Of Two-Stroke?

Posted on March 19, 2010 | Leave a comment

Well, the weather has taken a turn for the better around here. It’s been warm, it’s been sunny, and the trees are dropping pollen like nobody’s business. I’ve enjoyed playing hooky in the yard for the better part of the last two weeks. After a long, unseasonably cold and dark winter there is nothing like being able to do some Spring cleaning in my garden. I’m not much for New Year’s resolutions, but when it comes to Spring-time I’m all about getting things ship-shape in my house, my personal life, and at work. Things to put on the todo list:

  1. Blow out the cobwebs – In the garden this means cranking up the gas backpack blower and removing the remaining leaves out from the shrubs (hence the smell of two-stroke). In my personal life it means kicking up my exercise program a notch and getting outside for long walks and runs when the weather is good. At work it typically means clearing out my desk of old projects and responsibilities that are hanging around.
  2. Get my hands dirty – In the garden I’ll be pulling the netting off the pond and clearing out the dead plants and other winter debris. In my personal life I’ll be looking at all the little things I’ve been procrastinating about over the winter. At work it means that it is time to pick up a new skill or hone an existing one.
  3. Use my imagination – In the garden it’s time for planting the early vegetables and for rearranging the landscape. In my personal life it’s time to plan my next vacation. At work, it’s time to brainstorm new project ideas.

What does Spring make you want to do?

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Personal, Tactical

Tagged , , ,

What’s Really Important – Doing Good

Posted on December 23, 2009 | Leave a comment

This time of year makes point #2 in my post on What is Really Important more poignant. At the end of the year we all reflect on what we did over the past year and how we can do better over the next. For many of us, that focuses not only on our diets and exercise programs, but on how we can be a better person overall. How can we leave this planet as a better place than it was when we got here?

When I was younger my teacher once asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up. Over the years there were a lot of different answers, but this one I distinctly remember. I told her that I wanted to have enough money to build a community where people who weren’t as fortune could live and get educated so that they could break the cycle of poverty. I haven’t done that – it takes far more money than I will ever have. I know there are many issues with that plan, but I think that it speaks to my ideal of “doing good”. Who wouldn’t want to do good daily in their job?

I don’t think that I could live with being the person who created the atomic bomb – no matter how amazing that discovery was. I’d rather be the person that made nursing homes just a little safer for seniors, or maybe someone who found a way to make green technology really affordable on a mass produced scale. What would be better than saving the planet one kilowatt at a time?

I don’t need to be famous in the good I do, I just want it to matter to someone even if it is in the littlest way. I believe that if enough people are doing good it provides a mechanism for all of the little things overcome the bad. I expect the best from strangers and treat them with kindness (still working on occasional bouts of road rage, but hey, I’m only human!). I’ve recycled since I was a child – before it was fashionable. I’ve carried reusable shopping bags for more than 10 years – who needs plastic. I buy produce, meats, cheeses, and bread from local farmers and bakers. I never buy pets, I always adopt from no kill shelters. If you come to my house in the winter – better bring a sweater… In the summer prepare for a heatwave. I do these things in my personal life, and I want to do them in my professional life as well.

I’m still searching for my next opportunity and I prefer it to be a “good” one.

Don’t you?

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Personal

Tagged , ,

What is Really Important?

Posted on December 3, 2009 | 4 Comments

Lately I’ve been reflecting about what is most important to me about work. If I were to run my own company what would I focus on? Here’s my top 10 list, in no particular order.

  1. Transparency – I think by now you all know how I feel about this one. Companies are much better off when leaders share more than rather than less.
  2. Doing Good – I want to make a difference, don’t you? If I had my druthers I would work on technology that improves the quality of life. This might be a medical advance, an alternative energy play, or even something like software that makes managing IT infrastructure easier and reduces manual labor. There are many ways to look at this.
  3. Learning – If I am not learning something new, I am not growing. Earlier in my career I read tech books and volunteered for new projects. These days I read management books, and I like to learn from people I work with. Leading teams working on new technology is also fun for me. Read about my learnings in this post.
  4. Smart People – What I really mean is working with people that are smarter than I am. I like to identify people to hire that are wicked smart – and motivated. Delegating is easy with folks like this! I also learn a lot more too.
  5. Collaboration – I enjoy working in a culture where people collaborate rather than compete. It is no fun if work turns into a proposition where if one person wins the other loses. I’d rather have everyone succeed together.
  6. Respect – Everyone, and I mean everyone on the team deserves respect. One of the best ways to demonstrate it is to really listen to what people are saying. You’ll learn a lot about their opinions and what really motivates them. It’s the best way to understand what is important to each member of the team. Some of my thoughts on respect.
  7. Diversity – For me this isn’t just a buzzword. The best team that I’ve ever led had geographic, ethnic, gender, and perspective diversity. Folks didn’t always agree – but that’s what made the team so powerful.How diversity can help you.
  8. Balance – Work is important, but there are other things in life besides work. I’ve done the 100 hour weeks and I can tell you that it really leaves nothing for your personal life. I’m willing to work hard, but I always make sure to take some time for myself too.
  9. Fun – If a work environment isn’t fun the days drag on forever. A sense of fun and play helps foster camaraderie in the team.
  10. Trust – This cuts both ways. Management needs to trust their team to do their jobs to the best of their ability without micromanaging. This includes the flexibility to work how, when, and wherever the person is most effective. In return, the team needs to trust that management is going to steer the company in a fiscally prudent manner and make appropriate strategic decisions.

→ 4 Comments

Posted in Corporate Strategy, Personal

Tagged , , , , , ,

Pride in my Work

Posted on September 15, 2009 | Leave a comment

My endless painting saga continues. I guess that is no surprise. As long as I have rooms in my house that haven’t been repainted and I haven’t found the right new work environment, I will continue to update the way my home appears. As I have mentioned before, doing physical labor helps take my mind off of the all consuming job search and it makes me feel like I am accomplishing something useful.

I’m doing all this painting for a few reasons. First, my house is over 10 years old now, and some of the rooms (and all of the ceilings) have not been painted since we moved in. Clearly it is time. After a while walls get dings, dents, and scuff marks and ceilings tend to look a little dingy. In my case the tallest ceilings are also having issues with the sheet rock tape coming loose at the angle joints. Talk about a nightmare. My sheet rockers and painters weren’t the best I’m afraid and I have been repairing their work every time I paint a room. Second, as my job search continues the likelihood of me having to move my family grows. A clean and freshly painted house sells better, pure and simple. I try not to think about the second reason, but it is there, lurking in the back of my mind. This economy might force me to sell my dream home and relocate for a new position.

I don’t know about you – but I never knew the right way to fix loose sheet rock tape before. You’d think that you could just slap on a bunch of spackle and it will stick back down. It doesn’t. I thought maybe I needed more spackle. Well, that made for a lumpy looking ceiling joint, but at 14′ off the ground, it wasn’t *that* noticeable. I sanded and painted it, and figured that I would get to painting the walls today. No dice. While I was up on my ladder taping the ceiling to wall joint (makes for a really clean straight paint edge) I noticed that my patch job wasn’t looking all that professional. It was already starting to crack a bit. I’m sure that it would have held up for a couple of months – or longer. I just didn’t like it, I didn’t feel like I had done my best. I surely wasn’t proud of the job, more embarrassed I would say.

In the meantime I figured out the right way to fix ceiling joint tape. You cut it out and replace the entire section that is coming loose. Between the fact that I didn’t like the way it came out, and the knowledge that I had done it WRONG in the first place it really began to eat at me. I kept hearing that little voice in my head – “You did a crummy job. You really need to do it right. So what if nobody will notice it besides you – you notice that it looks bad.” I have a hard time shutting up that voice. Most times I can’t. I always feel the need to do the best possible job that I can. I guess I need a caveat here – there are times when I don’t have the resources (money, time, expertise) to do the best. I still strive to do the best I can based on the circumstances. Even with that caveat I sometimes am not happy with myself. There are different levels of best – unlimited time and money sometimes can bring a much higher level of “best”. In this case, I had the time. I had the tools (power sanders etc). Joint tape and spackle is dirt cheap (<$10). I had leftover ceiling paint for touch up too. After some learning I now had the expertise. Clearly it was time to tear up my work and start over again. Ouch.

It's had to tear up my own work. I know how hard it was to do in the first place. Even though I wasn't happy with it, I still didn't want to start all over. I thought I was all done with that ceiling. Besides, I had never done this correctly before. What if I screwed it up even more? I just had to jump right in and start yanking up joint tape. So I did. Once I got started, it really wasn't that hard. The worst part was holding an orbital sander high above my head standing on the top of a 10' ladder. Sanding wasn't too bad, it was all the junk that floated down and managed to get under my safety glasses that bothered me.

So now, I wait. The new tape is up and spackled. I'll need to sand it tomorrow to see how it looks. Right now it already looks better than my last attempt. I'm feeling pretty good. I did the right thing.

Reflecting on my work life, I've torn things up and redone them more than once. It's part of who I am. I've rewritten large software subsystems that were showing their age. I've tossed entire designs when an ah-ha moment has hit me. If I am presented with the right opportunity that gives me the time and resources to improve on my work, I will seize it. Sometimes I have had to bide my time. Sometimes I have been very fortunate and have been able to take care of a problem in short order. I've been known to keep lists of things that I am planning on addressing in the future. What can I say, my work is a reflection of who I am. I want my work to be something that I can be proud of.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Personal

Tagged , ,

When Coping Mechanisms Aren’t Enough

Posted on June 25, 2009 | Leave a comment

Bear with me. This isn’t one of my usual posts today. It’s written in memory of someone that I wish I would have been able to get to know better. If he would have had someone close to him who had access to this information, he might still be with us today. Bye Reggie – I’ll miss you.

This subject is really serious, and it is really uncomfortable. In today’s economy there are a lot of people that are feeling completely hopeless for a lot of different reasons. Their jobs are stressing them out completely, they are at the end of their rope financially (and possibly at the end of their bank account and credit), many people have lost their jobs. There is a huge amount of suffering going around and some people just do not have the coping mechanisms to deal with the amount of pain that they are in. For some of those people, the only solution they can come up with is suicide. The leading cause of suicide is untreated depression. In these times, depression is a lot more common. This article talks about how work, depression, and suicide can be related.

“A 2005 UK study of 250,000 employees found people with low job satisfaction were most likely to experience emotional burnout, have reduced self-esteem and suffer from anxiety and depression. Even a modest drop in job satisfaction could lead to burnout of “considerable clinical importance”, the report said, adding: “The relationships are particularly impressive for aspects of mental health, specifically burnout, lowered self-esteem, anxiety, and depression, where it can now be confirmed that dissatisfaction at work can be hazardous to an employee’s mental health and wellbeing.” (5)

A 2007 study (6) of almost 1,000 32-year-olds found 45 per cent of new cases of depression and anxiety were attributable to stressful work. The researchers defined a highly demanding job as involving a lack of control, long hours, non-negotiable deadlines and a high volume of work (Hazards 100).

Overall 10 per cent of men and 14 per cent of women in the study suffered a first episode of depression or anxiety over the year-long study. But the risk was double in those with the highest pressure jobs, according to the paper published in the August 2007 issue of Psychological Medicine.”

Here is a resource for depression signs.

There are a lot of things that you can do when you recognize that your friend or coworker is having suicidal thoughts. When people bring this up – it is a cry for help. People who really are contemplating taking their own lives will talk about it first.

Here and here are some resource to help you talk to someone who is feeling like they can’t go on.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Personal

Tagged ,

Playing With Electricity

Posted on June 19, 2009 | Leave a comment

This morning I spent a few hours rewiring a bunch of outlets and switches in a room that I had just painted. When we built the house, we put in the ivory outlets… well, they have gone totally out of style so I’ve been working my way around the house replacing them all with white ones as I paint the rooms. I can’t explain why – but after you build a house or two you start to notice the little things that are off. For me this is one of those things. To do them myself only costs about a dollar an outlet. Not a lot of money for a bit of satisfaction.

Electricity is one of those things that a lot of people just won’t mess with. Don’t get me wrong – I have a healthy respect for it, but I’ve always lived in a house where doing wiring wasn’t something out of the ordinary. I think my dad taught me how to replace my first light switch when I was about 12. When I was even younger he used to let me play with batteries, pieces of scrap wires, switches, small motors, and low voltage light bulbs. I had a lot of fun, and I sure learned a lot about wiring circuits. Little things like wrap the wire around the screw in the direction the screw tightens so that when you tighten the screw the wire tightens down too. My dad never had a son, and he surely didn’t differentiate in how he treated me as a little girl. That’s something I have to thank him for. I helped him build out a playroom in the basement, I went on long hikes and sat in blinds looking for wildlife, I forgot more about SLR cameras and photography by the time I was 15 than most people ever know, and I was the kid who ran out into the yard to hold the snake in my PJs. Don’t even get me started about the deer mice I kept in an aquarium in my room – thank goodness we didn’t think about the hanta virus back then.

When I got a little older I remember a boyfriend getting pretty upset with me when I rewired the plug on a vacuum cleaner. I think he thought that women shouldn’t do such things. He didn’t last too long – go figure. I ended up marrying a man who was one of those kids who stuck things into outlets and tore appliances and clock radios apart to see how they work. I guess we’re made for one another, though these days he is the one who does most of this type of work around the house. Until this year I haven’t done any electrical wiring in a while. I’ve done phone and cable and pulled what felt like miles of bundle (2-cat5 + 2-coax) in new construction but nothing “live”.

Today was a “fun” day. After wiring 2 switches and about 10 outlets I flipped the breaker and it immediately tripped. Oh crap! The hunt was on. I ended up pulling every outlet that I had wired and inspected them all. Of course it was the VERY LAST one that I had botched. I short circuited the entire system. DOH! Not something that I am especially proud of, but the second I saw what I did I KNEW I found the problem.

There’s nothing like the feeling of solving a puzzle, it always makes me smile. When was the last time you did something out of the ordinary and had to solve a problem that was unusual for you? How’d you feel?

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Personal, Tactical

Tagged , , ,

The Ethics of Work Life Balance

Posted on May 28, 2009 | 1 Comment

This Business Week article has an interesting tact regarding work life balance. I had never really considered ethics to be a part of balancing my home life and my career. However, I definitely recognized when the times when I was working significant amounts of overtime hurt other aspects of my life.

An excerpt from the article follows:

“It may seem misplaced to discuss work-life balance in a column about ethics. But recall that one of five fundamental ethical principles is fairness, and that we demonstrate fairness in everyday life by how we allocate scarce resources. The most precious commodity you have is time, both in your professional and your personal life. It’s also your most critical nonrenewable resource. As a manager, you must constantly ask yourself how you should allocate your time. You know it’s wrong to spend so much time on one project at the expense of equally critical ones, or to spend so much time managing one employee that you’re unable to manage others.

But a good manager should be, first and foremost, a good human being. Just as managing your career well means allocating your time wisely among the different projects and people you oversee, managing your life wisely means giving due time not just to work but to family, friends, community, self, and spirit. You wouldn’t think of spending most of your work day talking with one client on the phone. Why, then, is it O.K. to devote so much time to your job when you don’t give non-work-related things the attention they deserve? “

The author continues by discussing the fact that no matter how much overtime you are working in this economy it won’t protect you from getting laid off. I would have to agree with that assessment. I’ve been a person who has made myself nearly 100% accessible for work. E-mails at all hours, instant messenger at night, conference calls, weekend meetings etc. It helped protect my job in some instances, but not in all of them. I don’t regret the hours that I worked in order to get successful products out the door – I did get a lot of satisfaction out of it. However I do recognize that is time that I’ll never get back.

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Tactical

Tagged ,

Employee Engagement Is Up

Posted on May 11, 2009 | Leave a comment

This Business Week blog article notes that during the current recession employee engagement in their jobs is up – which is different than measurements of employee satisfaction. However…

“Despite the resiliency of their engagement, employees gave senior management poor grades on leadership, particularly when it comes to dealing with change and addressing future challenges. Only half of respondents said leaders are, in essence, leading.

Interestingly, Gebauer said her firm is starting to explore the concept of “healthy” engagement, where employees give their all while employers focus on their overall well-being, as opposed to unhealthy engagement, where employees risk burnout. The consultancy is even developing an index to measure this phenomenon across its client base, which I’ve dubbed the “Misery Meter,” although I’m sure Towers Perrin will come up with a more marketable moniker.”

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Tactical

Tagged ,