More Observations
2009-02-04, 11:04 p.m.

Day 1627

Some other things I�ve noticed lately:

1 � Clean windshields are great! Now that I don�t smoke, my windshield stays much cleaner on the inside. But winters up here can leave you with only the path cleared by your wipers as the only thing you can atually see through. The rest is a salt/sand/gunk residue that is impermeable to visible wavelength light. Kinda gross looking too. But yesterday afternoon, after escaping the dapper Gen Xer that swam laps in cologne, I was treated to driving with a pristine, professionally cleaned windshield. Suhweet! Of course, that�s over now. The salt/sand/gunk residue is already building up. What is gone forever though are the fine little scratches left by running dry wipers over the glass. Dodge�s washer squirter set up is so wonky that the wipers make 2 passes before you can get any bug juice on them. The salt being dragged across the glass leaves a nice haze.

2 � I was taking my muffler for granted. I had gotten used to cruising around with a hole in the seam of my muffler. It was a whole lot noisier than I had thought. Having an intact muffler drove that point home.

3 � I have an appointment with my shrink (ok � therapist) today. I�m leaning towards going in and actually taking notes. I need to have �action items� to work on. I need the notes to remind me wtf it is I�m supposed to be working on.

4 � It�s time for another �come to Jesus� talk between Cindy & I. She has been operating under the banner of �we all are free to make our own decisions� which is all well and good. But when these decisions impact other people, it�s be nice to know wtf your decision was. Between work, visiting the hospital, trying to get to the gym and meeting friends an hour or more before their regular meetings, I never know when to expect her home. I need to find a polite way to sit her down and share how not knowing her plans affects me. Good subject for an Annette (the shrink) talk, eh?

5 � Feces impacting the rotating blades here at the zoo. Changes in the air are going to make the workplace more contentious. Apparently, it�s all the rage at companies across the country. Now, we will no longer be rated against our own goals. We will be rated against how we perform compared to our own goals AND how our peer group performed against theirs. From this rating, there will be 3 groups. Top performers (small percentage), mid-range group (huge percentage), low group (small percentage). If you are in the low group, you will be creating an improvement plan and given x time to implement it. If after y rating periods you don�t pull yourself out of the bottom pool � sayonara. The kicker is, the people above you know where they are and are conceivably trying to pull themselves up too. That kind of competition/desperation could lead to some ugly scenes. We�ve been told that if anyone is caught withholding information or otherwise sabotaging efforts of others, they will find themselves on the fast track towards the door.

The ugliest part is that every job category in every discipline will be ranked this way. It�s entirely possible that the bottom 5% of the work fore could always be in turmoil. That ought to go a long ways towards creating a stress free workplace, huh?

That being said � I gotta go. I�ll finish later. Probably.

Ok, later now. Not a lot to add. One thing I have to work on (amongst many) is shortening the feedback loop between Cindy & I. Have to be much quicker to share feelings & needs. I�ve been too willing to let her maintain a weird control on the house through her lack of real communication. Kinda comes down to me outlining some minimum needs then declaring defensible consequences. Simple, non-drastic, fair. No ultimatums, just promises.

Bowling tomorrow. I need to do something to blow off some steam. Hope the lane conditions can support a little speed.

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