General update #2735
Work - transmutation and transposition
I was invited into a meeting at 9.30 yesterday, and was told that:
Send me an email, pls. That way (a) I won't forget and (b) I can organise my work and time properly.
My new boss is, apparently and according to a colleague, the Best Boss Ever™, the kind who will fight your corner, stick up for you and generally keep the crapfall from Those on High out of your way. Also, we have a flatter structure now, a proper change-request process (and if you've ever worked on websites or in IT for an organisation you'll know how important that is), I'll get to use the Queue system to help organise my work (20% support, 80% project based).
Salary (hm...) and Job Title stay the same. In the new year I'll be needing more money.
Current work involves a new internal website for some green thingy or other. Potential new work includes a website for/about poultry keeping ¬_¬.
To Do: buy plants for new desk. Loads.
Home Life
Fine. Place is looking much better since clearing up study, but I still have a little work to do in that area. Plus a little painting around the flat to keep it nice. The letting agent seem to have successfully fixed the leak in the ceiling.
Driving
Still at it. I feel confident that I can drive anywhere, deal with dual carriageways, roundabouts and the 'difficult' stuff. It's been hard though, and very, very expensive, not to mention a long old trudge, but I'm getting there.
It's helped me identify an issue with my memory: I find it very difficult to innately grasp and remember sequences of physical events that I must perform, especially when delivered verbally. I had this problem when learning Tae Kwon Do (even tying the belt was difficult for me to remember!), and also when young (tying shoelaces, riding a bike etc). I've thusly increased my 'Driving Budget' by a few hundred quid to accomodate this, and managed my instructor's expectations accordingly.
Independent driving is a breeze though, and I'm glad that's in the test. It means I can concnetrate on driving and oserving the world around me rather than having to f***ing listen to someone else at the same time as having to concentrate on what I'm doing.
Manouevres are fine: reverse parallel parking is OK, turning in the road fine, parking in a bay OK too. The only issue I sometimes have is not steering enough or steering too much, but that's something to iron out.
Theory test soon though.
General reflections
It's funny really how people differ in their skill sets, and the things they find easy or difficuly. I often wonder what it must be like to be shown how to do something, and be able to remember it perfectly first time. On the flipside I also wonder what it must be like to be unable to cope with finding things out independently, what it must be like to be utterly bewildered by, say, being presented with a new software package. Or what it must be like to have little concept of 'number'.
When I think about the things I struggle with, such as driving, I often wonder what it must be like for the whole of life to be a set of confusing, bewildering 'stuff'. I try to imagine seeing signs in shop windows such as '15% off' and put myself in the place of someone for whom that's pretty meaningless because they don't understand percentages, or someone for whom the leap from the concrete operational stage of development to the formal operational never happened in their lives, making it difficult to 'abstractify' and extend their knowledge from concrete examples.
Yesterday I was shopping, and in the queue behind me was a young lass who clearly had learning difficulties. Her mum was trying to explain to her that she could afford to buy either the box of stuff for her Nan, or some nail varnish for herself, but not both. Said lass took a while to grasp this.
Most of us, I should hope, would treat someone in the same position as this young lady with some compassion. Imagine having to work solve seven anagrams in one's head, from memory, before one could buy something. Now imagine that the environment is full of loud noises, people shouting at you and the place is lit by a strobe light, and instead of buying something you're trying to work out the cheapest mobile phone tariff from a selection of four, and each tariff is presented to you in a different format. Oh, and you're on a rollercoaster too, and it's raining.
You would soon become confused, angry and frustrated. I know I would.
I once observed a small class of children with learning difficulties being taught addition and subtraction. They were fine whilst in their comfort zones of dealing with positive numbers, however something like '5-7 = ?' would cause uproar in the class, with much wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Having to delve into negative numbers, and make use of '-2', caused a kind of a flip, a stress response. What was behind it? Was it fear? Was it a terror of 'looking stupid'? Was it a simple matter of cognitive dissonance causing the release of adrenaline or cortisol?
There was certainly an inner confrontation going on, between their existing schemas of the world and new, contradictory information which threatened to push said schemas into obsolescence.
This pattern repeats itself over and over, in internet discussion forums, flame wars, heated debates down the pub, frustrations with broken computers and crashed servers, our reactions to insults and so on. There's often a 'panic', an 'anger' that things are confusing and out of our control.
Unless we're omniscient, Godlike beings of infinite wisdom, I guess we're going to have to learn to deal with such situations and generally find ways of absorbingthe lessons life throws at us, without completely wigging out and losing it.
I was invited into a meeting at 9.30 yesterday, and was told that:
- My boss was leaving
- I have a new boss
- I'll be working in a new department
- I'll have a new desk
- All this takes immediiate effect, complete with new desk on Monday
Send me an email, pls. That way (a) I won't forget and (b) I can organise my work and time properly.
My new boss is, apparently and according to a colleague, the Best Boss Ever™, the kind who will fight your corner, stick up for you and generally keep the crapfall from Those on High out of your way. Also, we have a flatter structure now, a proper change-request process (and if you've ever worked on websites or in IT for an organisation you'll know how important that is), I'll get to use the Queue system to help organise my work (20% support, 80% project based).
Salary (hm...) and Job Title stay the same. In the new year I'll be needing more money.
Current work involves a new internal website for some green thingy or other. Potential new work includes a website for/about poultry keeping ¬_¬.
To Do: buy plants for new desk. Loads.
Home Life
Fine. Place is looking much better since clearing up study, but I still have a little work to do in that area. Plus a little painting around the flat to keep it nice. The letting agent seem to have successfully fixed the leak in the ceiling.
Driving
Still at it. I feel confident that I can drive anywhere, deal with dual carriageways, roundabouts and the 'difficult' stuff. It's been hard though, and very, very expensive, not to mention a long old trudge, but I'm getting there.
It's helped me identify an issue with my memory: I find it very difficult to innately grasp and remember sequences of physical events that I must perform, especially when delivered verbally. I had this problem when learning Tae Kwon Do (even tying the belt was difficult for me to remember!), and also when young (tying shoelaces, riding a bike etc). I've thusly increased my 'Driving Budget' by a few hundred quid to accomodate this, and managed my instructor's expectations accordingly.
Independent driving is a breeze though, and I'm glad that's in the test. It means I can concnetrate on driving and oserving the world around me rather than having to f***ing listen to someone else at the same time as having to concentrate on what I'm doing.
Manouevres are fine: reverse parallel parking is OK, turning in the road fine, parking in a bay OK too. The only issue I sometimes have is not steering enough or steering too much, but that's something to iron out.
Theory test soon though.
General reflections
It's funny really how people differ in their skill sets, and the things they find easy or difficuly. I often wonder what it must be like to be shown how to do something, and be able to remember it perfectly first time. On the flipside I also wonder what it must be like to be unable to cope with finding things out independently, what it must be like to be utterly bewildered by, say, being presented with a new software package. Or what it must be like to have little concept of 'number'.
When I think about the things I struggle with, such as driving, I often wonder what it must be like for the whole of life to be a set of confusing, bewildering 'stuff'. I try to imagine seeing signs in shop windows such as '15% off' and put myself in the place of someone for whom that's pretty meaningless because they don't understand percentages, or someone for whom the leap from the concrete operational stage of development to the formal operational never happened in their lives, making it difficult to 'abstractify' and extend their knowledge from concrete examples.
Yesterday I was shopping, and in the queue behind me was a young lass who clearly had learning difficulties. Her mum was trying to explain to her that she could afford to buy either the box of stuff for her Nan, or some nail varnish for herself, but not both. Said lass took a while to grasp this.
Most of us, I should hope, would treat someone in the same position as this young lady with some compassion. Imagine having to work solve seven anagrams in one's head, from memory, before one could buy something. Now imagine that the environment is full of loud noises, people shouting at you and the place is lit by a strobe light, and instead of buying something you're trying to work out the cheapest mobile phone tariff from a selection of four, and each tariff is presented to you in a different format. Oh, and you're on a rollercoaster too, and it's raining.
You would soon become confused, angry and frustrated. I know I would.
I once observed a small class of children with learning difficulties being taught addition and subtraction. They were fine whilst in their comfort zones of dealing with positive numbers, however something like '5-7 = ?' would cause uproar in the class, with much wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Having to delve into negative numbers, and make use of '-2', caused a kind of a flip, a stress response. What was behind it? Was it fear? Was it a terror of 'looking stupid'? Was it a simple matter of cognitive dissonance causing the release of adrenaline or cortisol?
There was certainly an inner confrontation going on, between their existing schemas of the world and new, contradictory information which threatened to push said schemas into obsolescence.
This pattern repeats itself over and over, in internet discussion forums, flame wars, heated debates down the pub, frustrations with broken computers and crashed servers, our reactions to insults and so on. There's often a 'panic', an 'anger' that things are confusing and out of our control.
Unless we're omniscient, Godlike beings of infinite wisdom, I guess we're going to have to learn to deal with such situations and generally find ways of absorbingthe lessons life throws at us, without completely wigging out and losing it.