Hi, friends!
Today we’re doing quarterly planning and it makes me want to curl up into a ball of misery, but a few good things happened.
For some reason, the admins set me up with the wrong profile in our planning tool, so I have all these functions I probably shouldn’t. I used my new-found powers for good to help people set things up.
Also, I am active in a mutual aid group in my area and one of the folks I volunteer with is being overwhelmed and overworked and we had a really good conversation. I’m going to leverage some of my project manager skills to help organize what is being done and help them offload it.
I think the general problem is that most people need something concrete to be more involved. We’ve got a few dozen people who have said they’d be willing to do more in the group, but getting them involved is struggling. I think if we could put up a list on ye olde facebook and be like “task 1 – every other week, takes about an hour” “task 2 – once a month plus some emails, 30 minutes active time” etc it would be easier to get people involved. It can feel overwhelming if people don’t know expectations.
Yup, I’ve seen that kind of problem as well. I think the solution is two-fold. The first thing is–as you say–quantifying what is needed and what the commitment is. The second thing is making the request for help personal. It’s fairly easy for people to ignore a statement like, “hey, we need someone to help with X.” It’s not so easy for them to ignore a statement like, “I need your help.”
To add to Butcher’s solid point, a little flattery helps: “I need your help because I know you’re good at X”
Hey, babe — you may want to fix the date because it’s not 2012 anymore! (Of course, it’s not Pearl Harbor Day either, but that’s another issue for another day.)
And speaking of overwhelmed, I was steeling myself after hearing on Friday that some video transcripts were coming in from Scotland for me to translate, totaling about 8000 words or so in all. Of course, this morning I found out that, on top of that, there’s also a fucking 24-page contract for me to translate as well, totaling between 15,000 and 20,000 words. (There was also something else, but they let another linguist take care of that as not to overextend me, I guess.)
Anyway, Scotland asked me how long I thought it’d take me, and I said . . . well, since the contract is roughly twice the length of the transcripts, how about giving me twice as much time. We’ll see how that works out: Some translation clients really skimp on the leeway for deadlines — if and when they’re skimping on the fucking money they’re willing to shell out for the project in question. . . .
So you’re translating from a heavy Scottish accent/dialect, recited to you over video, into more widely spoken English? Good luck with that!
Meanwhile, 2012, 2021, this matters not to me. I’m going back even further, to about 1921, because I just received two books I somehow have never read, Lawrence’s Women in Love and Woolf’s To The Lighthouse. I’ve read about two chapters of each. The Lawrence is a little tough going but To The Lighthouse reads right along and is very funny so far (I think).
In my head, @perdido is translating Spanish spoken with a heavy Scottish accent to English!!
Well, imagine Ewan McGregor singing “Be Our Guest” as Lumière in the live-action Beauty and the Beast, for which he was apparently told to sound French but to keep the rs hard. As he remarked on Fallon and Colbert, I believe: “Well, that just makes everything sound MEXICAN!”
2012 was a crummy year for me, I don’t want to revisit it!
Hey, remember how people were saying that it’d be the end of the world back then because of a loose interpretation of the Mayan long count calendar?
Those were the days, right. . . ?
*Tyra Banks impression*
I was rooting for you, Mayans!!! We were all rooting for you!
This would have been better for the urgg… post but I’m in the midst of sibling hell! My mom has been in rehab since breaking her hip & can’t go back to her assisted living place because she will probably never walk again (she is 95 & won’t do the rehab therapy). We were trying to find a place for her to go on Oahu but my brother jumped in to move her to the Big Island. It is harder to find doctors there and medical care is not so hot. He has cut off everyone except me from info on his plans and is stressing my sisters out. It is a mess & something I never thought our family would face. We mostly got along except for my sister in Texas (she moved from Hawaii to Texas willingly, I will say no more!) I’m emotionally taxed and stressed.
@Loveshaq, hugs and best wishes. Ensuring respectful, quality, affordable care for elderly loved ones is almost a full-time job in of itself.
@Loveshaq Ugh, families are so stress inducing. Sorry you are dealing with this on top of worry about tour mom.
Do you feel like he doesn’t want them to know because it’s undermining his “authority” or some other weird thing? I’m sorry he’s making this complicated and stressful.
He is calling my sister that has been the primary custodian for her a control freak. Yeah, because she has to be to get all moms shit right. So radio silence is not a good option. Now my phone is blowing up because he won’t respond to her. They are 12 & 10 years older than me, I’m the baby dammit! Let’s go back to those days!
Ugh!!! It’s so immature of all of them to put you in this position, too!
@Loveshaq, that sucks. We’ve got family drama going on here, too, and it’s just draining.
Whoever fixed the date in the title for me, thanks! It shows correctly now so appreciate the assist!
ugh…my bossman is pushing for more over time…again
i love overtime…when its busy… but at the moment..the only reason we are falling behind is coz the dickhead in chief and his merry band of fucking idiots keep having ideas
i mean….putting a new machine on sale without testing it first is just asking for trouble
and despite what the wonks think…floor staff is not indiscriminately swappable between jobs… we have a few that can do everything …but mostly people need to taught…
wierdly enough..years of working the cnc cutter does not mean they also know how to assemble shit….shouldnt be rocket science
in turn that means someone has to teach them…probably me..coz somehow i landed the job of mr teach it…and in turn that means….production is gonna be lower
really…its not the kind of shit you want to be doing when you have deadlines…
maybe im just not educated enough to see its not stupid…its advanced
anyways…im fucking tired and i dont want to do more overtime for stupid reasons…
figure i can decline politely…. or decline and call my boss a dickhead again…which probably wouldnt be smart….but is tempting