(no subject)

So yesterday, I found out the world's worst manager* had the IT team block livejournal, allegedly because I and one other coworker "were spending too much time on it". Of course, the first thing I did was check ESPN and YouTube, which are both still up, and very, very popular in my office (I avoid them both; the former because it's sportsporn, the latter because I don't want to spike network bandwidth). Then I got to thinking about it, and got even more angry. It's not lj per se, it's what's implied; I'm not as productive as I could or should be because I surf a specific site. This is what pisses me off. Consistently for at least two quarters, I've by far had the best metrics in my team (and I know because in addition to my standard duties, I also run all reports for our clients). Seriously, if you're going to treat me as though I'm not pulling my weight, you'd better have your ducks lined up. I'm open to criticism, but special treatment and selective enforcement piss me off like little else.



*slight hyperbole: he's merely the worst manager I've ever encountered.

(no subject)

I've never lost my teen angst. I'm not sure if this is a good or bad thing.

balance

I browse the internet a lot, read a lot, every day. Part of it is desire for connection, sure, but a larger part because I'm very curious about a lot of things (think: diletantte with no attention span). And, if I'm honest, an even larger part of what I read originates from the realm of should: I should focus on things important to me, I should read about difficult things, etc. I read a lot about politics, about justice projects, about inclusion and exclusion. While some of this is very well written, and by people I'd love to know personally, not a lot of it is happy, and a lot of it really pisses me off.

I'm starting to realize that lj has been an important balance to this aspect of my online world. The very individual, very personal, sometimes happy but very real gives me connection to the people on the other side of the keyboard. It's not overtly ideological or issue drive, it's just... people.

Unfortunately, I'm realizing this by absence. Sure, there are mitigating factors (reading a new, more virulent example of transhate and feeling compelled to step into the defense of transsexuals against authoritarians disguised as second wavers, work crap, etc), but I'm missing that snapshot connection to other real humans. The workplace just doesn't provide that for me.