Saturday afternoon.
A dead day today, a bit of work to do tomorrow, mainly admin this morning, checking out baseball sites since that time (now that I have abandoned my interest in football (North American = soccer) entirely, and the Red Sox are having a great season) and fighting the headache that you get as the day wears on.
The headache results from insomnia. Or at least irregular sleep.
There was an item that I spotted on the Internet this afternoon with regard to shift work. Containing a punch-line: "Why rotating shift work is bad for your health". As the French say: "cela va sans dire".
I am not the one who works shifts, that is my wife's misfortune (actually a worse misfortune would be having no job at all). But there is the psychological problem with me that my mind is waiting for the alarm to go off when she is working the morning shift and what with her starting to move at 0320 usw. I cannot remember the last time when she was on her early morning start when I slept through it all. Her shift, my insomnia.
At 0400 when she goes out, I get up, switch on the computer and do summat - mainly check baseball games currently going on in the US at the moment. 0400 in Frankfurt is 2200 in Boston, 8th or 9th innings usually. If by 0500 I am still not tired, I take the first train into Frankfurt and walk round bits of the city, salubrious and occasionally otherwise. Amazing the variety of life to observe at that time of the day.
Return, 0630 you suddenly need to sleep again (that time is becoming predictable, and 90 minutes later you wake up again feeling as wretchedly awful as at any time in your life. If you have a customer waiting for a morning delivery of a translation, watch out ..... ).
Some weirdoes out there would put this down to being "God's plan" of course. You know - a third of the members in the US Congress apparently believe that nonsense. And they are trusted to take decisions affecting people's lives? Huh?
Anyway religion has now made its way on to LinkedIn.com of all places. LinkedIn is the best hope for the professional wharrever to find professional contacts. This could lead to the job of your dreams usw. Actually it doesn't quite work like that (surprise, surprise). Maybe it isn't "God's plan". Cannot be owt on those lines, LinkedIn is not that sort of social medium.
This week though we got an item on religion, believe it or not - on how companies could learn from how religions are successfully organised and have survived for so long. Article name: "Leadership Lessons from the World's Religions"; author: Dave Kerpen. Link (if it works):
http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130801153028-15077789-leadership-lessons-from-the-world-s-religions?trk=tod-posts-art-
Interesting, if extremely one-sided. My answer under the moniker of "Tony S" exposes it for the one-sided view that it presents (I could have added that they should remember Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition, remember burning heretics at the stake, and take note what happens to people guilty of "apostasy" in parts of the Muslim world even now. And of course the numerous wars fought in the name of religion). (Update - August 2018. I have since left LinkedIn and my comment has consequently disappeared).
There are things that are actually best kept out of the workplace. Monday morning (Wednesday or Thursday morning with midweek games) analyses of football games and religion being the most obvious ones. Good companies actually need a sense of purpose, goals to achieve and a committed, diverse workforce. The more controversy you have to handle, the more idiotic dogma that there is to get in the way, the less successful the company is likely to be.
Eventually, on a professional level, I have always tried to get on with everyone to get the job done. You don't let your personal opinions on non-work related matters become too important. Back in the 1980s when I was working in Manchester, I had to watch two hours every Monday between August and May pass with these absurd "United" / "City" arguments. And as for the days after England had lost an important international game. Did any work get done?
Only a game, guys, there are programs waiting to be completed, I have the test analysis ready and a customer who wants delivery at 1400, and OK he should never have missed that open goal.
And as for religion. God knows? God cares? As God doesn't exist, why waste your time worrying. There is this life to get through. That is the customer ringing, not God or Allah or Jehovah or Shiva or Zeus or Thor or Marduk ..... The customer getting angry now is far more important than the non-existent eternity, right? And if his project isn't delivered on time, the complaints will last an eternity as well. And there will be Hell to pay possibly. In this life, not the next!
And, yes, yes, yes, I know he should have scored. Now au boulot!
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