Good morning, blog sphere. Sorry it's been a while since I signed on to share a Grandiose Rumination. I haven't had too many as I have been all button-down and work lately. I hate when that happens. Life would be so much better if we all just hung around and traded what we needed with people we liked instead of working for it. We would actually have to form bonds and reciprocate kindness and live in relative peace... like the first few days in college before classes started. I loved the first few days of college before classes started. It was all just fun and laid back getting to know people, figuring out who you want to know and who you want to avoid and forging your groove. Then the classes start as does the studying that accompanies them and you have to limit your partying and socializing to three nights a week. Bummer. Of course, I went to a public school, so for all you ivy-leaguers and trust-fund babies that went to private school I don't know what your life was like. I had friends who went to some pretty highfalutin institutions and they always seemed to be partying.
But in reality adult world, we are already here on Thursday morning and I am only just catching my breath. There is quite a bit more of this frenetic activity to come on the horizon, which I guess is a good thing. It beats the alternative, which is being homeless and cold with nothing to do. I guess it is futile to complain.
A former colleague of mine was not especially well-spoken, but with what words he did know, he was creative. He had a young son and so was working hard at not swearing. He would say other words in the place of curses, but words that made him feel better nonetheless. Chief among them was 'minutiae'. Though I don't think he knew what it meant, and certainly couldn't have spelled it if he had a dictionary and a tutor on hand, he could bring the room to stitches with a well placed 'minutiae.'
"Man this new form we have to fill out for these things, it's just more minutiae, keeping us from doing our job!" was a typical thing he would say. Or after he got off the phone with a client or an employee (he was not especially well liked by either) he would slam the phone down and look at it and say "Minutiae!"
Going back and re-reading this, it is not funny. You had to be there, you had to know the guy, but my blog would later be based in minutiae. His kind of minutiae. I thank him for his gift.
I have had a lot of wonderful and interesting people to work with over the years. The current crop of managers is really excellent. We have a symbiotic understanding... I will give any of them the shirt off my back, but if you leave your shirt lying around, and I need it, I am going to steal the hell out of it.
We have limited resources and we will not hesitate to get ourselves out of a very bad situation by putting each other into a slightly bad situation. It is the only way we get anything done in our world. It is the cowboy support network and it is the only support network. It is, oddly, an honor system, placing limits on 'unauthorized reallocation' and without it, the whole place would come crashing down. I am proud to work with people who can make an honor system work, well, honorably.
I have never been turned down help when I have asked from these fine people. I do not turn them down. We are all of a piece and no one outside could possibly understand the level of minutiae we face. Hell, most of the people inside can't fathom. At least I have these good and honorable people to prop me up. This fact alone keeps me going when the minutiae is hip-deep.
When the minutiae is falling from the sky, you better have a good raincoat. When it is accumulating on the ground, your boots better be high and tight. And when you are living and breathing nothing but minutiae and it has overcome your ability to repel it, make the best of it by growing some Grandiose Ruminations. They grow well in the highly fertile soil of minutiae.
Book Progress
Down so far in 2011:
Naked Airport
My Lobotomy
Dexter by Design
A Walk in the Woods
In the middle of Jet Age and soon to take an unplanned detour through the book that Em got for me. Even being very busy I am keeping up my goal of 40 books in 2011! I am keeping you posted only because it keeps me honest and on my toes.
Toodles!
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