Not Broken, Just Bent.

I am absolutely convinced that work is giving me ADD.

I can't do anything for more than 10 minutes without be interrupted. Phone call, email, someone shouting over the cube wall at me.
You ask "But, K., you work for a place that makes nifty noise-cancelling headphones."
In fact I do. They are pretty cool even. But if you are perceived as ignoring people, it is negative. And they just yell louder. Even our cool technology can't negate an angry Brazillion woamn standing about 3' from your ear.

I have found myself sitting here on the edge of my seat, anticipating being interrupted. And when I'm not, I find I have to interrupt myself. There's a call to be made, email to be checked, something else that must be done. Settling down to get actual work done, (not the reactionary putting out fires crap), doesn't start to gear up until about 3 - when everyone else starts leaving.
It's like a short in my brain wiring.
It's wicked effing annoying.

There's a group of us here. We come in a little later because we know we are going to wind up staying late no matter what we do. We've dubbed ourselves the "Supper Club", and we all agree that the most productive hours are between 4 and 7 pm. After that we're just too tired to make decent decisions.

Now that I've sufficiently distracted by penning (typing) this, I suppose I should go get some real work done

The corporate workplace is littered with the use of buzz words. It usually goes something like this:
Guy who successfully ran a business and sold it for millions of dollars writes a book.
Guy (or woman) uses a Catchy Term to summerize a complex thought.
People buy the book, and think it's God's gift to middle management.
These same people then abuse the living daylights out of Catchy Term.

There is a term being used (and abused) around my workplace right now.
I actually hate myself a little for just typing it...

"Solution Space".*

*Heaves a great, soul-clearing sigh*.

I have heard it used as such:
"Well, I'm not here to provide Solution Space."
(Then what good are you to me and why do we pay you?)

"Well, I don't want to get into Solution Space."
(Then why are we having a meeting?)

I'm a Solver. I'm paid to be a Solver. I sit here and Solve. I solve with pretty pictures, dry wit, and a great phone voice, (I've been complemented on it a number of times when dealing with vendors, actually.)

Little problems: "OMGeezies! How do we fit the 45 words of French where the 20 words of English used to be?!"

Medium sized issues: "Well, we can't afford $83 per display unit, though you've already taken the vendor over a barrel, and they would likely loose money to produce it for us. Find us a better solution."

Large Situations: "The display, now nearly throughly destroyed by an errant forklift, is stuck in Brazillian Customs, and we need it in Sao Paulo tomorrow or we loose the account. Brazil won't release it because it's missing it's fumigation documentation."

I live in Solution Space. There is no other plane of existence for me here. They eff it up, I solution it back to presentable.
"Solution Space" is metalic and bitter in my throat, because it's used as a responsibility slough. No one declares, "Ok! *clap clap* Time for Solution Space!"
No, everyone uses it to duck actually providing anything remotely useful to the Solvers, and leaves it to the Solvers to solve; those who never needed a word for the plane they move in.

Wow, it's been a Monday full of pisstivity.


*Is the Arch-nemesis to it's evil twin, "Ideation".

*DEITYS NAME HERE*

If I'm sitting here, intently working,
with my Noise Cancelling Headphones on,
it's because I'm busy, and I'm trying like hell to get SOMETHING done
and if ya'll keep comeing over than tapping me on the shoulder (BAD TOUCH! BAD TOUCH!) with your issues, Nothing Gets Done.

And they wonder why my productivity is in the shitter...

Might be time to locate me a Bat-Cube in the debatable lands over between Accounting and Online and not leave a forwarding address.

Nietzsche should be shot and dragged through boiling tar, then hung on a fence so we can all know what bullshit that line is.

That which does not kill us does whittle away at our being. After it pares away the excess, it starts cutting into what makes us whole. And when it starts to cut away at our core, we start loosing who we are.

I understand pushing through adversity. I understand needing modivation to get through that wall.
But that dumb quote gets lodged in a lot of people's brains, and in many cases drives them to do Really Stupid Things.
Myself included.

If there's one thing I got out of the time with the X, it was a broader exposure to music.

I hunted down some of my favorite work music, lost in the division, and made iTunes give it to me again.

And life is pretty ok, even if ALL of my clients have banded together to light my pants on fire.

Awesomebear if full of Awesome, and my coworkers are full of cowardly shit.

Nothing like having to listen to my client give a con-call presentation of the logos you just designed to the rest of her committee. Poorly. While you, Awesomebear Designer, are not invited to explain your rational behind them.

*seethes*

The situation:
I have a lovely newsletter, built in InDesign. It has a top-page spanning masthead (graphic.) It is spilt into two colums of text. It has a bottom-page spanning call to action (graphic.)
I need to export it to HTML and have it hold the formatting.

I've tried exporting to HTML directly from InDesign (fail.)
I've tried exporting a PDF from InDesign and exporting it as HTML from Acrobat (fail.)
I opened Dreamweaver, got the distinct impression my brain was wired incorrectly, and closed the program (fail.)

Does anyone have any idea how to do this? There could be cookies in your future if you com up with the winning solution!

- K.

Not sure what's being offered, but the headhunter that got me the job at the The Company tells me that there's openings at 2K Boston. I guess they are a gaming company.

http://2kboston.com/jobs.php

Check it out if you're looking.
- K.

*Edited to correct link. Go check it out!

Every morning, I gradually wake up to NPR. (Gradually because of the various slaps to the snooze button.)

This morning, there was a person, in my bedroom, talking about typography. And politics. And what the typography of the campaigns said about the campaigns.
I found myself agreeing in my sleep - Optima is sooooo 80's. Johnny Mac (their nickname, not mine,) is soooo 80's. Dated font. Dated man. Personally like the font, but - It says weddings and funerals to me. Personally like the man, but don't want him or his running mate "I' can be a big boy too!" running the country.

Gotham - clean, American. Beautiful font. Strong, simple. Love Gotham. Birthed by draftsmen, refined by typographers. Solid font - solid president? What does it say? what does it meeeeean?


It was at this point that I realized I wasn't sleeping, they this was an actual discussion. This rattled me enough that I only had two snoozes this morning.

Mr Dog didn't seem to mind.