and now the stick

Student Loan Bailout.  This is brilliant.   And it just might be crazy enough to work.

It appears I never actually published this post... so I will publish it now because I have nothing more to say.

a fresh perspective

The other night, it was late... very late, and I was still at the office with a deadline.  There are a few important things to note with this, however:  (1) I had a deadline because I was the one who created the deadline, (2) my dog was at the office with me, and (3) I was thoroughly enjoying what I was working on.  None of these things would have happened in law.  It would have been a late night because of someone else's (probably pointless) deadline, and I would have been doing work I hated with no trusty chocolate lab sidekick.  The other positive: I was there with my new AWESOME coworker, who is basically the beans to my rice.

At 11:30 pm or so, just as the wheels were starting to come off and columns were blending into rows, Beans decided we needed a 5 minute breather and sent me the website 1000 Awesome Things.  Go there.  See if you can read it for just 2 minutes.  You can't.  It's smart, funny, and most importantly, it's a really AWESOME perspective on everyday things that we take for granted.  The guy who writes this blog must be so happy, and I found myself saying, "Yeah!  TOTALLY!!" about every three posts.

We've decided to start writing down our Awesome Things.  As Tim would say, "It's important to make the invisible, visible."  Something about actually writing out a great thing when it happens makes it officially "Awesome."

So here's my first:  Bringing tomato soup to work for lunch and finding out there's a huge box of Goldfish in the office.  AWESOME.

Hiatus-itis

“The condition of being on haitus.”  And I’m so guilty.  Blog hiatus-itis.

I’ve been home in Wisco for an awesome weekend with family, friends and Bucky.  I’m on my way back to Denver now, happy to have a window seat but unhappy that Alterra’s espresso machine was broken (even if I was going for just decaf).  I almost deleted “home” from the first sentence when I realized I needed to also use “home” for Denver.  I guess what I wanted to say is: “I was home in Wisco, and now I’m heading home to Denver.”  If home is where the heart is, then both places are home.

Blog Train

A lot has happened in the last few weeks, and I’ve found myself on a bit of a professional emotional rollercoaster.  If you’re interested in receiving the chronological update, then scroll down a few entries and start with Tim leaving (“little holes of light”).  There’s no time like air time to catch up on my blog.

A huge thanks to Beck for (unbeknownst to her) giving me a swift kick in the butt to get back on the blog train.  Thanks Beck!

little holes of light

Ugh. 

Tim isn’t sticking around.  I’m so, so bummed out.  I knew he was making his decision this week about whether or not to accept our company’s offer to come on board as our COO and continue the magic, but I never really considered the possibility that he would say no.  But he did - He didn’t pick us, and as ridiculous as it is, I feel like the kid whose parent can’t make it to the championship game.  What do you mean you’re not going to be there?  You HAVE to be there. 

 

I don’t want to sound like Tim was cavalier about his decision because, honestly, he was anything but.  It was very clear that this had been an agonizing choice for him and he was as bummed out about it as I was.  And boy, am I bummed.

I’m going to try to put words to how I’m feeling because the immediate response of those close to me indicates that people don’t really understand why I’m so upset.  With the exception of one (who also gets other ridiculous things about me when no one else seems to), most of my friends and family have responded with something to the effect of “Oh that’s a shame.  I know you really liked him.”  No, people, you don’t get it.  It’s more than really liking him.  He is brilliant (If I could comfortably cuss in this blog, I would add a modifier to that). 

I learned more from Tim in the two months he was on board than I did working for anyone ever.  Yes, I tend to speak in superlatives and occasionally exaggerate, but in this instance – that’s the honest truth.  People learn in very different ways, and people teach in very different days.  I learn in the way Tim teaches, and I didn’t even know it until I met him.

And you probably want to know how… and I don’t know that I can adequately describe it.  Perhaps if I tell a story or two from Tim, you might start to get it.  One afternoon, after a project status meeting that brought a few “issues” to light, I was sitting around the table with Tim and one of the founders of the company discussing our next course of action.  The founder and I are a lot alike.  We like to do more than we like to talk about it.  We like to make a decision, and then act.  Tim was urging us to flush out a Plan B option, but both the founder and I were adamant our Plan A option would work just fine, and we wanted to get to work immediately implementing Plan A.  We didn’t have time to discuss a Plan B.  So Tim nonchalantly began to tell us a story…

I don’t know if you’ve ever been on a helicopter (Actually, no – he didn’t start that way.  That would be a bit elitist, and whether intended or not, it sounds condescending.  He would never start that way). 

Helicopters are incredibly noisy.  When you’re on one, you have to wear these noise canceling headphone things, and they really work.  You can’t hear a thing.  I was on a helicopter in the military, and I was standing next to my commanding officer, and I was… well – I don’t know what my rank was, but I was a minion.  Anyway, we were coming into the beach, when we began seeing little holes of light in the side of the helicopter.  And it was the strangest thing because we couldn’t hear anything, but we were being shot at.  Then, as I was looking at the holes trying to make sense of what was happening, there was red everywhere.  He [the commanding officer] was dead.  And now I was in charge.  That’s why you always want to have a Plan B.

I am really, really going to miss working with him.     

the mug

I'm in Chicago this weekend for the Chicago Marathon on Sunday.  I am so excited to get away for the weekend and be surrounded by friends and family.  The perfect weather is also a plus.  It's been a typical taper for me - I feel like I've gained 25 pounds and I'm incredibly emotional (for some legitimate and some not-so-legitimate reasons).  "Taper Madness" has always been a struggle for me, and I spend the couple weeks leading up to a race not feeling like myself and acting somewhat irrational.  Naturally, it's been a tough couple of weeks, even without factoring in lack of endorphins, the no running and other taper madness symptoms I've been experiencing.

So, needless to say, I'm so happy to finally be here, with the race just around the corner.   I'm staying with a couple of my best friends in the world (who are married to each other) right in the heart of the city.  You can blame the tapering, last night's late night arrival (after a very delayed flight) or just the fact that we've grown up, but there's a certain nostalgia about being here with them.  On the one hand, it feels like nothing's changed.  It's just like when we were living together in law school - the coffee is right where it should be; I know what beer I'm going to find in the fridge; and we can still make amazing meals with leftovers.  But on the other hand, everything's changed.  We're not in law school anymore, and my friends have gotten married, got a dog of their own and moved halfway across the country.  I remember 6 months ago, the night before they moved to Chicago and the marking of the end of an era, how heavy everything felt - how I thought nothing would never be the same.

As I poured myself a cup of coffee in the same mug I used to use 5 years ago in our apartment on Clarkson Street, the sadness I felt six months ago suddenly felt really far away.  Everything felt like it should, and I was struck by how true it is that the more things change, the more they stay the same.  While I'm counting the months until they move back to Colorado, I'm amazed at how the bond of a great friendship laughs in the face of distance. 

We're all under the same roof again and drinking beer at one in the afternoon.  See, nothing's really changed after all. 

flow

After a particularly insightful morning yoga class and a sense of zen ("new agey-ness" alert, Aunt Shelley), I arrived at the office to a number of good sized fires that required dousing.  My plan for the day had been to go "heads down" on a project plan that desperately needed my attention.  I had learned a lot about my time management, and I was gung-ho about committing the appropriate time to important, non-urgent tasks, like my project plan - which was a pretty ginormous task.

Anyone who knew me in law school knew my love for flow charts.  I love flow charts.  They're like choose your own adventure books, and they made law school make sense for me.  I found that almost everything could be reduced to an "if this, then that" statement.  And I love colored pens.  It was a win-win.  Ever since I took the bar exam, though, I haven't been asked to process anything or make logical sense of concepts or process.  I was asked to find typos.  And I was chastised for beginning sentences with conjunctions.  But no one really needed me figure out how anything should be done.  

Recently, with just a little bit of help from Tim, I realized that my flow charting was quite a handy skill to have and made me pretty dangerous in the project management world.  So that morning, with $30 worth of pens from Office Depot, I was ready to dive head first into project planning. 

Our clients and my team, however, had a different plan for me that day, and it was close to 4 o'clock when I finally had a minute to catch my breath.  Tim and I sat down to discuss the project plan that I had yet to execute on. 

"Do you know what flow is?"  He asked.  Tim always started one of our sessions with 5 minutes of wisdom.  I can honestly say, I've learned more from a handful of Tim's 5-minute wisdom windows than I have learned from any mentor I've had to date.  Anyway, I responded that I understood the concept of flow as it relates to the body (think vinyasa).  He let me explain what I meant and then promptly told me that wasn't what he had meant.  Yet, he did it in a way that didn't make me feel stupid or ashamed (an impressive skill that seasoned attorneys generally do not possess).  He went on to tell me that what he meant by "flow" was a place where you go to "get in the zone." 

Oh!  Well then, where I flow is in the mornings, at my house, sitting on the right side of the couch in the kitchen (yes, I have a couch in the kitchen.  It works, trust me), with a cup of coffee.  "Good," Tim said, "then go there.  Get it done.  Do what you have to do to get into flow."

Wait... you mean I don't have to force myself to work in an environment that's working against me?  You trust me to actually do my work even if I'm not in the office?  You don't even want to see a 6-minute breakdown of my flow-spent morning?  This is incredible.

I'm not in Kansas anymore.

the mind bend

Months ago, I agreed to be one of multiple authors in a serial fiction story.  I had totally forgotten about this commitment until my editor emailed to ask if I was still interesting in participating.  You see, since quitting law, I've been a little MIA in more areas than just this blog.  But "getting back into it" with a non-law piece that would still give me some great exposure?  Sure!  Sounds fun.  So I agreed and promptly forgot about it again until two days before it was due.  Shoot.  I ended up really liking the result, and I enjoyed the process of writing on a story line that wouldn't otherwise have been my first choice more than I thought I would.  But I did it at the last minute.  And, therefore, I was even more proud of myself for the end result because I delivered under pressure.

They say that aspiring writers should over commit themselves to unreasonable deadlines ("they" of course being writers that actually made it) and become masters at churning out respectable work product in an ungodly short amount of time.  That's how you get "good."  Lawyers are masters at this concept, and my two years of practicing law prepared me very well for this.  It's the fire drill philosophy - nothing gets done until it's on fire. 

I am learning a lot in my new non-legal career.  Like, A LOT a lot.  About business.  About treating your employees well.  And about time management.  I will first note the irony in my blog topic, given that my blogging will result in a fire drill tomorrow morning (so maybe I haven't learned everything I'm about to claim I have).  Anyway, there are a whole bunch of theories and schools of thought about managing people and projects, and I've only begun to scratch the surface.  It's fascinating... way more fascinating than reading the same contact for the 218th time and finding a misplaced comma.

There's a quadrant for time management that breaks activities and tasks up into 4 categories based on urgency and importance.  Some of you might be familiar with this concept, created by Stephen Covey in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  See the chart. 

Tim recently asked me to divide up, by percentage, how much time each day should be spent in each quadrant.  I think I went with the common answer and said something like Urgent/Important = 75%, Urgent/Not Important = 15%, and the other two?  Eh, 5% (Does that add up to 100%?).  Whatever, you get the point.  I gave the fire drill response: I do the shit that absolutely positively MUST get done by the end of the day, so get out of my way and let me get it done. Oh, and by the way, I put out a lot of fires, so I'm totally important and an incredibly valuable addition to the company, thank you very much.

Wrong answer.  Well, not "wrong" because I was honest... but it's not the answer we should be striving for.  The majority of our time should be spent in the important and not urgent quadrant.  As we re-train ourselves to spend time planning and relationship building, the number of "fire drills" that end up in the Important/Urgent quadrant significantly decreases.  And when there are fire drills, we handle them much more competently because we're not simply reacting.

Law doesn't teach you this.  Lawyers are trained to react, to only react and to react well.  My head hurts just trying to fathom the concept that one day (hopefully in the near future), I could wake up and check my iPhone without the feeling of dread that I've forgotten about something hugely important that is going to consume my entire day with panic-stricken damage control.

So with that, back to my project plan.  I'll let y'all know when you can check out piece three of five in the serial fiction story.  I know you're waiting with bated breath, and I appreciate that about you.