It was an odd feeling putting my socks in their drawer. I unpacked my bag and washed my clothes as usual. But instead of packing them back up, I folded them and put them in drawers. It was a solemn end to a long trip.
I haven't put socks into a drawer in almost two years. I've traveled just about every week for the last 23 months. When I wasn't traveling I was taking short trips or was parked in some foreign place. Although my house has remained in Atlanta over that time period, I have considered the "Away" my real home.
I initially passed on this new job because of the pains of staying in one place. Traffic. Living expenses. Ironing. Neighbors. Permanence. Stagnation. Complacency. It was many of the things I wanted to do next in my career. But...the same views of the same things and the same people in the same places...these things bothered me.
I wrestled with the idea of the job. I struggled with the idea of not traveling. I dreamed about the idea of taking my knowledge and creating bigger things. I came to the conclusion that it was time to either move on or move out.
It's not that I couldn't move up in the same path, but I decided to move on to this new position because consulting was beginning to show its own pains. Travel. Expense Reports. Ironing. Businessmen. Change became permanence, my personal life was stagnating and I was becoming complacent anyway. The consulting lifestyle still had a great attraction. But...the same views of the same things and the same people in the same places...these things bothered me.
So now I have an office. I have an office. A singular place in which to work. I'm moving back to Atlanta from Away. For good and for bad.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Saturday, July 11, 2009
The Mission
"You will receive a package," came across the phone thickly accented. The voice was too familiar to mistake. It was the Philadelphian. I knew what this was about.
"Inside the package there is an envelope. You will not open the envelope until you are on the plane." And then the part I knew was coming. "It is your mission." This was about my trip....
"Inside the package there is an envelope. You will not open the envelope until you are on the plane." And then the part I knew was coming. "It is your mission." This was about my trip....
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Friday, July 3, 2009
Amelia Island and Fernandina Beach
Amelia island is just a bit away from Jacksonville FL but it feels farther. It reminds me a little bit of Vail, CO when I lived out there. Amelia Island is One of those little resort towns that has all the luxuries but also has a small town feel among the locals.
If you've seen the movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall, you'll know the experience of seeing the service industry employees in a more casual setting. That's not just Hollywood reality, that's the way things are in resort areas. The locals all congregate with each other and have a wild party mentality. And most of the local characters you recognize, you can't remember exactly when or where you saw them, but you immediately and positively know them.
So it is that I find myself at a bar called the Green Turtle (not to be confused with the Greene Turtle in Maryland). This is a little beach hippie dive bar that feels like you're in a friend's backyard at a party. The patrons mostly know one another, local band is rocking out, there's a great patio and porch and there's a 1960s VW camper van painted in psychedelic colors - painted by a local artist, lovingly referred to as Scramble Campbell - in the yard.
The city of Fernandina Beach is designed and built like any Southern Atlantic Coastal city, which is to say it's planning and construction seems independent of any single philosophy or guiding principle. Key West is an extreme example of this sort of place, by you get a better idea if you compare it to Savannah or Charleston.
And cities like these all seem to have a common history in proportion to their distinguishing characteristics. Most of them have an antebellum downtown area (look up the history of Charleston's market street for reference) and reveres it's history and preserves its tradition in it's culture. The residents tend to live slowly and be deliberate in manner and avoid intentional offense at all costs.
Jacksonville, for instance, is home to the Palace Saloon - oldest saloon in the state with a history stretching back to "seventeen-something," according to an authoritative-sounding (though incorrect) local. It may have operated as a speak-easy during prohibition just like the Blind Tiger in Chucktown. There is, I am told, a distinction between a tavern and a bar and the oldest bar in the state is somewhere else. When you go, make sure you sip your Pirate Punch from one of the captain's chairs at the far side of the Charlie's Bar room.
There is only one cab company on the island - VIP Taxi. The company began six years ago as a limousine service and then branched out into taxi cabs. Two companies already served the island, but they apparently didn't do a very good job. The company is small and all of the drivers I met were friendly and sociable. But this small size means that they can be overwhelmed on busy nights - so call early.
If you've seen the movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall, you'll know the experience of seeing the service industry employees in a more casual setting. That's not just Hollywood reality, that's the way things are in resort areas. The locals all congregate with each other and have a wild party mentality. And most of the local characters you recognize, you can't remember exactly when or where you saw them, but you immediately and positively know them.
So it is that I find myself at a bar called the Green Turtle (not to be confused with the Greene Turtle in Maryland). This is a little beach hippie dive bar that feels like you're in a friend's backyard at a party. The patrons mostly know one another, local band is rocking out, there's a great patio and porch and there's a 1960s VW camper van painted in psychedelic colors - painted by a local artist, lovingly referred to as Scramble Campbell - in the yard.
The city of Fernandina Beach is designed and built like any Southern Atlantic Coastal city, which is to say it's planning and construction seems independent of any single philosophy or guiding principle. Key West is an extreme example of this sort of place, by you get a better idea if you compare it to Savannah or Charleston.
And cities like these all seem to have a common history in proportion to their distinguishing characteristics. Most of them have an antebellum downtown area (look up the history of Charleston's market street for reference) and reveres it's history and preserves its tradition in it's culture. The residents tend to live slowly and be deliberate in manner and avoid intentional offense at all costs.
Jacksonville, for instance, is home to the Palace Saloon - oldest saloon in the state with a history stretching back to "seventeen-something," according to an authoritative-sounding (though incorrect) local. It may have operated as a speak-easy during prohibition just like the Blind Tiger in Chucktown. There is, I am told, a distinction between a tavern and a bar and the oldest bar in the state is somewhere else. When you go, make sure you sip your Pirate Punch from one of the captain's chairs at the far side of the Charlie's Bar room.
There is only one cab company on the island - VIP Taxi. The company began six years ago as a limousine service and then branched out into taxi cabs. Two companies already served the island, but they apparently didn't do a very good job. The company is small and all of the drivers I met were friendly and sociable. But this small size means that they can be overwhelmed on busy nights - so call early.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Batching Emails
For the last few weeks I've been trying to spend less time as a slave to my inbox and so I've disabled email notifications on my blackberry and iPhone. That makes it easier to resist the temptation to jump on every single email that comes in, personal or professional. Then I can go through these at my leisure when I have time to think and respond.
I used to pick up my phone anytime it buzzed or dinged or rang or made any other of 100 goofy noises. I'd gotten really used to that and once I stopped it was hard to get over the urge to grab my phone and check messages every 10 minutes like I used to do. I'd get bored quickly and my attention wandered to who might be sending me some critical email. But eventually the urges subsided and I realized I hadn't missed any critical emails and the world hadn't crashed to a halt. More importantly I was able to concentrate on a single task and get through it faster.
Most of the time when I was checking emails constantly, I was forth from task to task like crazy. It's similar to the computer systems' multitasking functionality, such as last-in-first-out (LIFO) processing (whatever piece of information has just arrived, process that first and delay the current task) and extreme hard drive thrashing (going from the inside to the outside of the platter on each subsequent read or write). Obviously this isn't very efficient. You lose a lot of time changing tasks and it's stressful having them all open at once.
When you look at every email as it arrives, you're basically saying "Anything that hits my inbox is more important than whatever it is I'm doing right now." That is almost never the case, and even when it is, anything in an email can usually wait 3-4 hours before you answer it. For the really critical stuff, you can still grab calls. Many times you'll find that the problems solve themselves before you can take care of them.
Now I find that I am much more efficient and this has probably cut out 5-10 hours a week (that's a consulting week of about 80 hours) in wasted time and I feel more relaxed and in control. You can apply the same principles to anything you find hitting you in intervals. And most likely you already do - unless you run to the store every time you need a paper towel.
I used to pick up my phone anytime it buzzed or dinged or rang or made any other of 100 goofy noises. I'd gotten really used to that and once I stopped it was hard to get over the urge to grab my phone and check messages every 10 minutes like I used to do. I'd get bored quickly and my attention wandered to who might be sending me some critical email. But eventually the urges subsided and I realized I hadn't missed any critical emails and the world hadn't crashed to a halt. More importantly I was able to concentrate on a single task and get through it faster.
Most of the time when I was checking emails constantly, I was forth from task to task like crazy. It's similar to the computer systems' multitasking functionality, such as last-in-first-out (LIFO) processing (whatever piece of information has just arrived, process that first and delay the current task) and extreme hard drive thrashing (going from the inside to the outside of the platter on each subsequent read or write). Obviously this isn't very efficient. You lose a lot of time changing tasks and it's stressful having them all open at once.
When you look at every email as it arrives, you're basically saying "Anything that hits my inbox is more important than whatever it is I'm doing right now." That is almost never the case, and even when it is, anything in an email can usually wait 3-4 hours before you answer it. For the really critical stuff, you can still grab calls. Many times you'll find that the problems solve themselves before you can take care of them.
Now I find that I am much more efficient and this has probably cut out 5-10 hours a week (that's a consulting week of about 80 hours) in wasted time and I feel more relaxed and in control. You can apply the same principles to anything you find hitting you in intervals. And most likely you already do - unless you run to the store every time you need a paper towel.
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