TheBanyanTree: Work Life

[Margaret R. Kramer]

I’m sure someone got the idea back in the 50s when TV was catching on as
family entertainment to develop situation comedies based on the workplace
rather than the family.  For instance, “I Love Lucy” was a sit com about a
family and their neighbors, but the “Dick Van Dyke Show” focused on funny
situations with the workplace and family.  Then we watched shows like the
“Mary Tyler Moore Show” that was represented the comedic interactions
between coworkers.  The main character or characters were single and didn’t
really have any family.  Perhaps these shows reflected the changing face of
America as we moved out of our daily family situations with dad going to
work and mom staying home with the kids to both parents (or single people)
spending more time in the workplace.

And that’s what I do now, spend way too much time and energy in my
workplace.  I went from an organization in which most of its employees didn’
t give a crap about what was going on to an organization in which most of
its employees are slaves to its existence.  Sometimes the situations are
funny and sometimes they are very sad.

First, we have these programming divas (actually system architects) who
spend most of their time wandering around trying to think up how a
complicated system would work.  I honestly believe this profession attracts
attention deficit disorder people, because some of these people jump around
like frogs from one lily pad to another, creating chaos and confusion in
their wake.  And like divas, they get upset and throw tantrums if they don’t
get their way.

Then we have programmers that won’t share information with anyone else.
They hold it like a sword in front of them.  Some of these people have been
burned in the collapse of the IT industry and now that they have a job
again, they’re not going to relinquish what they know easily.
Unfortunately, a system is like a big puzzle, all the pieces need to fit
together, and when a person or groups of people hold onto their “secrets,”
then the puzzle might not be complete and fall apart.

We have the 24 hour people, who literally think of their work 24 hours a
day.  Heaven forbid that they have a personal life, they have to be pounding
on their keyboards at 2:30 am or stay in the office until 10 pm.  Whatever
the company demands of them, they do, at the expense of their family and
their own personal development.

Finally, we have the people like me, who try to work a 40 hour week, try to
keep work in the background, and try not to let it overwhelm me in my life.
This job is much more demanding than my last one, but it’s a good kind of
demanding, since I’m learning new things, and I’m especially learning how to
deal with exceptionally bright and dysfunctional people.

So a TV screenwriter could churn together all these kinds of people and have
us act out our worst, yet funny scenarios, but I doubt the general public
would be interested in watching a bunch of diva-like nerds battle it out
over a system design.  We all want to use great systems, but we don’t want
to know about the blood, sweat, and tears that went into developing them.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net

http://www.bpwmn.org
Business and Professional Women of Minnesota

Men say that in this midnight hour,
The disembodièd have power
To wander as it liketh them,
By wizard oak and fairy stream.
~William Motherwell