As I’ve written about before, when it comes to computing I’ve never been real mobile. I’ve had laptops before, but they were old and rarely used. Of course, that was way before affordable wireless home networking. I got my iPod last year and it has been quite handy as a music transporter, but other than that it provides me nothing in the way of organizing anything else.

Work lets me use an iPaq PDA. I got it for testing intranet web pages on a mobile device, but that grand plan hasn’t seen the light of day yet. So with that, most of the time the PDA sits unused. However, once again a wireless network seems to be absent from the workplace so it doesn’t do much good. The only time I do use it is for note taking during meetings. Although the screen is small, I can write in my handwriting and then download the notes into Outlook on my desktop and see my notes, it’s pretty handy. It’s also good for playing solitaire when you’re on the can, but I have yet to win solitaire on the PDA.

Now, as chance would have it, I have acquired two laptops. So once again the mobile lifestyle knocks at my door. But this time, due to the very affordable price of the laptops, I can spring for wireless connectivity here at home. As I experience with my last laptop, having a computer on the couch is nice, but if you’re still tied to a network cable, how mobile can you really be?

So with plans to go wireless for the laptops (and the PDA) at home, I am faced with some data management challenges I’ve never had to worry about. Things like e-mail. I use a desktop mail client on my home PC, Thunderbird to be exact, so it downloads messages as they come in. But with a laptop, if I’m say on the couch and checking my mail, it will download it to the laptop – and even if I set it to leave the messaegs on the server, I’m still double downloading and having to keep things all synched up. A headache eitherway.

Now things like webmail and web calendars become all the more important. Google is nice, but I still really don’t trust Google to handle my regular personal and business e-mail. Right now I use GMail strictly for web site sign-ups and newsletters; nothing serious gets sent to GMail for their indexing or perusal.

Anyway, you get my dilemma. Keeping things all lined up and organized in a manner that it doesn’t matter where I am is difficult. I think. At least it seems like it should/will be. But then again, maybe not.

One of the books I actually remember reading (and finishing) in high school was Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. I only read it once for that class, but I’m pretty sure the theme revolves around some sort of emotionless, disposable, sterile future a la Gattica. But, of course, there is one main character that tries to break the mold and inject life into the otherwise colorless future. But all that aside, one quote I remember from that book is “ending is better than mending.” And it has almost turned into a work motto for myself.

The web development I do daily changes daily. What I know today will change tomorrow, and what’s new this week will be old next week. Technology is an ever-changing, ever-evolving thing and each time it, by all rights, gets better and better with each generation. Technology gets faster, smaller, cheaper, and more reliable. So when technology dies, it is not worth the time, money, or effort.

My parents’ computer recently decided to stop working. It won’t boot. We think it was due to a power surge of some sort, as after a thunderstorm it quit working. I opened the machine up to dust it out and see if anything was burnt out. Everything looked good, so then it gets down to “which part went bad?”

My first guess was RAM. A non-booting machine without any response is typically a symptom of bad RAM. So I took the RAM out and brought it home thinking I might have some RAM in my computer stash that will work. Unfortunately, I had none and the RAM is an older style that they really don’t make anymore.

Despite this, I was still asked if we can repair the computer with new RAM. Even if this older RAM could be purchased – on eBay if at all – the cost would probably rather high and really not worth it since you can buy a brand new computer for less than $500 – and not a totally shitty one either. Still, however, I was asked if the computer could just be repaired.

In some cases, I totally agree with patching and fixing instead of buying new. A car, for example, is better to fix because you can’t (easily) go out and buy a new car when something on your old car breaks – otherwise we’d all have brand new cars. This is because of cost, cars are expensive. Technology is not. Moore’s Law is always in effect and will always be true – at least it doesn’t show any signs of slowing.

So if cost isn’t an issue, why would you NOT want something new? There’s a reason we now watch DVDs and not VHS, and why we all have cell phones, and why we send e-mail instead of writing a letter by hand. It’s pretty simple: the cost difference is minimal. Why pay for same old when you can get brand new for the same price?

Nine times out of 10, when it comes to technology ending is better than mending. You don’t repair your TV, you get a new one. You don’t fix your VCR, you buy a DVD player. You quit using floppy disks and use CDs.

New is scary and change is always difficult, but both are also exciting at the same time. If it makes your life easier, the disruption of your comfort zone is worth learning something new. If you wait and keep supporting your old ways, the cost of change will one day far out weigh the value and comfort they bring – and it won’t be pretty.

Ajax is quite the buzzword recently. It’s the harbringer of Web2.0 and is certainly helping revive another internet boom period. Just about fancy new web application or web site you go to uses Ajax to make it “cool”. Google uses and abuses it wonderfully and then others follow suit. Visiting eHub and other Web2.0 blogs and sites, you’ll find a herd of new useful tools – from bookmarking, to FedEx tracking, to invoicing and gaming. All these new tools are great but for the world of intranets they don’t really help.

As a maker of intranet(s) for a pretty good sized company, I have to consistently pump out top-quality, usable applications. Nearly 100% of the tools I have to build from scratch, either writing them entirely myself or with frameworks and modules found online. I can’t just buy products or get a subscription to these fancy-yet-useful Ajax tools because each is its own entity, which is a bitch when you consider an intranet.

An intranet needs to be one big seamless experience. Single-login and common interfaces for as much as possible to keep things simple and easy for the user. Ajax helps me make new tools very usable, but I still have to build them from the ground up. Buying into discrete tools online and asking users to log in and use them turns the intranet into a portal and not a resource, which is not an option.

People bitch enough as it is when they have to log on to their computer AND log on to the intranet, and it’s the same login for both! So what’s a developer to do? You copy.

When I make my blog rounds to see what’s new and hip, I take notes and try to pick apart the logic for each one so I can then (in essence) build that same application for use on the intranet. For many projects, I would much rather buy and integrate, but many vendors don’t offer easy integration, especially with a custom intranet, nor do they offer enterprise packages.
With the purchasing option gone, the alternative is open source products. While open source provides a wide variety of options to look at, they still have limited integration options. Once again, separate account management and additional logons.

What I have yet to find is a product that is flexible enough and open enough to allow the integration I need. It doesn’t have to be open source (although that would be nice) but have an API or other option that lets me decide and program the integration for logins and users. Options for database would be great too, although many do offer this option already. I can even let design slide if I could make using it a distraction-free event.
Whenever a new project is proposed, my boss always askes if there is something we can buy to get the job done. Since I’m (still) a one-man department, my time is limited and he knows that buying saves that time I don’t have. I always look as asked, but nothing I find works for all the reasons above, but he seemingly doesn’t get it – or is fine with making user life harder than it already is.

Technology sucks enough as it is right now, the last thing Bob the Salesguy needs is another login, another password, and another reason to hate using our intranet. I would rather build tools that work the way we need and take an extra 3-months than take the easy way out by buying and then making things difficult and frustrating. Frustrated users make frustrated developers.

I don’t leave my office much at work. As a programmer, you’re in for a sentence of sitting for at least 6-hours a day typing away creating and design software. Rewards are good, both tangible and intangible, but to be efficient you have to stay organized. Call it curiousity, call it peeping, but I always make note of how people organize their desktop icons.

Actually, I could write it off as research. Afterall, learning how people naturally organize their workspace directly effects how they interact with software. This information becomes invaluable when designing interfaces for software and even how information is cataloged and organized.

Some people group the icons in different corners of the screen. Some just keep them in a grid. Some make little circles. Some, like myself, like to keep my desktop tidy with only the essentials and current working needs.

As I see, with Windows anyway, you have three places for your links to programs, files, and folders.

1. Your desktop
2. Your start menu
3. Your quick launch bar (next to Start)

I know Apple has their fancy-pants dock, but I won’t speak on that simply because I don’t use it, nor find it terribly useful when organizing my working needs.

My Computer and the Network live in the top-left corner where Windows makes them live, but I move my trash to the lower right-hand corner. I think I like my trash there because the old Mac OS(9?) had the trash in that position and it just made sense. I typically have my windows/folders open near the top of the screen, so dragging them down just feels natural.

Also along the left, I have shortcuts to my main working folders, the ones I access most frequently. To the right, I have folders and shortcuts to things I am currently working on. If I’m making a web site, it’s the web folder, or photo folders.

The most frequently used programs are put in the quick launch bar, like my browser, notepad, iTunes, and Photoshop – so I can hit them at anytime regardless what’s open and get to work. The start menu is where my secondary programs are; the ones I use ever so often, also for reference things – like FTP, CD burner, help files.
When working on Word docs or Photoshop, I typically save them right to the desktop since I’ll be working with them a lot over the next several days (or months). Once I’m done, they get filed away deep in the jungle of anally organized and labeled folders. I’ve read arguments for a complete folder-less organization system, but I do think we naturally want to group things for easy picking. Tools in this folder, games in that folder. Tags work great for searching for data that isn’t yours, but not so much when you’re in control.

Wondering around work, and even at home, the sheer number of icons on people’s desktops just blow me away. Organization be damed! The entire desktop is packed full of icons. Personally, I couldn’t function that way – all those icons I think would make be anxious. It’s not a wallpaper thing, I’m not interested in looking at my lovely background pictures – it’s just a workload thing, I think. When I see less on the desktop I know I have only a few things on my plate to work on. If it’s full of icons I know I’m doing too much and need to 1) organize, and 2) prioritize so each project gets done instead of sitting half-done or not started.

So I guess my desktop is a meter of sorts that tells me when it’s time to shape up. I’ve always been one to take on new projects that seem “fun” or challenging. But when my desktop is full, I know I can’t because I don’t have time.

But to each his own. Icon on fellow computerizers! Icon on!

I had a conversation with a co-worker today about blogs. She was telling me she was at some recent conference that talked about using blogs as a recruitment tool. She asked what I thought. I told her I think blogs are a great thing for businesses and employees. It can be a recruitment tool, but I see bizblogs more as a knowledge tool than anything. However, despite that, I realized that public employee blogs at my company will never, ever happen.

Why?

Because the company is afraid. Business blogs would not be anonymous. Your name would be associated with everything you post, thus you would be accountable for anything that appears on your blog. So if you happen to have a case of the Mondays and decide to vent on your blog about poor management and your low salary, guess what? You’d have to answer to The Man because that’s just not professional.

However, as we discussed during our conversation, you cannot have such a blog be all positive because then it’s just not believable by the public and this it gains no credability. And with that you’re not helping get the attention of new employees nor helping yourself or co-workers. Writing about frustrations is good and puts a very human face on you and your company, but there has to be a fair balance. You can’t bash your company, but there needs to be times when so-called negative writing is allowed.

My employer flees in the face of negativity, hence a blog like that would not work where I am. Anyone that has anything “bad” to say gets shunned and gets a stern talking to. And any new technology or idea that has a remote chance of opening negative opportunities gets shot down before anyone knows it was even an option.
Another reason a blog would not see the light of day is because it offers opportunity for abuse. So if there is a chance, albeit rare, they won’t consider offering it. What they should do is open things up for opportunity, like a blog, and deal with problems when they happen.

Children can do bad things. In junior high there is always one bad seed of a child that picks on people and does stupid stuff. That kid always gets in trouble and has to stay in during recess. The chance of any kid doing something bad is always there, but that doesn’t mean the teacher keeps the entire class from recess. You let them have their fun and deal with the problems when they happen. Because guess what?! Something good might also happen!!

The constant strategy of management to stop things before they happen seems silly. I know that sounds silly, but it’s true to an extent. You obviously want to account for certain situations, but if you’re moving into new territory – like a bizblogs – you have to give it a chance. What starts out looking like a weed can bloom into a flower.

If, after time, you see no benefit or more bad than good as a result, then stop it. But if during the run of the program, if one lone jerk goes off, you DEAL WITH THAT JERK. Suspend him, fire him, beat him…whatever, but deal with him and him alone and let everyone else be happy with what they got. Don’t punish the class when you know who the guilty party is. The offenders will filter themselves out over time, if not by the rules, by the community of people that do care about the privleges they have.

Companies like the one I work for would find their employees are their best resource for new ideas, both to improve internal productivity and external revenue, if they let us express it. An anonymous suggestion box doesn’t do anyone any good any more. It doesn’t work. Each person needs to be allowed to have a voice. Some will take it and run. Some will try and fail. Some will be scared and not even try. But not knowing the outcome ahead of time is not a good reason to not offer people a voice.

The internet is by far the consumer’s best friend in the world. Whatever it is you are thinking about purchasing, someone has bought it and shared their thoughts on it somewhere. All you need to do is find it. Fortunately, that’s pretty easy.

If you’re buying anything electronic especially, look online before you commit to any purchase. Even if you don’t plan on buying the item, say a digital camera, online, look there first to see not only prices, but to see what other people think.

I’ve had my digital camera for almost 2 years. It’s a Canon Powershot and it works great. On top of that, the software that came with it to get the photos from my camera to my computer works great too. In this case, the camera is (almost) only as good as the software for it. Afterall, if you can’t get the pictures on your computer what good is it?

The average sticker for a mid-range camera is $150-$200 depending on resolution and features. I wanted a camera mainly for online use. I’m not very interested in printing digital photos. When I was out at stores, any store, I took note of what cameras they had and how much they were. Model number and everything. Then when I went back home I went online and looked up details on each camera.

The best places to find reviews for products are the online stores that sell them. Places like Amazon.com and CNet were of great help when I was trying to make my choice. Both places had a ton of reviews from normal people with normal needs. I got a range of opinons on the pros and cons of many cameras. I remember one camera, an Olympus, sounded great. Good price, good features, and very few bad reviews on one site. But as I continued on to other sites looking for info, I read about a certain model’s quick battery life – even for recharables. Another model camera had a rather long shutter delay (the time from push to picture), which is long for any digital camera, so all you can do is look for the smallest.

Aside from the quality of the actual camera, I noted the reviews given for the software too. Even though I’m rather computer savvy and can click my way through almost anything, that doesn’t mean I like hard-to-use software. I don’t want to have to work any harder than anyone else. And I believe that software should work like you expect because I know it can.

The camera I ended up getting was a great purchase (and a bargain at that). It works great, takes great pictures, and is easy to use with my computer. Had I gone with my initial instinct and casual knowledge, I would have had a different camera that might not have been as good in any department. I’ll honestly never know if it did suck, but by taking a safer route with the camera I did buy, I was much more confident that I was getting something good for my money. And believe me, I didn’t know jack about cameras – and still don’t. I spent a lot of time learning about them and what to look for before I went out.

On the flip side of all this, I encourage everyone to submit their own reviews of products on these same sites. Even if you don’t buy them online, give your opinions because they do make a difference. If you bought something that sucks, don’t be an ass and get joy out of some poor schmoe that gets it too – post your troubles so others can avoid the same mistake.

You don’t buy the first car you look at. And you don’t buy the first house you look at. You take your time and get all the facts before making a choice. A digital camera is no house or car, but that doesn’t mean you need to settle for a piece of junk. Do you homework with anything you’re going to buy of which you know nothing about – especially technology. It will save you trouble, time, money, and frustration. And frankly, it will save me from having to share in your poor purchase pain.

This is the first season that I’ve watched 24 from the beginning. I got hooked half way through last season (season 4) and will probably watch until they officially turn the 24-hour day into a 28-hour day. Anyway, midway through this season I saw Peter Weller as a regular characters, a real bad guy too. Well, as you should all know, Peter Weller rose to fame in the role of Robocop, possibly 1987′s finest sci-fi film.

Peter Weller’s voice is awesome and ranks right up there with Keifer’s. And for the life of me, just once, I want Peter Weller to utter the phrase, “Dead or alive, you’re coming with me.” One of the many catch phrases from the film. This past weekend, prompted by Peter’s appearence on 24, I put in Robocop for 90-minutes of science-fiction fun.

Now I’ve been watching Robocop since third grade and know it almost as well as I do Star Wars. It’s a classic, no questions there. In the movie, Robocop takes on the mob, headed up by Kurtwood Smith – otherwise known as Red from That 70s Show. Anyway, in Robocop, Red leads a gang of about half a dozen goons that wreak havoc throughout Detroit, keeping Robocop employed. For the most part, these are your typical goons – usually credited as Goon #1, Goon #2 and so on. One goon, the goon that lasts the longest, as pointed out by The Wife, was on a hit mid-90s primetime soap called Savannah.

Then she mentioned he was also in Good Night, and Good Luck as the newscaster that committed suicide, albeit now a lot older. And then thinking back to that movie, I thought that was the same guy that was in 24 as the vice president. Sure enough, a quick lookup on IMDB and he was. (How’s that for a Center of the Universe trip?)
That man is Ray Wise. Ray who?

Ray Wise, otherwise known as Vice President Hal Gardner on 24, with Peter Weller. Just by random chance, two Robocop alumni end up on the same show almost 20 years later. Now if Nancy Allen or Miguel Ferrer shows up on 24, it’ll be a Robocop trifecta.

Unfortunately, they did make two sequels to Robocop which should not be seen by human eyes, but the original stands the test of time and if you haven’t seen it, first, shame on you, and second, you better get it or borrow it from someone.

It’s funny when you see an actor/actress and you associate them with something you saw as a kid, yet others know that person from something else. In the case of Kurtwood Smith. I know him first as the bad guy from Robocop, but everyone else probably knows him from That 70s Show. Just interesting where they end up.

How often do you have one of those moments when you read or see something that describes a way you do something, even though you never really realized that’s how you did it? When it comes to comptuerizing and programming, I find that happens a lot – more often than is probably good, if that’s bad to begin with. But when I was reading through one of my regular blogs, Coding Horror, I came across a post that talks about the “balance and elegance” of coding.

It references a book from an earlier time where a programmer was interviewed on the topic of balance and elegance of source code – the actual lines of code (text) that are then used to make the program go. The guy interviewed relates coding to sculpting in clay, where you have a ton of stuff but then must whittle it down to be something viewable and balanced.

“It shouldn’t have one “if” that’s huge and an “else” that’s small.”

Amazingly enough, when I read that sentence I stopped a did a complete “holyshit, that’s how I code” – I couldn’t believe it. The idea that the visualization of the code makes any difference is sort of silly and really has no bearing on how the program works or functions – yet this is something I do instinctively when coding.

I can’t stand seeing off-balance code because not only does it look bad, but it just gives me this vibe like I did something wrong. Nine times out of 10 relationships between things need to be balanced, and when they’re not it’s usually a sign of inevitable doom or that it works for the now but not for the later.

To this day, on large projects I regularly print out the code and tape it all together in one long sheet and look at it on my wall. Then I look at it and find these place where the code looks wrong – where it doesn’t seem to flow with the rest, and I usually find that section of code can be redone or needs to be removed completely.

Maybe some of this is the “artist” in me, I dunno, but now that I’m conscience of this thing I hope it doesn’t throw me off when I catch myself doing it.

The so-called Web 2.0 that is sweeping the world is creating new ways in which web pages work and function for visitors. What used to be a click-page-click-page routine is no longer required and the result is quicker responses on web pages that tell you that something just happened a lot sooner. The problem I’m find on sites I use and pages I make, is the Back button.

The Back button is a staple on any web browser. And it does what it says, it takes you back one page. So if you click a link, like a Google result, and the page turns out to be a crapper, you click Back and you try another link – wash and repeat.

Anyone that has gone to an all-Flash site knows the frustration when the Back button doesn’t act as expected. On these sites, you navigate deep into the site and then when you mis-click and instinctively use the Back button, it takes you to the previous SITE, not the previous PAGE, because you never actually went to any other pages – it was all contained within the Flash player.

This scenario is rearing its ugly all over the web with the new Web 2.0 applications.

The features of 2.0 apps (via Ajax, typically) is great because it is overall a lot quicker and does make things better for the user – if designed properly. But if you break the Back button, you’re dead in the water and people will give up. I do, and I’m someone that does know why and how it works.

You must anticipate the Back button when making a web page with tools these days. To do this, just act out how you would go through the site and note when you would hit the Back button. This is a good place to start and is what I always do when I’m trying to figure out the best solution the problem.

I’ve gotten caught up in the “Ajax for sake of Ajax” every now and then and it always bites me in the ass because the final result doesn’t meet expectations – even my own expectations.

So if you build web applications or plan to, make sure you account for the Back button. The Back button is here to stay because it’s been here for a long time, and frankly, it works – it’s handy.

To break the Back button your interface must be so clear and so obvious that users will never be tempted to use the button. Your chances of doing this are slim, so it’s better to safe your bet than work hard on the “cool” factor only to be outdone by a simple button in the corner of the browser.

The workplace is our home away from home. It’s where we spend a third of our day for 71% of week. We spend our waking hours there sharing more time with co-workers than we do our families on a regular basis. Not everyone loves there job, or even likes it. For some a job is just a means to end, but even if that’s the case, if you’re gonna spend a good part of your life there, it needs to be “you”.

I’m pretty sure I’ve spoken on the topic work environment before, but there’s some new motivation behind me this time. I have an up-close look at my own work space.

I’ve been in my my current office for almost 2-years now (I think) and it is conveniently (or unconveniently) placed on the top floor in the farthest corner away from all other forms life. One door. No windows. And the average temperature is probably a brisk 65 degrees. But shy of it being a tad chilly, I share the office with one other guy and this is by far the pinnacle of work environment in our building.

For starters, we designed the room layout ourselves and they built it for us. We planned it out and gave the construction people a Visio drawing and after 3-weeks our room was built and painted to specification. Cubicles are for chumps. Since there is only two of us, we made a penninsula of sorts. We each have an L-shaped desk space with a corkboard wall separating our sides of the room. The wall is just high enough to keep us out of each other’s face, but low enough that a little lift of the chin gets you in eye-shot of the other. Not to mention, the wall is perfect for just about any battle you can think of: ping-pong, paper football, paper airplanes, frisbee…and whatever other game needs a halfway point.

As I do with any space I am forced to work in, I fill it up with stuff that makes me happy. I’m there to serve them, so I need to be as happy as I can to get the most of my job and to create the best products possible. We all have crappy days, but I can’t tell you how much 15 minutes of Lego time can really help you calm down and lower that stress level.

Talking about it is one thing, but words can’t grasp the level of customization this pad has. There’s a little bragging in there, but I feel more so it should be taken as something that should get you thinking about your own workspace. Rules be damned. Make your space your own and be happy at work. If you job doesn’t make you happy, at least your toys can.

Take an up-close look at my home away from home*

*Please, please, please wait for the entire page to load. This feature is filled with big images, so the background especially might not come in instantly. And it’s really wide so you’ll have to scroll side-to-side. I hodge-podged a few shots together to create a weak panorama of the room.
And if you have any questions about anything you see…just ask…

Going to eye doctor isn’t like going to dentist, although it can cost just as much…or more. I haven’t worn contacts in quite some time. Ever since my last pack ran out I’ve just been wearing my glasses. Frankly, at that point in time I was happy to start wearing glasses. You can only go through the routine of poking yourself in the eye so many times before it just gets old – putting on glasses is just a heck of a lot easier.

But then when driving I noticed my glasses vision wasn’t what it used to be. My glasses Rx is older than my last set of contacts, so it’s not exactly current. However, with my increased computer time at work I feared my eyesight had dropped a few more points.

But, as luck has it, my eyes haven’t gotten any worse! Yay me! So I just ordered new contacts and then the unexpected venture of the morning, picking out new glasses. And I mean new frames. Talk about suck.

I am perfectly happy with the frames I have, but yet I need to get new frames? That’s dumb. The docs should have a way to make lenses with the new Rx that fit my old frames. I might actually call and ask again just to see if there answer is the same because the new frames I picked out, while not bad, would ont have been my first pick had they not been the best of the selection offered.

And once again, the selection for men was limited. But having been on many shopping trips into the women’s section, they have about 500 rows of everything – shoes, purses, makeup, socks, etc – us men? We get one aisle, if we’re lucky. So there’s an entire wall of women’s frames but only one rack of mens, stuck next to the kids, of course.

I like to shop. Shopping doesn’t bother me because 99% of the time I don’t buy a thing, it’s just window shopping. However, if the selection was somewhat top notch for me, I would be more inclined to buy. I like buying clothes as much as the next girl, but I don’t have the choices. Give me choices and I have more opportunity to purchase – it’s a simple concept.

People are curious by nature. Curiousity led us to where we are as humans today. Despite this, curiousity is seemingly frightening to some people even though they know it shouldn’t be, at least so it seems.

I had a meeting recently about some new technology at work. Well, not new technology, but a system they want created that would totally rearrange their work processes. Some serious change…but anyway, during that conversation one person was talking about how her secretary keeps reservations schedules in a little black book and that having a system to do it and allow others to see would be nice.

I quickly spoke up to say that system existed, and had existed for quite some time. Her eyes opened and asked some more. I told her there was a lot of stuff that existing (on our intranet) that makes simple communications and sharing easier. Then she mentioned her secretary would never think to ask if there was a system, or even if we can buy/build a system to make the whole thing more efficient.

This kind of bummed me out. In some environments, namely your work place, I find it odd for people to settle for the status quo. I think as an employee it’s your duty to make your job better. And you do that by asking everyone else to make it better, managers, co-workers, whoever will listen. There’s always someone that will agree with you and I’ve seen a simple idea get a lot of chitchat and magically turn into a full-blown project overnight.

If I was sitting there trying to track schedules on paper and handling phone calls from people asking which days are available and when, I would be going, “there’s got to be a better way to do this!” Even if the ultimate answer is “No, deal with it,” at least you asked. This is especially true if you’re not exactly sure of what resources your company has. I don’t think this lady I was talking with knew we could make our own web-based software. Now she does and I hope the gears are turning for the future.

Maybe it’s not really a lack of curiousity but more a lack of willingness to better their lives, even if it’s only their work lives.  But I guess curiousity is needed to fuel the courage to ask what is possible instead of accepting the “that’s how it’s always been done” excuse – which is almost never a good excuse.