Microserfs

I am reading Microserfs, by Douglas Coupland, and it has occurred to me that there may be absolutely no difference between Microsoft in the '90s and my own Big Tech Company today.

I am not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but it does give me a comforting feeling of being part of a tradition. Lately I have been thinking a lot about things lacking in the current version of my life, these being primarily 1) large sweeping vistas of scenery and 2) traditions (at least work- or geography-related traditions).

In a similar vein I had a conversation with my guy a couple of weeks ago in which we learned that a large part of my connection to Monterey relates to my sense of its history, and that that simply isn't something which he shares. Instead, he is aware of various aspects of Carmel which I had never even realized might exist.

Somewhat ironically, I think a large part of my sense of Monterey's history derives from my time doing community theater in its old buildings. I acted Shakespeare's Plantagenets cycle of history plays in the Memory Garden near the Custom House, and somehow wound up very aware of Monterey's several-hundred-years-after-Shakespeare Mexican and whaling traditions. This is where they stabled the horses, I thought, and here are the bread ovens, while I bashed enthusiastically away at various other community theater enthusiasts with a fake, badly-centered broadsword. It made sense at the time.

Work = kindergarten?

This afternoon, I left work and went to the toy store. I bought 4 Transformers die-cast action figures (two of Optimus Prime, in order to reduce the likelihood of arguments).

Later today, I will hand out said action figures as prizes (along with cash, admittedly) to team members who have successfully launched certain types of projects. There's some chance that in future I will also hand out stickers. And perhaps one of those blow-up punching bags, again Transformer-themed. I have checked this plan with several people whose opinion I respect, and they all agree it's a great idea.

I work with grown-ups, really I do! Really. Um ... yeah. I do. I think.

Then again, I always say I'm not the person to do the warm fuzzy stuff. You want to know what metrics we should reward? I'm your gal. You want to know what the actual reward should look like, what it is that will make people feel good? Nope, not my area. So wish me luck - I'm either about to crash & burn, or launch something successful, or maybe just feel mildly silly.