My job is to troubleshoot hard to solve software and firmware problems, and I get a lot of freedom doing it. Most of the time I investigate issues that seem interesting to me, and not the ones that are really important.
Also, I am pretty dense when it comes to handling the emotional needs of my colleagues. I will gladly sign our team up for some weekend work without thinking if it affects the people who have families.
I am also deeply distrustful of upper management, and usually ignore their directions and comments, I have never had anything bad happen from this yet, so this behavior keeps reinforcing itself.
I’m a doctoral student and I should have publications by now, if I wanted to get in to any “good” schools. But I’m lazy, as I’d much rather teach. And before people say teaching is harder, I don’t agree. I have taught back-to-back hour and a half classes without breaking a sweat. Granted, these classes were actually recitations for a lecture, but through sheer fucked-up academic bookkeeping, I’m the instructor of record.
No professors around me who are successful (i.e. lots of publications) extol teaching; they see it as basically on the level of toilet cleaning; it’s got to be done, but no one should like it. The disdain drips from their voices when they describe “those teaching schools.” To say one wishes to go to a teaching school is to, as one doctoral student said to me, become a knowledge parasite who has betrayed his advisor and all the professors who helped him in the program.
Keep in mind that I don’t go to a top-tier research school right now. In fact, no one really respects us here in Texas, even as we attempt Tier One status and a 40,000 student enrollment (that should be enough of a hint for those who are motivated to look)
As I’m not published at this point, I will end up being a disappointment to my advisor, a highly respected professor who is a credit to his field. I’ve resigned myself to that fact, and am now just getting used to the idea that maybe disappointing others isn’t so bad.
Hmm. Sounds like justification and splitting hairs to me JB. I’m sure you work in a *public *library, rather than building a private collection. While I appreciate that “10-15 titles a month does not go as far as you think” to seemingly abuse the discretionary power you hold by including none, rather than a limited Beck and Coulter selection could, to some, smack of arrogance. The elderly and the feeble sighted are entitled to bad taste too, you know…
Consider that guilt can only ever be “solely (our) own” and arises when we know better than to do what we’re actually doing.
Holy cow, you summarized one of the reasons my daughter gave me for divorcing her soon-to-be-ex. He needed constant affirmation that he did good by putting the dishes away or doing the laundry or scooping the cat box…
As for me, I’m bad at my job in that, according to one of my objectives, I should innovate. I’m supposed to be figuring out new things we can be doing or new ways of using our software or new softwear we should be trying… except I’m absolutely no good at that. My brain doesn’t work that way. If you show me that we can take this tool and use it this way and get this result, I’ll be impressed, and I’ll learn to use it. But I can’t look at a process and say “Hey, if we had a program that would do this that and the other, we could produce this stuff in half the time!!!” It’s just not the way I am.
On the other hand, you teach me to use a tool and how to apply it, and I’ll probably get the job done faster and more efficiently than a lot of folks. I’m really good when I get into a groove. Just don’t expect me to invent the groove. Thankfully, my boss understands that about me and he’s fine with it. And he shields me from his boss.
I’m a teacher, and a damned good teacher. I am one of those teachers who inspires their students and change lives. People will remember me for years. I’m making a huge impact among my students on both an academic and personal level. The amount that they look up to me is almost alarming. I’m not exaggerating this at all.
I’m also a very lazy teacher. I never give homework or writing assignments because I hate grading and half the time I lose the students’ papers anyway. I give BS tests because they are easy to grade. I only know the names of a few of my students. Sometimes I plan easy lessons- easy for me, that is. The kind of lesson where I can get through a few pages of my book while the students do an activity. I’m supposed to interact with my students outside of the classroom- something I mostly find tedious. If they invite me out or even want me to do school related activities, I often lie and say I’m busy.
As a computer/service tech in the banking industry I try to be friendly to the customers but sometimes apparently I come off rude according to my boss who hears complaints on occasion.
I’m just not very good at multi-tasking. I’ll be engaging when working on something simple but when I’m in text editor on their UNIX core computer for example I really don’t want to be distracted when I can blow away their system with one wrong keystroke. ( I’m exaggerating a little but still)
Then they really would have something to bitch about.
Honestly, I would consider Justin’s very accurate point that no one is interested in a political screed a year later, combined with the fact that anyone who IS interested in Beck’s opinions can watch him on television every day, an excellent reason for not wasting tax dollars on expensive audio versions of his books. The same logic would apply to Keith Olbermann.
Justin’s job, given his very limited funds, is to buy the books with the broadest appeal. I’d say he’s doing fine.
Except, the public isn’t demanding them, apparently.
If there had been a request and he still refused to stock the item, that would be a kind of censorship. Not-ordering something which nobody has specifically asked for, and which is widely-available elsewhere, hardly qualifies.
If best-sellingness was the critical criteria, you wouldn’t need a person to make ordering decisions for a library; you’d just take the top whatever-number off the bestseller list each month. Is that a good library?
Sure, if there was a request, I’d get one. But in the three years I’ve been selecting audiobooks, I can count the number of requests I’ve received on one hand. It’s not just that it doesn’t happen for Beck and Coulter, the audiobook readers from my library don’t make requests for anything.
I’m good at the job-description type aspects of my job, and I’m good at the vast majority of the non-job description aspects as well, except for two.
One’s attention to detail; I’m just not a detail person. I’m the kind that doesn’t notice that the document is 4/5 in one font, and the bottom 1/5 is in another. Or the kind that forgets to reformat the dates in a spreadsheet, because well, it all calculates right and ticks & ties, which is the important part, right? I’ve pretty much resigned myself to believing that it’s a personality trait, because I don’t want to do it, but it just happens in spite of trying to do the best job I can.
The other is that I completely suck at the political games that go on at most companies. It’s the only reason I can think of where I can get very good reviews and compliments on my work, and yet be passed over for raises and promotions consistently. Either that, or the Peter Principle’s at work.
I’m a freelance writer/editor. I am almost supernaturally good at writing and editing, but I am terrible about the freelancer part. I hate trolling for clients, marketing and self-promotion. I could be making a lot more money than I am if I weren’t so lazy about the business side of what I do.
What I really need is someone to be my rep and find me work.
I’m one of two programmers in my small business (comprised of three people). In my position I have to wear a lot of hats. I think I should be on par with my partner, doing what he does as well as he does. The only thing I kick ass at is billing and layout. I’m pretty good at getting work done, following directions and learning stuff that needs to be learned.
But I suck at a lot of stuff. Bringing in business and landing big deals is not something I’ve ever done. Talking on the phone is horrible. I barely understand AJAX and XML and when to employ them and how. I can write great code and SQL but I would imagine my code is not very efficient and neither is my SQL.
And, I pretty much don’t care. My partner is not as good at the stuff I am great at so we complement each other. Our business could be 10x better if I were more like him (and still like myself) but…meh. I don’t have drive, I just like a regular paycheck.
