Wednesday 15 July 2009

Skill Set

Every once in a while I’ll be staring at the computer, out of a window or at the pavement, thinking what am I actually good at. This usually happens after I’ve made a relatively large mistake, got my ego burnt or tried to be helpful but been nothing more than a bane.

It also happens when I think about what I am actually good for in the working world; what skills do I possess and which ones I haven’t got and wish for. My initial thought is that all my attributes are innate and quite frankly everything I have learned in this living in this world is nothing. Obviously this isn’t true and perhaps this first reaction is one of my weaknesses coming into. Still, I can’t deny that if I was to list my strengths a lot of them derive from what makes me, me. First off, one of my major strengths is that I find it very difficult to give up. I’m very dogged. If I was a premier league footballer, I’d be Michael Essien. As a result I tend to never give in easily when set a task. If barriers are put up I find ways to get around them. If it’s something I’m personally interested in then I am almost rude in getting something done. Alas, this strength is also a weakness because trying to get something done takes time and therefore sometimes it isn’t well spent and I end up celebrating a pyrrhic victory. Embarrassment, although I wouldn’t call it a weakness does affect me. Not many things get me embarrassed but those things that do make me recoil into myself and I just don’t do things and dwell on the event and occasion over and over again. It takes a long time for me to get back to being normal so I am relieved not many things get me embarrassed.

I’m not too hot on arithmetic either, or reading maps but do have pretty good ICT skills. I can rustle up a website and am relatively intermediate in most of the Office applications. I think this is linked to a general interest in technology and wanting to know how things work. I can spend hours learning a new application. Perhaps this has to do with the hours spent trying to work out a Rubix cube when I was younger. What I am not good at is demonstrating something at my desk, like when you are asked to bring up a document from the depths of a server just so it can be displayed to back up a comment that was discussed over coffee. I tend to sniff, stick my tongue out and try and find the Word wizard paperclip helper. It usually ends with me saying, It’s not where I thought it was, give me a couple of minutes and I’ll find it. I then spend a further five minutes getting rid of the paperclip helper.

One thing I thought I’d get out into the interweb world is confidence. I lack it quite a lot, I think. But sometimes I feel really confident, almost like untouchable. But these occasions are rare and the majority of time I feel that I don’t have any confidence, yet, just to add another layer of complexity, is that I do things that require confidence but don’t think it required any. For example, being put on the spot and having to greet and chaperone someone totally out of the blue. People will say to me, you must have a lot of confidence to do what you’ve done. I smile, but inside I think, seriously, I think I’ve got no confidence sometimes. Maybe I’ve got it but don’t realise that I have. In fact I’m not sure about this one entirely, so am opening it up here.

I am quite good at presentations though, and given enough time I can be darn hot at it. This was developed at school and something I’d always felt comfortable and actually thrived on. No question I’ve crashed and burned many a time when I’ve stood there, hand shaking thinking, I’ve totally forgotten everything. But then Alan Partridge snippets fall into my head like, I’d like a pint of bitter, and then everything seems to fall into place. At one stage I was giving so many presentations that I started to vibe off the crowd, knowing if they would dig any of my homemade dry japes I had thought of or if I should take this seriously.

Ok, enough of this self-appraisal, my glass of wine is empty and I need to go buy some toothpaste.

Tuesday 7 July 2009

Energise

Hmm, I wonder if the title of this entry will attract any Star Trek geeks Googling various Trekkie sound-bites. Well the real reason for this title is because recently I’ve gained an abundance of energy for absolutely no where.

It kind of started mid-way through last week. I woke up in the morning and stared at the mirror and instead of seeing a scowling Popeye, I saw this calm looking expression across my face, in my head I said, so what are we going to do today? I thought I was suffering from some mental break down so turned away and legged it, hoping it was nothing but a dream. By mid-morning, I was accomplishing various things at work but also remembering to do the little things I always forget to help my day run that little bit sweeter. For example, spending a couple of minutes looking for a good radio station to listen too on LastFM or remembering to buy a packet of soft mints. I like to chew whilst I do stuff. When I realised I’d done all these, I thought to myself, damn, this must be mighty fine coffee to make me think this quick. I peered into my mug and alas there were only the dregs leftover from yesterday’s pouring.

This carried on for the rest of the week, even on Sunday night where I read until 2 am. It was the typical situation where you start reading to get tired, a chapter becomes mighty interesting, so you ride through the wave of tiredness until a second wind comes along. By then two more chapters have been read and only when you realise it’s late and that you’ll struggle to get up in the morning, you begrudgingly decide it is time to call it a day. Even when I closed my eyes I thought that I’d really find it difficult to get up in five hours. At 7am I sprung up like a freak in the morning, I didn’t even need the radio to assist me. Again I found myself staring at the mirror and a lively more assured version of me was looking back saying, it’s going to be sunny today, wear a t-shirt mate. This was getting odd.

Today I have pretty much done everything I wanted to accomplish and more, like go through and delete loads of emails I’ve stored throughout the years. I even managed to go jogging. But where is all this energy coming from? Nothing has changed, in fact I’m getting less sleep and eating less. I tried thinking about it but quite frankly after a few moments, I didn’t care. So what if I suffer a burnout some where, or all of a sudden collapse on the floor into a slumber. I hope it never ends because it feels good actually doing things and accomplishing them in decent time. And if this momentum continued for something like 6 months it would be ace.


In other news, someone sent me this link and thought I’d pass it on

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcqFztb2QnA

I prefer this version but it was only after listening to this mix I noticed what Lily is actually chatting about. Poor girl.