work « ia play

I was surprised by my female colleagues reaction when I not only married but became Mrs Loasby. They were horrifed that I would “take the man’s name”. As my other surname came from my dad the objection seemed ill-thought through.

At least I’d chosen my husband and chosen to take his name. I never had any say in Harvey. Even more bizarrely they seemed to accept my decision when I mentioned that I would be the only ‘Karen Loasby’ in Google. Patriachy, it seems, is ok if it enhances your brand!

Recent news also attacked the Mrs title. Only very close friends and utility companies address me as Mrs Loasby. I don’t actively use Mrs and I’m baffled by a colleague who puts (Mrs) after her name in her email signature but I’m not concerned by the (empty) symbolism.

This doesn’t mean I’m in favour of sexism. I’m outraged that my grandmothers were held back by society. One was a civil servant and one a matron. Both were more educated and could earn more than their husbands but their careers were constrained by the attitudes of my great-grandparents, one of my grandfathers and by the civil service. But their world seems utterly alien to me.

I never experienced any prejudice at school. The teachers were outraged when I didn’t study Physics at university. It was a similar non-issue at university.

At work my best bosses have been women but I’ve had two awful female bosses too. Jen Rigby, Margaret Hanley, Julia Whitney and Helen Davies have all helped me greatly. This might just be a sympton that the BBC and RNIB don’t discrimate against women.At the moment my boss is female, the head of IT is female and the CEO is female. This is my normality.

I suspect this is my mum’s fault. She was both inspiration and insulation and deserves a post of her own.

Lot’s of people are asking how the RNIB compares to the BBC.

My journey is much better for one thing, shorter and simpler. That has a surprisingly big impact on how happily the day goes. Judd Street is also a delight compared to White City- there’s coffee shops, restaurants, bookshops, and loads of parks. Favourite so far is St George’s Garden. Oh and the British Library and the Brunswick Centre are both just a stone’s throw away.

There’s something more office-y about the job. Office wear is smarter, people start and leave earlier, and weirdly quite a number of websites are blocked. That’s quite a change from having porn permissions at the BBC (to monitor the BBC’s websearch, of course).

I’m hands on again, in a very intense way at the moment. As the lone IA there’s lots to do. I thought I might miss the sense of community of a big UX team but the virtual community of other SharePoint and charity IAs has helped loads.

Pleasant surprises were the lack of locked down desktop and Firefox installed as standard.

Something I hadn’t thought about was the extent to which the BBC is a visual culture. At the RNIB email is plain text as a matter of policy, sketching is rare in meetings and documents are printed in 14 point.

Which makes practicing IA a different kind of process and a topic I expect I’ll be returning to many times.

I’m knackered. What with work, freelance stuff, studying, and then trips to hospital with PW, it’s all been a bit too much.

I’ve noticed that being tired has made me more abrupt and more likely to put voice to my frustrations. It isn’t very me and makes me uncomfortable, but it is more honest and there’s some satisfaction in saying how annoyed you are, rather than going home and kicking something (hopefully not the chickens).

Sorry if you’ve been on the receiving end but the chickens are grateful.

I’ve noticed that I don’t get stressed as easily working at home.

I’m getting non-work stuff done. My screen breaks involve stuff that would otherwise be done in evening and weekend. And if there’s a parcel to be delivered I’m in and that saves a Saturday morning trip to the main post office. That’s generally calming, I guess.

I cook for myself which is a happy activity. I eat well. Substantial breakfasts, fruit, decent lunch with fresh veg from the garden (canteen does tasty chips and overcooked veg ). No chocolate supplies because there’s no generous colleagues or holiday gifts. Still too much coffee but at least not as jitter inducing at the lattes from Mangiare.

Less exercise though as there are no walks to station and back. Occassional lunchtime plant potting doesn’t really count.

But a big part of it is setting goals and achieving them. The potential for getting distracted by new tasks and waylaid by events is much less at home. There’s also a curious pseudo-obligation to keep track off your achievements when you work at home to prove to yourself that you really are working.

I also communicate with a different set of people. At work I talk alot to the people I sit near. At home I email and call people and their location doesn’t come into it. I’m not a huge fan of phone calls (worst of both worlds compared to face-to-face or email) but lots of my meetings have no real need to be conducted face-to-face, particularly those with people I have know well already.

Corporations are increasingly using online games to recruit and train new employees, and just to better keep people in touch.If you’re thinking that maybe you should hide the video game controller from your kids because they’re spending too much time in front of the TV or computer, don’t. What you think is slacking may just be preparing them to become productive members of the workforce when they get older. Their future offices are likely to be heavily digital—especially if they work remotely—and their work may resemble the online games that many now spend hours playing.

The Name of the Game is Work

A quick experiment with a pedometer shows I walk a surprising amount for a desk bound office worker. 14,000 steps in an average day, it appears.

Now walking to station and back covers 4000 steps. The other 10000 steps are the rest of my commute, grabbing lunch and tearing about the office from meeting to meeting.

Not so desk bound, it appears.

In Seattle Post-Intelligencer, executive coach Maureen Moriarty, argues that a caring boss is key to helping workers and the business remain successful

“people most often leave workplaces due to poor bosses (not the organization). How employees feel about their jobs and organizations has everything to do with how their manager treats them”

I’ve been reading Cities in Flight by James Blish. This description of the impact of automation struck a note with me:

“like everything else in the world requiring an IQ of less than 150, it was computer-controlled. The world-wide dominance of the such machines… had been one of the chief contributors to the present and apparently permanent depression: the coming of semi-intelligent machines into business and technology had created a second Industrial Revolution, in which only the most highly creative human beings, and those most gifted at administration, found themselves with any skills to sell which were worth the world’s money to buy”

Aside from the lovely design (a book with curved corners!) I was interested in this dystopian view of a future formed (perhaps?) from the author’s familiarity with economic depression and cold-war. Novels of the future can be interesting for their views of what will continue as much as the things that will change.

The No Asshole Rule inspired my latest book buying round.

I’m keeping (occassional) track of the ways I discover new things (out of professional interest). In this case I was posting an old IA summit presentation to slideshare. At the end of the presentation, Slideshare recommended another presentation about Branding & Teams. I was curious about the connection so watched(?) the presentation. It mentioned No Assholes and I just had to buy it. See working principle #3 if you are not sure why.

I’ve always thought that there are two types of librarian. They can be identifed (and sorted into a suitable category) by presenting them with the aftermath of a shelving disaster in a library (perhaps like the one in the Mummy). All the books are in a big heap on the floor. Are they sent in an outraged huff or quietly pleased? After all, a heap will need sorting out. Do they like order or like ordering?

I’m firmly in the later camp.

(perhaps why I keep blurring The Pleasure of Finding Things Out and Sorting Things Out)

Ok, so now imagine that the librarian only just gets time to do a bit of ineffectual sorting before another shelf is tipped over in Sisyphean style. And all the time people keep wandering in and trying to find books.

I think this may be an IA torture technique.

(sorry about the dodgy metaphors)

ia play

the good life in a digital age

Category Archives: work

a rather poor feminist

the new job

tired…

working at home

recruiting with games

I walk alot

caring boss more important than money?

cities in flight

reading: the no assholes rule

cruelty to IAs?