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I really ought to go sit in the office and start on my monthly report and catch up on email. Today will be interrupted enough by car stuff, i suspect.
But i don't wanna -- still have the messy mind of sleep. Indeed, early this morning i think Christine had been awake, and i woke -- yet it didn't feel like waking. The moment i looked at the time, it seemed impossible, and the dissonance "woke" me. All i can remember of whatever i was dreaming before i looked at the time is that 4:30 am on Monday morning could not be the right time.
I think another tension this morning is that i want the car issues "settled." I want to know if the car will be "totaled" or not. My memory goes to Christine's BMW motorcycle that was "totaled" when, while parked on Van Ness in the city, it was knocked over by a rental car and one of the side mirrors was broken off. Painting a new part to match the bike would have been impossible, apparently, and so the whole bike would "need" to be repainted. I think the insurance company was trying to be as punitive as possible. (She got her Triumph with the insurance pay-out on that bike.)
With Helen the Hybrid, at the moment, it seems the damage to the car is simply bumpers and panels and a rear tail light. We're not at fault, and the driver self reported that he was distracted by his phone (while not talking on it): i expect our insurance company may handle this for us. But how?
I really don't want to be making payments on a new to us car. I really hoped to hold on to Helen a few more years.
--==∞==--
To compare, one of the things i did yesterday was evaluate all the Oster blenders on Amazon, looking for what i thought the best value would be. I didn't buy, because i still want to check Consumer Reports, and something was wrong with the authorization step in Santa Clara County Library's e-access system.
Something's broken: i need to know what it will take to fix it. Once i know, i may not follow through, but my mind is eased by knowing what it will take to repair.
With the car, i need to accept that that desire for complete understanding will not be satisfied for some time, a day or two, at minimum, although insurance companies talking to insurance companies can take much longer. I flash anger in my mind and want this settled a good while before Christine needs to go for surgery: two months away today (one month of which is February).
--==∞==--
From today's Harvard Business School Working Knowledge blog:
It's a curious exercises in reframing, which if done well could be motivating. On the other hand, i've seen such reframing done very badly, as well. Not around diversity, but simply around employee satisfaction: broadly, you and your peers complained about X, so figure out how to fix X, and we'll measure how much you make X go away, and compensate you based on that measure. When X is systemic, putting the solution to X all on the complaining parties is never going to solve X. I remember reading a book about changing for the positive or something like that, and what became clear was that having excellent facilitators who had a critical and systematic understanding of social dynamics was required to help coax effective solutions out of the "positively empowered" team.
--==∞==--
So, let me see what i can set as my COEs ("Conditions of Enoughness") and my spoon counting.
* I know the car stuff will drive me nuts, but i can't expect resolution today. What i can expect is that we will know the path is to a rental car through our coverage by the end of today. I can hope we get the rental car, but i shouldn't count on it.
* Yesterday I may have overestimated my capacity by 45% (I think that's the right ratio to measure: difference over original estimate, not difference over actual.) However, if i add the context switching decispoons into the calculation for every event (or perhaps it's just the current measure of my overhead), i only over estimated by 27%. I think i'll trust the discipline of adding the context switching decispoons, and use yesterday's experience as my guide for today.
Unlike yesterday, i don't think i have any capacity other than time.
But i don't wanna -- still have the messy mind of sleep. Indeed, early this morning i think Christine had been awake, and i woke -- yet it didn't feel like waking. The moment i looked at the time, it seemed impossible, and the dissonance "woke" me. All i can remember of whatever i was dreaming before i looked at the time is that 4:30 am on Monday morning could not be the right time.
I think another tension this morning is that i want the car issues "settled." I want to know if the car will be "totaled" or not. My memory goes to Christine's BMW motorcycle that was "totaled" when, while parked on Van Ness in the city, it was knocked over by a rental car and one of the side mirrors was broken off. Painting a new part to match the bike would have been impossible, apparently, and so the whole bike would "need" to be repainted. I think the insurance company was trying to be as punitive as possible. (She got her Triumph with the insurance pay-out on that bike.)
With Helen the Hybrid, at the moment, it seems the damage to the car is simply bumpers and panels and a rear tail light. We're not at fault, and the driver self reported that he was distracted by his phone (while not talking on it): i expect our insurance company may handle this for us. But how?
I really don't want to be making payments on a new to us car. I really hoped to hold on to Helen a few more years.
--==∞==--
To compare, one of the things i did yesterday was evaluate all the Oster blenders on Amazon, looking for what i thought the best value would be. I didn't buy, because i still want to check Consumer Reports, and something was wrong with the authorization step in Santa Clara County Library's e-access system.
Something's broken: i need to know what it will take to fix it. Once i know, i may not follow through, but my mind is eased by knowing what it will take to repair.
With the car, i need to accept that that desire for complete understanding will not be satisfied for some time, a day or two, at minimum, although insurance companies talking to insurance companies can take much longer. I flash anger in my mind and want this settled a good while before Christine needs to go for surgery: two months away today (one month of which is February).
--==∞==--
From today's Harvard Business School Working Knowledge blog:
A positive approach to diversity research does not mean ignoring the negative. Rather, it requires researchers to study exceptions to the norm, to compare successful minorities with similarly situated nonminorities, and to look critically at situations that may not be as positive as they first seem.
It's a curious exercises in reframing, which if done well could be motivating. On the other hand, i've seen such reframing done very badly, as well. Not around diversity, but simply around employee satisfaction: broadly, you and your peers complained about X, so figure out how to fix X, and we'll measure how much you make X go away, and compensate you based on that measure. When X is systemic, putting the solution to X all on the complaining parties is never going to solve X. I remember reading a book about changing for the positive or something like that, and what became clear was that having excellent facilitators who had a critical and systematic understanding of social dynamics was required to help coax effective solutions out of the "positively empowered" team.
--==∞==--
So, let me see what i can set as my COEs ("Conditions of Enoughness") and my spoon counting.
* I know the car stuff will drive me nuts, but i can't expect resolution today. What i can expect is that we will know the path is to a rental car through our coverage by the end of today. I can hope we get the rental car, but i shouldn't count on it.
* Yesterday I may have overestimated my capacity by 45% (I think that's the right ratio to measure: difference over original estimate, not difference over actual.) However, if i add the context switching decispoons into the calculation for every event (or perhaps it's just the current measure of my overhead), i only over estimated by 27%. I think i'll trust the discipline of adding the context switching decispoons, and use yesterday's experience as my guide for today.
Unlike yesterday, i don't think i have any capacity other than time.