Stepford Wife
May. 3rd, 2004 08:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rowynSome time ago, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lady_anne described her approach to grocery shopping in an entry. I'm rather disappointed that I can't dig up the link to it right now. However, to summarize: she hadn't always liked shopping for groceries, but she'd adopted a new approach to the task: going into "Stepford Wives" mode,and treating the chore sort of like performance art. It's not a task: it's showtime!
She made a similar point, in a different way, talking about laundry. The idea isn't so much that Stepford Wives have more fun grocery shopping (though who knows? Maybe they do), but that it's possible to change your attitude about a job by changing the way you go about doing it.
Today was Monday, and the first work day of the month. With my current set of job duties, that means I had a whole raft of things I was supposed to do. To give myself time to do them, I shuffled off some of my normal work onto the people who'd filled in for me while I was on vacation.
In doing so, I realized something: I'd given away the work I like to do, and stuck myself with the work I dislike doing
So I was trying to figure out: what is it about the work I wasn't doing that I liked, and what is it about the work that I was doing that I hated.
Balancing accounts is my favorite task. It's like solving a puzzle to me: find the money! You check here, and you check there, and you dig through the other place, and if you can't find it anywhere, you can always resort to the hint book: go ask the person who ran the transaction, "What were you thinking?" (This is my last resort because usually they don't know, either. But I can make them search with me, and it's good practice for them not messing up the same way again.)
I like running payments, too. This is basically mindless, data-entry work. I open up the envelopes, rack out checks, then enter check amounts and loan numbers into the system. I actually cannot explain why I like this, except possibly that it's so much faster to do it this way than the way I had to do them on the system we used when I first started at the bank. There's a pleasing sense of efficiency to it, and there's a certain game-like quality to it: how fast can I get all of these numbers entered?
The work I kept was compiling reports. This whole process feels riddled with redundancies and inefficiencies. I spend a lot of time comparing this column of names and numbers to that column of names, then integrating the two, then entering these numbers to that list or those numbers to the other list. The whole thing always leaves with the nagging certainty that there mustbe a better way to do most of them. I've actually tried to improve on some of them, with varying results. The reports turn out to be far more complex to code than they have any right to be. We actually paid our software provider to improve one of them, and it took them months to produce a version that wasn't all that much better than what we started with. O.o
Hmm.
Writing this down, it feels as though a significant part of my enjoyment, or lack thereof, in the process comes from a sense of efficiency, and how well I'm doing it. When I feel like I'm doing the job in the best possible way, I'm happy. If I feel like the job ought to be done in some other, better way -- even if neither I nor anyone else can currently make a better way that works -- I'm not happy.
Now, my main goal in this thought-experiment isn't "how can I be a better employee?" but "how can I be a happier employee?" It turns out that these two goals look compatible -- if I could do my job in a way I thought was better, I'd be happier! But doing my job better is a long-term solution, and I'd like a short-term solution.
(Another long-term solution is getting someone else to do the tasks I don't like, and taking back the tasks I do like. I'm less enamored of this idea, though, because this set of tasks involves some potentially interesting complexities. Running the reports is boring and annoying. But having this task gives me the occassional shot at writing reports, which is sort of fun when it's not horribly frustrating.)
I don't always object to inefficient solutions. Often, it's not worth the time to create an elegant, efficient process for a job that rarely needs to be done. Other times, I just don't have the time to spend making the process better, which is the case right now.
So: is there a Stepford Wife approach that would work for me, right now? A way that could make me think, "Yay! I get to spend today comparing long columns of numbers to similar long columns of numbers and making corrections"? Maybe I could make a game of it. Like scoring points for each page I complete in less than a certain amount of time. Or bonus points for discovering irrelevant patterns (look, five numbers in a Fibonacci sequence!)
Heh.
Well, at least it'll give me something to think about while I'm doing it tomorrow. :)
lady_anne described her approach to grocery shopping in an entry. I'm rather disappointed that I can't dig up the link to it right now. However, to summarize: she hadn't always liked shopping for groceries, but she'd adopted a new approach to the task: going into "Stepford Wives" mode,and treating the chore sort of like performance art. It's not a task: it's showtime!She made a similar point, in a different way, talking about laundry. The idea isn't so much that Stepford Wives have more fun grocery shopping (though who knows? Maybe they do), but that it's possible to change your attitude about a job by changing the way you go about doing it.
Today was Monday, and the first work day of the month. With my current set of job duties, that means I had a whole raft of things I was supposed to do. To give myself time to do them, I shuffled off some of my normal work onto the people who'd filled in for me while I was on vacation.
In doing so, I realized something: I'd given away the work I like to do, and stuck myself with the work I dislike doing
So I was trying to figure out: what is it about the work I wasn't doing that I liked, and what is it about the work that I was doing that I hated.
Balancing accounts is my favorite task. It's like solving a puzzle to me: find the money! You check here, and you check there, and you dig through the other place, and if you can't find it anywhere, you can always resort to the hint book: go ask the person who ran the transaction, "What were you thinking?" (This is my last resort because usually they don't know, either. But I can make them search with me, and it's good practice for them not messing up the same way again.)
I like running payments, too. This is basically mindless, data-entry work. I open up the envelopes, rack out checks, then enter check amounts and loan numbers into the system. I actually cannot explain why I like this, except possibly that it's so much faster to do it this way than the way I had to do them on the system we used when I first started at the bank. There's a pleasing sense of efficiency to it, and there's a certain game-like quality to it: how fast can I get all of these numbers entered?
The work I kept was compiling reports. This whole process feels riddled with redundancies and inefficiencies. I spend a lot of time comparing this column of names and numbers to that column of names, then integrating the two, then entering these numbers to that list or those numbers to the other list. The whole thing always leaves with the nagging certainty that there mustbe a better way to do most of them. I've actually tried to improve on some of them, with varying results. The reports turn out to be far more complex to code than they have any right to be. We actually paid our software provider to improve one of them, and it took them months to produce a version that wasn't all that much better than what we started with. O.o
Hmm.
Writing this down, it feels as though a significant part of my enjoyment, or lack thereof, in the process comes from a sense of efficiency, and how well I'm doing it. When I feel like I'm doing the job in the best possible way, I'm happy. If I feel like the job ought to be done in some other, better way -- even if neither I nor anyone else can currently make a better way that works -- I'm not happy.
Now, my main goal in this thought-experiment isn't "how can I be a better employee?" but "how can I be a happier employee?" It turns out that these two goals look compatible -- if I could do my job in a way I thought was better, I'd be happier! But doing my job better is a long-term solution, and I'd like a short-term solution.
(Another long-term solution is getting someone else to do the tasks I don't like, and taking back the tasks I do like. I'm less enamored of this idea, though, because this set of tasks involves some potentially interesting complexities. Running the reports is boring and annoying. But having this task gives me the occassional shot at writing reports, which is sort of fun when it's not horribly frustrating.)
I don't always object to inefficient solutions. Often, it's not worth the time to create an elegant, efficient process for a job that rarely needs to be done. Other times, I just don't have the time to spend making the process better, which is the case right now.
So: is there a Stepford Wife approach that would work for me, right now? A way that could make me think, "Yay! I get to spend today comparing long columns of numbers to similar long columns of numbers and making corrections"? Maybe I could make a game of it. Like scoring points for each page I complete in less than a certain amount of time. Or bonus points for discovering irrelevant patterns (look, five numbers in a Fibonacci sequence!)
Heh.
Well, at least it'll give me something to think about while I'm doing it tomorrow. :)
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no subject
Date: 2004-05-03 06:43 pm (UTC)http://www.livejournal.com/users/lady_anne/46091.html
There's a subtle distinction to be made, I think. The Lady Anne does not so much fool herself into having a good time shopping, she enjoys the process of putting on a show of having a good time shopping. And thus, has a good time after all. ];-)
===|==============/ Level Head
no subject
Date: 2004-05-03 07:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-03 08:04 pm (UTC)===|==============/ Level Head
no subject
Date: 2004-05-03 07:34 pm (UTC)However - I think the first thing I'd do is to visualize the 'persona' of the person who would enjoy the work.
I don't know her, but I imagine she wears her hair somewhat severely. She may even wear unusual eye-glasses. And, she has a LOT of sharp pencils. I don't thing she ever uses them, but she makes a point of sharpening them before settling down to do her work.
She's very absorbed in her main task - people tip-toe around her and try not to interrupt her - the work is simply too critical.
She doesn't follow a tight script, but she does stick to the outline. She's heard to say cryptic things like "Hmmmm" and "Ah-Ha!" and an occasional "There you are...".
Oh - I almost forgot - that wonderful self-satisfied look on her face. No wonder there are so many who want to be her understudy.
=========
Several years ago I used to fill in for the receptionist when the 'front office' was all going out for lunch together. I had more fun playing Ann Southern (Perfect Secretary) - I'm surprised the company didn't charge me.
BTW - for your current dilemma I think I'd forget about Stepford Wives and look for a Katherine Hepburn role I felt comfortable in.
Send me a copy of the first act when you get a chance.
Be good - The Lady, Anne
no subject
Date: 2004-05-03 07:53 pm (UTC)I wish people would tiptoe around me while I worked! After the third or fourth interruption of an interruption (you know, where you're trying to get through task A and someone asks you to do B now and while you're in the middle of B you have to start C right away and oh, I see you're working on C but could you do D for me, it'll only take a minute?) I start to get pretty snappish. Not to mention I've probably forgotten that I was supposed to be doing B entirely. :)
But playing the part of someone who likes staring at columns of information might be fun. I was thinking of "Stepford Wives" as a metaphor, rather than the goal. If I wanted to play a Stepford Wife, I think I'd have to read the book or see the movie, so that I'd know what one is. (Or I could go grocery shopping with you and see it firsthand! :)
But I might just make some kind of additional game out of staring at columns. I have a strange sense of fun to start with, so that's not as much of a stretch as it might sound. ;)
no subject
Date: 2004-05-03 08:42 pm (UTC)After all - you're SOOOO absorbed.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-06 08:51 am (UTC)But I have worn my hair up since Tuesday. :D
no subject
Date: 2004-05-04 02:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-06 08:56 am (UTC)It's rather a kludge job, I'm afraid.
Grabbing a random comment and running with it...
Date: 2004-05-15 10:51 am (UTC)I weep for cinema's future.