Observation.

[spacebug]

The task of writing the manual for your own job, after you've tried to make it up as best you can for the better part of a year, is kinda weird.

I've subtitled it: "My Job, According to Me"

Comments

[sxoidmal.livejournal.com]

...Is it okay that you're writing out instructions for someone else to do your job? Does this mean anything ominous? I mean, it's happened to me at least twice...

[spacebug.livejournal.com]

Nope, I feel pretty secure here- it's just not done yet. My job was pretty completely redesigned when I came along since I was the first one hired after our interim director came on board (who just left) to make a lot of really necessary changes, so this is just the "if I'm hit by a bus, how the hell are we doing things now?" contingency. And because we're small, my job encompasses a lot of discrete tasks instead of one or two main things that I do a lot of. (I'm the main receptionist, I'm both accounts payable and recievable, I cut payroll, I'm the workshop registrar, I create tax letters for donations, I do most of the administration for fiscal sponsorships, I update the website, etc.) It was something I was asked to eventually do, and since summertime is slower for us and I have fewer things I MUST DO NOW, I'm starting it. A nice side benefit is that it will help me get more organized and figure out where holes are in the way I've made up doing things.

[lostbutton.livejournal.com]

I have to constantly strong-arm people into detailing every little task for the procedures I write. I use the "what would happen if you got hit by a bus" phrase a lot. Sometimes it's a train, or "eaten by wild monkeys", but it's all the same.

[sxoidmal.livejournal.com]

Ah, excellent. I've done those too because, you know, it could've happened that both my supervisor and I wanted to take the same day off. Someone else would need explicit instructions on how to put an address on an envelope and print it. "Explicit" is no exaggeration, either, these were people whose computer skills began and ended with hopping haplessly in front of a keyboard, flapping their hands about ineffectually and making soft, panicked "heebie-heebie-heebie" noises.

But yeah, I'm surprised at what an unholy appetite buses and trucks seem to have for office workers everywhere. I wonder why the news suppresses these stories? Would no one ever work in an office again if, in addition to all the well-known and stereotypical office bullshit, it was confirmed that 80% of dedicated office workers meet their grisly demise beneath the unforgiving wheels of a metropolitan transit system? Would society collapse into pockets of eco-domes and arcologies, the government completely unable to tax these self-sufficient societies, causing the military to crumble like a graham cracker and leaving our suddenly blissfully autonomous nation prey to the vagaries of any third-rate military dictatorship in the world? ...Maybe the news channels know what they're doing. I'm going to go throw my wallet at WCCO.

[echoegami.livejournal.com]

making soft, panicked "heebie-heebie-heebie" noises

thank you for making me giggle uncontrollably.

[sxoidmal.livejournal.com]

Any time!

[djnoise.livejournal.com]

At least you didn't title it "The Young Poisoner's Handbook."

[spacebug.livejournal.com]

Heh. I think my subtitle has something disturbingly biblical about it, actually.

[pygmybugs.livejournal.com]

(giggling enough to send the neighbor's strange little rat-dog into yet another psychotic fit)

I've done the "what I do" list a couple of times and find it fairly difficult. My brain doesn't seem to work the same as most, and I think I accomplish a good portion of work tasks with muscle memory, lizard-brain impulses and a bitchin' dose of OCD. Kitchen management has a good deal more in common with office management than you might think.

[birdfigment.livejournal.com]

It's hard to write those manuals, but it's kind of satisfying when you're done - you usually look really impressive. "Wow, look at what a lot of stuff I do!"

[spacebug.livejournal.com]

I know! I do do lots of things! I'm already feeling that way and I've barely started! And I do all of that and still find all this time to fuck around online. I'm a supergenius!