Behind the Scenes at ActiveRain

Few things in life come with instructions.  For instance:

1. Walking wrongways through a crowd on the street - no instructions.  Lots of shoulder bruises.
2. Folding T-shirts - no instructions. Cotton wrinkles easily.
3. French Braids - no instructions, although many have tried.  It's too hard to click "next" while your fingers are bound up in your hair.

Some things are made easier with instructions.  For instance:

1. Microwave popcorn - instructions. If you follow them, you have a hot, healthy snack.
2. Automatic Car Washes - instructions.  Without them, we'd have far fewer side mirrors.
3. Express Line - instructions.  That guy with 13 items has to go somewhere else, thank GOODNESS.

Why am I writing about instructions today?  Well, it's occured to me through a series of tests that some people just never will follow instructions.  You see, I've had to post a few job ads recently, and as I described to one of the guys here in the office, I always sneak a test into the ad to see if the potential candidate is actually paying attention, or if they're just sending their resume to everyone in the want ads.

My test this time?  "Do not attach a cover letter.  Instead, explain why you are the best candidate for this job in 140 characters or less."  It was listed as the veerrrrrrry bottom of the ad, right after the word IMPORTANT: in bolded, capitalized letters.  Strangely enough, the percentage of people who actually read that and comprehend the test is about 10%.  The percentage who get the reference to Twitter is about 2%.

Why are instructions important? Because they tell more about you than you realize.  Are you an instructions-follower?  Can you make a paper crane in thirty seconds thanks to that YouTube vid posted not too long ago?  Are you methodical?  Do you complete every step?  Are you observant?  Did you even notice that the instructions were there?

Yes, my friends, sometimes the fine print does matter.  It's strange how few people are paying attention!

(That's my rant for the day - it's 10:19PM and I've had a tough day.  It was either bore you with a lecture about paying attention or complaining about my constantly interrupted workflow today ;) )

Well, borrowed, more like.  I knew it was going to be cold down by the water in Seattle at 6:30a-7:00a this morning and so when I saw it just hanging out near the cracked door, I nabbed it and threw it on.  And it came in handy, too (although, it's not really my style); standing in the dark, the wind rushing past, staring down a seedy hobo who looked like he wanted to hit me up for the three quarters and a penny that were in my pocket, just waiting....waiting at the ferry dock to pick up some electronics equipment the company loaned out.

You see, the downside of being super-productive and organized (that's not a pat on the back - those are the two compliments I got in the last two days) is that I am always, always early for everything.  I set the alarm this morning for six AM, drove from Bellevue to Seattle, parked, and waited half an hour for the exchange with no coffee, no makeup, and my cellphone on its last pip.

It's going to be a long day.  Lately, I've been obsessed with productivity and efficiency, whether in my apartment (I'm redecorating), in my relationship, or here at work.  The upside to being organized is that you always know what's outstanding.  (The downside to being organized is that...you always know what's outstanding.  Urg.)  I've got a lot on my plate today; so much so that i rewrote my to-do list three times yesterday as I finished tasks and moved on.

Based on my previous post about spinning your wheels, I did take some of your advices to heart, Readers.  I really liked the idea of ripping your to-do list in half, but for the sake of my Moleskine notebook, I just made two lists instead ;) I finished all of one and most of the second yesterday (woohoo!).

So my question to you all is...  what have you been super-obsessed with lately?  As Jeremy so kindly pointed out, I am pretty AROC myself; it's easy for me to obsess over the list and put the pedal to the metal, so to speak.  I guess that's why I fit in with the AR staff - we're all obsessed about something, it seems! 

Have a lovely day, everyone :) Friday is ALMOST here.

Morning, everyone!  Today is St. Pat's day, and heck yes, I'm Irish.  You know what that means!  Green beer, green clothes, green hats, and lots and lots of corned beef. 

There once was a lady, Ilene,
Who lived on distilled kerosene,
But she started absorbin'
A new hydrocarbon
and since then she'd never benzene.

Okay, so my Irish is up today (hehehe, I made a funny).  In any case, happy St. Pat's everyone, and please, please enjoy the evening SAFELY.

Productive:

I'm giving Inbox Heaven a shot after reading about it on a website called Putting Things Off - PTO is a website I subscribe to via RSS, and sometimes helps me through those days when I don't really feel like doing anything.  (Yes, before you ask, I have those days, too.  I don't think Jon believes me when I say it, but ... I think it really happens to us all.)

Why Inbox Heaven?  I have MANY email boxes.  I have the AR one, my personal one, my personal-professional one (the one with my name instead of a goofy alphanumeric word as the handle), several different blog emails for the various blogging I do around the blogosphere, and a few random spam-catching emails for signing up for things, for ebay, and for craigslist.  That's a lot of email-checking!

In the category of "Why didn't I think of that?", I came across the Inbox Heaven post and did a resounding, "YES!" in the middle of the office.  This is exactly what I need.  All my email boxes in ONE spot with quick keyboard tricks and folders to help me get through it.  Naturally, GMail is picked as the basis of Inbox Heaven.  Woot woot! My favorite company EVUH.

In any case, I invite y'all to try it with me.  Inbox Heaven is a whole lotta free goodness -- my favorite price is free ;) If you're familiar with GMail, you shouldn't have a problem setting it up.  Within the first half-day of using it myself, I was hooked!

Unproductive:

Last week, we have a few freak snow showers here in the Seattle area and MAN.... one day, Mike and I skipped out around two PM because it was just coming down insanely.  Jeff tells us it stopped after about half an hour of us leaving (go fig - we're such pansies!), but these pictures are pretty neat.  Mike snapped them with his iPhone as I was driving him home (I didn't want him to get stuck on his bus).

(I realize that the pics are tiny - it can't be helped, unfortunately. Yey for iPhones!)

For the last week, week and a half, I've been staying at my BF's place overnight and swinging by Mike's place to pick him up and carpool to work.  Along our way is a (SQUEE) drive-through Starbucks.  Being Seattlites, of course, we stop.  Not everyday (my budget so couldn't afford coffee EVERY day) but often on our drives to work, he orders a caramel macciato and I'll pick up a peppermint latte.

Last night, I stayed at my own house, slept in my own bed, and drove my own way to work; Mike's wife drove him in, but with a caveat.... She's given up Starbucks for Lent.  I wish I had that kind of self-control.  Not knowing this (he usually busses in - the bus stop drops him right across from our local Starbucks), I texted Mike.  Our thread was as follows:

Me: If you are stopping for coffee on your way in, let me know.... I will buy.

Mike: No, sorry.  My wife is giving me a ride to work under the condition that we not stop at Starbucks (she gave it up for Lent).

Me: Aw, sad. OJ it is.

Mike: Yeah, OJ and house coffee.

Me: We could get coffee when you get here if you didn't give it up too?

Mike: Awesome plan.

Me: That's what they pay me for.... always thinking.

----

In other news, I was speaking to our other developer, Diego, yesterday on IM; as I've referenced before, Diego is in South America and is a native Spanish-speaker.  Sometimes, we get our wires crossed when we try to speak each others' languages (like my sexual coffee from months ago).  I was trying to tell him to go out and enjoy the sunshine (it's 80 degrees in his neck of the woods)... our conversation went something like this:

Me: Salga y disfrute de la sol!
Me: Wait.  Is the sun male or female (Aside: I was referring to the suffix of the word 'sol', as it was pre-empted by the article 'la' which usually indicates a female noun to follow.  'Sol' looked masculine to me and I got confused.)

Diego: The sun is male.
Diego: The moon is female.
Diego: They had an affair once.

Me: ...

I'm sure there's some sort of folk tale or something behind that (Lol), but I sat there stumped for several seconds.  The moon and sun having an affair?  I guess that's close...Luna, aka Artemis, aka Diana (depending on the era) and Sol, aka Apollo (who retained his Greek name through the Roman era) were twin siblings, son and daughter of Zeus and Leto. Unfortunately, all I can find about an affair is that the sun god got busy with a chick named Chione. 

Sigh. I'll never understand Spanish.