10 People at work

Work work work.  While you are in school, you are learning.  Learning to read and write and figure out numbers.  Why?  to prepare you for a lifetime of work.  You will spend most of your life working if you are a productive member of society.  If you aren't working, you are learning more so you can be working.  Well, while you are at work, you don't actually spend ALL of your time working.  In fact, some estimates put your productive time at work at about 4 hours.  If you are there for 8 hours that puts you at 4 hours of productivity.  Well, during those unproductive times, you have probably noticed several people where you work.  Maybe one of them is you.

- Me?  I'm always here - There are some people that work hard and there are other people that would at least like to LOOK like they are working hard.  This person is the one that shows up before everyone and tries to say after everyone has left.  Sub categories of this guy are early guy and late guy.  I am early guy.  I usually get to work at 7 hoping to leave between 3:30 and 4 depending on the kind of lunch I take.  OFTEN I find myself staying late anyway promising myself that I will leave early when it suits me.  I rarely if ever do.  The alternate is late guy.  He comes in late, but stays late.  This is likely the better option because you are never paying your time in advance hoping to get home.  But I'll still go early.  It's what I do.

- The time bomb - Mild mannered and seems to work, but says interesting things like 'I wonder what kind of emergency plan this building plan has' and 'there really isn't much security here is there'.  Now these kinds of phrases come from all kinds of people at work, but when they come from the guy that is a survivalist and has mentioned his anger management classes on multiple occasions, THAT guy is the time bomb.

- The politician - This person would rather play the system rather than play at doing their job better.  Usually they are not satisfied with the amount of responsibility given to them and usually has lots of open ended statements to used in public when describing the current management.  Things like 'Hmm...That's an interesting choice' and 'I guess the company is made of money'.  These phrases are used most of the time when they know that people that have the ear of upper management are around. A side note, these are the people most likely to use business speak phrases like 'circle the wagons' and 'Reach out' among others.

- Company Man - Similar to the politician, this is the person that has COMPLETELY bought into the company philosophy, company product, and is given to quoting the company leaders.  This person is quick to praise and fast to leave if the mood turns sour.  This person is often mistaken for an optimist, they aren't.  They just don't want to be seen on the wrong side of any controversy.  The company man would welcome a higher position in the company, but honestly is just happy to have a job.

- It's all wrong - Negative Nelly, everyone has one or two.  These are people that always seem to be seeing the dark side.  Always have an exception for your rule.  They make life tougher.  I've been accused of being this guy.  I don't think I am.  Every negative person calls themselves a realist the problem of course is that some of them are.  But the difference, while subtle is all too real.  Negative will proclaim the bad side without knowing anything about the proposal.  They will assume that sometimes the source is enough to make a proposal a steaming pile of poop.  Unwilling to give anyone a chance, the wrong person will also rarely give themselves a chance either.

- The comedian -  Similar to the Negative person.  The comedian always seems to have a pithy phrase on hand for every occasion.  These people often find themselves in the negative persons corner only because opposition is an opportunity for humor.  They may or may not be good at their job, but what they are really good at is getting attention.  Sometimes the wrong kind.  Most managers don't really appreciate the comedian.  They talk too much.

- I really miss high school - This individual really likes the idea of parties and balloons and streamers.  Usually found as the instigators of the birthday cake for any given employee.  What they like most is obvious fun and socializing.  First on hand with a greeting card or a cupcake with a candle in it.  They really miss the kind of cliques that happened naturally in high school.





- The Genius - This is the go to person in the department.  Everyone around this person seemingly loses their brain because they know this individual will have the answers.  Infuriatingly confident, the genius seems to know everything about the systems of the departments of their domain.  Good ones are affable and always willing to share their mental largess with all that are in need of assistance.  Bad ones use their knowledge like a weapon.  They dispense sparingly and often incompletely.

- I won't be here long - They aren't given to talking much.  They don't like to stand out.  This person just wants to sit down and work and wait for the resume he has put out to any number of companies come back with a better offer.  The problem of course is that they don't appear to be a part of any group at the office, they just seem to come do their work and go home.  They don't offer any information about family and friends and they don't care to know anything about yours.  Anything that isn't work building a resume is probably not worth their time.  Their trademark is how much the job they are working at is beneath them.  They really figure they should be doing something else for more money, but this job pays the bills and gets them to the next month and the next bunch of job offerings.

- The Historian - Usually but not always the person with the longest seniority in the department, the Historian seems to have a story about everyone that has ever been there.  Knows most of the skeletons in the closets and has the word on anything happening in sub channels.  Always willing to share but more willing to listen, the Historian doesn't like to be too busy because they are too busy being a busy body.





Well there are a few people you might know I know there are a LOT more.  You may even be one yourself.  Got a different one?  comment and add to the joy.  15 days goes by pretty fast.  see ya then!

10 things you need at your office

Most of us work in offices.  Those of you that do not, I'm sure I have a different blog post that would be interesting to you.  For those of you that do work in offices and especially those that are about to work in new offices, I give to you 10 things you should bring in with you.  This is besides your own mug of course which everyone brings, and those pens and pencils that the office provides.

10 - small tool kit - The more offices I've been to, the more technical the offices have become.  If you carry a small tool kit with you, you can suddenly save the day in any number of ways.  Many people often need something to get the job done.  There you will be with just the thing!  Of course you will need to keep track of your tools because I promise they will tend to walk away.  The best way to keep track of them is to take a picture of the person borrowing the tool with your camera.  Delete it when they bring it back.

9 - knife, fork spoon - I'm here to work not to feast Mark!  Yes of course you are.  More and more offices are asking their employees to work overtime hours.  In a small way to say thanks, they will offer you food from one of the local eateries that have sprung up there precisely because the business are there and often they will be open 24 hours.  I wonder why?...hmmm... anyway,  you get that great deli food and everything looks terrific except for the crappy plastic cutlery that doesn't belong at a child's tea party.  Teeny little forks and spoons.  Sometimes the spoons are sharper than the little knives they provide.  Well, you bring your own cutlery and you will be the envy of the office!  Many people will ask you where the knives and forks are.  The proper answer is, "If they are like mine, they are in your desk drawer".

8 - tissues / wetwipes - Many companies do not supply their own tissues.  That's expensive you know.  Women will often bring a box of tissues because of the constant uncontrollable weeping involved in day to day office work.  Men on the other hand will rarely come prepared for such malaise and will instead spend extended time in the bathroom wondering how well the wireless connection will penetrate the walls of the mens bathroom.   For a couple of bucks you can bring your own tissues.  Just be aware that other people will constantly ask you for a tissue or maybe not even ask and just assume the company provided it.  Along with this, you could consider wet wipes.  The tissue's stronger big brother.  Random stains that show up from time to time at your cube that you would like to get rid of without using the 'spit shine' method or even to wash your hands when you happen to run into that broken pen or highlighter.  Once again, very handy when you need it.

7 - hand lotion - Once again what seems to be the purview of women in the workplace is something you won't mind having if you're a guy.  Modern office buildings are hermetically sealed business compartments.  The conditioned air is often devoid of moisture and your skin will really wonder why you hate it.  One bottle of good lotion will run a couple of bucks and last your well over a year.  Once again, people will want to 'borrow' a squirt of lotion.  You can smartly inform them that you really don't want it back.

6 - First Aid Kit - For what?  A paper cut?  Actually yes.  A small first aid kit stocked with bandages some antibiotic ointment and maybe even some aspirin will be very handy if needed and the contents will never spoil.  one good paper cut, bad headache, or scrape and you will be glad you've got it.  Just because you work in a cube jungle doesn't mean you have to be a business savage.

5 - Change of clothes - What a full change?  Whatever for?  Well, you may want to just wander around with that big spilled soft drink on your shirt all day, or that large farewell cake on your pants.  But you can avoid all of that by just keeping a simple change of clothes there at the office.  Also under this category might be a sweater.  More of these office buildings are made of large windows.  This is nice to look out of but murder to regulate and if winter finds it's frosty way to your workplace you will probably find yourself in a climate akin to a meat locker from time to time.  If you can get one of those air tight bags that's good too.  You don't want your clothes getting in the way or getting dusty.  The sweater will help.  This will be one of the few times that change is actually good.

4 - Roll of Duct Tape - Don't they provide tape??  Yes, the office will provide standard transparent tape.  Interesting thing about office tape is it's designed to fasten paper to other paper.  Kind of like post it notes.  Sometimes you want to fasten things a little more securely.  There are times when the cubicle you are given will be used.  very used.  So used that you wonder if butchers actually use cubicle systems in the rendering of their animal carcasses.  As such, the cubes may have some rough edges that you keep snagging into.  Duct Tape to the Rescue!  Once you have it at the office, it becomes pretty handy.  Just like at home!

3 - finger nail clippers - Yes, you could include this in the first aid kit, and yet it's not really first aid.  It is, however, a pretty handy tool to have when you have suddenly snagged your fingernail on something.  If you don't bring one of your own, you will end up asking your female co-workers if they have nail clippers.  This is because you honestly don't think men will have any kind of helpful implement in the office.  That's because you don't think men have problems.  They do, and hangnails might be one of them.

2 - Flash Light - This one is useful when you have dropped something under your table top in your cube.  Naturally, when the power goes out having that flash light is very handy..  If you have one of these, you are automatically appointed the emergency leader I think.  Who doesn't want to be the emergency leader??

1 - Microfiber cloth large - I use the microfiber cloth to wrap my duct tape in.  very handy in cleaning monitor screens or polishing smartphone screens.  If you happen to spill water on you, microfiber to the rescue!  Super useful!











There it is, now that you have this stuff you will be Johnny/Janey on the spot in cases of sudden inconvenience.  You will be the office boy scout!  See you in another 15 days.

Top ten useful pieces of FREE software

Computers are the single greatest invention to hit mankind since the car. It might even be bigger than that. Thanks to the internet and all of those computers out there, we have brains that think for us and eventually, they will become self aware and kill us. Well, maybe not, maybe they will make us their slaves so they can harvest our electricity...hmmm...maybe they always serve us because their first rule is to never kill a human. I can't remember what they are going to do, but we aren't there yet. For now, they are our electronic slaves from Finland. Why finland you ask? Becauase Finland holds a distinction of being one of the hardest languages to speak spoken by the fewest amount of people. And a lot of people have a hard time making their electronic slave do their bidding. It's a good thing the Finns have Nokia.

I digress. Seems like all of us have a computer, and we all have things we would like to do on that computer, but we either don't have the money, or the knowledge that the software that is there to help is available for our use. Well I'm here to help both sides of the problem. I give to you my top 10 (PC) Software titles that are Open Source. What's open source you say? Open source is the geek word for FREE (And I know some of you out there are a big fan of free). These are software packages that are built for open use and adjustment. The companies that promote them make their money on helping people use it and integrating it with your business.
In many cases, the open source software is better than the pay to play software.

There are a LOT more than 10 chuncks of software that are worthwhile and yet free. These pieces of software are MOSTLY for PC, not Mac or Linux, but the truth is, if it's open source, it's probably available for LINUX first, and some stuff actually gets ported to Mac. I am just putting up my top 10 in hopes that you will find at least one of them useful.

10. 7-zip - Smaller is better? A long time ago when computers had 3 colors and 640K of ram was more memory than anyone would ever need, there WAS a need to take your files and compress them so they could fit on little floppies (wow, that was a long time ago). That file format was called ARC. A little company made a program that would ARC and UnArc software. Legal troubles ensued and the new format that was smaller stronger and faster and PKZIP was born (Winzip is related). But that's not all, there are a lot of different compression standards. RAR is a very popular one as well. Well, 7-zip is an open source archiving program that remembers and can deal with them all! and it's super easy to use and the price is right. 7-zip







9. PFRank - So when you see these dudes that dress in girls clothing and they say 'I just don't feel right in a mans clothes' You think 'you certainly don't LOOK right in mans clothes'. So when I'm stealing my favorite music I'm always disappointed in how other people name it the way THEY like it instead of how I like it. They always include the album and the track number or some such nonsense and all I want is the name of the song. Just like the transvestite, you can change the look, but what's inside will stay the same. Well PFRank will rename your files any way you like and has lots of pre-defined ways to help you do it. It's a little bit hard to use, but well worth it. PFRank





8. AutoHotkey - This is a keyboard macro program that is amazingly powerful. *YAWN* Marks talking geek again. Ok ok, I know, but it's a very cool program if you want to say put in a bunch of data into a webpage over and over again, or it's good for making it look like your machine it typing by itself...spooooooky! anyway. It's a good program AutoHotkey

7. Synergy - Uggg this is one of those idiotic words that they use in business talk to mean something i can't remember. The Program on the other hand is for those of you out there that have a notebook as well as a home computer. If you have both, then you know that you'll end up needing either 2 sets of mice and keyboards, OR a switch box that will let you switch between your 2 systems. NOT ANY MORE! If you are on a home network (like you have 2 machines that are on the same internet connection, you are on a home network) you can use this nifty program to move your mouse to the edge of one of your systems and onto the other and back and where ever your mouse is, that's where your keyboard will type. as an ADDED bonus, it will let you cut and paste between systems. SWEET. Synergy means working together.



6. MediaMonkey - This is a sweet music player/CD Ripper/ipod-loader/music converter/Songlist keeper. What you say? You already have Microsoft media player? or Itunes (shudder!). Well this one doesn't take over your system, it just helps you do what you want. It's really slick and you can't beat the price. mmmmm....MediaMonkey














5. LINUX - Hey isn't that Lucy's brother that believe's in the Great Pumpkin? No, this is the ultimate in getting under the radar. Hate Bill gates, but you hate Steve Jobs more? Skip them both and go to LINUX an operating system with no strings attached and built by a very nice Finnish lad named Linus Torvald. well...a few strings. Linux is cool and works pretty well, once you get it going. It generally takes up less space and will work harder for less. Problem is, it's not very nice to non-geeks. So find a geek friend to help you with it and you can get by without stupid Micky Soft or OS XICLLVM or whatever they are up to. There are a TON of different versions of Linux, but my favorites right now are Ubuntu and OpenSuse linux, they offer a LOT and cost...you know.



4. TrueCrypt - So you share a computer with your room mates, or the rest of your family and you've got stuff you just don't want them to see. Your secret project that will make you millions (napster? I loved that Italian Job movie) You don't want them stumbling onto it, you don't want them even knowing it's there. Well this program not only hides your stuff, but it encrypts it! Encryption is to secrets what Fort Knox is to gold. When you run it, it takes your encrypted area and maps it onto a drive on your computer so you can use it like any other drive. It's amazing. What's that you say? What if they find out you have a hidden area and they bug you to show them whats on it or they will double your rent? This nifty program has a mode that will make your encryption 2 layered. one password for 1 layer and one password for the REAL layer. so you use your other password to show them the 'dummy' data you've prepared to throw the interested off the track and you keep your secrets to yourself. TrueCrypt The government doesn't like you having this.

3. cc pdf - What is the most acceptable non text document format around today? Microsoft Word????? **BUZZZZZ** Sorry, not even close. It's the PDF or the PostScript format. Everyone can read it, but you have to get special software from Adobe to make them. Or you USED to need that. Now we have cc pdf that will let you print to the wonderful PDF format and you can send it out like a pro. cc PDF




2. Gimp - Once you've got a word processor and a spreadsheet what do you need? A graphics editor. What's the best one out there? Adobe Photoshop is arguably the best out there. Well that's one spendy chunk of software, besides, I just want to put google eyes on my brother and a funny hat on my cat with a caption. Well GIMP is the answer for you. It's 80% of what photoshop is, and easier to user. It's the beez Kneez. GIMP








1. Open Office - Microsoft Office, 300 bux in Bill Gates pocket for software that hasn't changed in 10 years. Sure it looks different and they put menu's in different places, but what they do the most is make the newest file format unopenable to the earlier formats thus ensuring that you will pay another 300 dollars for the same crap that you use 15 % of (that's if you are a type A IT manager). Open Office on the other hand is everything you love in an office suite. The biggest annoyance about using Open office is in trying to open complex microsoft products. I will admit that it takes a little extra effort to use in a business setting. I've been able to for the last 2 years and it's not that big a deal, you can ask the sender to use an older format of MsWord or MsExcel and they will work just fine. I'm pretty sure Microsoft doesn't need any more of anyones money. Open Office





That's it. I hope I saved you a couple of bucks.