Work productivity is a funny thing. I come in to work at 9 am and within the first hour, I've done 1/3 of the work that I will do for the entire day. This isn't planned, it's just how things go: I come in fired up, dive into the pile, and get shit done. Then I slow down, and for the next couple hours I do roughly as much as I did during the first hour. Then I take a lunch, and it's all downhill - the remaining half of the day, I do about as much as I did during that first hour, again. So if you broke my productivity down into units, it would go like this:
9 - 10: 1 unit (1 units/hr)
10 - 12: 1 unit (.5 units/hr)
1 - 6: 1 unit (.2 units/hr)
Apparently I work 1/5th as hard all afternoon as I do when I first come in. And even more interestingly, I think my company - in fact, most companies - plan for this. They understand that they'll never drag maximum productivity out of their employees. They're just hoping for a decent average rate.
What really sucks is when you get a new co-worker who - at least briefly - blasts away at maximum productivity all day long. That person will make everybody else look so bad, that the company can't help but decrease your raises and start giving you ominous, threatening performance reviews that sour your routine afternoon of internet surfing and blog posting. Eventually you come to work glum and unhappy, and you work less hard even during that critical first hour; they threaten you some more, you get unhappier still; and finally you get fired. All because of some eager beaver who put in three good weeks of work because the idiot was fresh out of college and didn't know any better. One week after you're gone, the idiot is moving at half-speed like everybody else, and a few months later starts getting threatening reviews of his/her own. It's the circle of life.
In other news, I am getting my poker legs back somewhat, and playing poker isn't an all-the-time suckfest any more. I've made money three of my last four sessions, and the fourth was just a minor speedbump, not one of those "someone bring me a shotgun and one of those wooden backscratchers shaped like a little hand so I can pull the trigger when it's slightly out of reach" evenings. I placed 12th in a live tournament with 80 players, which was just out of the money but felt good and life-affirming. I placed 23rd in a 750 player MTT, which was in the money but sadly didn't change the landscape of my bankroll that much. You really have to make final tables to make money in those things, I'm finding. I have placed 2nd in numerous SnG's lately - for some reason the 1st is eluding me - and I tore up one cash game the other night, and got torn up in another. Overall, I'm feeling a-ight about poker. I'm playing a home game tourney next weekend, so hopefully I'm peaking at just the right time for this thing - there's nothing so joyous as pimp-slapping your friends in poker.
In music news, I'm going through a serious, long-term funk jones. I just bought something like nine Parliament/Funkadelic CDs online, and hopefully that will get me through. I don't know what gene in my white boy body kicked in to make me go so crazy for this stuff, but I'm lovin' it, McDonalds-style.
Note to self: Get some McNuggets after work. Make sweet love to them in a hot tub full of hot mustard.
And with that, we're oooouuuuuuut.
9 - 10: 1 unit (1 units/hr)
10 - 12: 1 unit (.5 units/hr)
1 - 6: 1 unit (.2 units/hr)
Apparently I work 1/5th as hard all afternoon as I do when I first come in. And even more interestingly, I think my company - in fact, most companies - plan for this. They understand that they'll never drag maximum productivity out of their employees. They're just hoping for a decent average rate.
What really sucks is when you get a new co-worker who - at least briefly - blasts away at maximum productivity all day long. That person will make everybody else look so bad, that the company can't help but decrease your raises and start giving you ominous, threatening performance reviews that sour your routine afternoon of internet surfing and blog posting. Eventually you come to work glum and unhappy, and you work less hard even during that critical first hour; they threaten you some more, you get unhappier still; and finally you get fired. All because of some eager beaver who put in three good weeks of work because the idiot was fresh out of college and didn't know any better. One week after you're gone, the idiot is moving at half-speed like everybody else, and a few months later starts getting threatening reviews of his/her own. It's the circle of life.
In other news, I am getting my poker legs back somewhat, and playing poker isn't an all-the-time suckfest any more. I've made money three of my last four sessions, and the fourth was just a minor speedbump, not one of those "someone bring me a shotgun and one of those wooden backscratchers shaped like a little hand so I can pull the trigger when it's slightly out of reach" evenings. I placed 12th in a live tournament with 80 players, which was just out of the money but felt good and life-affirming. I placed 23rd in a 750 player MTT, which was in the money but sadly didn't change the landscape of my bankroll that much. You really have to make final tables to make money in those things, I'm finding. I have placed 2nd in numerous SnG's lately - for some reason the 1st is eluding me - and I tore up one cash game the other night, and got torn up in another. Overall, I'm feeling a-ight about poker. I'm playing a home game tourney next weekend, so hopefully I'm peaking at just the right time for this thing - there's nothing so joyous as pimp-slapping your friends in poker.
In music news, I'm going through a serious, long-term funk jones. I just bought something like nine Parliament/Funkadelic CDs online, and hopefully that will get me through. I don't know what gene in my white boy body kicked in to make me go so crazy for this stuff, but I'm lovin' it, McDonalds-style.
Note to self: Get some McNuggets after work. Make sweet love to them in a hot tub full of hot mustard.
And with that, we're oooouuuuuuut.
