personal

How to make friends and influence people

I was talked into taking an influencing skills workshop this morning.

It was a full-day workshop when I signed up several weeks ago, and despite being genuinely worthwhile, with some good advice for resolving conflicts and dealing with people — without being either too new-agey or corporate-speaky — I’m kind of glad it got shortened to end at 12:30. I have no lack of actual work that needs to be done.

Still, I don’t regret going to the workshop. The time went by really quickly, and there were some useful exercises along the way.

The rest of the day was report writing until my brain wanted to explode.

All ears

It’s weird how, at the end of the day, I ended up exactly where I was at the end of yesterday: driving the dog to the vet.

He has this ear infection, one he’s had pretty much his entire life, off but mostly on. We’re trying this new treatment, which is apparently throwing lots and lots of money at the problem and doing so every single day this week.

No, in all seriousness, it’s for a series of injections that we’re bringing him in every day, hoping this will finally get rid of the nasty organisms living in Tucker’s ear canal. (At the last culture, about a month ago, it was a lovely mix of E. coli, strep, and pseudomonas.) My mother brought him to the vet on Monday, which is when they hit upon this solution, and I’ve brought him both days since.

Tucker, on the other hand (er, paw) would just as happily stay home.

My own day was pretty much nothing out of the ordinary. Lots of work, lots of talk about what our competitors are doing, that sort of thing.

Tuesday

Tuesdays have been a little weird ever since I first started working from home on them, but it’s a weirdness that comes complete with an extra hour or two of sleep (or at least no hour-long commute), so I happily put up with it.

Not much else to report about that day, though, I’m afraid.

Rainy day

This is a picture of Saturday. Today, it poured rain.

Off and on, that is, like a lot of summer weather in these parts. One hour, the sun would be shining (kind of), and the next the sky would explode with rainfall.

Which I guess is why the Long Island Railroad was so sucky this morning. I got off my train at Jamaica, hoping to make the connection, only to learn that connecting train was running twenty minutes late. So I quickly hopped back on the first train, where instead of my earlier seat I had to stand in a very crowded aisle, and went to Penn Station. I wasn’t late to work, but I had to race just to be on time.

I had to race again this evening, to beat the rain and refill my MetroCard, and the rain always seems to drive the weirdos and tourists onto the subways at rush hour. (I have nothing against tourists in Manhattan. Come, see the city! Just, please: some of us are trying to get home in the evening.) But none of them were quite as weird as the guy who got on the LIRR train midway along completely barefoot. I think he was carrying his shoes in his backpack, presumably to keep them dry in the pounding rain. But he looked like he was in no rush to slip them on.

Honestly, the floor of a LIRR car is one of the last places I’d want to walk around barefoot. But maybe that’s just me.

Anyway, so glad tomorrow’s Tuesday. I’ve come to look forward to that extra hour or so of sleep I get by not having to commute (to say nothing of being able to work in my pajamas, should I wish). There’s going to be one week next month when I won’t be able to do it, when I have to go into the office, and I just don’t know what I’m going to do with myself.

Sunday

Nary a boat nor a fish to be seen today. Just the crossword puzzle and a lot of Kaleidotrope reading.

I’m down to about twenty or so submissions still waiting to be read, which is good because the zine opens back up to submissions at the start of July. I don’t know that I’m going to advertise that fact all too much, if only to give myself a little bit of breathing room. I’m still figuring out how many stories I can afford to print every issue at the new rate of a cent a word — especially with no money coming in — and right now I need to focus first on getting the Summer issue on this year up in a timely fashion.

But stuff that comes in starting next Sunday…well, I guess I’m going to have to read it.

Right now, though, I’ve just sent out a small batch of fifty rejection letters, so I could use a small break.