To Blog or Not to Blog

That is the question!

Stacy and I have a running debate about whether or not we should blog. From her perspective, a blog really shouldn't share too much personal information. In that regard, feelings, comments about individual people, and anything more than a distant glance at our lives is a bit too much. To be fair, I see her point. Pretty frequently these days, you hear about so-and-so who had a myspace account or facebook or other social networking site and how they got burned. Their employer read it and did not like it, or maybe a family member or friend got upset.

I am on the other side of the blog fence. I am ok with posting stuff. I won't post my innermost secrets, but I find it somewhat therapeutic to post a little bit of me, provided it doesn't paint me in the wrong way. I enjoy reading blogs of co-workers that point out new ways to think of things or call out interesting articles or even just make amusing observations.

I guess the reality is that no one really reads this anyway, so it's not like I couldn't just keep my thoughts confined to a journal. Hmm, maybe I will start an e-journal. That would be so Doogie Howser of me!

On Loyalty and Sleep

It is certainly true that my loyalty is what makes it possible to stay up late, or work weekends, or even wake up early. I worked most of yesterday, was in the office until after 11pm, and was back in the office (actually in my cube, mind you) by 5:15am.

It occurs to me that loyalty and sleep appear to be mutually exclusive. That is, the more loyal I am, the less sleep I get. Oh to be a backstabbing meanie - I would probably sleep much better without having to wear the mantle of loyalty.

Damn these principles.

By the way, in case you missed it, last Friday was Talk Like a Pirate Day. In honor of that day, I leave you with this:

What is a pirate's worst nightmare?

A sunken chest and no booty.

Why are pirate jokes so dang funny?

I don't know either. They just arrrrrrrr.

On Work and Loyalty

It occurs to me as I sit in the office (yes, the office) at 5:40pm on Sunday night that I must be pretty loyal to my job to work as hard as I do. Sure, I gripe about long hours, late-breaking deadlines, and all of the hurdles I have to leap to get things done to a level that I can accept. But at the end of it all, I really do love Juniper, my boss, and the people I work with.

The Marines live by the mantra: God, country, family, and corps. I guess I live by that same mantra, switched up a bit (and focused only on my work life) - Juniper, JUNOS Core, and PLM/PMM.

Sometimes knowing exactly where you stand with work makes these weekends and long nights a bit more tolerable. The bottom line is that I wouldn't work so hard if I didn't care, and, even though I like to think it is different, the reality is that I choose to work this hard.

I wonder how many other people truly bleed Juniper blue... I mean really love the company. I hope it's a lot.

JUNOS for Dummies!

I am now officially a published author:

Check out Amazon.com for the amazing JUNOS for Dummies book!

This thing tore me apart for much of the beginning of the year. A couple hundred hours later, a few months, and a lot of all-nighters, and there it is. I am pretty excited, although I did joke that they should call it JUNOS by Dummies.

The book tour starts soon. We are still waiting to hear back from Oprah's book club.

Why do you love your job?

The question really isn't meant to be rhetorical. Really, tell me why you love your job. Or tell me why you have loved jobs in the past.

Yesterday, I had one of the guys on my team tell me that he wanted to feel a bit more like we were a team. Interesting. As I think about how we work, he is actually spot on. I interact with all the members of my team one-on-one as we work through projects, issues, and resolutions. So, in some sense, I am very connected to my team. But the people on my team rarely work together. So it is a hub and spoke model, with Mike at the center. That works well for me, but it really doesn't form a team for anyone else.

So this got me to thinking about a lot of things. My first focus was on what makes you feel like you are part of a team. But really, that is just a part of the larger issue. In the end, what I think is most interesting is what makes you love your job - this one or past ones.

As I think to past jobs, I think there are a couple of things that make work enjoyable. When I feel like I am productive and making a meaningful contribution, I tend to like my job better. I think this speaks directly to the notion that you have to utilize your strengths daily (or at least weekly) to truly feel satisfied. The book "Go Put Your Strengths to Work" (the follow-on to the popular "First Break All the Rules" and then "Now, Discover Your Strengths") addresses this quite well. Of these, I recommend Now, Discover Your Strengths the most (you can see all at this listing on Amazon.com).

Buckingham points out a survey that indicates that only 2 in 10 people feel like they work in jobs that utilize their strengths. This means a staggering 80 percent of us are working in jobs where we are not used optimally. Ouch. I believe this is a big part of why I used to be lukewarm about jobs (and consequently hopped around), and why I am now energized by my work.

So let me put that as the number one reason I have liked past jobs. But what else is there?

In some cases, I really liked the team. As my team member points out, we need to feel a part of something bigger. And our team is the most immediate thing we can associate ourselves with. I have never really been a part of a team at work before. I have been largely a mercenary in the past, hired to take care of some daunting task and then bolting at the next opportunity. Now, I am part of a team (though not the team I lead). The management team in charge of our particular business unit certainly has some of that sense of team, though it might be by accident. I don't know that we do anything deliberate to make ourselves a team. Maybe we should. And for the team I manage, I am thinking I need to start. So what should I do?

Other things that make jobs satisfying? Well, the sense of being part of something larger (as I postulated was part of why we like teams) certainly extends to the company. If you love your company, your job will feel more satisfying. This means you have to have an intimate relationship with what your company does. You have to understand how you are directly connected to your company's business. I tend to have a good view of this as I meet with oodles of customers and am quite connected to the business (both internally and externally). How do I promote this within my team? I have some ideas here but am curious if anyone else has any.

Finally, I think I have liked jobs where I had a good manager. Yuck. This means I need to look at where I stand. To that end, I am conducting my own 360-degree review of myself. This is, quite frankly, terrifying. I don't want to find out that I am wildly ineffective. Hopefully, the feedback will validate some of what I consider my strengths. To be fair, I will invariably focus on what people don't like about me. But I can focus on that aspect later.

So anyway, I guess I am wondering if there are other macro trends that promote job satisfaction. I need to think on this more I suspect. If I come to any realizations, I will let you know.

About a Dog

Let me say up front that I don't think that all blog entries need to be funny or exciting. The point of a blog, in my naive view, is to communicate something about the author (or authors in this case). And what follows certainly meets that minimum requirement. So read on and learn a little bit.

Chloe, as most of you know, is our dog. Actually, she is more child than pet, and in many aspects we love her as much we will love any child that eventually comes our way. We sleep with her, dote on her at every opportunity, and plan our weeks and weekends around her. We centered our wedding party around her, and, most recently, we planned our Labor Day Weekend around her.

So why? The normal cliches about love and pets all apply. Our 14-year-old puppy might be a little lumpy, she might not hear so well anymore, she might eat more than a fat kid in a cake store, and she might not move as well as she once did. But she is still the most lovable person I have ever known. Yeah, I said person. Calling her a pet seems somehow like downplaying her role. Chloe is family.

To be fair, Chloe has struggled with her health her entire life. Cancer, a bad knee, a virtually nonexistent immune system, 4 teeth, and a bevy of other problems leading to our expression of love in the form of thousands of dollars. But the most recent trip to the vet was perhaps worse than the previous.

We were going to have a lypoma removed so she could walk a little better. We planned to be around all weekend to stay with our Frankendog, all cut up and healing. But we found out that the surgery did not happen. Her albumin levels were too low, indicative of the worst.

The cancer that she has battled with for years has now likely become systemic. She drinks a lot of water, and that means there is a lot of peeing at the Bushong house. But beyond that, Chloe is about as happy as I have ever seen. She cuddles a little longer, she is a bit happier when we get home, and she eats a bit more than normal. But she sure looks good. But those tests... they just don't lie.

So Stacy and I decided we wanted to have a Chloe weekend. We wanted to get away to a place where dogs were not only welcome but invited. So we headed up to the Stanford Inn by The Sea in Mendocino.

This place was awesome. Nice rooms, comfy beds, a great organic grounds, llamas, horses, and all kinds of birds. It was a neat place situated near the coast. When we first walked into the lobby, Chloe was immediately, well, she was a dog. Chloe is not normally a dog, so imagine our surprise when she was bouncing around, sniffing, and acting like all the other canines.

That night, Chloe accompanied us to dinner. Yeah, they let her sit with us at the table, and I got to feed her from the table. Vegan food. Yumm. Sort of. The next day was a dog beach. Wow. As soon as we hit the sand, she was a 2-year-old all over again. She bounced. She weaved. She ran. She breathed a lot - yeah, she is still old, and that other stuff took its toll on her. But she looked fantastic. She was really excited. It was nice, and it was hard to remember that she was battling what will eventually do her in. Every moment of happiness was grounded in the sobering thought that this might be our last real vacation with her. But knowing that allowed us to cherish literally every moment.

On Sunday, we went in a dog canoe. I will not write about that in detail. Let me just suggest that canoeing into a 40mph headwind is hard.

The point of this trip was simple. We wanted to cherish our dog. We don't know how long we have, and truth be told, when that moment comes, we will be wrecks - both of us. We love that dog - no, we love Chloe like she is our child. And when the unthinkable comes, we will be able to look back on this weekend, on these three days, and know that we celebrated our time with her. We celebrated life with the one animal who brings life to us. And in the end, is there anything more you can do than to love the people and family you have while you have them?

Stacy and I certainly loved this weekend. And because of Chloe and all the joy she has inside her, Stacy and I are closer to Chloe... Indeed, we are closer to each other. I know our family will not always be like it is right now as I am typing, but I will forever remember a frolicking dog in the sand or a cuddly dog almost tipping our canoe. That dog, Chloe, will be with me forever, always with the same toothless smiling grin we saw this weekend. And with any luck, I will leave this same world when it is my time with the same toothless grin and refusal to be old. We really should all live like puppies, our entire lives.