[lack of time] why schedules fail

This article is dedicated to Sempiternal Horizons.

# Work expands to fill the available time plus half an hour. [C. Northcote Parkinson, 1958]

# Which of us is to do the hard and dirty work for the rest – and for what pay? Who is to do the pleasant and clean work and far what pay? [John Ruskin, 1870]

# One of the symptoms of approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important and that to take a holiday would bring all kinds of disaster. [Bertrand Russell, 1932]

Our work, yours and mine, might be different – salaried, entrepreneurial, creative or criminal – but there are certain truisms common to the majority. Here are some:

1] We are, all of us, up to our eyeballs in work and though we might moan, we all like to feel terribly busy and if our time wasn’t called upon half so much, we’d try to make it so. We all like playing the martyr to the cause a bit and the mantle ‘run off our feet’ sits comfortably with us. [Parkinson quote above]

2] The unit cost of goods is such that the average salary does not cover it. Market forces are responsible for this but it’s also those who drive those market forces in the first place who have created this situation. The result is that we’re always playing ‘catch-up-football’ – trying to cover the next increase in prices and never quite managing it, in fact going backwards. The further result, as you well know, is working two jobs, credit card debt and mortgaged up to the hilt. [Ruskin quote above]

3] We feel we don’t have time to sit down and make a schedule and even if we do, it sooner or later falls by the wayside due to a variety of factors, not least mental stress. [Russell quote above] And yet good scheduling will lift half that stress.

4] Anyone, no matter how close to us, places demands on our time. He or she always feels that his needs, his high prioritization of himself takes precedence over anyone else. If time is tight, he expects you to drop or reschedule someone else, not him. Lip service is paid to our drawn and haggard features: “You really must take a break, you know.” If we do, it must not include his time. He meant the others.

Continued here.

[frigedæg] have a great freitag

The Sumerian Inanna, the Babylonian Ishtar, the Greek Aphroditê and the Roman Venus all wish you the happiest of days on this second last day of the working week. Remember – no meat, only fish, watch your back, be fruitful and multiply and may Freya’s tears turn to gold for you.

Here are some other aspects of frigedæg which may have temporarily slipped your mind, just in case you're into friday perhaps.

[the berlusconis] lovers’ tiff goes public

As I’ll be somewhat immersed in women today, this is appropriate:

Silvio Berlusconi told some women at a TV awards dinner last week that "if I wasn't already married I would marry you right away", and "with you I'd go anywhere." Veronica, Mr Berlusconi's second wife and mother of three of his children, said the comments belittled her and she decided to make her marital spat public after failing to win an apology in private.

And he apologized. Publicly. Ladies, you now know what to do. Wash your dirty laundry in public and he’ll come crawling back to you on his knees. Works a treat. Sweet man, Berli, don’t you think?

[vladimir putin] what’s ms merkel bitching about

Vladimir’s Labrador bitch Connie nuzzles up to a shocked German whilst the honey in the background takes notes. That’s détente. Ms Merkel was lucky Volodya didn’t read her Omar Khaiyam, his last resort in times of stress.

His first resort is conversing with Connie. So nice that the protocol for meetings of heads of state has been rewritten to include canines.

I want to know who the girl in the background is, taking notes.

[phallacy] a growing problem

Google Maps and Virtual Earth have spotted a six metre-long phallus in the grass near Southampton created by Bellemoor School students, using weed killer. In December, a giant phallus appeared on the roof of Yarm School in Stockton-on-Tees. In 20 metre-high letters in a field just north of Edinburgh is the word POO and in a field near Rotherham is written ARSE.

Of course, this blog totally condemns these acts of desecration and the senseless waste of both public resources and the students’ time. The rumour that this blogger was spotted loading a canister of creosote and a groundsman’s wheeled marker into the boot [trunk] of his car is entirely unsubstantiated. Anyway, all I wanted to write was BLIAR.

UPDATE: Check this out.

[transatlantic divide] further and further apart

The news:

The CIA's clandestine program of abducting terror suspects and taking them to secret sites for interrogation unraveled further Wednesday as German prosecutors issued arrest warrants for 13 agency operatives in the kidnapping of a German citizen in the Balkans in December 2003.

This is one situation where lack of détente is a wondrous thing. Doesn’t matter that they’ll never extradite them. The simple fact of the prosecution is that the global push has met some obstacles. Goody. They’re not having it all they’re own way.