I reintroduced music into the house the other day.
It had been pretty quiet around here for a couple of years, ever since I disconnected the one computer on which I used to download music videos because the computer had the misfortune of being located in the living room, which was then undergoing renovation, and started using this computer, the “play” computer in my office, for working with photos, everyday news-browsing, everyday EVERYthing.
I’d gotten used to the quiet, and in fact mostly enjoyed it. Once in a while I would miss being able to hear, as well as watch, news videos and so forth, but for the most part, it was as easy getting used to quiet as it was getting used to no television. I haven’t watched television in almost 10 years, not so much as a matter of choice, but because of my work schedule and the fact that I’ve lived in places where non-cable TV reception is almost nil. I still watch DVD movies at least a couple of times a week, but obviously have no clue what “Jersey Shore” might be, and wasn’t particularly heartbroken or even much affected by the demise of “All My Children” or “Seinfeld” or whatever. “Out of sight, out of mind.” Or, “Absence makes the heart go yonder.” Or something. And I’ve never gotten out of the habit of blasting music in my car on the way to the grocery store or to my parents’ house or even just on a sightseeing trip up on Pizz Ridge.
For no particular reason, this past weekend I decided that it was TOO quiet around here. It dawned on me that I should go ahead and re-hook up the computer on which I used to watch music videos, etc. THEN it dawned on me that, since the speakers on that computer were built into the monitor, all I really needed to do was swap out the monitors. Duh.
Yeah, I’m slow, but sometimes I get there.
The monitor swap worked, and now I have sound again--and when I pulled up Annie Lennox’s version of “Whiter Shade of Pale,” it hit me how much I’d missed it.
Since Saturday I have been a YouTube fool, seeking out long-”lost” (to me) videos, downloading and playing them. Free-associating took me from Annie Lennox to Bruce Springsteen to Madonna (and back again and again to Madonna) and to Starship and Neil Diamond and . . . The list goes on. Of course.
I didn’t stop with getting the sound back on the computer. THEN I went out and bought a portable radio/CD player. “Whole hog or none,” right?
Maybe I should have consulted my housemates before perpetrating these massive changes, however. The cats definitely are NOT fans of rock and roll, which is a bit surprising considering that at least two of them, as kittens, used to love it when I would plug in a movie with lots of gunfire, explosions and jet planes (think “Iron Eagle” and “Top Gun“), and absolutely despised anything “mushy” (think “chick flicks”).
Cecil the dog is put on instant, baffled alert by anything involving conversation (news clips, etc.), which again is surprising given that throughout his young life he has spent eight hours a day, five days a week in my office as I listen to dictated medical reports on speakers. On the other hand, he seems purely fascinated by anything involving Stevie Nicks (especially “Sara“ and “Gypsy“ and “Landslide“), and absolutely loves “Whiter Shade of Pale,” Madonna’s “Live to Tell,” and the “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” soundtrack.
Guess there’s no accounting for taste.
Showing posts with label cats. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cats. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Occupational Hazards
Motivating oneself to work on a cloudy, cold Sunday can be challenge enough without seven highly unmotivating factors within easy eyeshot: Two cats asleep on the bed, another asleep on the chair I’ll have to occupy in an hour or so, yet another one asleep on the recliner in the living room, and the last stretched out atop the television case, sleeping quite comfortably. Then there’s the large dog asleep at the foot of my chair, and another one, the puppy, curled up on the couch, happily and increasingly sleepily gnawing away at a rawhide “bone.” The third dog, Nina, is the self-designated protector of the household and all within it, so she prefers to stay outside--but I’m pretty sure that if I were to look out the kitchen window, I would see her curled up in the corner of the yard between the house and the garage, asleep. This is not an environment conducive to maintaining the degree of alertness one needs when tackling medical reports.
When you first start working at home, you will be offered all kinds of advice and warnings from people who have tried it and succeeded (or failed). Prominent, of course, is that you must keep potential distractions--kids, spouses, phone calls, or, in my case, sunshine streaming through a window--to a minimum. You’ll be advised to keep your work space separate from your living space (and my work computer is indeed separated by 4-5 feet from my bed, 6-8 feet from my “play” computer, the one I use to write and go online for news and photo-edit, etc.). One self-described “crazy cat lady” who had a couple dozen cats told me that she put up a screen door between her office and the living room so that the cats could see her, and she could see them, but they couldn’t take up residence on her chair or stretched across her monitor (these were the days before flat screens; cats LOVED stretching out on those old-timey monitors).
Nobody ever warned me about the dangers of the cozily sleeping cat(s) on the kind of day people call “made for sleeping.”
Xena, the large sleeping dog, has now awakened--she apparently senses that it is almost time for me to begin my shift, and wants to make a trip outside. Dogs DO learn your schedule when you work at home, by the way. I used to have a Pomeranian, Pixie, who would get antsy and try to lead me back to my office when it was just about time for me to go to work. Cats are aware, as well, although they handle the situation differently: One or another of my matriarch cats, Sabrina or Evi, will curl up on my work chair about 10 minutes before I need to settle into it, practically daring me to move her.
Guess I’ll follow Xena’s example and step outside for some fresh (frigid) air.
When you first start working at home, you will be offered all kinds of advice and warnings from people who have tried it and succeeded (or failed). Prominent, of course, is that you must keep potential distractions--kids, spouses, phone calls, or, in my case, sunshine streaming through a window--to a minimum. You’ll be advised to keep your work space separate from your living space (and my work computer is indeed separated by 4-5 feet from my bed, 6-8 feet from my “play” computer, the one I use to write and go online for news and photo-edit, etc.). One self-described “crazy cat lady” who had a couple dozen cats told me that she put up a screen door between her office and the living room so that the cats could see her, and she could see them, but they couldn’t take up residence on her chair or stretched across her monitor (these were the days before flat screens; cats LOVED stretching out on those old-timey monitors).
Nobody ever warned me about the dangers of the cozily sleeping cat(s) on the kind of day people call “made for sleeping.”
Xena, the large sleeping dog, has now awakened--she apparently senses that it is almost time for me to begin my shift, and wants to make a trip outside. Dogs DO learn your schedule when you work at home, by the way. I used to have a Pomeranian, Pixie, who would get antsy and try to lead me back to my office when it was just about time for me to go to work. Cats are aware, as well, although they handle the situation differently: One or another of my matriarch cats, Sabrina or Evi, will curl up on my work chair about 10 minutes before I need to settle into it, practically daring me to move her.
Guess I’ll follow Xena’s example and step outside for some fresh (frigid) air.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
THIS dog don't hunt.
Around sunrise this morning I opened the front door to let some cats out, and was surprised to find Nina the dog wanting IN. Except during thunderstorms or extreme cold, Nina, who is part chow and conscientious protector of the household and all of its occupants, never wants in. So in she came, even though just a few minutes later she and the other two dogs, Cecil and Xena, would be following me out to the front porch (front porches that face the sunrise are the world’s best places for morning cups of coffee).
Not long after we got out there, I heard distant gunfire. First day of deer season for rifles. Which, of course, explained why Nina wanted in. None of my current or former dogs are or have been fans of gunfire, or specifically, the sounds of it. And it was coming from all directions--east by the river and up on Pizz Ridge, from farther south along the river, from woods and fields to the north and west. It was intermittent, of course, not like a battle or even like riot police firing tear gas and rubber bullets at largely peaceful demonstrators, but every few minutes as we walked around the yard, we would hear a shot or two “ring out,” as they say.
All of it was far enough away that I didn’t worry about random stray bullets accidentally finding us out there, like in a CSI episode, and I know, having grown up in a family of them, that the majority of hunters adhere strictly to basic gun safety rules: For instance, never fire in the direction of a house; never, in fact, fire if you don’t have a pretty good idea of where the bullet is likely to land if you miss your target--hillsides are good backdrops, for instance, or a thick stand of trees. If your target stands between you and a highway or a house, you find a better angle on it.
I am not a hunter, in fact haven’t hunted in over 40 years, but, as I said, I grew up in a family of them, and a brother, at least two nieces and a great-nephew, are still avid hunters. The great-nephew, now age 12, got his first deer last season, I think, a clean shot at 300 yards (length of three football fields laid end-to-end). In my distant youth I might have been able to make that shot--heck, I was top marksman in my company in army basic training, back in the proverbial day, once earning myself a ride back to camp from the firing range after hitting 80 of 80 popup targets. I do know the skill and single-minded concentration and sheer focus involved.
Done right, hunting is an admirable sport, and, while I hate the fact that it involves killing animals, I recognize that so, also, do many of my own meals, although obviously I am not personally killing them. Throw in a couple of other pieces of “trivia,” for instance that hunting license fees pay for a lot of wildlife conservation efforts, and that hunting helps keep the deer population down, and it’s hard to be “anti” hunting. As I’ve told my brother, I would rather he kill a deer with his rifle, than I do it with my car. Despite spending so much time with my “head in the clouds,” at heart I am a pragmatist.
Actually it was a cat that made me give up the sport forever. Her name was Smoky, because she was a fluffy, gray tiger-striped ball of fur when we first acquired her, I no longer remember how. She wasn’t the first cat I had adopted as “mine” (despite it being the “family’s” cat): There had been a Siamese I named “Chang,” and at least two black tomcats I named, for no particular reason, “Christopher.” She would be the last cat I would adopt for close to 30 years, though.
I was in the neighborhood of 11 or 12, and Smoky was maybe six months old when she crawled up under the hood of a car, one late fall or early winter day. Our cats were all outdoor cats--I’m not sure “housecats” even existed outside of cities, back then, although I suppose they did. Generally they did just fine, bedding down in hay in the barn, cuddling up together. But there was no warmth like the warmth beneath the hood of a car. Unlike today’s cars, which, when you open the hood it’s like opening a can of sardines, everything packed edge-to-edge, cars back then had almost enough room under the hood to set up a cot.
Cats, of course, loved that.
We were headed to town for something or other that day. Mom turned the key in the ignition, and immediately Smoky came careening out from beneath the car and went cart-wheeling across the driveway before coming down in a tiny furry heap. We assumed she was dead, and of course I was heartbroken, but for some reason we didn’t check on her at that moment. She wasn’t the first of our cats to come to a similar end, after all.
When we did get back a while later, I found that she was still breathing, barely, and grievously wounded. She needed to be “put out of her misery.” (Spare me the judging, please. That was then, and there, a wholly different time and place; I’m not sure the local vets even knew HOW to take care of small animals, and even if they did, most farm families didn’t have money lying around to invest in expensive surgeries, etc., for “utility” animals, no matter how much we might love them.)
As Smoky’s “owner,” the duty fell to me.
I went upstairs, got my .22 and a single bullet, then carried Smoky as gently as I could over to a corner of the field, lay her down as gently as I could, then put that single bullet through her head. And then I buried her.
I have not intentionally killed a living thing, aside from one rattlesnake and countless flies, since that day.
Anyway, I’ll be glad when hunting season is over, and so will my dogs.
But while I will never hunt again, at least for “game” (I may spend a lot of time hunting for a new job, or meaning or purpose in life, etc.), I will also never “judge” the sport. The fact that I do not, or can not do it, does not mean that I should take up arms against it.
Sometimes seeing both sides of an issue can suck.
Not long after we got out there, I heard distant gunfire. First day of deer season for rifles. Which, of course, explained why Nina wanted in. None of my current or former dogs are or have been fans of gunfire, or specifically, the sounds of it. And it was coming from all directions--east by the river and up on Pizz Ridge, from farther south along the river, from woods and fields to the north and west. It was intermittent, of course, not like a battle or even like riot police firing tear gas and rubber bullets at largely peaceful demonstrators, but every few minutes as we walked around the yard, we would hear a shot or two “ring out,” as they say.
All of it was far enough away that I didn’t worry about random stray bullets accidentally finding us out there, like in a CSI episode, and I know, having grown up in a family of them, that the majority of hunters adhere strictly to basic gun safety rules: For instance, never fire in the direction of a house; never, in fact, fire if you don’t have a pretty good idea of where the bullet is likely to land if you miss your target--hillsides are good backdrops, for instance, or a thick stand of trees. If your target stands between you and a highway or a house, you find a better angle on it.
I am not a hunter, in fact haven’t hunted in over 40 years, but, as I said, I grew up in a family of them, and a brother, at least two nieces and a great-nephew, are still avid hunters. The great-nephew, now age 12, got his first deer last season, I think, a clean shot at 300 yards (length of three football fields laid end-to-end). In my distant youth I might have been able to make that shot--heck, I was top marksman in my company in army basic training, back in the proverbial day, once earning myself a ride back to camp from the firing range after hitting 80 of 80 popup targets. I do know the skill and single-minded concentration and sheer focus involved.
Done right, hunting is an admirable sport, and, while I hate the fact that it involves killing animals, I recognize that so, also, do many of my own meals, although obviously I am not personally killing them. Throw in a couple of other pieces of “trivia,” for instance that hunting license fees pay for a lot of wildlife conservation efforts, and that hunting helps keep the deer population down, and it’s hard to be “anti” hunting. As I’ve told my brother, I would rather he kill a deer with his rifle, than I do it with my car. Despite spending so much time with my “head in the clouds,” at heart I am a pragmatist.
Actually it was a cat that made me give up the sport forever. Her name was Smoky, because she was a fluffy, gray tiger-striped ball of fur when we first acquired her, I no longer remember how. She wasn’t the first cat I had adopted as “mine” (despite it being the “family’s” cat): There had been a Siamese I named “Chang,” and at least two black tomcats I named, for no particular reason, “Christopher.” She would be the last cat I would adopt for close to 30 years, though.
I was in the neighborhood of 11 or 12, and Smoky was maybe six months old when she crawled up under the hood of a car, one late fall or early winter day. Our cats were all outdoor cats--I’m not sure “housecats” even existed outside of cities, back then, although I suppose they did. Generally they did just fine, bedding down in hay in the barn, cuddling up together. But there was no warmth like the warmth beneath the hood of a car. Unlike today’s cars, which, when you open the hood it’s like opening a can of sardines, everything packed edge-to-edge, cars back then had almost enough room under the hood to set up a cot.
Cats, of course, loved that.
We were headed to town for something or other that day. Mom turned the key in the ignition, and immediately Smoky came careening out from beneath the car and went cart-wheeling across the driveway before coming down in a tiny furry heap. We assumed she was dead, and of course I was heartbroken, but for some reason we didn’t check on her at that moment. She wasn’t the first of our cats to come to a similar end, after all.
When we did get back a while later, I found that she was still breathing, barely, and grievously wounded. She needed to be “put out of her misery.” (Spare me the judging, please. That was then, and there, a wholly different time and place; I’m not sure the local vets even knew HOW to take care of small animals, and even if they did, most farm families didn’t have money lying around to invest in expensive surgeries, etc., for “utility” animals, no matter how much we might love them.)
As Smoky’s “owner,” the duty fell to me.
I went upstairs, got my .22 and a single bullet, then carried Smoky as gently as I could over to a corner of the field, lay her down as gently as I could, then put that single bullet through her head. And then I buried her.
I have not intentionally killed a living thing, aside from one rattlesnake and countless flies, since that day.
Anyway, I’ll be glad when hunting season is over, and so will my dogs.
But while I will never hunt again, at least for “game” (I may spend a lot of time hunting for a new job, or meaning or purpose in life, etc.), I will also never “judge” the sport. The fact that I do not, or can not do it, does not mean that I should take up arms against it.
Sometimes seeing both sides of an issue can suck.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Cecil's Home Improvement
A few months ago I acquired a puppy, a half-beagle, half-boxer, who so far in his young life has survived being raised partially by cats (my own, who have remote experience with another exuberant half-beagle who wandered blindly--literally; he was blind for the first couple of months of his life--into our lives) who recognize that a puppy genuinely needs the kind of guidance that only caring cats can provide, and who recognize also that the house biped--that would be me--is probably the world’s worst disciplinarian when it comes to puppies and most other critters.
At the moment, Cecil, the puppy, is working diligently on one of his house makeover projects, this one involving dismantling my old bed so we can get a new one in here. When he first came to live with us at age 7 weeks, he could reach only the fabric on the bottom of the box springs, but with much effort and perseverance, he managed to destroy that. He grew taller, of course, and so could reach the fabric around the sides of the springs and remove THAT. Now he has begun to work on the wooden frame itself, but these days he is large enough that he can go about it more comfortably, lying on his back, hind legs flailing happily about in the air while he grabs the frame with his front paws and gnaws mightily away at it.
If the project maintains his interest, he’ll be working on the mattress next, and I suppose by Christmas or thereabouts I’ll have to go bed-shopping. Well, heck, it’s not like I don’t need one--this one looks like it has been gnawed apart by a dog!
Since Cecil began the project, I’ve gone from being slightly annoyed to more or less indifferent to fascinated, and now I’m wondering, not quite to the point of making bets with myself, when he will achieve his clear goal of rendering the bed “uninhabitable.” I have no doubt that he will get there--he has overcome worse obstacles, from cats to two older, much larger dogs who found him initially unbearable, to a recent bout with parvovirus that really should have killed him.
Another of Cecil’s home-improvement plans involves excavating the yard, presumably in preparation for reseeding so that he’ll have a more plush and green playground next summer. The yard is large and Cecil is not, but then again, the bed is quite a bit larger than he is, too, and what is it they say about one’s reach exceeding their grasp? Anyway, he’s making progress on the lawn, as well. He is not going about it quite so methodically as a farmer tackling a 500-acre field, one swath after another, the individual swaths of plowed or planted or harvested territory accumulating in a steady, inexorable march from one side of the field to the other. Cecil is more of a “spot-excavater:” He’ll dig a nice deep hole in one spot, then rush off to another, more interesting spot and dig a nice hole there, then maybe chase one of the older dogs for a while, then go back to his labors in still another corner of the lawn. Unless frozen ground stops him for a while, by Spring he may indeed have the lawn plowed up and ready for reseeding--and free of moles, as well.
There may or may not be a lesson somewhere in there as I go about this uncomfortable business of reinventing myself, whether it be in Cecil’s clear self-identification of a goal, his spending at least a little time every day working towards that goal, or simply the sheer joy with which he goes about his work.
In the meantime, I’ll just keep watching him and maybe go price some beds and look at grass seeds and seeders.
At the moment, Cecil, the puppy, is working diligently on one of his house makeover projects, this one involving dismantling my old bed so we can get a new one in here. When he first came to live with us at age 7 weeks, he could reach only the fabric on the bottom of the box springs, but with much effort and perseverance, he managed to destroy that. He grew taller, of course, and so could reach the fabric around the sides of the springs and remove THAT. Now he has begun to work on the wooden frame itself, but these days he is large enough that he can go about it more comfortably, lying on his back, hind legs flailing happily about in the air while he grabs the frame with his front paws and gnaws mightily away at it.
If the project maintains his interest, he’ll be working on the mattress next, and I suppose by Christmas or thereabouts I’ll have to go bed-shopping. Well, heck, it’s not like I don’t need one--this one looks like it has been gnawed apart by a dog!
Since Cecil began the project, I’ve gone from being slightly annoyed to more or less indifferent to fascinated, and now I’m wondering, not quite to the point of making bets with myself, when he will achieve his clear goal of rendering the bed “uninhabitable.” I have no doubt that he will get there--he has overcome worse obstacles, from cats to two older, much larger dogs who found him initially unbearable, to a recent bout with parvovirus that really should have killed him.
Another of Cecil’s home-improvement plans involves excavating the yard, presumably in preparation for reseeding so that he’ll have a more plush and green playground next summer. The yard is large and Cecil is not, but then again, the bed is quite a bit larger than he is, too, and what is it they say about one’s reach exceeding their grasp? Anyway, he’s making progress on the lawn, as well. He is not going about it quite so methodically as a farmer tackling a 500-acre field, one swath after another, the individual swaths of plowed or planted or harvested territory accumulating in a steady, inexorable march from one side of the field to the other. Cecil is more of a “spot-excavater:” He’ll dig a nice deep hole in one spot, then rush off to another, more interesting spot and dig a nice hole there, then maybe chase one of the older dogs for a while, then go back to his labors in still another corner of the lawn. Unless frozen ground stops him for a while, by Spring he may indeed have the lawn plowed up and ready for reseeding--and free of moles, as well.
There may or may not be a lesson somewhere in there as I go about this uncomfortable business of reinventing myself, whether it be in Cecil’s clear self-identification of a goal, his spending at least a little time every day working towards that goal, or simply the sheer joy with which he goes about his work.
In the meantime, I’ll just keep watching him and maybe go price some beds and look at grass seeds and seeders.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Speaking of Packratting . . .
I somehow got involved in a "workplace" (using the term loosely, given that, as "remote" transcriptionists we are separated by hundreds or thousands of miles, yet work on the same account, which is hundreds or thousands of miles away from us) conversation about photography today, and somehow--with this onlline stuff, there is always a "somehow" involved--that led me to this picture of Sabrina, mother of Chewie and Muffins, as well as the departed Mini and Sally and Gerbil. Sabrina is a special girl, born in the back of an old truck parked on the property where I used to live, way down in Mississippi; discovered and rescued by a neighbor, ultimately adopted by my ex-wife and me; a few months later a devoted mom, and now, years later, one of the keepers of my household and the discipliner of all newcomers to it. She's just a mom, and she does it well. 
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Photographs and memories.
This is an experiment. A sizable chunk of my leisure time over the past few years has been devoted to perambulations with and photographing of a once sizable herd of cats and dogs, so from time to time I'll post some of the pictures. Spending time with the non-2-legged has not necessarily changed my perspective on much of anything; nevertheless, it may have fleshed it out some, or filled in gaps, or simply demonstrated that some things may be more clearly viewed from somewhere other than 68 inches above the ground, the plane occupied by my eyes. This is Chewbacca, by the way--better known as Chewie or sometimes Chewmonster, and, by some in the "Flickrverse," as "the superstar."
Friday, October 28, 2011
Information Over(under)load.
Speaking of cats . . . . A few years ago I had a kitten named Mina whom my then-wife termed my “little princess.” When she was maybe 2 months old I started taking her outside, where I would sit down on the front step with her on my knee, and watch her as she contemplated the world. She would look everywhere, mostly with her nose--sniffing the usually light breeze, amazed and awed and intimidated by things I could neither see nor otherwise sense.
Mina died last year, and now, in addition to two other dogs (and five cats), I have a 6-month-old boxer/beagle-mix puppy, Cecil. Every night Cecil and I go sit out on the porch for a while. He LOVES to sit on my lap and sniff at the world, at once intrigued and intimidated by whatever he smells on the air; Nina’s (other dog) furious barking from all corners of the yard; distant headlights coming up the highway. I cannot even imagine how the world must appear to him when it is dark, yet he can smell and hear and see so much more than I can, and he has so little experience with this little universe.
Cecil runs and plays with Nina during the day, but at night, when Nina is all guard-dog, ferocious and protective and constantly vigilant, she must seem an entirely different, and in some ways, frightening creature to him.
With so much continuous and possibly seemingly contradictory--the dog he knows as playmate when it is light outside, fierce wild creature at night, for instance--incoming information, life must be confusing for Cecil sometimes.
Maybe he would be happier if he had never been exposed to “fierce Nina,” if he still knew her only as playmate.
That’s the trouble with information, I suppose--how can you know when it becomes too much. Or conversely, when you don’t have enough?
I get that feeling when wandering about the web, sometimes. For every “fact” you find, every opinion, there are countless contradicting “facts” and opinions. Trying to sift through it all and find some sense-making “thread” tying it all together, can be as overwhelming as all the sounds and smells and sights must have seemed to kitten Mina, sitting on my knee in balmy Mississippi air, so many years ago, or to Cecil, sitting on my lap a couple of hours ago.
Too much information, too much stimulation.
But the flipside of that particular coin may be as bad, or worse.
Came across a term the other day, “isolation paranoia.” I don’t know--couldn’t figure out from whatever Google found for me--whether that is an actual psychological condition or not. Basically it means that when you’re isolated from other people, specifically in a work situation, you tend to become paranoid. You start wondering what it “means” if you haven’t received a daily communication from your supervisor, for instance. You wonder about phantoms, essentially.
Example: I am part of a team of “remote” transcriptionists working on several accounts scattered across the country (the accounts AND the transcriptionists). One of our larger accounts recently underwent a changeover to an electronic medical record, EMR. We were only told that the account was switching over to a new platform, something like that, but then, suddenly, all the transcriptionists assigned to that account were finding “no job available” when they signed on for their shifts. After a few days of utter confusion, they finally informed us about the switch to EMR. Now, on most accounts and in most remote transcription jobs I’ve had until now, we--the transcriptionists--have never really been able to communicate with each other. We’re hundreds or thousands of miles apart, no longer have even regular conference calls. On this team, though, the supervisor decided to create a virtual “water cooler” for us--she made a private Facebook group and invited us all to join.
I don’t know if her bosses would have approved of that--communication among employees in most companies is generally discouraged, but from what I’ve seen so far, it has been a godsend to a whole bunch of people who work together yet never see or chat with each other.
And I’m seeing “isolation paranoia” in action.
Perceived “non-communication” becomes as fraught with meaning as actual “communication.” When you’re a “remote” employee, working in more or less a vacuum, you start to “see,” or sometimes “imagine,” things going on which are somehow just out of your reach, just outside your field of vision.
You start to get used to hearing the fiercely barking Nina, then she goes suddenly silent--ohmigod, is she hurt??? What’s going on???
The daily stat reports you used to receive and be pissed off by? Suddenly they go away, but nobody tells you why. What does that mean?
At our virtual water cooler, our Facebook group, the term “mushroom treatment” has popped up a few times recently. You know, “I am a mushroom. I must be a mushroom--they keep me in the dark and feed me bullshit.”
Then the company president sent out a memo that was supposed to “inform” us, but left most of us--and we are ALL language specialists, remember--mostly confused.
Too much information, too little . . . It is becoming increasingly difficult to know one from the other.
Mina died last year, and now, in addition to two other dogs (and five cats), I have a 6-month-old boxer/beagle-mix puppy, Cecil. Every night Cecil and I go sit out on the porch for a while. He LOVES to sit on my lap and sniff at the world, at once intrigued and intimidated by whatever he smells on the air; Nina’s (other dog) furious barking from all corners of the yard; distant headlights coming up the highway. I cannot even imagine how the world must appear to him when it is dark, yet he can smell and hear and see so much more than I can, and he has so little experience with this little universe.
Cecil runs and plays with Nina during the day, but at night, when Nina is all guard-dog, ferocious and protective and constantly vigilant, she must seem an entirely different, and in some ways, frightening creature to him.
With so much continuous and possibly seemingly contradictory--the dog he knows as playmate when it is light outside, fierce wild creature at night, for instance--incoming information, life must be confusing for Cecil sometimes.
Maybe he would be happier if he had never been exposed to “fierce Nina,” if he still knew her only as playmate.
That’s the trouble with information, I suppose--how can you know when it becomes too much. Or conversely, when you don’t have enough?
I get that feeling when wandering about the web, sometimes. For every “fact” you find, every opinion, there are countless contradicting “facts” and opinions. Trying to sift through it all and find some sense-making “thread” tying it all together, can be as overwhelming as all the sounds and smells and sights must have seemed to kitten Mina, sitting on my knee in balmy Mississippi air, so many years ago, or to Cecil, sitting on my lap a couple of hours ago.
Too much information, too much stimulation.
But the flipside of that particular coin may be as bad, or worse.
Came across a term the other day, “isolation paranoia.” I don’t know--couldn’t figure out from whatever Google found for me--whether that is an actual psychological condition or not. Basically it means that when you’re isolated from other people, specifically in a work situation, you tend to become paranoid. You start wondering what it “means” if you haven’t received a daily communication from your supervisor, for instance. You wonder about phantoms, essentially.
Example: I am part of a team of “remote” transcriptionists working on several accounts scattered across the country (the accounts AND the transcriptionists). One of our larger accounts recently underwent a changeover to an electronic medical record, EMR. We were only told that the account was switching over to a new platform, something like that, but then, suddenly, all the transcriptionists assigned to that account were finding “no job available” when they signed on for their shifts. After a few days of utter confusion, they finally informed us about the switch to EMR. Now, on most accounts and in most remote transcription jobs I’ve had until now, we--the transcriptionists--have never really been able to communicate with each other. We’re hundreds or thousands of miles apart, no longer have even regular conference calls. On this team, though, the supervisor decided to create a virtual “water cooler” for us--she made a private Facebook group and invited us all to join.
I don’t know if her bosses would have approved of that--communication among employees in most companies is generally discouraged, but from what I’ve seen so far, it has been a godsend to a whole bunch of people who work together yet never see or chat with each other.
And I’m seeing “isolation paranoia” in action.
Perceived “non-communication” becomes as fraught with meaning as actual “communication.” When you’re a “remote” employee, working in more or less a vacuum, you start to “see,” or sometimes “imagine,” things going on which are somehow just out of your reach, just outside your field of vision.
You start to get used to hearing the fiercely barking Nina, then she goes suddenly silent--ohmigod, is she hurt??? What’s going on???
The daily stat reports you used to receive and be pissed off by? Suddenly they go away, but nobody tells you why. What does that mean?
At our virtual water cooler, our Facebook group, the term “mushroom treatment” has popped up a few times recently. You know, “I am a mushroom. I must be a mushroom--they keep me in the dark and feed me bullshit.”
Then the company president sent out a memo that was supposed to “inform” us, but left most of us--and we are ALL language specialists, remember--mostly confused.
Too much information, too little . . . It is becoming increasingly difficult to know one from the other.
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