The main thing Tuesday besides the usual coffee, cashews Seaman’s and the like, was that Constantine asked me to think about a question. This question:
” Let’s say we are in a plane flying one way, one way in that it WILL run out of fuel and that we WILL have to parachute out. No landings. I am the one responsible for getting us the parachutes. When he asks “did I get the parachutes”, he wants a “yes” or a “no”, he does not want a “maybe” or even a “I’m 90% sure I did”. I need to be sure, “not pretty sure”.
The question was do I want that. Do I want to be the one responsible for getting those parachutes. Do I want that job, and if I do, can I do it effectively, ie, that firm “yes” or “no.” Maybes are unacceptable.
The next day (23rd), I showed up a little late (again) to Broadwell and that toggled Constantine into saying this about the previous day’s question, “if I choose to be that person, I can’t show up late, with or without parachutes. I can’t let down the rest of the team (who ever is on that plane).” If I say I’m going to get them parachutes before takeoff, I’d better get them parachutes before takeoff.
The rest of the day was filled with talk, again talk about my arrival times, talk about why I am constantly having to ask so many questions, talk about this log. About the questions, why do I keep having to ask? I asked about the same thing yesterday so why am I asking again today? First, I do not think about the problem enough, like, “have I done it before?” If I did do it do it before, what did I do? Did I take notes before of either what I did, or on how I was told to do the task. Something I just thought of is “am I not motivated enough by the task itself to take notes, or not motivated by the thought of the task changing from training to paid work time, or maybe something else along those lines.” On to the log, I was tasked with that question before I left Tuesday and I started it that night. Why didn’t I finish it the same night I was tasked with it? Was I not motivated to even start, let alone finish? Or did I not have enough time? Well, that’s a little difficult. I did probably have enough time. As for the motivation, I don’t know. They were other things that I would have much rather been doing, and yet, I still decided to at least start on my log. (The other things I never got to either, because of the log) Kind of unrelated, there are many things in my life that I really enjoy doing, and yet, I can’t always motivate myself to do those things that I really enjoy. I don’t know why. With the log, I enjoyed writing it less than than I would the other things that I wanted to do, and yet I was more motivated to do it. Again, I’m not completely sure why. I do know that I should be motivated to write them. These are for the community to see what I am doing with Athens’ Own, and therefore what we are doing with their money. That is an important thing to write about, and it needs done.
We also started to come up with a plan for me to fix these things. First part of the plan was to come up with a plan. A plan consisting of both short term and long term parts. The short term part is intended to address the time, focus, trouble shooting and the log problems: For time, I came up with that I will go to bed earlier, therefore hopefully get up earlier and then leave earlier. For focus, I will try to listen with the intent of remembering whatever is said. Kathy said today some thing about “listening to reply” versus “listening to understand.” I believe she (basically) meant that listening to reply is to just listen with the intent of looking good and being able to maybe ask a question about what was said. I would then probably forget some of/most of what was said. Listening to understand is more really understanding everything said. I should remember most if not all of what was said, and if I do ask questions, they are good questions that will help my understanding, not just to look as if I’m listening. Trouble shooting, I will think about the problem, as I said, “have I done it before, did I make notes?” I will look for and then if found, read notes and try to solve the problem without having to ask. If I must ask, I will have paper and a pencil or pen ready to write whatever is said. Lastly, the log. First, I will try to find motivation if there is none at that moment. As for time for the log, I will make time, even if that means trading my time in order to write that log.
The long term plans address a few different problems, but some are similar. It started with this question: ” what do I want/ need to do.” The answer is I need to get a “job”, the definition of which (for this situation) is “to earn a reasonable wage”. The next step is “what is my strategy”. The answer to that is that I/we will come up with a plan consisting of at least 1, but more like 2-3-4 options to take through a decision making process like holistic management. The last part is data collection. I will go around town and get info about jobs like the USAF, Walmart, Lowes, but more importantly, local opportunities first like Seaman’s.
I also created a short presentation to both Kathy and Constantine about this plan. That all happened today at ACEnet. That went well, although I could have certainly done a bit better. Tomorrow, I will be working more on this plan at Broadwell. Logs WILL follow.