Lethargic

[MAC]

Two months ago I didn’t have time to pee. I was that damned busy.
Now….well…..

I get to work at least 30 minutes late. I do my best to screw around until the boss gets in and then I “look” busy until after the 10 o’clock break. I try to do something in the before 10:30 but it usually sends me back to the office until after 11. Then I jump into a task that carries over until 5 minutes after everyone else leaves for lunch. I then get my lunch and sit on the internet acting like I’m watching the phones until as close to 2 as I can. I go back out to the shop and take a nap or find something that sends me back to the office. Around 3 I have to go to UPS with shipments. I also go to the convenience store, the hardware store and the ice cream shop. This kills a good 30-45 minutes. I breeze through the office one last time and head out to where ever I can’t be found until a quarter till 5. Then I go back to the office and spend 15 minutes writing a list of shit to do tomorrow.

Doesn’t that sound ideal?
Well, it’s killing me. After doing nothing at work all day I am absolutely lethargic when I get home. It’s like pulling teeth to do anything here and I drag shit out way too long. This is getting old. My job increased in pay and hours each year for 4 years. Year 5 was very slow but that was good. It was the year of the company lawsuit, my divorce, my daughter moving and lots of very long ill-feeling nights. Now we are ½ way through this year and nothing has changed. It started to get real busy a couple times but a week or two and it all dissipated. I am to the point now where I don’t care if I go or not and you can’t do that when you need money.

If the oil industry doesn’t stir up soon I may have to revamp my plans regarding what I do next in life. (which are littl emore than general anyway)

So I am unmotivated and utterly lethargic,
I am also feeling my age...but thats another story.

It was not always thus.

[Koliedrus]

I think you and Muddy should have a sit-down. He's an experienced rut-getter-out-of-er.

[Billyman]

*sighs*

I can relate Mac. :( :mad:

[MuffyTheVampyreLayer]

Boredom makes me lethargic too, usually I can find other stuff to do, but when it is work that is making time pass so slowly things can be tricky. When I was at Talley's, before I was promoted, my job was to trim fish, all day, every day, for 74 hours a week. It was the most brain numbingly dull work imaginable. I used to make time pass faster by listening to my walkman or starting fishfights when no one was looking :).

Is there anyway you could be assigned more variety in your work, or maybe some hands on stuff?

Maybe the gods are trying to tell you to look for a new job?

[Mudflap]

Originally posted by Koliedrus
I think you and Muddy should have a sit-down. He's an experienced rut-getter-out-of-er.

I've had many a sit-down with MAC. I assure you he's not the type of man to whom you give unsolicited advice nor am I the type to give it.

Regardless, I doubt there's much to worry about. He has a plan and he's moving forward with it. Because he's not the type to put his responsibilities to the side nor make unsound/rash decisions in order to pursue his own happiness, he's having to defer his gratification in many regards. I have no doubt that he'll improve his situation to something much more agreeable to him when he can feasibly make it happen.

I've witnessed his self expression and have yet to find a trace of self pity.

[Venus]

That's kind of how my job gets. I spend 3 hours in the morning printing papers. What do you do while they print? During that 3 hours, I spend 1/2 sorting mail. Then I spend 1/2 hour stuffing some of the papers. It takes about another 1/2 hour to run the rest throught the folder-inserter. Then there's time to kill until lunch. Then there's time to kill until about 3:00 when I can sort the other outgoing mail. Take about 5 minutes to run said outgoing mail. Then I have time to kill until 4:20 when I take the mail downstairs. Then 10 more minutes to kill until I can go home at 4:30. It drives me nuts too.

[Koliedrus]

Mac, if you're looking for inspiration, you may as well encourage people to ask me to interpret their dreams.

You know your abilities and limitations. You ALONE know how you should procede.

Sound like a cop-out, I know.

Muffy's advice seems sound. Muddy's recollection seems to reinforce a decision you've already made.

You have this life.
Do your best.

[Barbie]

Originally posted by MAC
If the oil industry doesn’t stir up soon I may have to revamp my plans regarding what I do next in life.

The Oil Industry? You're in the oil industry?

[sauron]

Originally posted by Barbie


The Oil Industry? You're in the oil industry?

IIRC, he builds oil tanks.

- d.

[ms. bing]

originally posted by mac


I am also feeling my age...but thats another story

feeling your age is realizing it is harder to jump around on the floor with little kids, or that you can't go out and drink until 3am then get up at 7am and go to work.
what you may be feeling is the effect of your life and/or lifestyle on your age.
normally at this point i would tease you about living solely on ramen, but i think you're being serious, so i will refrain.
anyway, its just my point of view. take it with care. after all, look how fabulous my life is.

[Uberwonder]

Sounds like my Air Force days. I swore to myself that I would never take a job that wasn't fun, money be damned, and I haven't.

[MAC]

I build internals for the oil industry.
Oil comes out of the ground with all kind sof stuff mixed in and you have to "seperate" some of it out to pipeline or store it befor eit goes to the refinery.
My problem is my boss created this company so he wouldn't have to go home to his wife and do nothing all day.
Its not a "real" company. But it pays more than I can make anywhere else around here unless I get lucky and land areally good job with one of the few large companies in TOWN....or get a degree in a field that actually produces something (we have lots of liberal arts masters degrees working at walmart around here, and always have)

I have fun building stuff and thats why I've stayed (well that and I can't afford to live this way with one of the $9/hour jobs around here)

but the big projects I do that make the company big money and keep me busy have been dead, dead, dead...

oh well. the winds of change are blowing.

[Torque]

MAC, I've had the work doldrums something wicked for a few months at a time. For a while, we had no new projects coming in, no huge things to design, build and generally fool with. I spent a while just browsing the web and pushing things around on the desk. Then, because I'm always happier when working on something really complicated, I decided to start a few projects. Most of mine were software projects, some were reorganizing a bunch of stuff. Some were not directly related to my responsibilities, but worked out pretty good for other parts of my department.

Maybe some of the other dudes at work need a new fantastic machine. A MAC machine. Maybe there's somethign funky about the workflow, and how it's done on the pc's there. You just have to make a neat project. It seems dumb when you start it, but when you really get into it, it gets cooler, and I've come up with some really good stuff that ended up adding a lot of value to work, and I learned a lot along the way. Just find something that might or might not need designing and building, and do it. Do it for you :)

[MAC]

Things are picking up a little. Still not much big work.

But I've got a new project alright.....
You may recall my company went through a law suit where in we lost a bunch of machines that we'd hired a "expert" to build. Well after he was fired and I finally made his crap run I was asked if I could build another machine...which I did. Better, faster, and substantially cheaper. However, as I pointed out to the boss, the wording of the law suit settlement wasn't going to allow this to happen. The law suit settlement is worded to imply that we learned what we know about knitting machines from this other guys design and we agreed not to build machines based on what we had learned. We can buy machines from established manufacturers. So I started to build a machine and I was told to hide it. Then I was told to get it going and before I had all the bugs worked out I was told to hide it, then I was told to get it finished because we REALLY needed it and then I was told we can't use it. And so on and so forth...I sorta lost heart and when the boss asks why that machine isn't running I give him hell.

now I am about to dimantle it and use some of its more expensive componets to build a NEW machine to do something totally different...something that only the few biggest companies do and none of us has ever seen. Something we do the hard way right now.

we're gonna take 12" wide strips of razor sharp stainless foil that we stamp in a 90 ton press now and crimp it on my newly designed rollers at a rate of probably 3x our current production....of course that means jack shit because someone has to sell it. but fuck`em.....I'm doing my job!

for reference:
Those rollers are roughly 6" in Diameter and 16" long. The original pieces of 24"L x6" OD stock I machined them from weighed almost 200# each.
muahahahahahaha...............
I prefer the term "evil genius"

[SimpleSimon]

Damn! That would be a REALLY bad motor scooter to catch your fingers in while it was running!

Nice work - reminds me of the internals of a progressive dual rotor air compressor I saw once. Those rotors get progressively tighter in twist and smaller in diameter as they extended. Truly mind-twisting to look at in rotation.

[MAC]

I designed the profile on ACAD, machined the blanks from stock and I am building the machine. The latter involves figureing out which sprockets and gears to use to get adequate ratios and torque transfer (something I wish I knew more about) and I also am doing the machining and welding to build the frame and drive train to hold those bad boys under their load.)
I sent the blanks to Chicago to be cut to this profile. We don't have the equipment to do it :(

As for lethargic....my daughter was here all last week and I popped out of bed each day. The day after she left I was unmotivated to get up. But its getting better. I love my morning routine and I hate to lay in bed wondering what I have to do. I just have to get my routine going again. St00pid work. I should be up all night chasing snakes.