Impending Storm and Some Personal Thoughts About Work

I sitting here at the Magnolia Parke Starbucks in northwestern Gainesville looking out the window, at the increasingly stormy-looking weather approaching us from the west.  We're supposed to get a storm passing through in the next hour or so...should be interesting to watch.  I'm enjoying this day off from work...that reminds me, a respected co-worker the other day posted on Facebook some sage advice about work that bears repeating.  Here are his four points: (1) Not everyone at your workplace is your friend. (2) Do your job. (3) Get paid. (4) Go home.  Just speaking for myself and my own work experiences, I think some good folks expect too much socially from their work environment and need to recognize that while we're all here together on the job it is much more important to be polite and respect others, both face-to-face and behind their backs...given that I'm certainly not anywhere near perfect myself in this area.  I don't automatically have to be a close friend in the workplace to others and they aren't in turn obligated to be overly friendly...and it doesn't have any bearing on our respective personalities, just our priorities.  Better that I'm the adult in the room and practice politeness, patience and discretion...while focusing on the tasks that I am there to perform in the first place.  In other words, a little professional detachment can go a long way toward making one's job not only bearable, but actually enjoyable and fulfilling.  And to my colleague's four points I'd like to add one that I've long adopted (and recently written about) from Max Ehrmann's prose poem Desiderata: Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexatious to the spirit. At least that's how it all seems to me...you and others are entitled to your own opinions on the subject based on your experiences...

Y'know, I think instead of just sitting here looking out the window at everything blowing around in the wind I'll go to my local gym and hit the treadmill and elliptical for a while.  Yes, it's good to be off from work, although it is a good job...