How do we end up where we are? In my case, it’s a mixture of 2 parts born into privilege, 1 part luck, 1 part dumb luck and about another part hard work. That I would be a “success” was pre-determined: white, middle class, male. No strikes against me. But in some ways, I am [...]

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I’m not keeping good on my promise to write a more journal-style site so that the tens of interested people can keep up with what we’re doing and all of that type of thing. I’m not doing a good job of telling you how I work every day from 7:30-17:00 or so and then take [...]

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Note: I found this in my “drafts” today. I have no real idea where I was going with it, but I thought it worth sharing. It was writtin in April, 2005
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I’ve had three different people tell me that I look like shit today. One called my cashmere sweater “casual” and two others said that the [...]

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Originally uploaded by scottpartee.

This is where billions in economy are generated every day: in tiny little insipid cubicles in rows under flourescent lights. His domain sprawls before him. His candy bar lunch twists restlessly in his Mountain Dew-addled belly. The knowledge worker. The self-managed class. [...]

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Ate lunch with Hans Blix and my Director today.
The best part about fancy work lunches: wine!
footnote: by ate lunch with, I mean ate at the table next to them and, no, I didn’t hear them say anything juicy.

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Updates are sparse once again, despite my best intentions. My main problem: I won’t blog from work and my evenings are best spent away from the computer and with my family and my Vienna. However, it’s been an interesting and busy time here.
We attended a party thrown by the U.S. Mission of the Member States’ [...]

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Notes from the first week of work

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I’ve found that I work much better from home if I go ahead and get dressed rather than attempting to live the geek dream and work in my underwear. I guess that’s a me problem.

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My workplace has just circulated a Word document on which I am to detail my “Significant Accomplishments” for the year to date.
Can you think of any besides teaching my daughter to bark as a dog and say “boat”?

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Sometimes I love technology corporate life. If nothing else, it provides for endless Schadenfreude, empathy and “strange loops.” Witness, the following exchange I just heard on a conference call:
Project Manager: OK. Let’s go over our deliverables that have slipped. Developer? Have you managed to finish up your release? You were due last month.
Developer:We have released [...]

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A friend of mine just forwarded me an email that was circulated in his company. It read:

Atlanta Training Opportunity
Resume Writing And Interview Skills

I guess the writing is on the wall there, huh?

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One of the hallmarks of my place of employment is that many groups allow for workforce mobility. In all of our new buildings, each row of cubes contains “telecommuter” cubes which usually fill up early in the morning with people based out of other offices in other cities or out in the ‘burbs.
Because [...]

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Overheard in the employee cafeteria:
“I’m so beyond caring. I almost negative care. I like to see the wheels fall off, just to see which way the bus rolls over each time.”
“It sucks that the only interesting thing about our careers right now, well, at least mine, is the spectacular disaster everywhere.”
“Oh [...]

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Say, for instance, that you work for the second most giant global outsourcing and technology service firm. Also, for hypothetical reasons, assume that you are on the account that services one of the largest telecommunications firms. Okay? You’re in dreamland. You’ve stepped on through to the other side and can now experience [...]

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When I’m old and retired (if I’m so lucky), will I look back on my life and say that I was happy to have worked so hard to save a giant corporation a few dollars, or will I wish I had been part of something more “meaningful?” Do people at death’s door sit around [...]

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