Organizing is for lazy bastards

[AFK]

The problem with our society isn't that we don't want to organize.  Fuck, humans are really good at organizing.  We organize parties for the Super Bowl.  We organize our TeeVee schedule.  One thing we are REALLY good at is organizing organizing. 

You know what I'm talking about.  When you spend half of a meeting talking about the next meeting you are going to have.  You spend the other half talking about who else to invite to these scintilating meetings where you are talking about what you are going to talk about. 

What humans fucking suck as is doing.  If we could spend half a minute here or there to actually plan on DOING something, instead of making plans to make plans, maybe we'd see progress pick up a pace where it can actually give that fucking slug on the ground a race. 

But I don't know, more often than not I don't see it.  I see way too much processing, way too much bleeding-hearted strategizing for making a 5 year plan to assess the needs of the community infrastructure.

Fuck that noize, hand me a goddamned hammer and a shovel and let's actually do the fuck something!

NOW PASS ME THE GODDAMNED WATER PITCHER!!!

[Wolfgang Absolutus]

A lot of the doing we could be doing is against the law and many don't want to be sodomized by police just to help some other schmuck.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

The problem with our society isn't that we don't want to organize.  Fuck, humans are really good at organizing.  We organize parties for the Super Bowl.  We organize our TeeVee schedule.  One thing we are REALLY good at is organizing organizing. 

You know what I'm talking about.  When you spend half of a meeting talking about the next meeting you are going to have.  You spend the other half talking about who else to invite to these scintilating meetings where you are talking about what you are going to talk about. 

Preach it.

Christ, I hate that shit.

[East Coast Hustle]

Fuck yeah. I couldn't agree more with the OP.

[Luna]

My last job, the boss had decided that we now needed weekly meetings, with the entire payroll department (all three of us, any of which could hit either of the others with a spitball from our desks), him (who knew zip about the day to day running of the department) and his boss (who knew less).  They insisted on having these meetings mid-day on Monday, when we needed to be doing, you know, payroll related shit.  Meetings lasted two to three hours, in earshot of my frantically ringing phone, where supervisors were desperately trying to reach me about getting payroll done on schedule.

Said meetings invariably boiled down to: "what's going on?"  "Payroll.  We did/are in the process of doing/already told you it is impossible to do the list of shit you wanted done.  Can I go do my job, now?"

Meetings give me hives.

[AFK]

We also have weekly meetings.  Every other week they are two hours and on the other weeks they are one hour.  It was the idea of the previous Director who everyone pretty much agrees was an idiot.  A career student who somehow snake-charmed the hiring committee to give him the job of head-honcho.  The new Director also pretty much agrees he was an idiot and that it probably was a bit much to have weekly meetings.

So, he's done what any sensible boss would do, nothing.  Still have weekly meetings because it is "tradition".  Fuck tradition.  While I'm sitting listening to the other people talk about shit that means JACK shit to me, I could be at my desk getting shit done. 

I mean, for the 30 billionth time since I've worked here, we talked about contact information yesterday.  I shit you now.  We spent 30 minutes talking about the "proper technique" for gathering and logging contact information of people and organizations we work with.  Whether or not we should have "St. or Street" in the address.  Because if we don't do it the correct way we "won't look professional"

Really?  Fucking really?  Someone is going to get a piece of mail from us, take two minutes to judicously study the mailing label, see that we have "St." on there, and come to the rational conclusion that we are a bunch of toothless, shit-flinging monkeys barely able to grasp a pen? 

Jeezus fuck.  And not only was it important enough to talk about at the two hour meeting.  It was important enough, THAT WE HAD TO STAY AN EXTRA 15 MINUTES TO MAKE SURE WE FUCKING TALKED ABOUT IT! 

[Elder Iptuous]

perhaps it is in part due to fear.  If you're planning, then you can feel good that you're 'getting something accomplished' or 'getting something started', but you don't have the liability that comes with doing something and fucking it up.  once you start the actual doing is where the prospect of failure comes in.  so we just do a bit more planning and organizing and meeting and....

[AFK]

I think you're on to something there.  And I think many in society have an unhealthy fear of failure.  Certain kinds of failure are obviously good things to avoid.  Like the kind of failure that results in loss of life or limb.  But failure can be instructive.  It's cliche, but we really can learn from our mistakes.  But we don't learn anything from standing still and doing nothing. 

[Luna]

On the other hand...

If I am doing actual, useful organizing, I can get lazy as hell.  I take being lazy SERIOUSLY.

I have spent DAYS working on a convoluted, interlinked excel spreadsheet to balance two reports that I want to do by hand, because it's a pain in the ass.  It saves me maybe an hour of time... but it saves me that hour every time I do the process.

[LMNO]

I think you're on to something there.  And I think many in society have an unhealthy fear of failure.  Certain kinds of failure are obviously good things to avoid.  Like the kind of failure that results in loss of life or limb.  But failure can be instructive.  It's cliche, but we really can learn from our mistakes.  But we don't learn anything from standing still and doing nothing.

I'm seeing that now.  I'm involved in some heavy complex training, with a time frame where what should take months has been given weeks. 

So, 

And I am, with a crew of SME's that are simply getting it done, ahead of schedule.  The (artificial) problem is, we're doing it before the final process documentation has been given a full sign-off.  Except, we're the ones who provided 100% of the information in the document. Which means we have the entirety of knowledge of the process.  We don't need the documentation -- we are the documentation. 

And what that means is some dickhead field general is flipping their shit because we're finishing ahead of schedule in anticipation of Black Swans.  Which aren't so "black" as "expected due to fucked up office culture."