What I learnt today #12

Monday 22 October 2012

I entered the office today just as I did any other day designated by the GORTT as a working day. Only today was a bit different. Upon approaching the front reception area, I was greeted by an employee attendance log book. It was neatly bound, with a shiny plastic front cover. Not having had to sign into one of these since I was an hourly paid worker at my first part time position while at University, there was a wave of nostalgia that wafted past me like a warm breeze. Except this warm breeze was like a fart, and stank to high heaven. What in Zeus' name is this? In the dead of the night, an elf was hard at work putting together this masterpiece. 

There were various columns for employees to enter the following details:

1. Time of arrival. This one seems fairly straightforward. This is meant to, via manual input by the arrival employee, record crossing the threshold which delineates "the office" from "not the office". 8:31AM. I like to be specific with data I input into tables, especially numbers. I believe units add specificity to numbers. That's the engineer in me. The number 42, as the super computer's answer to the Universe's Ultimate question in "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" may have profound meaning had it been given a unit of measure. 
2. Employee Name. Also fairly easy. Other than aliases not commonly used in the office, your legal name identifies the specific human resource unit that entered the sacred halls of work. Even though we are all on first name basis, I decided to write my entire name. In capital letters. I would hate to have been the reason for any confusion. 
3. Lunch Time Out. This is where things get tricky. If I eat lunch at the office, do I sign out? Is lunch time out a pause between mastication and other processes involved in general food consumption? If the mircowave turntable was somehow stationary rendering a half hot/half cold meal, should the time between warm cycles be counted? For fear of not being taken seriously I decided to go with my instinct on this one. Thankfully, I had pasta salad today that could have been eaten cold. 12:15PM.
4. Lunch Time In. The ambiguity climbs higher. I usually like to have a cup of tea at my desk after a meal. Technically, it is not part of my meal but it is something that I consider important to the digestive process. Should my tea time be included in my lunch hour? I played it safe and put the kettle on as I was between spoon-to-mouth actions. I decided to be bold, and test the waters on this maiden employee log journey. As I exited the lunch room with a steamy cup of tea, I logged out. 12:34PM. My logic was since I was not on a doctor prescribed liquid-only diet, the tea does not constitute actual sustenance and shall not be considered to be within the realms of my legally required lunch hour. 
5. Casual/Meeting Time Out. My internal CPU was beginning to run hot. My meeting times are also to be logged. If I hosted a tele-conference, which I have been known to do from time to time, does that constitute a meeting? What about internal meetings? Does including more than one recipient in my email constitute a meeting if I get a response from more than one person in a 5 minute period? What about client calls to and from my cell phone? As these world shifting questions swirled in my mind, I opted for the safe choice: Do nothing. As I did not have a scheduled meeting in or out of the office today and did not have to conduct business of a personal nature during stipulated working hours, this cell in the sheet remained vacant. 
6. Casual/Meeting Time In. Again vacant. Since I did not log out, logic dictates that I cannot log in. For today, unlike other days, the notion of Parallel Universes and Time Travel was not a consideration. 
7. End Time. Dangerous words for being so close to December 21, 2012. Because I have a belief that the Mayans meant an end of an era and not the end of the world, I did not interpret this as a cell to input my doomsday wish for humanity. I was at the office particularly late today, but logged out before I actually left and entered the "not office" realm. 5:33PM. 

Not bad for my first day. I began to formulate a multi-page query list to clarify some ambiguities in the log itself, but decided against it. My encounter with an employee attendance log has taught me the following today:

• Some ideas die slowly.
• Proactive engagement of a problem is almost always a better way of dealing with issues than historical data gathering to build a case when things get out of hand. One way solves a problem, and the other gives you a lot of paperwork to perpetuate it. 

Tomorrow I am expecting a turnstile entry system and a velvet rope maze to the employee customs area where we are meant to declare whether or not we are bringing any 21st century ideas into the office area.