It's Official?

Yup, I’m definitely going to be here for a few months in the fall, as far as I know. (As always, these things are subject to change.) I’m going to see in the next few days if I should buy my plane tickets, which will make it that much closer to being real. Once they shell out the cash, they usually want to use it. So it looks like I’ll be here from the end of September through the middle of December – but there is no possible way that I’m staying here for Christmas, so I’m guessing that I’ll be home a few days before, jetlagged like crazy. (The eleven hour time difference is probably going to make me something of a zombie for Christmas Day – but a midnight Christmas Eve service sure would be easy to stay up for.) Well, that’s okay, at least I’ll be home for Christmas. As I mentioned before, I have some mixed feelings about it. Career-wise, it’s really good for me. Plus, I’ll have more time to explore the country and all that stuff, which is an opportunity that I wouldn’t have otherwise, and I’m very grateful for it. But it means being away from friends and family for a few more months, which I’m not as keen on, to be honest. Maybe when I come back here, and I know it’s for a while, life won’t feel quite so surreal. I have to say, though, all this being away from home has finally beaten my restless streak into submission. I’ve had nothing but a change of scene for the last few months, so I don’t think I’ll be whining about that any time soon.

We have a cleaning woman for the office now, a very sweet woman named Lin Nam who speaks virtually no English. She worked her tail off yesterday, from 7:30 in the morning until 6 or so at night. One of the guys in the office who speaks Vietnamese was leaving around 5ish, and asked if it was okay if she left when she had finished whatever she was working on at the time. I said, of course it was okay, she’d had a very long day, and he said that she was a little unsure of things, particularly because it was her first day. I said, really don’t worry about it, she’d done a very good job and could leave whenever she was done. Once he left, she was here for at least another hour, and the PM and I tried to mime to her that she could leave whatever she still wanted to do for the next day, but she mimed back that, no, she’d finish up what she’d started. It was quite impressive, and she was here this morning when the PM and I got in a little before 8. Whatever it is that we’re paying her, I think she deserves more.

It’s funny, but now that I’m actually here and doing work, it doesn’t feel as intimidating. I finally heard from my boss that he’s reviewing my work, so that’s good. Although, so far his input hasn’t been all that helpful. Makes me wish I hadn’t waited four days to get it. There are so many e-mails flying around about project staffing these days, and some people have the dreaded “reply to all” disease, so it’s resulting in information overload. That, and the fact that some people will not only reply to all, but they’ll throw in a few more people just for good measure. It drives me insane. The only thing that results from all that is the involvement of more people than necessary to address the same basic issues – people who probably wouldn’t care if you’d never asked their opinion in the first place, but are fine with throwing in their two cents if asked. There’s a good Demotivators saying that comes to mind – it’s about meetings, but it’s still true here: None of us is as dumb as all of us.

While I’m on the topic of the staffing round robin that is continuing and continuing, I just need to take a moment to talk about the major downside of e-mail. People expect that e-mail will solve all communication issues, when sometimes it really just worsens them. I said to someone today “well, you need to discuss this with so-and-so”, he said “but he hasn’t been responding to my e-mails.” I said “have you tried calling him?” “No.” So often, a 10 minute phone call will clear up an issue that will take at least 10 e-mails. For sheer efficiency, I’d say the phone call is your best bet, particularly when e-mail just isn’t doing the trick. And yet, so rarely does it shake out that way. Instead the “reply to all” festival continues. It’s very frustrating. And now it looks like I'll be here in Vietnam through the end of the month.

So, maybe nothing is certain after all.

This is really starting to give me a headache. I wish that people could just be a little more decisive about these things, I honestly don’t think it’s that hard – the problem is that everyone thinks (or hopes) that it should be someone else’s decision.

I am clearly too type-A to spend the rest of my life doing this. I can practically feel my blood pressure rising just thinking about it. That can’t be a good sign.