I Want Squarespace and Dropbox Outside Squarespace and Dropbox
I’ve been using Dropbox for about a month now, the free service. I had been looking for automated backup software/options and found Dropbox useful enough for daily use. It’s a worthwile service, even the free version with 2gb of storage. Set a dropbox folder and the files are automatically updated and backed up to your Dropbox account online. If files are lost locally like, say, in a sudden hard drive crash, just reinstall dropbox and your files are automatically synced back to your new hard drive. Sharing files with others is a snap and accessing your own files remotely is also just as easy with a web interface to your dropbox.
Similarly, after trying Squarespace yesterday, I found it an excellent, well put together service. It’s a sort of web publishing platform with slick tools for smooth editing of layout and content. Unlike a traditional webhost, you aren’t dealing with software on a web server and all the headaches that can come with that package. No mysql databases, wordpress installs, etc. Editing the look of the site is incredibly easy, so easy in fact, it makes editing traditional Wordpress design’s CSS seem arcane by comparison. It should be that easy to edit the design of any Wordpress theme and perhaps it will be if the smart people developing it take any clues. If you wanted a reliable, easy way to maintain a publishing website, Squarespace is a great package.
The problem with both of these serices is that they’re locked into a use that is very narrow. Both have per month charges and both, while being very easy to use, are limited in their scope as services. This is by design and is probably what makes them such stable and appealing applications. But it is precisely this narrow focus that I find frustrating. I already pay for webhosting. I have SSH access to a virtual private server and while this more traditional setup requires more know how and maintenence, it also has more freedom. I am not stuck with a very cookie cutter web publishing app (however good that cookie is). There are many packages I can install through my web panel and I have installed other open source web apps such as Ampache (a music streaming app). I would love to have more space for my Dropbox account, but that would require at least $10 extra a month. I have plenty of storage space on my hosting account, so why not be able to install Dropbox as a software package on my own account? Yes that would mean giving up the support and reliability of using Dropbox’s official service, and I realize most people would not be interested. I don’t even think it needs be open source either. I would be willing to purchase Dropbox as a software package just like I might purchase a traditional software package. There would be less support, but the tradeoff would be the flexibility to use that software how I wanted.
As we see more apps ‘in the cloud’, I wonder how many more projects we’ll see like Dropbox and Squarespace. Now don’t get me wrong, I think the developers of both projects have done an excellent job and deserve making a good living selling their services. I merely wonder if there can’t be another option for people like me who basically rent a computer in the cloud. I have my personal computer, which I maintain and use as I see fit. Then I have a computer in the cloud, if you will. I mainly use it for web publishing, yes, but even in the 5 years or so I’ve been renting this space, I have seen more projects developed to use this space in creative ways. Maybe an idea for a new web service wouldn’t be to sell high capacity hosting for web publishing, but a sort of renting your own computer in the clouds for your personal use. Your own Ampache-like service, for instance, or photo publishing, or Dropbox like software, or any other type of web service you might find useful for yourself. You pay one monthly fee to rent the cloud computer, but instead of a traditional web host with difficult to master command line interface, you have a user friendly Squarespace-like interface to manage your cloud software. Hmmmm.. maybe I’m describing a Web OS, which has been attempted. I’m not sure. I get use out of the software I’ve installed on my hosting account and I think with the right controls and price, some people, at least, might be find that type of service useful.
It’s a service I would like in any case. In the meantime I’ll keep using the free Dropbox and backing up my photos and videos to my hosting account via other software on my machine. But if if anyone from Dropbox ever reads this, I’d be willing to put my money where my mouth is and pay for a boxed version of the software I could install on my own account. Until then, it’s free Dropbox for me.
The Whining Man
So here’s what pissed me off last night:
It’s another slow(ish) night at the restaurant. Nothing new here, it’s summer in Bloomington and things are slower as usual. Around 8:15 Hamid and I both have tables. Me, a decent 6 top and two 2 tops for him. I’m setting down knives on table 10, resetting it for lunch, and Hamid walks up and says, “we should alternate who gets to go home early”. This is Hamid speak for, I want to go home early so you should take the rest of the tables tonight. I don’t mind either of us going home early if our tables are gone, it’s slow, and everything else is finished. Looking around I see that my 6 top is finished, paid and now chatting. Hamid’s 2 top at table 16 is done, but they’ve already announced it’s their 35th anniversary and they are deep in conversation so they’re not going anywhere for a while. His other table, 32, doesn’t even have their food yet. We close in 45 minutes and the chances of my table leaving before both of his 2 tops are very good. Plus, according to the numbers, Hamid has the next table that comes in anyways. ‘How about this’, I reply, ‘how about whoever has their tables gone first, gets to go home first’? He doesn’t say anything, just gives me that look he does that says, I don’t like what you’re saying. Or in other words, his pouting face.
Hamid is bit of a manipulative guy. He is very good at getting what he wants and he knows I usually cave in especially because I’m a nice guy. I like seeing people happy and I often sacrifice what I want for what others want, regardless of what is fair. This is something I’ve needed to work on so last night when he wanted to get his way, even though it was fair that we both stay until our tables leave, I insisted we play by the rules. Hamid then starts sulking and gets this terribly whiny look on his face. I’ve never seen a grown man pout before, but Hamid sulks and pouts and whines until he gets his way. I didn’t cave so he tries to pull a guilt trip on me. Tries to make me feel as if I’m the one being manipulative in trying to go home early. You know when a person is being manipulative when they don’t acknowledge what is fair or your point but instead point out trivialities to bring you guilt. Make it seem like you are the evil one. You know what? Screw that. I’m not falling for it this time. Even though he was getting through to me and I was starting to feel a little guilty I knew I had to get out. I was not taking advantage of him, I was playing fair. Even if I had taken the last 1 top that did come in at 8:30, he still wouldn’t have left before 9 anyways. I was playing fair, we both knew it, but Hamid didn’t like it so he bitched about it. Now I feel no guilt and am glad I didn’t cave in to his pressure. I did what was good for me, and what was fair.
Here’s to standing up for yourself.
Getting Slightly in Shape
I managed to run over 3 miles yesterday. Considering I’ve never stuck with any exercise routine long enough to make it a routine, this is awesome. After having a bad spring semester and desperately needing warmer weather and light when I awoke, I somehow managed to start getting myself out of bed at 6:15am every morning, feeding the cats, then going out for some good old fashioned eustress. I’ve started down this path numerous times but never lasted more than 4 days. Once the initial excitement of having a new goal wore off, so did my self discipline to get up and get out. Once I made it past the week mark and the initial burst of excitement wore off, somehow I kept climbing out of bed when the alarm went off.
Why is this time different? I’m not entirely sure. Perhaps I’m getting older and more mature. I am, I would like to think, growing stronger in my quest for self control and this prevents me from turning off the alarm and sleeping. I also tell myself every morning, while I am still in that sleepy state wherein you would do almost anything to continue being in that state, that I have to get up and go outside but if I don’t feel like running, I can walk instead. Many mornings I am sure, as I push myself into a standing position and start slogging through the morning routine, that I will be taking it easy and going for a nice, long, enjoyable walk in the cool morning air. Yet every time when I get to my usual starting place for my jog, I start my stretches and take off at a fast pace. I know that I cannot argue with myself in the barely awake state. I am not a reasonable person and I cannot possibly win an argument (even one for a healthier self) if I will do almost anything to go back to sleep. Instead I don’t think, don’t go over the options, don’t allow my lazy self even a tiny foothold. As soon as I turn off the alarm, I start counting down from five. I don’t think about anything else. Just 5 . . . 4 . . . . 3 . . . . 2. . . . 1. . . take a deep breath, push myself up. Sometimes cursing is involved as my body starts moving through the motions of making the bed and putting on clothes. But by the time I’m awake and able to think rationally I am physically where I need to be to start jogging and I am ready mentally to start. I’m usually not excited to start, but I want to get/stay in shape so just like I do when I get up, I don’t argue with myself, I just go.
This, for me, was the key to becoming an early riser and exerciser. The person in charge at the moment of waking from sleep is grumpy, tired, and wants to continue sleeping. He isn’t stupid, though, and uses ingenious logic to keep himself in bed. You don’t need to get up now, it only takes you 10 minutes to get ready and you don’t have to leave the house for over an hour. You don’t need to get up now, you did 2 miles yesterday and you worked late and your feet are tired. You should relax a bit and not overstress yourself. You know you should get up and excercise but he, being you, knows exactly what to say to lull you into complacency. You can’t win so don’t play the game. Like I said, I don’t argue and I don’t think. The get your ass out of bed now counter starts ticking and after 5 seconds I’m out of bed. I’m still grumpy, but every minute that passes allows the good side of me to wake up and take control.
A side note: The Nike+ for the iPod is a great tool for runners. It isn’t GPS accurate, but good enough for most purposes. It records distance, time, calories burned, and has several workout modes to aim for distance or time or even open workouts. Some mornings I go for distance (I’m aiming for a 5k run next), or some, like this morning, I go for shorter but faster goals. I didn’t allow myself to get this until after I’d been running for a month though. Gadgets won’t do the work for you and if the gadget is the reason for your initial excitement, it will in no way help you conquer your demons. Once I had proved to myself that I was serious, then I allowed myself an extra tool to measure results. If you’re already running and own and iPod, it’s inexpensive and worth a look.
Getting Splashed with Water Whilst Driving a Scooter = Not so Fun
Restaurant was slow last night and I managed to take off at 8:30. It was nice weather, still bright, and I was heading home in a good mood. As I turned off 7th street in a quiet residential neighborhood just east of campus I saw a curly haired, young, unintelligent looking college boy moving towards the road with some sort of water cannon thing. I hear his friends laughing behind him from the porch and as I go past, he shoots water at me as I’m going 30mph. I didn’t get that wet, it didn’t get me off course, and honestly the water felt rather nice as it wasn’t that cool last night. But I was still pissed. Fantasies of driving back, pulling out a very large gun and shooting the water shooter in the face as his friend’s smiles vanished played through my mind as I drove, wet and tired, on my little Honda Metropolitan scooter.
What is it about driving on a scooter that makes 18 – 24 year old white males react in such ways? Granted, I do probably look completely dorky on the thing, especially in my restaurant clothes with black slacks, black shoes and white button down shirt. Still, it’s always been young, white college guys who want to react to my passing. I’ve heard many variations of ‘Nice Bike!’ yelled as I passed, many more jumping out and yelling at the last second to try to scare me, numerous guys race past me in their cars on small, 2 lane residential roads (when I am already going 30, I mean, how fast does one have to travel on these small roads?), and now things splashed on me as I drive by. Perhaps I should consider myself lucky to not have crashed instead. Annoyances from ignorant white trash I can deal with. Having 35mph worth of momentum halted with my head is harder to ignore. I’ll take a different route home from now on, and even though I look dorky I still get to park on the sidewalk literally in front of the restaurant (which is downtown and parking can be a real bitch) and get 100mpg.
On the other hand, maybe I should just get a Harley.
Can You Create a Good Employee with Good Rules?
I work around 12 hours a week for TCC (Technology Computer Consultants) , which used to be STC (Student Technology Consultant), which is part of UITS (University Information Technology Services). Despite having the illustrious title of technology consultant what I really do is sit in a computer lab on campus to make sure things aren’t stolen and to help people with whatever computer maladies may come their way. Oh, and make sure the printer has paper and is functioning. When I think about it actually that’s probably our most important task from the “customers” point of view. I’m here to make sure their print out of their PowerPoint presentation that is due for class in 2 minutes ago prints correctly. I also inform people that, no, I can’t restore their Word document that they were working on for 3 hours and didn’t save once that they lost because the computer crashed. Sure I can try to find a local backup copy of some sort that Word auto-saves, but usually it isn’t fruitful and by this point they’re too pissed off to care. But despite the interesting dealings with the students in the labs, 95% of the time I spend doing what I want on the computer. And all of that is the good part of the job. The bad part is the bureaucracy.
This morning I was running late. My shift starts in the business building at 8am. I like the early shifts since I get up to go jogging every morning at 6:15 so I’m up and reading to go by 8. The problem is that I have to clock in before 8am. I have no complaints about this policy per se, but I do have problems working in a very rigidly regulated environment. If I happen to login at any point after 8am I am assigned ‘points’ by the student supervisor on duty. If I get 12 points in one semester I’m fired. Again, this isn’t a major problem in and of itself. If you have a multitude of student workers who are spread around campus you would want a way to enforce rules necessary for your organization. Getting to work on time is a must, and this is their way of making sure that happens. The 12 points is really the administration’s way of allowing leeway for times when you can’t quite get there in time. Yet at the same time I feel that the administration explicitly distrusts it’s employees. If, like this morning, I arrive at the business building at 7:57, then go up to the 4th floor, get to my lab at 8:00, then wait for the computer to log in so I can log into the time clock and then officially clock in at 8:02, to me I have arrived to work on time. Especially as I look around the lab and I am the only one here. I am actually not doing any work related anything at this exact moment, and this being the summer I most likely won’t do much of any actual work for the entirety of my 4 hour shift. None of this is taken into account when the student supervisor sees on her computer screen that the consultant working BU404 was 2:02 late.
The administration has developed a system wherein they try to regulate excellence. But you can’t create a great employee through creative rule making and harsh management. You cannot think of every circumstance to which you are trying to prescribe guidelines or rules. I don’t think you can regulate somebody to greatness. The best you can hope for is to create mediocre employees. The TCC heads are trying their hardest to create a good reputation for themselves and this happens not because of the rules of what I’m not supposed to do while I’m on shift, but because they hire good people who care about doing a good job. Let’s say TCC hires a very lazy person. This person is told he may not listen to headphones, have any sort of book out on his desk, must get up from his computer and walk around the lab every 15 minutes, must report every time he does something for a “customer”, may not watch long videos (even without sound) on his computer, may not use ANY chat client/program, may not work on homework, may not go use the bathroom without first clicking on the ’step out to take a dump’ bottom in his time-clock window. So he follows those rules. Then somebody comes up to him to ask for help in Excel. He’s lazy, doesn’t really give a shit. He is obligated by the rules to go help, but when he can’t find the answer just says I don’t know how to do it and leaves the person to fend for themselves. He hasn’t broken any rules but has he been a good employee? The student supervisor comes around on her shift to check on the lab and the lazy employee. Everything is in order, everything being done by the book. She goes through her checklist of important things to check, marks that our lazy employee has everything in order, then leaves. He does not accumulate any points or gets any PDIs (Professional Development Issue, a terrible euphemism for ‘you just fucked up and I’m going to record how you just fucked up”) and by the records and rules is an excellent employee. He even gets mention in the monthly ‘newsletter’ for not having been given any points for being a bad boy. Compare him to another consultant who might clock in late a few times, or forgets to make a supply report on how many reams of paper are in the cabinet. According to the records, this person is a ‘worse’ employee. But suppose she is also very friendly and cares about what she does. She goes out of her way to help everyone but goofs up a bit on all of the arcane little rules that are supposed to be making great employees.
People are great consultants in spite of the rules, not because of them. Tell the lazy guy he can’t listen to music or have anything on his desk because it will make him look unapproachable and he’ll follow the rules, still manage to be lazy, and not give good service. Allow the girl who cares to listen to music while working on her Calculus homework and she’ll still do a better job than lazy guy. She’ll do a better job because that’s just who she is. Lazy guy will never do as good of a job because he’s just lazy. Your rules can’t make the lazy guy a go getter and more lax rules wouldn’t make hard working girl lazy. I’m not saying all rules and regulations should be abandoned. I’m just trying to say that you shouldn’t deceive yourself into thinking that you have great employees because you have a great bureaucracy. You should have strive to have a positive work environment. And to me, part of that means trusting the people you hired to do the job you hired them to do. Your great employees will leave if the environment sucks. Then you know who will be left? The lazy ones. The shitty ones. The ones you wish would quit. They’re so unmotivated that they’ll stick around no matter what kind of shit you throw at them. They’re so miserable in the first place they’ll put up with just about anything and not care. It’s the good employees, the ones that care, the ones that get the work done who make your organization shine. It’s those people that will leave you for a place where they’re appreciated.
The biggest problem I have with working for TCC, then, is how hard my bosses try to regulate me into doing a great job. Instead of trusting me to do a good job and then reviewing my performance, they tell me exactly how I should do my job. The result is an employee who must focus on the rules of the job instead of how he would do a better job. You can never figure out how all of your employees should handle all situations. So why pretend as though you have?
Great people make great employees, not great rules.