da: A smiling human with short hair, head tilted a bit to the right. It's black and white with a neutral background. You can't tell if the white in the hair is due to lighting, or maybe it's white hair! (Default)
da ([personal profile] da) wrote2008-10-22 06:05 pm
Entry tags:

Mixed bag of hammers^Hmetaphors

"It is good," a friend said recently, "to have wings."

This was in response to my suggestion I might wing the talk I was going to give to our work group. I was presenting on Tracks, the GTD workflow/time-management software I've used for the last two years.

I gave the talk today, and I winged a lot of it, because the network didn't work for my live demo.

So I got to give my 10 minutes of spiel about GTD, and then instead of giving a 5-minute walk-through of the nifty-keen software, I waved my hands and answered questions for ten minutes.

Which I feel OK about, but not great. One person who has GTD experience says I did a good job; which I'd like to believe, though I'd like to have had a shiny demo, too.

(I had prepared a backup for the slides, which I didn't need; I had a plan for a backup for the live demo, which turned out to not work on-the-wing.)

Meanwhile, our University has announced a hiring-freeze for the next six months, or until the economic lay of the land becomes clearer. Our group (about 23 people) is currently down two employees due to recent resignations, one which we were just about to begin interviewing for. I expect we'll be doing a bit of winging it. Elsewhere, there are faculty offers that won't go out for a year, because we're missing the spring hiring cycle.

But- this is relatively mild in comparison with being laid off, told to work extra hours for less pay, or discovering one's country has gone bankrupt. I know I've got wings.

[identity profile] tocityguy.livejournal.com 2008-10-23 10:59 am (UTC)(link)
You could always have buffalo wings. They're tasty and will help feed you through an economic crisis.

[identity profile] da-lj.livejournal.com 2008-10-23 02:26 pm (UTC)(link)
Did that, on Tuesday, with [livejournal.com profile] chezmax. Only they didn't claim to be from Buffalo, nor from *a* buffalo, which is all the better for my preferences.

"yet sings, sings, knowing she has Buffalo-style chicken wings." doesn't scan as well as I'd like, though.