Things I wonder: About Eddie Murphy
1. How Eddie Murphy continues to have these uninteresting-looking movies greenlighted? Imagine that. No seriously, imagine how this is happening.
2. Who is going to see them? Did that many people go to the theater to see Norbit, or whichever Dr. Doolittle? I'm afraid to imdb.com him because I fear the list of ridiculous movies will be like reading that part in Genesis about all the begats.
3. Why are people paying upwards of $10 to see these films?
4. What spell has he cast on ... whoever? Sure, he made me chuckle as the voice of Donkey in Shrek and I howled when I first watched The Nutty Professor. I'll even admit that the annals of Berea's Pick-a-Flick would (were it still in business) reveal an obnoxious number of rentals for The Golden Child (I was only 7 or 8), but my goodness. His success is as mythical to me as the legend of Camelot.
5. When will he stop getting paid so much money for so much mediocrity?
About Where I Work
Why is it that people walk by my cubicle and just stare? It's not a glance. I'm talking about an almost panoramic type of staring. Like the Spike Lee on a conveyor belt filming type of staring - continuous and unflinching. These people say nothing - they just stare and walk. I give them the eyebrow because increasingly I'm afraid of what could spurt out of my mouth.
Weekly e-mails from the top boss ... I just hardly know where to begin, but diatribes about a lack of participation are completely unnecessary. The first time such a plea was mentioned it was laughable - it was like, bless their hearts, they just want us to feel included in the scheme of things. Seriously though. There's a weekly blog, a real-time Twitter-ish messaging site and weekly e-mails (arriving on Saturday or Sunday so we can have time to read them before our busy week starts). The desire for feedback is insatiable and veering towards desperate or despondent. To say we're overloaded doesn't begin to cover it, but I will say that no amount of over-verbalization or over-enthusiasm can eradicate the persistent dreadful reality of being under-appreciated, -valued and -estimated. Webinars and even the e-mails are so over-stuffed with information that I feel like the canvas upon which Jackson Pollock painted - just throw as much up there and see what sticks; play it as it lays.
This style of leadership makes me incredibly wary of buying into the litany of ideas because how do I know which initiative is truly worth my time and effort? Do any of these ideas really, truly apply to someone in a non-billable clerical position? Can it survive in a sea of all the other ideas swimming upstream in this dire economy? Needless to say, my initiative - or lack thereof - is being driven by an ever-growing disdain that comes from seeing people operate AIG-style with zero ramifications for their high-rolling behavior (Parties where thousands of dollars of liquor are purchased along with thongs and top hats that can be expensed, I'm speaking about you). Most days I wind up thinking that it must be nice to be flyin' in the seat of their heavily-lined pocketed pants. The reality is that I don't want to become such a person, but I can't help but wish to trade places when I realize that my job consists of upholding loophole ridden policies and kowtowing to every higher-up's temper tantrum whenever they see fit. It's like every day that Marie Antoinettes of the upper corporate echelon carelessly declare, "Let them eat cake" and the dissension festers.