Secret #5: I can appear productive at virtually all times by doing everything non-related in Microsoft Word. For instance, I am writing this very entry in Word, and will paste it later. This practice results in documents titled “Support for FSCSA, draft 3” that, upon further inspection, contain text like “mom, did you fax my immunization form to school?” or “Dear Zach, I looooooooove you too” or “Secrets About My Job, Part II.” Luckily, no one is that observant.

Secret #6: No matter how much I really, truly intend to do work, I often waste dozens of time making vaguely obsessive-compulsive disorder-ish to-do lists. Once a master list for the day is completed, it is subject to destruction as I come up with more things to do. Regular people would just add these onto the preexisting list, but sometimes I can’t find the original pen I used to make the list and I dislike having nonmatching ink colors. Also, sometimes the topic of the list can be upgraded or demoted in importance and must be reassigned accordingly to a type of paper—small, urgent things are for neon Post-its; excruciatingly mundane things are for really small Post-its; long-term lists are on lined four-by-six inch yellow notepaper (slightly ugly, but pragmatic); lists with immediate relevance are on plain white paper of the same size; lists unrelated to work (e.g. Secrets About My Job, Part II) are on hotel stationary left over from conferences.

Secret #7: Standing by the printer waiting for stuff to come out is made less boring by the fact that people leave their printed-out emails in a little box next to the printer, and I really like reading them because they’re so terribly boring that I find them funny. Consider this little exchange (names have been changed to protect the innocent and make me giggle):

From: Gene Simmons [Gsimmons@mde.k12.ms.us]

Sent: Wednesday, July 14, 2004, 11:18 AM

To: Big Bird

Cc: Ross Perot

Subject [SECcollab] SEC: 03-04 State plans ; Feb meeting – Miami

Hello. I am just checking the status on this. Have you received a Request for Invoice or payment yet from Mississippi? Thank you. Gene.

Attached is a copy of Purchase Order No. PD 201 66065 in the amount of $7,500.00. To my knowledge we have not received an invoice from CCSSO for this. I will also fax this purchase order to Michael Moore as well. If you have any questions please let me know. Thank you.

Gene Simmons

Mississippi Department of Education

Student Assessment
Ph: (601) XXX-XXXX Fax: (601) XXX-XXXX

“Big Bird” (Bbird@ccsso.org) wrote:

Hi Ross

Our office has not received the MIss. [sic] Request for Invoice or purchase order from iss DOE yet.