Lesson 2016:12

I learned that my outline for writing posts with specific themes will be edited. I have combined two ideas for two separate posts into a single post which means, I have nothing to write about for this 12th lesson.

Lesson 2016:11

I know that I can live my life and be the best version of who I am. I know that I do that when I don't drink booze.

Editor's Note: There are details forthcoming about this lesson. Stay tuned.

Lesson 2016:10

I spent a lot of my life being upset with Mom. I filled page after page in notebook after notebook about how much her words, her actions as well as her inaction hurt me. In 2016, on the 2 year anniversary of her death, I looked at myself in the mirror and said these words aloud.

"I forgive you Mom."

Lesson 2016:09

I will also compromise. Often, I will feel like a compromise is really just a way for someone else to get every thing they want at my expense. I will do that. Helmke really changed the way I think and the way I approach my relationships with others. Without getting into his personal details, as he was going through the divorce process, he told me (paraphrased) that he loved his ex-wife very much but if being with her meant that she was unhappy, his love for her shouldn't mean she lives life unhappily, just because I love her.

That idea was not new in 2016. In fact, it was first expressed in 2013 and then in 2014, 2015, and yes, probably into 2016. I was at Helmke's bachelor party, which was a gathering of friends to share stories and drink Scotch (I drank Mountain Dew). When the conversation turned serious, about the past, I spoke the above words. I think it shows a higher ordered thinking skill (teachers call it HOTS) to be able to see that about myself.

Here's another example. On the day I was laid off, after most of my personal things had been collected, I saw my manager, Dianne. We had a conversation in a conference room. We talked about many things. I found myself saying to her "I don't want to be laid off, but if laying me off means that others can continue doing the work that needs to be done, I get it." Is that not the same idea that Helmke had expressed to me about his ex-wife?

If I need to sacrifice myself so that others can be happy, I am willing to do so.

Lesson 2016:08

I love technical writing as a career.

The opportunity exists, each day, to string words together that help people. Little nuances matter.

I could have wrote "Each day, I have the opportunity to string words together so that people can perform their work quicker."

I could have wrote "I have the opportunity every time I sit at my desk to provide the information people need so that their work is completed quicker than if I didn't do the work I do."

I could have wrote "The opportunity, every time I write documentation, exists to make a difference. I can help people do what they need to do or find the nugget of information they need. Because of my skills and the experience I have, sitting at my desk and providing the means to help people doesn't feel like work in the sense of, say, a ditch digger or a tree planting person. It is fun. I am energized by it. Not because I receive compensation for doing it, though, yes, that certainly is important. Rather, I love doing my work."

When I sat at the conference table at the UIHC and expressed that to Bob (my manager) and Lee (his manager) and Joe (another HCIS manager), it felt like I have really found my niche in life. I am so blessed to love what I do and to provide for my family by doing it.

Lesson 2016:07

I know how to write. I know this but you may not.

Occasionally, I mention my private journal and / or the "10 Year Project" I started on 1/1/2012. Briefly, I have 24 5 subject 200 page spiral notebooks. I assigned a month / year combination for each of the 120 months between 1/1/2012 and 12/1/2021. Each month / year combination has a section assigned to it. Because I like to be complicated, I assigned random month / years across the 24 notebooks. For example, volume IX is assigned the following:

1. 4/2015
2. 6/2019
3. 5/20
4. 1/21
5. 7/17

I know this because I began writing in section 5 on 12/22/2016 and I will actually reach the end of the section today, 12/31/2016. There are 68 pages which comes out to writing 7.55 pages a day.

And yes, you read that correctly. I am writing in the July 2017 section in December 2016. I am 6 months, 1 week, 2 days "ahead" of where I "should" be. I will finish that section today and, tomorrow, begin the section that is assigned to January 2017. If I were to only "maintain" this current rate, I would reach the 120th section in these notebooks on May 1, 2021, a full 7 months ahead of schedule, which is okay because I do have a backup plan.

On the day after I was laid off, I went to Wal-Mart and purchased two 5 subject 200 page spiral notebooks. I used one of those notebooks to capture the thoughts I had about being laid off in a separate notebook. After I was hired at HCIS and after I began working at HCIS, I continued writing in that notebook until April 30th. On the cover of the notebook is this title:

Tales from the Brink and Back:

An Unexpected Journey of Unemployment

January 26, 2016

through

April 30, 2016

Lessons Learned in 95 Days...

Another Subtitle Because I Like 3

This is what I wrote in that notebook on March 8, 2016, at 1:41 PM:

God... I'm just wondering if you're too busy to help me. I know I'm not supposed to question your love for me or my faith in you, but, frankly, it's 1:41 PM on - Tuesday - 6 weeks ago, you had me led into that room @ Pearson and had me laid off. I believed that you had looked out for me because you showed me the U of I job. I remind you of this not b/c I want to make you think I'm mad at you - I'm not. I just wanted to know if you could, possibly and if it's not too much trouble, bump me up in your priority list.

Maybe an hour later, Bob called 

AND OFFERED 
ME THE JOB!!
HOLY GOD, THANK YOU
SO MUCH FOR PATIENTLY
HELPING ME THROUGH THIS
TIME OF MY LIFE!

I am so humbled by all the people that care about me and that prayed for me during the last six weeks!! The list is exhausting to dwell about or write out...

My point is that I know how to write.

Lesson 2016:06

I learned that in times of despair and in times of feeling low, I have a network of friends and family that will help me and I composed the following list. I often think that when you start listing people, someone's feelings get hurt because they thought they would be mentioned and then they are not. I gave myself a limit of 20 people that mean a lot to me, though, in my private journal, I had others listed. Each of the following people are my friends. Each friendship likely deserves its own post to elaborate how much they meant to me in 2016:

1. Brunch, J
2. Brunch, K 
3. Eadie
4. Goodrich
5. Gravel
6. Hanson, C
7. Helmke
8. Kleitsch, K
9. Kleitsch, N 
10. Kozlik
11. Nath
12. Rath
13. Sigwarth, M
14. Sigwarth, S
15. Sigwarth, D
16. Sigwarth, C
17. Wiltgen, M
18. Wiltgen, L
19. Wubena, B
20. Wubena, D 

Editor's Note: There was an episode of "Everybody Loves Raymond" that seems applicable. Ray received an honorary degree and, in his acceptance speech, he failed to mention Debra, his wife. It should be known that the following 6 people do belong on the above list, but including them bumped the total to 26, which was an even number that felt odd. Thus, the "givens" for the above list are the following:

1. Karen
2. Megan
3. Alex
4. Dad
5. Sigwarth, L
6. Sigwarth, J

Reading minds is not a thing in reality . . .

Lesson 2016:05

Megan is my mannerisms. She is cursed, perhaps because of how strong-willed in her principles she is. Regarding relationships and regarding drinking booze, she wants to only be who she is. To never reduce her personal values to please another person is not logical to her. And I love seeing that in her.

I attribute this quote to Dad, though when I mentioned it at a group grief counseling session, he didn't recall ever saying it. Nonetheless, it summarizes what I learned about my daughter in 2016:

You have to do what you want to do
Because no one else is getting in the coffin with you
 
So proud of my child for living her life as she wants to live it! 

Lesson 2016:04

I like going to concerts with Alex.

Editor's Note: This is the edited version of the lesson. Elaboration is within the private journal.

Lesson 2016:03

When I left Pearson for the last time as an employee on January 26, 2016, which was 11 months, 5 days (340 days) ago - the day I was laid off - I cared about Pearson documentation.

I still care.

However, I have learned (a-ha!) that I can not control what my co-workers do with the documentation I helped create. I am no longer their co-worker. Yes, I will likely have a morbid curiosity for a period of time. I had that same type of attitude when I could view the Quintrex documentation after I left. Eventually, though, that feeling of ownership dwindles as the balance between what I contributed and what has been contributed since I left tips.

Quintrex? Ah, yes.

When I left Quintrex on October 15, 2010, it was leaving 12 years, 2 weeks (4397 days) of work behind.

I had an empire. I was the only technical writer and every word that went into the online Help, which was seen by the customer, and every word that went into the internal documentation was reviewed by me.

The end-user documentation had started as hundreds of OfficeVision (an AS/400 word processor) documents and a handful of MS Word documents. Over my time there, I had converted that content to WinHelp files (see below) and then to HTML. I can vividly recall that I knew about "span classes" when I initially started working with HTML. I created a CSS definition called "programname" and any time I wanted to have bold, I used that span class. Then I learned about having a separate CSS definition for each "type" of "thing" I wanted to be bold. I defined "check_box" and "dropDown" and "dropDownValue" and was methodically going through all of my HTML files to change "programname" to a specific span class tag. That work was not done when I left.

The internal documentation was called Billopti. That was short for "Billable Options" even though I referred to them as "System Options" in the documentation. Why the difference? In reality, not all "Billable Options" were actually billable to the customer. Some "Billable Options" were standard.

I digress.

When I left Quintrex on October 15, 2010, I really thought I was going to a better situation. I thought I would be able to build the same type of pseudo-kingdom I had built at Quintrex. I thought I was going to do awesome but readers of this blog from October 15, 2010 - April 15, 2011, know the truth.

I digress again. Damnit!

When I left Quintrex on October 15, 2010, I had invested hours upon hours of my own time to learn technologies. I spent hours in the den, downloading WinHelp (.hlp) files and decompiling them to learn how a feature I had seen was done. If it was fairly easy, I would then take that knowledge to work the next day and try to implement it.

When I left Pearson January 26, 2016, I had been with the company for 4 years, 7 months, 3 weeks, 5 days (1701 days), which is obviously not as long as the amount of time I was at Quintrex. Yet, with the Pearson documentation, I really came into a deeper sense of my work. When we shifted from the PDF paradigm to the Wiki paradigm, I was initially not a strong supporter. I knew our existing customers and my co-workers had very specific requirements and I was doubtful they could be met with a Wiki. Initially, the direction was to dismiss those requirements and to not worry about:

1. writing procedures - we would lead the user to the place in the system to do a task but not tell them what to click
2. writing user-role based documentation - we would document all tasks that could be done in the system
3. including screenshots - we would not include screenshots for a variety of reasons
4. creating a printable version - we would not create a PDF because a PDF is instantly out-of-date

Our department had worked in that direction until we showed it to the first customer of the rewritten system. Guess what they wanted? Better, guess what we began to do...

Lesson 2016:02

I love God. My faith life carried me in 2016 when I needed help. I was able to develop a strong network of friends and acquaintances. When I went to daily mass the day after being laid off, I was embraced by a community. I will never forget that people I have known for decades came up to me to listen to me as I was beginning to make my way down the road of being laid off. I still think about those people when 9 AM rolls around and I am at work. I think, "I miss being within that community, but I think they'd rather have me here, at work, than with them!"

Lesson 2016:01

I can survive disappointment in life. Whether it was being laid off from Pearson, not winning the drummer's role in Avery Riot, or being the second choice for those things I thought I should have been the first choice, I survive these bumps on the road and I survive. I might fill pages of my private journal with anger and hostility and images that I will keep private, but I will survive.