Good Enough

My boss has to meet with the Heir Apparent next week and a new SVP to give the new guy the rundown on what we do in our department. She is on vacation this week and she asked me to create the presentation for her.

After a briefing meeting last Thursday, at which she handed me a jumbled list of things that she wants on this presentation, and after she sent me a bunch of random emails on Friday, containing links to documents on our agency common drive and other "pertinent" information, I was left this week to make lemonade.

This was maybe not such a good week for me to be given a task like this.

Or maybe, it was.

One of the documents that I had to draw from was a different PowerPoint that had been prepared for another meeting. I actually wrote all of the copy for this other presentation, handed off a Word document, and considered my part of it done.

This other presentation had been prepared by a young assistant for my boss's boss, and as I pulled pages from it to drop into my own PowerPoint, I realized with growing horror what an absolute mess it was. A mishmash of headlines, some bold and some not, some in all caps, some not, different font sizes all over the document, and crazily nonsensical margins. Not to mention she had given every page a solid black background, and then she drew colors at random from her RGB pallette and splashed them into the knockout type. Scrolling through this document was like looking at a Lite-Brite with a head full of 'shrooms.

As I spent the last two days putting this new PowerPoint together, creating a clean, coherent document that a clever eighth-grader could understand, I gradually reached some level of understanding of what happened.

No one ever taught this 24-year-old pisher how to prepare something for a presentation!

As a lifelong perfectionist and anal-retentive, this is beyond my ken. If I was creating something for my BOSS, I would make sure it was absolutely perfect before I even thought about passing it on.

"If you can't do something right, don't do it at all." This was recited by my mother a million times while I was growing up. It is now practically part of my DNA.

So I have a hard time when a youngster does a ho-hum job on something. But I think I understand it.

(Okay, here comes the ornery old person to rant about the kids today. Just want to warn you.)

It all goes back to this darned Self-Esteem Generation. This is a group that grew up with every thing they ever did being met with marching bands and confetti. Yay, kid! You came in last in that race! We're giving you a trophy! Woo-hoo! Your science project volcano didn't erupt! Here's your participation ribbon! Look at you! You passed kindergarten! We're throwing a party!

Their parents, in showering them with rose petals and accolades for every turd they expelled from their pwecious widdle bums, did them a huge disservice, didn't they? They're wholly unprepared for life out here in Having a Jobland, where you're expected to perform, and perform WELL. They shit on the carpet and think they deserve a raise.

To them, "good enough," is sufficient. By the time you get to be my age, you learn to pick and choose when it's okay to let something fly that's good enough. Some memos, the mailing label on a package to a vendor. But when you're 24, you're supposed to be eager-to-please and looking to dazzle, not sending emails littered with TTYL, LOL and emoticons!

Look, I'm old and cranky, and I've been getting into work early and staying way late, so maybe I'm being hard on the younguns, but I assume they were able to put together a perfect resume to get hired (I dunno, maybe Mommy did it for you?), so how hard is it to be excellent once they get the job?

Oh, and for the record, I have corrected the spelling on a document this girl created for ME at least four times, and she keeps going in and changing it back to "recieve!" The top of my head may explode.

Anyhow, the fucking thing is done, sent, and I won't have to work late tonight, and I'm going out to dinner tonight, and then I'm going SHOOTING. I know, picture Jane with a gun (remind me to tell you about my minute-and-a-half on the rifle team in high school). It oughta be interesting. A great meal at a private Italian club, red wine, and rifles. Sounds like a good night to me. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow.

Side note: The Woodpecker's kid has gotten called back up to the Show for the Orioles! Top prospect, Jeter broke a record off him last year, nice to see him get another chance early in the season.