Self Worth, Procrastination, and

I’m reading the book The Now Habit. (Go on click it and buy something from Amazon. I’m unemployed right now, and could use a little cash from Amazon…)

The first chapter of the book examines why we procrastinate. The book states that one of the reasons we procrastinate is that we see the task that needs completed as directly reflecting on our self worth.. This makes a helluva lotta sense.

An instance of this:

Back last summer at work one of our large west coast customers decided that they wanted us to manage their transportation. We struggled at delivering product on time. (Honestly the root cause of this was due to a choice in vendors that I didn’t make, and didn’t have the power to change. For the record I still make a habit of flicking off every driver from that company, and I cannot go into the State of Utah for fear of my hand cramping into a permeant birdie.)

Its one thing in my former line of work if there is a late delivery every once in a while, but when you start having problems all over the place with one customer it becomes a major problem. This had gotten to the point that this single ‘ol delivery lane, which wasn’t even that high of a volume, or even an important strategic customer had acquired director level attention all over the place. I wouldn’t’ve been surprised if some director from Central America was watching the damn thing.

So, I was the operational coordinator for this melee, so I had the joy and terror of being the person ultimately responsible for getting it right. When the truck arrived on time I was relieved, when it arrived late, I honestly got really perturbed, and felt like I had failed.

So one weekend morning I got a voicemail from a coworker that the truck for that date didn’t arrive, in fact the truck didn’t even pick up. I felt like I had failed, and I dreaded coming into work on Monday. So I didn’t. and I didn’t come in on Tuesday either.

But anyone who knows anything about transportation is that one person cannot do anything in transportation except twiddle their thumbs. Supply Chains are by their very definition team efforts, one person can only do so much, and while people can be responsible for a portion of it they’re only responsible in as far as they can manage others.

I was going to write about another instance, but well, its a bit too close to recent times. I could also make an argument that it was one of the direct catalysts for running away from home. (My landlady put it that way, and well it seems apt. Although it is a bit funny to say that “I ran away from home when I was twenty-five.”)

I’ve gotta get some job apps out… I didn’t get a call back yet from my interview at one of the big software developers out here…