~Friday~ Today after work, some of the wonderful Red Hat people I work with met at Busy Bee Cafe for a farewell celebration of my imminent retirement, on Monday, October 13. The calendar invitation read: John Martin is retiring | Let's celebrate/commiserate Reserving this time to celebrate John Martin's retirement. (His actual retirement date is … Read more
Two weeks before National Boss Day (NBD), which was Wednesday, October 16th, I sent an email to our department of (mostly) writers, asking them if they were interested in doing a little something for our boss, Laura, on NBD. In the email, I suggested we each write a haiku about Laura, if they’d be interested … Read more
~Friday~ I received my annual appraisal today, which didn’t contain any surprises, which means the process is working. Any surprises should have come in my interim appraisal back in December, in order to give me time to address any problem areas. I provide a “Weekly Highlight Report” to my boss in which I list the … Read more
~Wednesday~ Today, as part of my job as a technical communicator in the Office of Information Technology organization at NC State, my department staged a “Media Disposal Toss” event for NC State’s Earth Day 2013 event. Along with other NC State organizations, as well as dozens of non-university organizations, we set up a table on … Read more
~Tuesday~ We had Rhonda’s (my boss’s) breakfast gig this morning, and a lunch time “shower” for Garrison (a colleague) and Amy, which shower is in quotation marks because what we really had was our “Informal OCC Lunch” to which Amy was invited to join us. We did have cupcakes, provided by Jason and Erin, some … Read more
~Tuesday~ When I got back from lunch today, there was a very nice gift bag—complete with tissue paper to match, sitting on the chair in front of my desk. On the inside was an expensive gift, but I couldn’t find any note telling me who left it there, nor could I think of any reason … Read more
~Wednesday~ I’ve had a very professionally affirming couple of days, which I’m documenting for posterity. So if you’re not up for a How Great John Art blog entry, you’re excused. Our organization has an informal recognition program called T.O.A.S.T.—as in “Here’s a toast to you!” not as in, “You’re toast!“—and which stands for Totally Outstanding … Read more
~Tuesday~ It’s that time of the year again for the University Awards for Exellence—in the categories of Outstanding Service, Innovations, Public Service, Safety/Heroism, and Human Relations. To that end, a few of my colleagues got together and went up on the roof of our building for some pictures. If you’re a long-time reader of my … Read more
~Thursday~ On the Wolfline #9 bus home, I checked my work email and there was a note from a colleague asking me why the background on one of his Web pages was pink, and I devised a quick reply to him, which he greatly appreciated. When I got off the bus, it was dark, and … Read more
~Monday~ I decided to work from home this morning up until my 11:00 meeting at the Avent Ferry Technology Center (AFTC). That made more sense than catching the bus into my office, staying there for about an hour-and-a-half and then catching another bus to the AFTC. When I sent an email to my manager to … Read more