Category Archives: Assess

A Scattering of Rain

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03:11. Unable to sleep. Windy night with a scattering of rain.

The May 11th post, Self Portrait at 100, included the phrase: “My “progress” may be nothing more than wishful thinking.” This points to the difficulty of a cognitive process becoming fully cognizant of its own processing activity and garnering the ability to successfully place that activity within a larger perspective, or context. That larger context requires that self identity be independent of the cognitive activity of the subject.

This is not an insignificant problem. Lord Acton’s aphorism “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely” speaks directly to this issue. If you enjoy sufficient power then issues of self identity, and the enactment of the self, no longer present an issue. You may, however, be blind to your faults. You will be able to act but you will not be able to know yourself. The fundamental issue of concern impacts the realms of epistemology, political theory, and sociology.

Thinking back over the Time Evaporated post, I realize that the work documents, the performance reviews, evaluations, and letter of reference, all serve to document someone who no longer exists.

The “me” who performed that work and earned 100% on his evaluations is gone and may never return. Not yet dead but as good as buried.

The “me” that remains cannot function in the same way, cannot perform the same work, cannot perform the same cognitive functions, cannot think, or perceive, in precisely the same way.

I have lain awake listening to the final staccato beats of the rain against the window trying to come to grips with this thought dilemma, trying to understand the balance between the two people I refer to as “me.”

I have a sense that I am attempting to trace a mobius loop in a search for the other side. A Klein bottle may be a better analogy. Trying to understand what I am trying to understand is giving me a headache. Better just to listen to the heavy raindrops of spring as they splash against the last of the dark.

 

 

 

 

Time Evaporated

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For the past week I have been doing spring cleaning. The more I do the more I realize how much is left undone. Over the past year, domestic affairs have been sacrificed in order to compile the various submissions to the insurer, to organize trips to Montreal for testing, to do the multitude of other things mandated by the injury. In each case time evaporated.

Time evaporated for two reasons. The first is that I am very slow in all that I do. If I make an attempt to proceed more quickly then I make errors and become so frustrated that I want to throw papers across the room. Not helpful.

When I write a letter I need to devote my full attention to the task. And despite going slowly I will still experience the onset of fatigue and headache. And when I return to the document I will find manifold errors despite my best efforts at revision.

The second reason time evaporated has to do with my ability to become distracted, to forget my initial task objectives. I start a kitchen clean up and end up spending the day making soup stock. I tidy up my office, discover some documents relevant to my insurance claim, forget them, rediscover them, copy them, generate PDFs, email the PDFs to my doctors, draft a cover letter, go on an extended search for more documents, plan a copy run, search for envelopes, search for stamps, shuffle though more papers and displace the sorted piles of other documents in the search process. The end result is a bigger mess than I started with. This paragraph is a synopsis of what I did today.

Time Evaporated — The Documents

The documents are dated from 2003 and 2007. They relate to my work in the IT industry and constitute performance reviews, evaluations, and letter of reference.

When I read them I was struck by the degree to which I am no longer the man described in the documents.

In 2007 I exceeded target performance in the areas of Client Knowledge, Product Knowledge, and Quality Assurance. I would not be able to do this today.

  • He reacts well to change and is flexible

Today, I am very resistant to change and inflexible. I seek to establish and conform to routine and am at times unaware that I am acting in this way.  This is a major behavioural change.

  • He sets and follows priorities. He is very organized and keeps a professional work environment.

Today, I must devote immense amounts of time to address the details of the insurance claim appeal. My home work space is extremely disorganized as I am focused on attending to immediate needs. I have problems with prioritization and decision making. This is a major behavioural change.

The letter of reference dated September 2004 describes me as being “timely and efficient” and commends me for the display of “strong organizational, analytical and decision making skills.” After the accident this was no longer true.

I am also described as “patient and helpful.” My IT work environment was complex, difficult, and filled with stressors, yet I handled it with aplomb. Today, I am subject to bouts of intense irritability when I attempt to conduct a simple grocery shop. I loose documents I held a moment ago and will quickly loose my temper.

Time Evaporated — The Workplace

My IT employment continued until March 2011 (the accident occurred on a Sunday night and I was informed of the layoff on my return to work the next day). Enterprise IT customers are extremely demanding. An unexpected equipment failure may result in the firm being unable to operate (critical IT failures are a significant cause of business bankruptcy). If the hardware does not work then the hospital cannot function, the 911 system is unable to accept calls, the electrical distribution system goes dark, and the military is unable to conduct operations. My customers were the Fortune 500, departments of the Government of Canada and the provinces, and the US Military. The range of required knowledge was extremely broad. The ability to deliver an immediate solution was mandatory.

Today, I have difficulties simply trying to fulfill my basic living needs. When I try to read a manual from this period I can make no sense of it. To my lay understanding these facts suggest a significant and fundamental change in my abilities.

 

 

 

 

Self Portrait at 100

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The prior blog post was post number 100. It has taken me 349 days to complete 100 posts, a rate of one post every three and one half days. The above image is not truly a self portrait. It is an attempt at humour (I have wanted to use this image for some time but could never really identify an appropriate post). The blog itself functions as a self portrait.
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