Monday, May 19, 2008

Can you make sense of this?

"The maximum number of voice compression channels supported, using IP500 VCM base cards and/or IP400 VCM cards on IP500 Legacy Card Carriers, is 128."

This is a sentence in a course I am currently instructionally designing at work. Did I write it? Uh, no. What does it mean? I'm not sure I could even tell you. My Subject Matter Expert (SME) in all things technical gave me some rough content, and I'm supposed to look at it and decide how it should be changed to be more clear. Can you change this sentence to be more clear?

Some days (like today), while I'm working, I have to stop and wonder what I'm doing. My career has (and many days fulfills) the potential to be incredibly boring. Sometimes it has been exciting, like when I was creating training for Valvoline and got to go down in the oil-change pit to see how they did it. Or the time I got to work on dealer training for BMW dealerships. And other times, it's all I can do not to staple my own finger, just to check that I'm still alive. (Yes, I am aware that there are probably less painful ways to determine my alive-ness, but I'm going for something a little more dramatic here.)

About an hour prior to reading this sentence, I sat on a last-minute conference call with my team at work. Three people on my team were laid off last Friday. This follows five whose contracts were not renewed in April. Of course, now everyone wonders: Am I next?

Corporate America has many great things - lots of money, working with really smart, driven, and accomplished people, free fitness centers, company cafeterias. (Okay, that last one can be hit or miss, but I've been to some pretty good cafeterias, namely at Sun Microsystems.) But today, after the second round of people were dismissed (in a most kind and apologetic sort of way of course), I sat here wondering what in the heck I'm doing in this career.

And then I looked out my living room window and remembered that I get to work at home, in my pajamas, with some pretty cool people (what's left of them of course). I get flexible hours, great pay, and I get to hear the birds chirping all day long and take walks through my neighborhood at lunchtime. I save money on gas because I don't drive into the office often, and I have access to a free gym. A lot of people would love to have those things. So for now, and for as long as it lasts, I will be grateful that I have such a great job. Even if I can't make sense of most of the jargon that comes my way.

4 comments:

Jenn said...

UGGGG! I got a headache just trying to read it, let a alone translate it! I'm not even going to try. Good luck with that one. I have to say giving massage treatments is never very boring, but I can appreciate were you are coming from when you question what you are doing? Keep it up...Thank goodness for working in our pajamas and free gyms.

Janene said...

ok, I actually read it twice, and then gave up. The advantage of stapling your finger is then you forget the headache that the sentence just gave you. :o)

bluestocking23 said...

I ran this past my resident expert (that would be Jess) and she suggests:

This [insert gadget name here] supports 128 voice compression channels when using IP500 VCM base cards and/or IP400 VCM cards on IP500 Legacy Card Carriers

Kar said...

You work from home? I totally didn't know that!