Yes... you're absolutely right about him being completely incompetent as a manager. He's actually not a horrible person, but is really terrible as a boss. It could be worse, I guess, since he's the opposite of micro-managing (the "non-managing manager"?), but it really isn't working for me.

He actually labeled it as the "scribe". It's still taking notes though. I think he has the expectation that I'll occasionally pop up to clarify points in the notes, but ugh! That's not really the same, especially if he's planning specifically to bring someone else along from our team to help generate ideas.

I actually did suggest we record the sessions as a backup, and as a way to let me participate more, but he was afraid it would make people less talkative and more self-conscious. And, he doesn't want us to have to listen to it all a second time to roll up the data.

I'm feeling so not excited about any of this. And, I got almost nothing done on Friday... it's hard, because I feel like my boss doesn't really have high expectations, and I'm miserable and depressed, and I know I'm not really feeling a burning desire to put in 110% to get everything perfect. It reminds me of something I read about a famous actor (can't remember which one) who talked about how exhausting and hard it is to really put 100% of yourself out there for a director. So, he'd basically do a take where he didn't give it all, kind of phone it in. If the director didn't call him on it, he assumed the director wasn't good enough to tell the difference, and just did that for the whole film! (Yeah, I know, you'd think it would hurt his career... but apparently he was good enough that it didn't!)

Sigh!

I have no idea what my mother is going to want to do. I misunderstood originally, and thought she'd be here for the weekend... but I'm now realizing (despite her awful ability to provide concrete details!) that the reunion is over the weekend, so she'll either be here before or after (this is still unclear to me!!!!!!). She's already asking about a certain playhouse that I've taken her to in the past...

But yeah, that sounds like a really great idea. Maybe I can tell her that I just got swamped with all these projects, and won't be able to get any time off... but here are some things they can do that will be fun, and hey, why don't we just meet up for dinner one night.

That could work.

And, wow. That's just nuts that the company thinks that if you don't generate billable hours, you're basically useless! Wow! I remember you mentioning it earlier... it's just, yikes. That's crazy... and sad!

Why are people having mental breakdowns? I didn't quite catch that... what that has to do with doubling the number of employees? It sounds like an awful situation, anyway... it's really good that you didn't end up as an employee too!

That's the type of stuff that makes me nervous about looking for a different job, by the way. It just seems that nearly *every place* is dysfunctional! I don't know how corporate America manages, as a whole... it just seems there's so much more dysfunction than actual good, healthy, productive work places! How is that possible?

So... what ever happened with the volunteer work where half the people quit while trying to arrange a meeting? I'm going to go see if you updated the post, so forgive me asking here... but yikes! That's really something!