2007-04-12 - 7:11 p.m.

I saw butterflies today!
I was hot when I was walking home!
The ice has gone out up-river!
It must really be spring!

The river is thick and brown with mud and is full of huge chunks of ice heading for Hudson's Bay. Now that's where I'd love to see spring break up.

I've been giving a lot more thought to the work ethic thing I mentioned a few days ago. I'm so bloody inconsistent about my views on the matter. I want to put myself first more often, but I do not admire the people at work who do.

There is one guy who works really hard and very effectively (or, at least, he has completely mastered giving the impression that he does), but he takes sick days whenever he feels even a little bit off and he certainly has a few teesy-tiny punctuality issues. He constantly tells me to take my sick days - even if I'm not sick. I don't admire his work ethic and it's hard to pinpoint why. It's always just this sense that he's a bit unmotivated. Unmotivated not to kill himself doing someone else's work? What's not to love in that?

I also don't admire the people who work through dreadful illnesses and come and infect the rest of us. They always whine and make such a huge production of how indispensible they are.

And, it goes without saying, that I don't much admire people who don't do good work and who don't care.

I think I mostly admire people who work hard when they are there, but can consistently leave on time and leave the work behind them. I used to be good at that. One of my co-workers used to say how much she admired how I walked out promptly at 5 every day. But I think that gets eroded after you've done a lot of overtime, because then it feels normal to be there all the time and not have a life. I think maybe a person just needs to grit their teeth, ignore the guilt, and leave on time until it feels normal again.

But I mostly admire people who can work really hard for themselves and their own goals. The good for me/bad for me friend has this skill in spades - which is one of the reasons I like to hang out with him. It must be a learnable skill. It must just be something that some people learn from their families and others don't because their families didn't have it to teach. If it's a learnable skill, I can learn it.

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