“Are you kidding me?” my wife asked as we gazed at my new shed together. “It’s huge!”
“It’s huge,” I repeated dreamily, with a far different tone than hers.
“And I’m not allowed to put anything in there?” she asked in amazement.
“Nope,” I said, remembering how she’s already taken over about a third of my closet and regularly sweeps clean whatever’s on my bedside table. “You may enter by express invitation only.”
”And absolutely, positively no toys,” I said to the munchkins as the rolled their toy lawnmower up the ramp, heeding me in this as much as they do all in all else.
Ah, the plans, ah the projects. Electric just to start. Gonna add a new line from the breaker panel in the garage, run it to the back wall, through to the other side, then into the ground and buried until we come back up on the side of the shed.
My first thought was to use the type of wire made for direct burial, no need for conduit, (UF 12/2 sounded good). But after doing some trenching, I realized that going down 18 inches was a Herculean task. Luckily some research revealed that if I put the wire through conduit (a hard casing like PVC) — specifically NEC (nonmetallic electrical conduit) — I don’t have to go so deep.
What breaker? What are my needs? Let’s go 20 AMP to match the 12 gauge wire. But what’s this? All 20 amp breakers aren’t the same? There are even more than one style of Square D breakers, seriously? Two electrical supply stores later, I had it in hand.
But it’s still FUN. I’m learning, thinking, making progress and conquering. I’m walking out of Home Depot with all kinds of pipes and connectors on one of those flat-bed carts. I’m now one of THOSE guys! I always wanted to be one of them. And I’m drilling holes through the wall of my house!
What’s next? Who knows? Insulation, then put on some kind of plywood or drywall? Why, you ask? It’s a shed, you say. Sure, but what the heck? Why not? These projects are a welcome change for someone who spends most of his day bent over a laptop in posture that would make even a first-year chiropractic student cringe.
For those similarly bent with pressure-packed jobs (which means all of us), happy go-to places where minds can dwell on fun puzzles are critical. The mind, you must remember, is going to go someplace, and if you don’t give it a pacific one — one that provides a break from the irresistible black hole of work and life stresses — it will be irresistibly drawn back to them.
This is why we find high-level executives, like CIOs, are usually enthusiasts about something other than work —whether it be mountain climbing, hiking or, in the case of John Halamka, farming. Last week, I read this passage from one of his blog postings and it resonated.
“The work of a farmer is never done — keeping the bees healthy, the alpaca/llama cool in summer/warm in winter, and the systems of the farm running is immensely satisfying.”
And I’ll bet part of that immense satisfaction comes from having to (or getting to) ruminate on challenges not of the healthcare IT or staff management variety. For my part, when I’ve done all I can and all that should be done for our business, dwelling on any outstanding issues is non-productive. I need to decompress, but this only works if you’ve cultivated a realm of decompression.
So to my wife I say, continue to inch across the closet if you like, but tread not on that ramp. To my CIO friends I say, perhaps farming is a bridge too far, but plant a garden if it captures your imagination. If mountain climbing is your thing —have at it, I’m sure planning such a trip will keep you occupied for months. We all need a Chartwell — the country home where Winston Churchill built walls with his own hands, painted pictures, and kept swans and other animals for his amusement and distraction. Find yours.
ITProductivityGuy says
I couldn’t agree more – my wife can have everything above ground but the basement is for power tools and anything required for watching football.