When I was fresh out of college and the unquestioned Supreme Authority on Everything, I slummed as a technical writer at EDS. This experience netted me two enduring impressions.
The first was when my mentor, a senior writer named Al, looked at my timecard. He squinted at it for a long time. "John..?" he finally drawled. "Are you reporting the hours you actually worked?"
Yes I was.
"Son, son, son. Lemme 'splain how this works." He all but sat me on his knee. "At the end of the week, when you're filling out your time card—listen to me now—it ain't how many hours you actually worked. It's how many hours it felt like."
The genius of this system was immediately apparent. I took to timecard padding like a duck to, well, a really hot, drunk female duck who's on the rebound.
And on it went, through my years as a manager—"Is this how many hours it felt like? No. Gimme a pencil."—and beyond. My masterpiece was when I was still a contractor, though. Having worked a horrendous, legitimate 86 hour week, I added 10 hours. Seeing the big "96," my boss sighed, thanked me for not quitting, and told me to add 10 hours to my timecard. And thus did my 106 hour timecard come into being. I still have it.
So wherever you are, Al, thank you for nurturing my chrysalis sense of entitlement. It really blossomed later on. Today, my life is a veritable monument to your teachings.
Tomorrow: the second enduring EDS lesson