Saturday, February 25, 2012

Keywhat? and Meatloaf

That's Key-freaking-nomics baby.

 Otherwise known as learn to type.
The company I work for employs probably thousands of people all over the world and some genius decided the employees would be more productive if they all knew how to type properly and learn basic keyboarding skills, like toggling between windows and other little tricks to enable you to get more done at a faster rate with better quality.

I am a traditional typer. I took a correspondence course at the High School I went to in order to learn since we had no actual typing class available (sounds crazy, but it's true - that's bush AK for ya).

Anyhow, I digress. For this keynomics class we assembled in a training room and began by taking a test on what our individual skill currently were to get a base line score of what we already knew. Then on a daily basis we would each spend one hour a day at our desk doing these keynomic exercises, drills, tests and such. It was self paced - say you had more than x amount of errors on an exercise, you would do that exercise over and over until you finally passed it and then moved on to the next phase doing the same thing until the course was completed. A lot of the exercises you'd practice were all about telling you how to sit, hold your wrists, how far your monitor should be away, info on your chair and all that. Basically best practices to be ergonomically correct and comfortable to enable you work for long periods with out getting kinked up.

Now we really don't do a lot of typing in the job. More like you have a note you'd leave for a specific task you are doing and have it saved in your personal macro notes (love macros) and just use a few keystrokes to put out your saved note and maybe actually type some extra crap if needed.  Before my old team was disbanded, I did quite a bit more typing, but not in my new position.

All that repetitive typing killed my hands.

I already knew that I've got the early stages of carpel tunnel syndrome and am treating it accordingly.
Ergonomic split keyboard, mouse and wear a wrist brace all day when on the computer.
 Holy SHIT has this whole keynomics thing has been just brutal on my poor hands. I think I've got arthritis in a couple of finger joints and something funky going on at the base of my right thumb. Damn. Sure makes a person miserable to do the keynomics first thing in the AM and wear your hands out, but still have to use them all day.

At the end of your course you'd be shown how fast and accurate you are now compared to the initial test you took. I improved in my accuracy and 10 key some, but not much. So for me to have taken the course it was pretty much a waste of time and made me miserable. For other folks I know of who were hunt and peck typers they actually learned how to be a traditional typer - now if they can maintain that and not go back to their old ways.

Moral of this story? None really, just sharing my misery.


Found a new meatloaf recipe and it is pretty fantastic!
It is your basic meatloaf recipe draped in bacon and basted with a delicious sauce. I think it will give my Mother a run for the money as she thinks that she is the Meatloaf Queen.

Mom and Gerry are coming back up in the next few weeks and I'm gonna knock her socks off with this recipe, then we'll see who the new Meatloaf Queen is.





Have a good weekend!

4 comments:

PAK ART said...

your meatloaf really does look delicious. I bet you are now the Queen. Hail to Kelly, Queen of Meatloaf!

Don't you just love it when businesses bring in specialists to tell you how to do stuff better. I do think everyone should learn to type the proper way, not hunt and peck, but all that other stuff sounds like it hurt you further. Maybe the way you naturally do keyboarding is what's best for you.

Ami said...

I can't make a good meatloaf to save my life. My hubby makes a good one, my mom does... but not me.

As for the keyboard thing? My daughter types over 100 wpm with great accuracy. And she has the strangest typing method I've ever seen.

I love corporate bigwigs justifying their existence and outrageous salaries coming up with dumbshit ideas like keyboard lessons for people who already are doing their jobs just fine.

Sheesh.

tainterturtles said...

What, no recipe? Please? Your meat loaf looks so good.

I'm sorry your fingers hurt...those damn corporate people. They always think they know everything better!!!

Aunt Krissy said...

That was some good meatloaf. I think it was even better then mine. Your are the new Queen!