Tim McElligott Blog: Back from the Brink

It is not out of character for me to come to the final days of a vacation and seriously contemplate never showing up for work again. But returning yesterday from 11 days without a deadline was more difficult than even I had anticipated. I have meager needs, a sloth’s lifestyle. I’m old and statistically won’t burden the planet much longer. Surely I could get by on the crackers and cupcakes in my pantry for a while. I know how to dry and salt the meat that will thaw in the freezer when they shut my power off. Why work? Why get up?

What did me in this time, what made me ask that most dangerous of questions (“What’s the point?”) was not my disdain for work. I don’t mind it. It encourages me to inhale, I guess.

No, this time it was my summer reading list. I made the mistake of reading two books on climate change without buffering them with a little Robert Rankin or Christopher Moore in between. Like the adage about all work and no play, all disaster and no laughter makes Timmy a dull boy. A sullen boy. As environmentalist Bill McKibben says, just another “bipedal device for combusting fossil fuel.”

But then I realized two things that made it bearable to walk through my office door, hit the power button on my laptop and plug myself once more into the immense and chaotic data flow. First, I have the distinct pleasure of working in an industry that in many ways has the potential to make a material difference in the way we combust our fossil fuels. Since telecommunications networks and data centers are among the largest consumers of energy in the world, we have the opportunity to lead the way on the use of alternatives, thereby creating a viable and affordable downstream market. We enable telecommuting. We reduce travel. We spread knowledge and communication around the globe. We continue to try to break the habit of unnecessary paper use. And most exciting will be our support of the essential smart grid.

Second, I will have the opportunity over the next few years to harangue the industry if it doesn’t try hard enough to achieve these goals. That will be fun.

I guess I could have saved myself such despair by selecting less dreadful reading material, but burying one’s head in the sand is only a temporary measure — only ‘till the tide comes in. I also could have followed the example of one of our LinkedIn members, Daniel Ambrosio, a project Manager from Sao Paulo, who is looking for the latest books on billing.

Alas, vacation is over for me and my recreational reading has come to an end for a while. But if you have any suggestions on the best billing books out there, send them along. Or better yet, join the Billing & OSS World LinkedIn group and give them to Daniel yourself. But before you do, for Pete’s sake, turn off that TV in the other room you’re not watching and that light you left on in the garage all night. That’ll save us.

E-mail me at heyBOSS@vpico.com or click on the comment button below.