Shanghai Tech Writer

According to Wikipedia, food coma is defined as “the lethargic state induced by overindulgence in carbohydrate-laden food.” In another words, it’s the condition of feeling sleepy after you eat. This is actually a medically proven condition that affects many working professionals especially in the afternoon. Other terms used to describe this condition are “post-lunch slump” or “afternoon apathy syndrome” (AAS).

For the past six years as a teacher, I never felt or experienced AAS. It was probably because I was always surrounded by energetic (and rambunctious) children that kept me alert throughout the day. I did, however, faintly remember dealing with AAS many years ago during a summer internship at an IT company. That was so long ago that I forgot how unpleasant the feeling was until now…

At NI Shanghai, despite all of us working in an open plan environment, it’s actually pretty quiet in the office especially on my floor. There’s not much action except for the occasional phone calls, print jobs, and the paper shredder running. We’re the technical communication group and most of us spend the majority of our time quietly in front of our computer, writing/editing documents. If we need to communicate, we speak in a whisper, if at all. Main method of communication seems to be via Lotus Sametime or MSN. My manager who sits right behind me 4 feet away IMs me instead of turning around. Kind of strange but I suppose this is NI’s office etiquette.

Anyway, it has been two weeks at NI so far and I’ve been doing mostly self-paced training. There are lots of online training and reading materials to go through. This week, I’ve been learning about the documentation process and reading through NI & LabVIEW Style Guides. Not exactly page-turner stuff but these style guides are like the Bible of technical writing (at NI). I must read through all of it even if a lot of it doesn’t make sense yet. Add that task with the MSG-laden canteen lunch and the quietness of our office floor, I think AAS has come back to haunt and torture me. I’ve been really struggling to read through the style guides, nodding my head every few minutes and trying to hide behind my tall swivel chair hoping nobody would catch me falling asleep. It’s P-A-I-N-F-U-L… pain in the *** (hey, it rhymes)!

I shall do some research online about AAS and write a post on how to effectively deal with this “condition” in a professional working environment. If any of my colleagues are reading this, please be kind and realize that if you catch me falling asleep on the job, it’s not because I am lazy. I just suffer this medical condition called AAS. (It’s always nice to be able to put a name (or blame) on something you have. :P)

If any of you have some great insights or tips on coping with AAS, please feel free to share!

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

  Subscribe to RSS feed       Subscribe via e-mail