St. Joseph the Worker March 7, 2008
Posted by Mark Folse in 504, CBD, cryptic envelopment, Dancing Bear, New Orleans, NOLA, Odds&Sods, Toulouse Street, Uncategorized.Tags: 504, fava bean, New Orleans, NOLA, project management, st. joseph altar, st. joseph the worker
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It looks like I’m going to be hunkered in the bunker down here at the sketchy end of the CBD all weekend, making the large financial institution that employs me that much larger. If you’ve never integrated two company’s complex business and IT systems all in a weekend, lucky you. I’ve been down this road before and it is more fun than running a gauntlet of drunken, club-wielding Cossacks while singing hava nagila, but not by much.
Part of the fun of this exercise is that large organizations which have embraced Modern Project Management are full of people for whom what should be (and is for me) a practical discipline has become a sort of obscure religion with more and no less onerous rules than Leviticus and a daily program of ritual meetings that rivals monastic life, governed by that dysfunctional Book of Hours, Microsoft Project.
One good thing about being at the end, aside from a year-long slog being nearly over, is that the early program of setting entirely unreasonable deadlines without even consulting the people who have to meet then, and then suggesting that we will never know if we can meet then until we try, is behind us. At one time I was near the point of hog-tying some of the main office’s PMs and dragging them up to the roof and informing them that we’re were going to determine if they could fly. You never know for sure, I wanted to tell them, until you try.
One benefit of this event is that I get to book a room for catnaps at a nearby hotel where there are, I am told, frequently a lot of other working people. Unfortunately, most of them do not work for large financial institutions; well, maybe their customers do, but I’d rather not know. I just hope they keep it down in the next room.
The short version is: I guess I’m going to miss out on all the St. Josephs’ Altars this weekend. If you get by one, snag me a fava bean. Oh, and St. Joseph the Worker, pray for us.
N.B. St. Joseph the Worker’s feast is actually not until May 1, and is probably intended to give good Catholics something to do on May 1 other than march in parades secretly orchestrated by some neo-Trotskyists with a clever front name. I think Trotskyists would be a lot more fun if they dressed like the Knights of Columbus or lawyers going to the Red Mass. Maybe then we could get in an extra parade weekend, if Mayday weren’t smack in the middle of Jazz Fest.
or at these independent New Orleans bookstores:
I don’t think you’re out of luck yet, there’s plenty going on the next weekend, as well, so you’re not totally out of luck. My grandma’s one is on the 15th down da bayou, and I know the one at St. Joseph’s on Tulane is as well.
Where down the bayou? Over at, oh hell, the church next to Cabrini High? Or way down south of the river?
I was almost hoping St. Joseph’s was this weekend, so maybe I could sneak over. That’s walking distance from work.
And then there’s the Virtual St. Joseph Altar.
I thought you might be interested in this. It is a group of North Dakota builders videoblogging their trip to rebuild in New Orleans for the show Extreme Makeover.
http://www.youtube.com/user/heritagehomesfargo
St. Hilary’s in Mathews, outside of Raceland, actually. When I was a kid they used to have one at their house, and me and my cousins got to play the saints. Much fun.
I don’t know the church, but the town is familiar. My father’s family was from Thibodeaux, a whole buncha Folses on Canal Street marrying a whole bunch of Brauds from across the street.
Brauds? Or Broads?
Ahem. Brauds. Pronounced Bro. Like Breaux, only classier.
A couple of branches of my family have been from that area as well… And I have a bunch of cousins there, still. For some reason my Italian grandfather’s family moved from New Orleans to the bayou in the 50s.