| Carwash incident |
20081230
20081220
The Greatest Performer on Earth
That 1 Guy plays at the Doug Fir on February 13th. I have recanted my story of how I first came upon That 1 Guy before, and I shall probably do so again on this blog before the show, but in the meantime, know this:
Fuck Chrysler
What pisses me off about the “bailout” is that the amount of money they’re asking for is more than the profit margin of buying a car for every adult in the United States. So, even if EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US had bought a brand new American vehicle, it wouldn’t be enough for them to pay the bills, and they should still be in existence… why? To hell with "bankruptcy," Chrysler should just shut the fuck down. Ford can stay, they should just fire every single one of their managers, and then Ford and GM should be forced to make an IPO. Instead of "bailing out" the auto industry, the government should be able to just buy $75 worth of stock and give it to the people. It could just be sent in the mail based off our income taxes.
Fuck Detroit. It’s not like there were IT people fifty years ago. New industries do emerge.
Fuck Detroit. It’s not like there were IT people fifty years ago. New industries do emerge.
20081219
Those moments
There is only one thing greater than that moment: you're working away, just listening to music in the background. This particular playlist is your "upbeat" playlist; the one you play towards the end of a Friday, to give you the energy to keep working until 5:00 at your dead-end job.
Then That Song comes on. It could be one of several, but at that moment it feels like the only song ever written. Your plan to keep working by listening to music backfires in the most wonderful way—you're so captivated by your music, you can't think of anything else. There's nothing in the world that can pull you away from the feeling the song gives you. These songs are usually the "singles" on an album—really catchy, uplifting songs. The ones where you buy the whole album, and it's pretty good, but then that one song plays, the anamoly, that incredible gem that the songwriters themselves couldn't conjecture how the song came to be. Maybe the muses are real, if for only that one song. Finding that song, especially after you've forgotten it, buried deep in your playlist... hearing that song again for the first time is hands down the second-greatest feeling a person could possibly have.
The greatest feeling in the world is when it's a song you wrote.
What the fuck am I doing here? What possible value does this job have to culture? What contribution am I making to anyone in the world by typing addresses into a computer? What strides has our civilization made, in having companies whose sole purpose is to give the richest 5% (that's my client base) a little extra luxury that they don't even need? Could that possibly be more valuable than sharing songs like this with the world?
Some songs I write purely for myself. Introspective songs that mean something personal, something special, to me. This isn't one of those songs. This is a song I pored over for 2½ years, adjusting, altering, stealing from other songs, to make the perfect beast. It's a process I've only gone through 3 or 4 times in my life; most of my songs are written in an afternoon, and only slightly modified over the years. This was an intentional effort, with the express purpose of making something wonderful.
For what? For me? How is that of any value? Even if I tried getting the song out to the world, it would never reach open ears, drowned out by the literally millions of cheap one-off efforts from high school kids who have been deluded into thinking that all you have to do to make it in the music world is to be more persistent and ornery than everyone else. People get so soured to new music that by their 24th birthday, they call it a lifetime and spend the next 50 years listening to all the songs they remember from their youth. They won't open up to new songs. And for the under-24 crowd... well, even if they did still listen to rock music, how would they know that I'm not just another pushy obnoxious kid with a guitar, trying to force myself on them like a pubescent teen in eyeshot of a D cup? One of the most common compliments I get from people is "this is really good... I'm surprised!" The surprise comes from the presumption that it will be terrible, and they listen to it begrudgingly because they figure I won't leave them alone unless I do.
Well, you know what? I'll tell you right now that I have a handful of songs, maybe 5 or 6, that are fucking wonderful. I don't just think so, you think so. You just don't know it. And if you think you're open to listening to them, that you'll give them a shot, well... fuck you. My culture doesn't want me, so I don't want my culture. You can continue your life with your soul a little emptier than mine. Just writing this blog has pissed me off, but I'll be over it in 5 minutes and 13 seconds.
I have the remedy for a darkened soul.
Then That Song comes on. It could be one of several, but at that moment it feels like the only song ever written. Your plan to keep working by listening to music backfires in the most wonderful way—you're so captivated by your music, you can't think of anything else. There's nothing in the world that can pull you away from the feeling the song gives you. These songs are usually the "singles" on an album—really catchy, uplifting songs. The ones where you buy the whole album, and it's pretty good, but then that one song plays, the anamoly, that incredible gem that the songwriters themselves couldn't conjecture how the song came to be. Maybe the muses are real, if for only that one song. Finding that song, especially after you've forgotten it, buried deep in your playlist... hearing that song again for the first time is hands down the second-greatest feeling a person could possibly have.
The greatest feeling in the world is when it's a song you wrote.
What the fuck am I doing here? What possible value does this job have to culture? What contribution am I making to anyone in the world by typing addresses into a computer? What strides has our civilization made, in having companies whose sole purpose is to give the richest 5% (that's my client base) a little extra luxury that they don't even need? Could that possibly be more valuable than sharing songs like this with the world?
Some songs I write purely for myself. Introspective songs that mean something personal, something special, to me. This isn't one of those songs. This is a song I pored over for 2½ years, adjusting, altering, stealing from other songs, to make the perfect beast. It's a process I've only gone through 3 or 4 times in my life; most of my songs are written in an afternoon, and only slightly modified over the years. This was an intentional effort, with the express purpose of making something wonderful.
For what? For me? How is that of any value? Even if I tried getting the song out to the world, it would never reach open ears, drowned out by the literally millions of cheap one-off efforts from high school kids who have been deluded into thinking that all you have to do to make it in the music world is to be more persistent and ornery than everyone else. People get so soured to new music that by their 24th birthday, they call it a lifetime and spend the next 50 years listening to all the songs they remember from their youth. They won't open up to new songs. And for the under-24 crowd... well, even if they did still listen to rock music, how would they know that I'm not just another pushy obnoxious kid with a guitar, trying to force myself on them like a pubescent teen in eyeshot of a D cup? One of the most common compliments I get from people is "this is really good... I'm surprised!" The surprise comes from the presumption that it will be terrible, and they listen to it begrudgingly because they figure I won't leave them alone unless I do.
Well, you know what? I'll tell you right now that I have a handful of songs, maybe 5 or 6, that are fucking wonderful. I don't just think so, you think so. You just don't know it. And if you think you're open to listening to them, that you'll give them a shot, well... fuck you. My culture doesn't want me, so I don't want my culture. You can continue your life with your soul a little emptier than mine. Just writing this blog has pissed me off, but I'll be over it in 5 minutes and 13 seconds.
I have the remedy for a darkened soul.
20081217
Special Comment
Olbermann's special comment last night was his most concise ever. Yet, it said just as much as most of his do. For those of you who don't know, Olbermann is fairly famous for his long, soaring diatribes at the end of his show. See the comment he makes in this video, from the 1:15 mark until the end:
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
20081216
Remember job loyalty?
I remember when I first started in the job market, one thing people would always say is to stick with one job for a few years. If you switch jobs to often, companies will consider you a "job hopper," i.e. you don't have sufficient job loyalty.
A friend of mine just applied for an internal job transfer about three weeks ago—they chose him for the position, then laid the position off while he was still in his two weeks notice at his old position. The only people who knew he’d gotten the new job were his current boss and prospective boss. Consequently, he’s just keeping his old position as if nothing had happened. So the only thing that was influenced by the whole process was the dropping of his morale.
Sadly, that’s not the first time I’ve heard of that happening (and not just at my company). Another friend of mine had a stable job once, then was hired into a better job somewhere else, and was laid off within weeks of taking the new job. They still hadn’t filled her old position, but she had officially left the company. She ended up having to apply for her old job back, just a week after leaving. She got it back, but what a humiliating experience.
This is why you never see “job loyalty” in this day and age. It’s an unrequited relationship. Maybe if all these companies that are going under really want to blame the job hoppers, or unions, or employees in general for all their problems, they should treat their employees with respect to begin with, and give employees a reason to help the company out.
My job loyalty reaches as far as my next paycheck, and it's not because I don't care. It's because I do care, and because I pay attention to how I'm treated as an employee. Once in a while there's a job out there where somebody goes to work and provides a service, and their employer compensates them for their time. They don't necessarily "love what they do," they just do it and do it well so they can be appreciated. The more common relationship, though, is that a company needs an ass in the chair so they can convincingly charge their clients as much as they do, and they're bribing me not to vacate that chair while anyone is watching.
A friend of mine just applied for an internal job transfer about three weeks ago—they chose him for the position, then laid the position off while he was still in his two weeks notice at his old position. The only people who knew he’d gotten the new job were his current boss and prospective boss. Consequently, he’s just keeping his old position as if nothing had happened. So the only thing that was influenced by the whole process was the dropping of his morale.
Sadly, that’s not the first time I’ve heard of that happening (and not just at my company). Another friend of mine had a stable job once, then was hired into a better job somewhere else, and was laid off within weeks of taking the new job. They still hadn’t filled her old position, but she had officially left the company. She ended up having to apply for her old job back, just a week after leaving. She got it back, but what a humiliating experience.
This is why you never see “job loyalty” in this day and age. It’s an unrequited relationship. Maybe if all these companies that are going under really want to blame the job hoppers, or unions, or employees in general for all their problems, they should treat their employees with respect to begin with, and give employees a reason to help the company out.
My job loyalty reaches as far as my next paycheck, and it's not because I don't care. It's because I do care, and because I pay attention to how I'm treated as an employee. Once in a while there's a job out there where somebody goes to work and provides a service, and their employer compensates them for their time. They don't necessarily "love what they do," they just do it and do it well so they can be appreciated. The more common relationship, though, is that a company needs an ass in the chair so they can convincingly charge their clients as much as they do, and they're bribing me not to vacate that chair while anyone is watching.
20081211
20081210
Apologies to Management
Management at my company hates me for being likeable. Many of them are my friends. My proudest moment was when someone said to the director “that guy is really, really smart, isn’t he?” to which she replied somewhat ironically, “yeah, we’re trying to rein that in.” She has since quit, but her replacement feels the same way about me. As does my new supervisor, who has often invited me out for drinks.
Earlier this week, management had a closed-door meeting discussing the possibility of requiring employees to work over Christmas vacation. Most employees didn’t pick up on that message, but I know how to read people, and I knew it was a consideration. I sent an email to the entire department, proactively warning of the dangers of making such a request, and at the very least, if the option is on the table, to come out and say it now, instead of dropping it on people the week of Christmas.
As it well should, the email caused an instant panic. Many of the more resigned employees laughed it off— not because they didn’t think it would happen, but that they would expect no better than to have Christmas cancelled. The newer employees started looking for the signs that it was an option, and started seeing them.
My boss called a meeting with me.
He started the meeting with explicit instructions: this meeting was purely for documentation purposes, to record that I had been made aware of the company’s email etiquette policy. He listed the reasons why the email was not appropriate. He asked me, as he is bureaucratically required to do, what my side of the story was. I gave it to him, he wrote down his notes, and then gave the response that the director had already fed him to give. I pushed back, pushing him to tell me outright if cancelling Christmas was being considered, and he replied, “that’s a fair question, I’m just saying that’s a question that you relay to me, not replying to the whole team.”
“Well, I think we’ve resolved the communication issue. I will parlay all grievances to you directly. I’m giving you one now– I’m not speaking for myself; I’m telling you as management, our department can not afford to rely on employees coming in on Christmas.”
“That’s a valid concern,” he reiterates, “I just want you to understand that you need to bring these to my attention, and not to the team.”
I really like the guy. I specifically asked to work with him. But this isn’t personal. This is me, the employee, fully aware that what I tell him is going on record. I say it again, as my concern had not been addressed.
“I am not saying this in my own defense, nor as an individual employee. I’m asking on the behalf of the team, has the planning been put into action that if we do not provide the results you need, that it will be demanded that we work over the holidays?”
He looked down at the table, mumbling almost incomprehensibly, “okay, it’s just how you communicate it.”
He looks up at me, begging me with his eyes not to do this to him. The meeting was a policy-mandated reprimand, not him criticizing me personally. But I'm not attacking him personally either; I'm attacking management. I just wait for a response. Finally, he meekly closes his book and says, “okay, I’ll send you a write-up of our meeting for the records,” and stands up.
Sorry Chris, it wasn’t personal. For what its worth, I’ve stood up against nearly every authority figure in our department and never once reached an accord. I understand why. The fact is, they’re just here because it’s a living. Words matter, and when I criticize management, it hurts.
He made it very clear how much it hurt for the director to read my email, outright asking her, “are you planning on taking away Christmas?” She never wanted to be that person, and still doesn’t. He never wanted to be the guy on his side of the table, reprimanding someone for standing up for what he thought was right. But he is the guy on the other side of the table.
His job as a supervisor is to keep me quiet, and I respect that. My job is to speak out, and I take pride in my job.
Earlier this week, management had a closed-door meeting discussing the possibility of requiring employees to work over Christmas vacation. Most employees didn’t pick up on that message, but I know how to read people, and I knew it was a consideration. I sent an email to the entire department, proactively warning of the dangers of making such a request, and at the very least, if the option is on the table, to come out and say it now, instead of dropping it on people the week of Christmas.
As it well should, the email caused an instant panic. Many of the more resigned employees laughed it off— not because they didn’t think it would happen, but that they would expect no better than to have Christmas cancelled. The newer employees started looking for the signs that it was an option, and started seeing them.
My boss called a meeting with me.
He started the meeting with explicit instructions: this meeting was purely for documentation purposes, to record that I had been made aware of the company’s email etiquette policy. He listed the reasons why the email was not appropriate. He asked me, as he is bureaucratically required to do, what my side of the story was. I gave it to him, he wrote down his notes, and then gave the response that the director had already fed him to give. I pushed back, pushing him to tell me outright if cancelling Christmas was being considered, and he replied, “that’s a fair question, I’m just saying that’s a question that you relay to me, not replying to the whole team.”
“Well, I think we’ve resolved the communication issue. I will parlay all grievances to you directly. I’m giving you one now– I’m not speaking for myself; I’m telling you as management, our department can not afford to rely on employees coming in on Christmas.”
“That’s a valid concern,” he reiterates, “I just want you to understand that you need to bring these to my attention, and not to the team.”
I really like the guy. I specifically asked to work with him. But this isn’t personal. This is me, the employee, fully aware that what I tell him is going on record. I say it again, as my concern had not been addressed.
“I am not saying this in my own defense, nor as an individual employee. I’m asking on the behalf of the team, has the planning been put into action that if we do not provide the results you need, that it will be demanded that we work over the holidays?”
He looked down at the table, mumbling almost incomprehensibly, “okay, it’s just how you communicate it.”
He looks up at me, begging me with his eyes not to do this to him. The meeting was a policy-mandated reprimand, not him criticizing me personally. But I'm not attacking him personally either; I'm attacking management. I just wait for a response. Finally, he meekly closes his book and says, “okay, I’ll send you a write-up of our meeting for the records,” and stands up.
Sorry Chris, it wasn’t personal. For what its worth, I’ve stood up against nearly every authority figure in our department and never once reached an accord. I understand why. The fact is, they’re just here because it’s a living. Words matter, and when I criticize management, it hurts.
He made it very clear how much it hurt for the director to read my email, outright asking her, “are you planning on taking away Christmas?” She never wanted to be that person, and still doesn’t. He never wanted to be the guy on his side of the table, reprimanding someone for standing up for what he thought was right. But he is the guy on the other side of the table.
His job as a supervisor is to keep me quiet, and I respect that. My job is to speak out, and I take pride in my job.
20081204
Campaigning for Change
The man makes a good point:
Remember in 2000, I was the one who campaigned for change. I campaigned for change when I was running for governor of Texas. The only time I didn’t campaign for change was when I was running for re-election.
–George W. Bush
20081203
Fuck this
As this day is coming to an end, do you know what occurs to me? I would get 4x as much work done, at least, if I worked from home, or even from a Starbucks. Even if every other aspect was the same—I still had to interact with my colleagues (by email, IM or phone), I still got the same amount of inquiries from clients, everything else the same, I can tell you that this job sucks the productivity out of me. This morning, I was absolutely juiced to get some work done. I was seriously rolling. Then, at 9:00, I was pulled away for a one hour meeting that had three minutes of information and 57 minutes of people whining. I even warned my supervisor that I had a full head of steam and was afraid the meeting would have a serious deflating effect.
Then, as I started rolling again, I was interrupted by the QA folks who wanted me to give them a report of information they already had, in a format I don’t usually use, so I had to sit and do stuff that had nothing to do with my job, typing out information I already had somewhere else. By then, I only had a half hour or so to do any real work before my mandated lunch break.
When I got back from lunch, I was deluged with a bunch of trivial, two or three minute interruptions that were in no way related to my work (they were solving problems created by my coworkers). Not only did I have to fix the problems, but I had to go over to my colleagues’ desks and listen to them explain to me for ten minutes why it was that they weren’t going to fix it themselves. Not only am I not a supervisor, but some of those colleagues are my superiors. Unfortunately, my supervisors don’t believe in doing any supervising themselves; instead, they just have us type up reports explaining how it is we’re doing their jobs.
Last, but not least, my ex-supervisor kept interrupting me asking me how I was doing. I said fine, and tried to get back to work, but she started moping about how she wasn’t important anymore, now that I have a new supervisor. Meanwhile, my new supervisor, the one who had coffee with me and talked to me about how I had more potential than just being a processor, has been denying every request I have submitted to attend conferences and meetings to help make things more efficient and sustainable, saying it was more important that I was at my desk entering addresses.
Now I feel completely sapped. I barely have the energy to return to work. Worst of all, I have the distinct memory of how I felt six hours ago, rearing to get things done, and the knowledge that the energy would still be in me if I had been actually working all day instead of dealing with all of the above. As it is, I’ve barely gotten anything done today, and now I don’t want to.
Then, as I started rolling again, I was interrupted by the QA folks who wanted me to give them a report of information they already had, in a format I don’t usually use, so I had to sit and do stuff that had nothing to do with my job, typing out information I already had somewhere else. By then, I only had a half hour or so to do any real work before my mandated lunch break.
When I got back from lunch, I was deluged with a bunch of trivial, two or three minute interruptions that were in no way related to my work (they were solving problems created by my coworkers). Not only did I have to fix the problems, but I had to go over to my colleagues’ desks and listen to them explain to me for ten minutes why it was that they weren’t going to fix it themselves. Not only am I not a supervisor, but some of those colleagues are my superiors. Unfortunately, my supervisors don’t believe in doing any supervising themselves; instead, they just have us type up reports explaining how it is we’re doing their jobs.
Last, but not least, my ex-supervisor kept interrupting me asking me how I was doing. I said fine, and tried to get back to work, but she started moping about how she wasn’t important anymore, now that I have a new supervisor. Meanwhile, my new supervisor, the one who had coffee with me and talked to me about how I had more potential than just being a processor, has been denying every request I have submitted to attend conferences and meetings to help make things more efficient and sustainable, saying it was more important that I was at my desk entering addresses.
Now I feel completely sapped. I barely have the energy to return to work. Worst of all, I have the distinct memory of how I felt six hours ago, rearing to get things done, and the knowledge that the energy would still be in me if I had been actually working all day instead of dealing with all of the above. As it is, I’ve barely gotten anything done today, and now I don’t want to.
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