"You gonna get another job?"...

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
Bloggy post of a short blustery winter day. Saturdays are short anyway. Get off work around midnight Friday night. Home half an hour later, if I'm lucky. By the time I've had a cocktail and unwound a bit, it can be easily 2:30am. So half of Saturday will often be shot before I even get going.

All caught up on my reading right now and actually thinking about buying a new book from my list for the first time in...I can't remember when. Now if you like books and have a time machine, I highly recommend checking out Powell's Books in Portland Oregon, circa 2002. At least 3 stories of books in a block long building. It probably is losing the battle with Amazon, but it put up a good fight for years and years. Here in Louisville, the local bookstore is Carmichael's Books. And from the outside, it doesn't look as big as Powell's, but it looks promising. Problem is, all the time I've been here, I've had a dog, so when I'm in the neighborhood, I don't have time to stop in. There was also a taco place near the dog park that looked interesting but that I never got around to checking out. When I realized it was pushing lunchtime I decided to kill a few birds with one stone and head downtown.

First off, people are stupid and don't know how to drive. So anytime I go anywhere I'm angry and stressed out by the time I get there from worrying about all the stupid things happening around me and trying to avoid being a part of them. But I made it downtown. Got parked and had a couple tacos and a margarita. Now, the taco place is probably fine. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I like it. But having lived near San Diego for a couple years kind of ruins you on Mexican food. And truth be told, a fun, hip, trendy looking place is NOT the place to go for good, cheap, copius Mexican fare. Go to anyplace around San Diego and get a beef burrito from a place that ends with "berto's" and it is a religious experience. They're pretty much only drive-thru, and I have no desire to see what their kitchen looks like, but you get a huge tasty dirt cheap burrito. This place had no burritos, only tacos. And after a pretty substantial wait, they were presented to me. Disappointingly small. But maybe they just looked small, because I was nicely filled up by 2 of them and a margarita. Then off to the bookstore.

Yeah. Carmichael's is similar. It's fine. It's cute and hip and independent. It's a neat shopping experience. But it's tiny. Smaller than the old strip mall bookstores of the 20th century. And more of a gift/tourist selection. You're not going to spend hours in the military section. Or the geography section. Because those things don't exist. The whole store was smaller than the magazine section at Powell's--all on the ground floor. And not much ground floor at that. They did not have the book I was looking for. So home for a nap. Now I'm snug and cozy and it is getting even darker outside, but I should try to get something done today, so I guess I'll throw a load of laundry in and go get some groceries. Maybe exercise a bit as I'm getting soft and weak and fat.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
I hate when you inherit someone else's bad judgement. My renter just texted me and asked if he could pay this month's rent with his credit card.

He can. But that really doesn't solve his problem. It just delays it and makes it worse. But that's what he asked me, instead of if I could think of a way to solve his problem--which, from what I can tell, is that he doesn't have enough income right now to cover his expenses. Whether he lied to me in the first place about his income or business has been bad for his employer in the ensuing months is academic. The fact is that he isn't making enough money to pay his bills. Apparently his solution to this is to just wait and hope business picks up. If it were me...just yesterday I drove by a White Castle that had NOW HIRING on their big sign with starting pay of $13.50 an hour. A few days before that I saw an add on TV for one of the local factories that they're offering a $1,500 sign-on bonus and starting pay of $18.50 an hour. Last time I remember, there was a sign staked into the grass next to the bus stop by Wal*Mart for a company that was hiring forklift drivers--no experience necessary--for $19.50 an hour. There are jobs out there. Not all of them might be a lot of fun. But they'll pay your bills.

Back in Oregon I made the mistake of trying to help someone out who I thought was my friend. At the time I'd given up on trying to find a roommate and furnished my spare bedroom as a guest room. And I'd further, decided Portland was doomed and it was time to leave the area. She texted me, saying she had to move and needed a place to stay. After explaining my situation and her still being interested, I assumed she understood this meant, for a few weeks until she found a place to stay. Then she showed up at 8pm on the 31st with 4 vans. Once most of the boxes were unloaded into my garage, she announced that she'd better go unload the cats. It I'd been smart I'd have turned her away when she showed up, but that would've been a dick move to someone I considered a friend. Luckily, I was able to get her out, but the less is said about that the better.

Or my brother. He just consistently makes bad decisions. When I was younger I'd try to give him advice. He'd politely ignore it. Mom kept bailing him out. At one point she cut him off for a time and he called me to ask if I wanted to be a "silent partner" in his bar and I explained that I had absolutely no desire to be a silent partner. Eventually she relented and went back to funneling him cash. And eventually he got to a point where he would occasionally ask me for advice. I'd happily give him advice. Then he'd go out and do whatever he'd been planning to do in the first place. After Mom died, as I was trying to settle her probate, I was faced with a choice between walking away from a nice chunk of cash (I still wound up with a fair amount) or quitting my job and moving back to Wisconsin to close out the estate and wind up my brother's landlord, significant creditor, and the owner of a bar (with no kitchen) and bowling alley in a town with a population of 2,000. So now when we talk and the tells me things, I just smile and say "that's nice."
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
And the...another frustrating thing in each of these cases is... Most problems won't just go away by you doing nothing and hoping they'll go away on their own. Oh, maybe some will. But if they don't, the problem will get bigger and bigger and bigger. Eventually the problem gets big enough that there isn't any solution to it.

If my boy would've got himself a side job in October--or whenever he realized he wasn't making enough money--he'd have solved his problem. Or if he'd found a way to cut costs--or both. If, after coming up with short term aid, he'd followed through on lining up long term aid, he'd have solved his problem. Instead he's putting himself in a place where he's going to go deeper and deeper in debt until he can't go any deeper and then there won't be a solution to his problem.

If my acquaintance had realized her situation in Oregon was unsustainable and moved someplace else when she still could afford to, she'd have solved her problem. Instead she became the working homeless--with a houseful of stuff and 2 cats to lug around and an SUV with 2 flat tires.

If my brother... Shit, I don't even know where to begin on him. He seems to be hanging on. But he never should've bought the bar he worked at for what his boss was asking. When my uncle died and left us money, he shouldn't have used part of it to buy my uncle's tractor(s) (given that my brother doesn't own a farm, for one thing). He certainly shouldn't have taken up dirt track stock car racing as a hobby--at least not with his finances.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
I'm not happy about where I am right now. OK, that's a bit of an overstatement but... As a Catholic, patron saints are a neat thing. St. Jude is the patron saint of impossible/hopeless cases. So if you have something you want and you pray to St. Jude, and you get it, you're supposed to do something for St. Jude. That's how the children's cancer hospital came to be. Danny Thomas wanted to be a successful actor and prayed to St. Jude for that. When it happened, he founded the hospital. And that happens to be a handy thing for when I want to make a charitable contribution. When things have gone well, I'll throw a few bucks towards the St. Jude's Children's Cancer Center.

The last couple times things have gone well, I've still been short on cash, so I delayed my donations. Then I started rebuilding my cash. Meanwhile, they were doing a home giveaway sweepstakes. I figured I needed one more rental to be able to quit my day job so I killed two birds with one stone and donated my outstanding St. Jude money with the hope that St. Jude would come through and give me a free house. No luck. Not only did I not get the house, but the things I gave to St. Jude in recognition of both came apart recently.

Which gets me to where I am right now. We had some big nasty tornadoes that I was fortunate enough not to be affected by, but right now I'm so spooked and bitter that I'm holding out from donating any funds. And Lord knows I don't have any time to donate right now. And I feel bad that I feel this way. But my faith level is almost nonexistent right now.

Kiyosaki maintains charitable giving is important because somehow it seems to pay forward and I tend to agree with him, but right now I just can't get behind it. It kind of sucks.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
On a related note, I get a weekly newsletter from Sen Rand Paul. And while I may agree with the man on many things--and have a fair amount in common with him--DAMN, his newletters are fucking dry and nerdy. As a nerd, they still make me want to stick his head in the toilet and give him a swirly. And a newsletter on disaster relief is especially dry and nerdy and painful.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
Wage slave chronicles: I take a clinical interest in seeing how far into the day I can get before my initiative and motivation are destroyed.

"You know, I'm actually caught up on administrative stuff. Today's only a half-day for me, but once I get through the 392 e-mails that will be in my inbox, I may actually be able to tackle one of the items on my plate right now. I think I'll start with the one where I need to sort data by the first digit of a 5 digit string and assign it to a group from that. I figured a similar thing out a few months ago so I can probably look at that workflow to see how to do it. Then I can recompile 2 years worth of data because of the new field and then edit the final product to include the new data."

[Inbox contains about a dozen e-mails for online meetings with subject lines like: "Worksight Training = Sub: RCPO Load (cost to R12 WebADI - Calmac and Ft Smith," along with a new Wrike task with a similarly riveting subject line and the note : "Need ASAP...see me with questions."]

Aaand I'm off to play some Solitaire and bitch about how much I hate my life here.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
So. The Wrike task. It has the completeness of a blueprint written on a cocktail napkin on a Friday night. I'm able to make guesses about most of the data, but 2 fields completely stump me. So I "see [him] with questions." He tells me what to put in those 2 fields--only neither is an existing option. So...you know what? Fuck it. So I put them in. It's a 2,000+ item checklist, but fuck it, apparently this is a brand new category of item. (I should mention, I already tried to infer what should go in the fields, but neither the person assigned nor the person I'm supposed to send confirmation to has any items in the 2,000+ item checklist.) And when I said who I was going to put for "Manager" he said "no, not them." But didn't give me anyone else to put down. I hate this fucking job so much.

Everything in my life was great at the end of February and things just started going to shit by the middle of March. 2 more weeks left in this year. Let's see how many more times I can get kicked while I'm down.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
There was an Air Force officer named Boyd who studied Korean War dogfights and developed the concept of the Boyd Cycle or OODA Loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act). The theory is that, in a competition, whoever can move through a reiterative OODA Loop the most quickly will force his opponent's decisions to be increasingly out of phase with what should actually be done, causing them to lose. The Marine Corps is a big proponent of the OODA Loop.

And boy, does this job short circuit my OODA Loop. I never have the information to do anything I'm supposed to do and by the time I track that down, I've got 3 more things that need my attention. Before long I get to the point where I'm like "fuck it, whatever. Just got to run down the clock for 40 more minutes today."
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
I've gotten soft and weak. Saw a photo that was not flattering at all and saw myself in the hall mirror the next day and realized how flabby I've let myself get. I plan to get some running shoes ASAP and get back to running really for the first time since my dog's back injury--around 9 years ago. In the mean time I've been doing push-ups and crunches. I should be mixing in pull-up and sit-up days to mix up the muscle groups just a little. But, baby steps. When I'm training I'll do a rotation: Pyramids--1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1--one day, 5 sets of 3 the next day, and then 3 max sets the next day. (The number is for pull-ups. Multiply by 4 for push-ups and by 5 for crunches.) It's actually been so long I forgot my metrics and thought it was 7 pushups for each pullup and was worried because doing 7, 14, 21 just about killed me. I'm not in as terrible shape as I thought I was. But still, I gotta stick to it.

Why exercise? Because I've gotten soft and weak, but also because I physically and mentally can't do this work for my friend anymore. I've been telling him this for months and he hasn't let me out of it, so I feel no guilt for getting very little accomplished while I'm on the clock. But it's like, I'll manage to read some e-mails. Then I need to fuck off here. Or I'll update the Sharepoint checklist and then go do a set of exercises. Meanwhile, I periodically get cc'ed on a notice that my network access will automatically be deleted by IT on the 31st.

When my dog was young and I'd take her to the beach, the first thing she'd do is find the biggest log she could drag and bring it to me. Then I'd spend about an hour throwing it out into the water for her to bring back. She'd do this basically until she was almost too tired to walk anymore. And at that point, instead of dragging it back to me, she'd drag it to some point behind me (as we walked along the beach) and she'd just "accidentally" drop it and not notice she'd dropped it. "What? That log? I dunno what happened to it." Then it would be time to go home. I mention this because that's kind of the way I feel about these notification e-mails. I probably should call them to my friend's attention, but I'm just going to kind of not notice them and hope that on the 1st I don't have access to the network and it will be simpler to just end my contract than get everything turned back on. I feel a little guilty about this, but really, I am only cc'ed. The e-mails ARE going to my friend. And part of me is kind of hoping he's doing the same thing as my dog--"Oh, you lost access? Crap. Well, I guess we'll wrap up the contract rather than spend 2 months getting everything set up again."

I really need to get back to my life. And I absolutely need to stop doing this job. Of course with my luck the Biden vaccine mandate will be upheld and I'll have to leave my other job and my existing tenant will no longer be able to make rent so I'll have to evict him so I'll wind up drawing down the cash I've stockpiled to go towards my next rental purchase. Oh well, I'll make it work.

Now I should either go look at open work tickets or bang out some more crunches.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
Hurray. While I was typing this, I got assigned a new, insanely complex task that I don't know how to do. I mean, I know how to do it. I need to access a database, enter the appropriate SQL code, run it, and compare the output with what is expected.

Except I don't know which database I'm supposed to access or how to write a SQL query, so I'll have to get someone else in a call so they can walk me through the process step-by-step so that the next time I still won't know which database to access because I can't just look at a ticket and go "Oh, product codes. I'll need to go to DRTRNP for that. And then alter the SQL code this way," so instead I'll have to get someone else in a call so they can walk me through the process step-by-step. Again.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
I've got some time to kill. I'm caught up on my reading. And haven't found more reading. But I also don't want to be challenged. It's a conundrum.

I'm caught up on my reading. Had a book I wanted. So I thought I'd go to the local bookstore and see if they had it. The local bookstore is nothing like Powell's City of Books. They absolutely did NOT have it. And I haven't gotten around to ordering it yet. So I had some time to kill.

Before she had us, my Mom monkeyed with a guitar a bit, so when I lived in Hawai'i, I got my Mom a ukulele. After she died I got it and, in spite of having a very time-intensive dog, I mostly learned to play it. Then I got busy and mostly forgot. Back when Rubik's Cubes were a thing, I couldn't figure them out. I know there were people who could. I got a book that taught me how to and I learned to solve them. But that was a long time ago and I've since forgotten. So when I saw a Rubik's Cube in the store a few years ago I picked one up. I got close to solving it before getting sidetracked.

So. Time to kill. No book. Picked up the Rubik's Cube. Forgot everything I'd relearned so I just chucked it and started fresh. But then it was making my brain hurt. That happens enough during the day so I went and got the uke instead. But even that seemed like work.

Once my TV shows were over, I banged out an easy Sudoku and looked at some LOLcats and some Facebook. I still had some time to kill. I've been working on finally getting through the Bible, but the reward for slogging through Leviticus: "Here are the 37 ways to tell if someone has leprosy during the Bronze Age. I am Yahweh, your God." I was rewarded with...Numbers: "Here are how many males over the age of 2 are in the tribe of Dimsum. They should camp to the NorthEast of the Tent of Worship. And when you move, they should collect up the tentpoles, pegs, and rugs and bring them along to the next location. I am Yahweh, you're God." Riveting stuff.

I also recently got around to reading Edgar Rice Burroughs' "A Princess of Mars." Started on the first of the sequels. And it's much less dry than the Bible, but my heart just wasn't in it. As much as I thought I wanted a sequel, actually getting one is kind of a letdown. The original had huge plot holes in it, but you paper over them for an entertaining story. But once you get to sequels, they plot holes get harder and harder to gloss over. Oh well, maybe YouTube will entertain me.

Oh. I should bang out one more set of exercises. True, it took the entire day to get (mostly) through them, and I did the barest minimum of exercises, but I'm getting back into it. Which is good. Because otherwise I'm going to have to start wearing mumus or some shit.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
Thursday. My day to TCB. Last Thursday I was supposed to do desk work--calling plumbers and property managers etc; looking for better health insurance options, etc--but I wanted to go work on the vacant rental; clean out the garage, maybe do some raking. So I really should tackle that today. But it's easy to say "well, it's too close to Christmas. Everyone will be out and on vacation. And even if they aren't, they won't want to schedule anything until after New Years." So there's a decent chance that I'll do other things. Things that also need to be done, but that could be done on Friday. Or next week. I dunno. We'll see.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
Went ahead and did what I was supposed to do. Mostly. At first it started out bad and I thought I was wasting my time and getting ready to be disappointed, but then things got rolling. By lunchtime I thought I had everything checked off for now and could get on to things that are less tiring for an introvert. But I see I got an e-mail back to give someone a call, so the ball is back in my court. And since I don't want to look like a flake, I'd better give them a call. Have to get up the energy for that.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
Well I'm not terribly introverted. I'm close to the crossover--but far enough on testing that I'll never ever test as an extrovert. And having been a Marine officer forced me to learn some coping mechanisms. I've studied acting--not terribly good at it--but I'm familiar with it--so I can get through a difficult situation by "playing" an extrovert or a confident decisive person*. I also did Toastmasters for many years and that helps a lot. And then, like I said in the other thread, I've done enough unpleasant things that cold calling someone is mild by comparison. Still, it took about 2 1/2 hours to work up the energy to make the phone call. And while the call went very well, now I have to spend some time recovering from it. Luckily I've got some housecleaning to do; maybe some exercise. Plenty of things to recharge for tomorrow/the rest of the day.

The Plan was to go over and do some landscape work, but 4:15pm on an overcast December day in northern Kentucky is dark enough already that I feel like by the time I get my stuff together and get over there, I won't have any time to actually work.

*True story. It took 2 tries to get through OCS because I broke my leg halfway through the first time. Now for OCS they don't just let you heal up and send you back through. They give you a plane ticket and a train ticket and a pair of crutches and drop you off at the train station and say "best of luck, sorry it didn't work out. Stop by the local office when you get home to fill out the rest of the paperwork." A year or 2 later I decided my current Plan wasn't working and the reasons I'd applied to be a Marine still stood, so I reapplied and got in. Being older and wiser and knowing what to expect helped buffer me the second time. But the first time? I was very...unsure? We'll say unsure of myself; easily flustered or rattled too. So they put me in jobs where I had to overcome that to see if I'd be able to. I was the Candidate Company First Sergeant, so I had to keep a roster, direct the class where they were supposed to be next, and report them in at each location. So I thought "how would Captain Kirk act in this situation?" and literally played Captain Kirk for the 2 days I was stuck in the job (not the speech mannerisms, just the confidence and bearing). And I'd find some place to hide a few times a day and go "Only 12 more times I need to do this today." "Only 11 more times I need to do this today."
 
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Loktar

Pinata Whacker
I took a Dale Carnegie leadership class and I still as my boss at my current job told me "suck at talking to people on the phone." I don't know why they hired me. I guess I faked enough confidence at the interview. I'm just lucky they found me a position doing correspondence and answering emails or I'd be back working retail. Don't know how I didn't get fired from that job. I was the quietest cashier. Hardly spoke to my customers.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
By quantifiable measures, a wasted day today. The Plan was to get over and hopefully finish up landscape things on the vacant rental. Instead I slept in by almost 90 minutes. Then I exercised while screwing off on line in between sets until lunch. Next I had a nap and then worked up the energy to go for the first real run I've done in maybe 9 years. Last night I picked up some running shoes. That in itself was a saga. Used to be, you went down to the mall and went to Footlocker and bought a pair of running shoes. It's nowhere near that simple these days. But that's another story. Maybe I'll paste it from Facebook later. The point is, I went for a "run."

Awhile back I found a trail. About 2 miles down to the river; 4 round trip. Takes me 80 minutes to hike the whole route. I'd hoped it could be done in an hour. So today I "ran" it. Took 55 minutes. Started out well but after about 5 blocks I was noticeably winded and after 6 minutes I had to slow to a walk. I made it to the river by walking 3 minutes for every 4 I ran. Home again was even slower. By the time I got done, I was running out of daylight and now that I'm recovered it's too late to go do outdoor work--even if I weren't so tired. I could do some house cleaning, but even that sounds like a lot of work so I'm trying to just run down the clock until it's time for dinner and television watching.

That said, as I said at the start, "by quantifiable measures." Sometimes you just need to take a day off and Christmas Eve seems as good a day as any. And I've got to get back in shape--rebuild my conditioning and lose about 15#. I'm not going to do that unless I get back into a routine of exercising. So it really wasn't a wasted day.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
I'm about 20# overweight. 15#, I'd be happy with. 25# and I'd be in top shape. Heavier than I've been in my life (only by a pound or two, but still...). The last time I was this heavy was when I was in a job I hated too. And it fits perfectly in with the way the second half of this year has gone--having to stop forward progress and fix things I thought were done. It's very Dale Gribble weight gain--as far as I can tell, it's all belly fat. And it got packed on starting around the end of October. Round belly where I can't see my dick without sucking in my gut. It kind of sneaks up on you, because straight on, you look...OK. And if you suck in your guy you look...OK. But a week or two ago, someone took some candid snapshots of me that were, frankly, horrifying. And a few days later, seeing myself in the mirror I was like "crap." So I'm running and exercising again. May have to adjust my diet.

The reason I mention all this is, lately I've been waking up around 4am like clockwork. Have to go to the bathroom. But then I can't get back to sleep and eventually go and pinch out a dump. And last night it occurred to me the weight might be playing a role. I've got this extra weight and mass directly over my guts and it makes me uncomfortable and reduces bladder/bowel capacity. Shit, I'm not looking forward to getting old. At this point I'm still young enough to be able to (mostly and hopefully) claw back youth and health. But as time goes by...

I was curious for a frame of reference. I'm about the age Arnold was when he did "Eraser"--just before he became California governor. He looks good still in that movie, but I can't help noticing he never takes his shirt off. And he always wears a dark colored shirt to boot. He just does not have the body at that point that he had in, say, his "Predator" days. Or even T2.
 

Loktar

Pinata Whacker
I'm about 70# overweight. I'm too lazy to get in shape on my own, but luckily I have a good friend who has made his mission to help me with my diet and exercise and finally get laid in 2022.

 
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