Won't4GetUNotes

What is wrong with wanting to have a job? I have been an independent business person since before I could work legally. Delivering newspapers, mowing lawns, babysitting little kids and mucking horse stalls. 45 years later it’s business advising, marketing, digital strategy – and implementing all the things. I’m a one person agency again and I’m not happy about it.

I hung that up formally in 2022 for the promise of a role I wanted in a (seemingly) growing company only to find out it was in total bullshit. How could I have been so naive after decades of work? Rhetorical. There’s no good answer.

So, no job. But there’s work. Work to find work. Work to keep a little inbound cash flow from drying up. Work to describe the work. Then doing all the fucking shit.

Not pleased but yeah, I’m grateful. But. What a fucked up state of affairs.

Shoulda been a software engineer.

October 2023. What happened on the 7th seems to have faded from consciousness. The world didn’t stop. It didn’t even help. It did stop for more than one thousand humans.

No haiku after that day.

October the 7th was the last.

My haiku for today, Monday April 15 2024:

I get up again

Prefer the cat and covers

Reality bites.

The pit of despair is visible. It’s just below this rickety ass, cobbled together rope bridge. I think I’m in the middle of it. But the bridge is long and the pit, deep.

It’s tough not to think, jump. Just check it out. Maybe the water is fine. If water is what’s down there.

I’m supposed to care about things. I know that. What if I just don’t. And never will, ever again. It’s possible.

Maybe I’ve hit the pit after all.

Apathetic.

Bummed.

Competent.

Despondent.

Everywhere.

Today I kept myself entertained sane awake interested busy from thinking by making paper lanterns. Sorta – all I really did was burn gas buy stuff at Michael’s. But if putting two tea lights in small bags I poked holes in using a nail counts as making them, I’ll take it.

They’re cute, pretty and I like the flicker of the fake candles. Dig the way this Hipstamatic image makes it look like my curtains are about to burn up. Kidding. No fire. LED all the way. Two per bag. One white, one ivory.

Good vibes only.

Daniel Schmachtenberger talks. His POV collides with Tristan Harris and Center for Humane Technology. I wonder if they’ve talked. So many things overlap.

“History written by the winners turns into a naive progress narrative where the things that won get measured and all the things that get destroyed don’t. Where was the cost externalized?”

“…study some theory of mind, you won’t find a definition of consciousness that does not require the definition of attention as fundamental.”

No not the Taylor Swift album, mine. My midnights have been wide awake, slow, droning and even include the occasional earthquake.

I didn’t feel last nights tiny shake. it was pretty far north plus, different fault lines.

Midnight’s when I wake up if I’m awake. Or when I fall deeper if I’m sleeping. Lately, even TC is snoozing at midnight. And sometimes noon. Maybe it doesn’t matter. But midnights sounds better and more mysterious than middays.

At least today we’re awake and vertical at an AM hour. Not bad. Next thing to try and care about is finding work. Or a golden ticket.

My moms mom used to say god is love. Seems right. I’m not a believer in a god. No way. There is no one coming to save or smote us. We all have to find the love. Stop the fucking hate. Please. Before it’s too late.

Started super small Mr. Tiny Cat (Tiny Blue Catzilla) aka TC.

Less than 18 months and I’m staring down the dark tunnel of another job search. If the anger pinning me down could become a propellant. I sometimes can’t see the in between spaces but right now only the demoralization and inhumane bullshit are punched into focus.

What. The. Fuck. How many times am I gonna have to do this. It’s not a question. It’s an endless proposition. Every time it’s like climbing onto the Wonder Wheel long after it’s been condemned and closed for fun.

The same rickety job applications – Applicant Tracking Systems – that have to be entered into hunks of software that are painful to use, at best and at worst, can cost one some sanity and compassion.

It makes me say oooooo fuuuuck you. To the tune of some catchy, four-on-the-floor pop song. It also sends me into a dark zone in my mind I don’t dare describe.

It ain’t pretty, neither am I and I’ll be damn lucky to find a new way to make money.

I just noticed that idiom and idiot are just one letter different. I’ll go back to that in a minute but for now, I want to capture a few american-isms that don’t make much sense. If you’re talking with someone who isn’t american, don’t use them and if you do, pause to describe what the fuck it means.

For example, today I said “take it with a grain of salt” to someone who is perfectly fluent in English but I could tell that the phrase didn’t land. Same thing with the phrase “take that to the bank”. Because it’s 2023, I can get instant answers to the question of phrase origin.

Take That To The Bank. It’s used when the speaker knows something for sure. According to the interwebs, it was also used in the days when one had to take a paper check to the bank and when Robert Blake was on TV in the 1970’s selling motor oil.

Take It With A Grain Of Salt. That phrase is often used when the speaker means, eh, it’s no big deal. According to Wikipedia, the origin isn’t that bland. It reads:

To take something with a “grain of salt” or “pinch of salt” is an English idiom that suggests to view something, specifically claims that may be misleading or unverified, with skepticism or to not interpret something literally.

Not quite what I thought it meant. I’ll pause on adding others because I want to go back to this idio(m) idio(t) thing.

What up with that?

Of course, like Mr. Portokalos said, the origin is Greek. They come from the same root: “idios” which in ancient Greek meant “of one’s own” or “private”. The original meaning of an idiot was someone not interested in public affairs (considered a key duty in ancient Athens and perhaps a notion we should revive in modern democracies).

ob·sess
/əbˈses/

A couple of odd messages.

On my walk yesterday, I noticed things as usual. A Dunder Mifflin sticker, a few license plates, street signs and flowers. I stopped to smell blooms of all kinds. Said hello to a handful of other humans walking around the neighborhood.

The level of chaos and dysfunction where I work now makes me want to quit without a backup plan. I’ve done it before but I’m trying to stick it out for the money. I know it’s bullshit but I don’t feel like there are many options. It’s a privileged way to live. So I’ll be taking more walks, smelling more flowers, playing and listening to more music.

It’s tiring to have to push against the dead weight of dysfunction. I know 2+2=4 even though some would have you believe 2+2=fucking sneaker.

Yes. It’s that bad. It’s also sad because when dysfunction like this is allowed to exist not to mention fester, the good people constantly leave.

I’m going to look for a way to teach, no fucking boot camp bullshit, community college seems like it’d be a good direction. Huge pay cut. But I like helping students learn and I’ve been told I’m pretty good at it so maybe I’ll be the one leaving next.

I’d say “I hope so” but hope is just another four letter word and it sure as fuck ain’t a strategy or a tactic.

Good luck to humanity. And me.

Corporate is soul crushing. Didn’t have to be this way as we Claremont/Drucker folk well know. Especially publicly traded entities. At this point I’d rather work for a government agency, maybe even back to academia. No money but at least there’s less utter bullshit.

When it comes to building software, especially the stuff we need the most, shit that’s not fucking sexy, a word I despise when applied to tech, we have become so collectively dumb it’s like a bullshit bubble. Will the fucker burst or do we have to have more meltdowns like Southwest and others who have flown under the radar.

Product management is bullshit. Agile is hardly a thing. Scrum is garbage. Yes, I’m generalizing based on decades of experience. And yes, that shit can work when done properly.

Give me back the other (old?!) stuff.

Business analysis. Projects managed and led by expert generalists. Requirements documented – in words – technical, functional, architectural. Annotated wireframes. Working prototypes. Specialists – creative, design, engineering. Teams built on relationships. Culture grows around how work gets done.

Just like Drucker said ‘culture east strategy for breakfast’ but I’d also like to point out that a strategy cannot include hope as a tactic cuz all that does is create an environment without clear direction on how to accomplish much other than have a lotta movement. Might be movement in the right direction but how do you know? Drucker had one for that, too. Work on the right things at the right time. Topics for another day.

Anniversary. I miss you.