Indigo
Writing: Articles and fiction written by this and other citizens.
...and other tales from the trenches
Dec 10, 2007
A few years ago, just as the economy was recovering from the dot-com crash, I worked for a company as a document production person. In some ways, it was below my ability level, as document production is fairly routine. In others, I was starting from ground zero: it used a software tool with which I’d previously had about four months’ worth of experience, and the job required some advanced knowledge of the tool. It wasn’t in any kind of career path I wanted to follow, it wasn’t at a company that made me think, “Wow, this will look good on my resume and teach me a lot of things.” It was just a way to get a paycheck.
I loathed this job. Not because of the duties — but because of the boss. This person was not a good boss. They had been promoted to their personal level of discomfort, and left to make their way as best they can (it was the same all the way up the line. You know that anecdote about “turtles all the way down”? Well, this company was “lobotomized ostriches all the way up”.) It wasn’t the worst way to get a paycheck, but there wasn’t much future in it…not only did the company have a reputation for burning out its employees, but if I had gotten promoted, I wouldn’t have been any closer to anything resembling clear information.
I left that job after just over two years (I actually had an interview on my two-year anniversary). I stayed as long as I did not because I wanted a career change, nor because there were no other jobs (at about the one-year mark, things were really picking up. I probably could have found something else fairly easily.) I stayed put because of my co-workers. I’ve had jobs before where I’ve had good co-workers, competent co-workers, co-workers with whom I may grab the occasional bit of lunch. However, I hadn’t ever worked in a place where I liked and really strongly respected just about all of the others in my group. These people were not just competent, they were scathingly competent (and yes, I know that’s a weird word pairing, but work with me here. I’m still on my first coffee of the day.) Everyone in the group was busy — at times ridiculously so — but everyone in the group had time to answer questions. We shared tips and tricks for the software packages we used. What one person in the team knew, the others stood a good chance of learning. It was like working with geeks: as long as the question showed that you put some thought into it, it got answered and answered well. And did I mention “scathingly competent”? Our most productive times were when the boss was working from home, or from another location: when Boss-thing was out on vacation for two weeks, then immediately went to another continent and worked out of an office there for another two weeks, we worked more efficiently than when the boss was present.
We also got on fairly good. I’d go into work dreading the astigmatic-Janus behavior of the Boss-thing; but I’d also be looking forward to finding out how T’s kids’ latest antics, or talking with C about geeky stuff, or sharing jokes with D and V. We griped and grumbled and shared horror stories when we were working together, and passed work back and forth (as the group’s “floater”, I helped anyone that needed helping. I did a lot of copy-paste, manual data checking, minor edits, and spellchecking…but at some point, I worked with everyone in the group.) We’ve been to picnics and gatherings at each others’ places, we’ve been out to dinner as a group, we’ve had several lunches since we started trickling away. Even though one of us has moved to a noncontiguous state, we all still stay in touch. It’s pretty cool. I got my current gig because of knowing these folks, and I may pick up a contract gig through my connection with another. This is the first time in my life that I’ve actually gotten work through networking with former co-workers. I’d also happily work with any of these people again…or all of them. (Just not Boss-thing, please.) While almost all of us can think of a co-worker or five with whom we’d work again, how many times in our careers can we honestly say, “Yeah - I’d love to work with that whole team again, any time”? I learned a lot from these folks, and really enjoyed working with them.
The one thing I miss about not living where I used to live is that it’s that much harder to get together with these folks for lunch. It didn’t happen often (maybe once every two months?), but we did enjoy the chance to catch up…and reminisce about some of the horror stories from Ye Olde Hellhole. We even had plenty that didn’t involve Boss-thing (pseudo-random bit stream? clockblock? multi-warhead? dinning room? bad perm?).
Maybe when I head back there this summer I’ll see if folks are able and amenable to a lunch meeting?
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Step away from the frozen foods.
Dec 09, 2007
Mom-thing didn’t like to cook. Point of fact, she didn’t know how to cook when she got married. She did teach both me and my sib the basics of cooking (the basics being “meat + vegetable + breadything = balanced meal”), but beyond that, food and the preparation thereof was always something of a chore. From my end, eating was never much fun, either. Dinner interrupted my playtime, and since I never really saw Mom-thing enjoy cooking, I didn’t enjoy eating. It held as much appeal as dusting (a chore I got to learn at an early age. My strong dislike for curlicued, detailed furniture stems directly from having to dust all that crap when I was a smallhuman.) As a result, when I moved out on my own, my experience at keeping myself fed was limited to soup, fast food, or very simple things that I could microwave. I never really learned how to think about combining ingredients to achieve a particular result, or even how to make minor changes in a dish using different spices. In HTML terms, I knew how to use the most basic features of FrontPage, but anything else was far beyond my abilities. Knowing that, it’s perhaps not so surprising that I’m only now beginning to look up recipes on the internet and, occasionally, try them out.
I love salmon, so shortly after I moved in I bought a salmon fillet, found a relatively simple recipe, and tried it out. Not only did I not injure myself or burn anything, it actually turned out well. (Sadly, I cannot justify eating salmon every night…and realistically, I’d probably get sick of it fairly quickly.) I’m still eating a bit more ready-meals and nukiefood than I really should, but…baby steps.
One of my other food-cheats is to buy a rotisserie chicken, strip off all the meat, and have chicken sandwiches and salads for the next few days. I did this last week, and Fog was delighted. She stayed right by my feet, talking to me the whole time. When I say “talking”, I mean just that. She sounded like one of those cheap dolls that says “mama” whenever you turn it upside down…except that, being a cheaper model, you don’t get much in the way of accurate consonants. The second time she did this, I gave her some of the chicken skin. (In hindsight, this was a mistake, as Fog now believes that she has made progress in my training program and gets quite upset whenever my behavior regresses.)
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...or whatever they're calling it now.
Dec 04, 2007
I am a grown person. I have a bank account, checkbook, credit card, all that crap. I own a car. I pay my taxes. (I don't help my landlady with her garbage.) My personal weakness is writing instruments: pens, markers, gel pens, glitter pens, metallic inks, rich jeweltoned pigments with or without embellishment. Adults are quite able to buy pens — even colored pens — and no one thinks a thing of it. But just let an adult step up to the register with a box of crayons and people will wonder which child will be receiving them, and what for (birthday? completing their chores? eating their vegetables? an improved report card? what?)
Damn you, people, those are MY crayons!!!
I've always loved coloring. I'm not talking your standard children's coloring books, with houses and kids playing and toy balls and twee pet animals. No. The more simplistic, the less interested I was. When I was about 7, an aunt and uncle gave me Altair Designs and a set of markers for my birthday, and I was over the moon. Altair Designs weren't merely intricate, they were abstract - utterly abstract, geometric designs. Sure, I could have 'found' regular figures like monkeys and trees and so forth. I preferred to pick out other patterns. I'd spend hours meditating on what patterns to bring to the fore, what colors to use, how to elaborate on the design I'd started the previous day. A few years later I received some other coloring books — now utterly lost to history, I don't even remember the titles — with fanciful designs of alien landscapes, Escheresque patterns of stylized dragonflies or overlapping octopods, and utterly odd, off-the-wall drawings that, when colored, would either send psychoanalysts into fits of fearful twitching or given a psychology student a fairly good dissertation topic.
Coloring remains my favorite meditation-relaxation technique. It lets me be still; it keeps me thinking; it engages enough of my imagination-brain to keep me from being bored but not enough to make me feel distracted, overwhelmed, or busy; it lets me work through whatever issues I have lingering in my subconscious; and sometimes I come up with extremely cool things. I prefer markers (Pentel, set of 36) because of the smooth delivery and even distribution of pigments...but some times, crayons are the best tools to use. I own several boxes: one of 120, and two of 96. I managed to get some sets before Crayola went on the renaming binges of the 1990s, so I actually own crayons with the following names (now of hallowed memory):
- burnt sienna
- raw umber
- brick red (okay, I give up...why'd they change this color's name?!??)
- blue grey
- mulberry
- thistle
- violet blue
I think that some of the 'new color names' are just too faddish, abstracted, or twee. Mauvelous? Razzmatazz? They sound like rejected nicknames for Mouseketeers. Is 'tumbleweed' a dry, dead tannish, or slightly yellow-white? Tickle Me Pink? That one's straight out of Crayolas: the Porno Edition. These color names do not belong in any box I will ever own. They are Plain D. Wrong.
I tend to color while sitting in my living room, the paper on my lap desk and the markers beside me. I'll sometimes go outside, though, if there's a park close by. Once I tried coloring at a coffee shop, but got too many odd stares from other adults on their way to work (and one slightly jealous glance from a girl of 10 or 11 who, apparently, didn't read the subclause stating that coloring is never, ever not cool.) If you ever spot me sitting and coloring, feel free to pull up a chair and join me. It's a great way to relax, I don't criticize anyone's coloring technique or chosen medium, and there's no lines or traffic.
Just don't break any of my crayons.
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The two songs that actually have English lyrics, that is...
Jul 20, 2007
Feast of Silence
There is a storm coming
And it is headed straight for our shore
Hold on to your heart
I’ve seen the signs before
How wicked these hours
These time we’ve seen before
How we built these odes
To our God
Wasting our tears
And chasing our fears
I look at these
And wish this was gone
Don’t say another word
Some things are better kept silent
Don’t say another word
Leave in silence, let me live in this silence
There is nothing left
In this beggar’s hands
I gave like I give
To my God
But nothing is sacred
Within these walls
That I built, and you built
In our shame, in our fear
In this room
Full of yesterday’s ghosts
Who am I, I ask
As I shatter and fall
Don’t say another word
Some things are better kept silent
Don’t say another word
Leave in silence, let me live in this silence
Let me feast in this silence
The Reaper and the Flowers
There is a reaper, whose name is Death
And, with his sickle keen
He reaps the bearded grain at a breath
And the flowers that grow between
And the flowers that grow between
“Shall I have naught that is fair?”, saith he
“Have naught but the bearded grain?
Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me
I will give them all back again.”
He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes
He kissed their drooping leaves;
It was for the lord of paradise
He bound them in his sheaves
“My Lord has need of these flowerets gay”,
The Reaper said and smiled;
“Dear tokens of the earth are they
Where he was once a child
They shall all bloom in fields of light
Transplanted by my care
And saints, upon their garments white,
These sacred blossoms wear.”
And the mother gave, in tears and pain,
The flowers she most did love
She knew she would find them all again
In the fields of light above
Oh, not in cruelty, not in wrath
The Reaper came that day
‘twas an angel visited the green earth
And took the flowers away
‘twas an angel visited the green earth
And took the flowers away…
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...and the living is easy. (Relatively.)
May 10, 2007
Iteration 05/09/07 || Thursday Thirteen 92::28: Summertime
This post covers both Iterations and Thursday Thirteen. Why? Because my back is sore, I didn't get either of those posts done on time, and with 26 consecutive weeks of Thursday Thirteen posts, I'm taking a "week off". Sort of.
Even in California, the seasons change. The signs are just a bit more subtle than, say, Ohio or Virginia.
- Apples. I can now be extremely lazy and buy a container of sliced apples...then totally ruin any and all health benefits by dipping them in caramel. A good, if potentially messy, snack.
- Good weather for walking...at least, before 10 in the morning. After that point, it heats up quite a bit. Still, even in the midst of Smogville, it's good to start the morning by walking around the block.
- The trees are all bright green, and full-leaved. I am once again living in a “treehouse”.
- Living in a treehouse + having the windows open = wonderful, fresh-smelling home.
- The pool is open. And since I'm working from home, I can use it in the middle of the day when the kiddies are still at school. (Though, technically, that does count as a break. Ah, well...such is life.)
- It's warm enough for me to sit on my patio in the evenings, reading a book. (Speaking of which, have any of you ever seen or heard of the Book Owl? It's a little clip-on book light that's smaller than a cell phone and costs only slightly more than a venti frappucino at $tarbuck$. Reading light without the generated heat. There's a winner right there...especially when I want to keep my apartment cool, and don't really need to see much more than the pages in front of me.)
- Shakespeare in the Park. If you're fortunate enough to live in an area that has something like this, go attend a play. Up in Seattle, Greenstage puts on free performances every weekend beginning in July. The locations vary, as do the plays - usually they do one history, one comedy. My friend's auditioning again this year, and if she makes the company again I'll catch the performance when I visit there the last week in July.
- My upcoming vacations: one up to Seattle, one a month later to Atlanta. Yes, I'm voluntarily going to Atlanta GA during hurricane season. That's when DragonCon is held, every year. (Last year, a bunch of people arrived to find that FEMA had appropriated their hotel rooms. The FEMAFolk were waiting for a hurricane to strike the Gulf Coast. It never did. The Atlanta Marriott lost a bunch of revenue that weekend because by the time FEMA decamped, people had found other rooms and were disinclined to move, even if those other lodgings were farther away from the convention venue. Hell hath no fury like a torqued-off science fiction geek.)
- Longer days. Some folks in my family suffer markedly from SAD, but I haven't really had that problem. I just like the earlier mornings and longer afternoons.
- Clearance sales. Yes, it's incredibly stupid. But the Mother's Day, Labor Day, Summer, White, and Back-to-School sales mean that, if I plan things carefully enough, I can get most of my clothing replaced without having to pay full price. (I have extra levels in Strategic Shopping.)
- I am going to miss being able to burn candles whenever I want. They generate extra heat...and I really don't need that. I love candlelight, though. I think this winter, I may try living as much by candlelight as possible...not for the energy savings, but for the ambience.
- I'm also going to miss enjoying a mug of hot coffee while wrapped up in an afghan, reading a book. Though, to be fair, in winter I miss being able to sit out on my patio and read a book. Tradeoffs abound...
And because this post gets to do double-duty...
- What do you enjoy most about summer? What are you looking forward to?
Other Participants (...or, sites I intend to visit later)
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Situation Sunday #5
May 07, 2007
- You work in a busy doctor's office. You are a receptionist. You have overheard the doctor telling this guy he has caught a venereal disease. And it is untreatable. You recognize the guy as a neighbor. Deep down you know the guy will never mention it to his wife. Do you bring up the subject with his wife as you are talking?
This is a sticky one. If it's someone I know only casually (and for me, that defines most of my neighbors — I barely know their names, and I'm fine with that, I'm not incredibly social), I may drop a pamphlet in their mailbox or near their door that lists common information about the venereal disease in question. I will not go over to their place specifically to say anything. And since I don't chat with my neighbors very much (since I rarely see them, actually) there won't be other opportunities to pass on the news. Besides, if the guy has a venereal disease and he's not going to tell his partner, that relationship has a whole lot more problems than I'm able to fix. (So maybe I'll drop off my aunt's card, as well as the pamphlet on STDs. My aunt is a marriage and family therapist.)
- Your going on a first date, the guy/girl picks a very inexpensive place to eat. During the whole date, they tell you how they have been divorced twice, filed bankruptcy last month. Every thing is negative, you can't wait to get the hell out of there and go home. The bill arrives and they pay for it, and leave no tip. The next day flowers arrive for you, followed by numerous phone calls stating what a great time they had. Wondering when you want to go out again. How do you handle it?
Upon initial reading, that tale speaks of a needy person to me. Then again, everyone has a bad day — and that's what this person could have been having. I may go on a second date with this person, but I'd probably suggest that we meet in a group of friends. That would lessen the social and financial pressure for all parties. If my 'date' chose to be gracious and pay for my coffee, that would be fine - but this meeting in a group of friends would essentially give me a chance to see this person interact with others. This could also give me a good way to not be the sole focus of conversation. (Depending on how many times this person called me, though, I might warn my friends not to give out their contact information.) If this second meeting did not go well, I'd contact them afterwards and politely tell them that while I may have enjoyed hanging out with them and their friends, I didn't really feel like there was any closer connection between us. (Unless, of course, the guy was an utter doof. Then I'd skip the part about how I enjoyed hanging out with him and his friends, and just say that I didn't really feel like we hit it off too well, and that I wished him better luck finding someone special. If they called me back after that, I'd request that we not keep in touch. If they kept calling me back, I'd warn them that I felt like I was being harassed. If they still kept calling, I might start taking other actions...like blocking them from calling my number.)
- Your mother is on her death bed, she calls you in. She tells you that your real father is the mailman, he does not know nor does your father, as she starts to tell you more details, she dies. How do you handle what she has told you, and what do you do if anything?
At this point, this new guy is only my biological male parent. The man who raised me, the man who carried me on his shoulders, the man who took me to Star Wars when my mother flat-out refused...that's my dad, in every important sense. The person who contributed the spermatazoa? I just found out about him. I'd speak with him, telling him that I wanted to get a family health history, to make sure I didn't have any health-related timebombs lurking in my genetic code that would jump out and schmack me later in my life; and if he wanted to keep in contact I wouldn't necessarily forbid it; but I wouldn't consider him my father.
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