Unhappy Camper

Hi Ho, Hi Ho

Blog Note: The following would not necessarily work for every commercial enterprise--at least, not without a lot of reconfiguration. And I am not referring to those whose work involves saving lives or building infrastructure. I'm thinking more along the lines of those who found Office Space a little too familiar.

The 8-hour workday was fought for through the latter part of the 1700s, and through most of the 1800s, in various parts of the developed world. The slogan for the cause: "Eight hours labour, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest." (Of course, this is down from 10-16 hours of work per day of often very physical labor in the poor working conditions imposed by industry.) Nowadays, not everything is done painstakingly by hand; we have automation and office-specific software to streamline workflow; and (possibly because of all of that) we seem to consider it some kind of badge of honor to put in more than the standard 8 hours a day--wow, you must be very important--though what it really means is that you have little or no life beyond work. And some people thrive that way, and that's great.

For the non-workaholic set (life-aholics?), every once in awhile MSN or somebody will release a poll that asks how much people screw around at work. The results often come back averaging about two hours per day spent on non-work related activities in the office.

From a friend's personal experience, a request for reduction of hours met with resistance from a manager who likes to have his underlings in the office just in case he needs them, and who, though making quite a bit more money in his 8 hours (for no billable work), believes truly that if he can't reduce his hours, no one should. Precedence aside, if that's what he wants, maybe he should reduce his hours.

Some people are naturally very fast learners and workers, and are therefore most productive on a shorter day. Why? Because if they know that time at work is limited, they are more apt to plow right through it and not watch the clock, no longer needing to fill the extra time surfing online, or talking on the phone or in the hall with a co-worker. In order to fill an entire day without the extracurriculars, they would have to slow their work pace considerably or twiddle their thumbs, which would be mind-numbing beyond measure. It's like being punished for your efficiency.

A shorter workday is not for everyone, and not everyone would want it anyway. In regards to fairness, fine. Make 6 hours standard full-time, and you can work more if you need to. (To avoid killing the budget, keep overtime pay, if applicable, at beyond 8 hours.) Another idea: For those who have been at your company for 7 years or more, offer them either an extra week off or a reduced workweek.

If someone can deliver the same quality work in fewer hours, why wouldn't a company want to save a little cash by letting them work a shorter day or fewer days per week? No, really, I'm asking.

Words of a Wiser Man

From The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus:

"From my governor [I learned] to be neither of the green nor of the blue party at the games in the Circus, nor a partizan either of the Parmularius or the Scutarius at the gladiators' fights; from him too I learned endurance of labour, and to want little, and to work with my own hands, and not to meddle with other people's affairs, and not to be ready to listen to slander."

"From Sextus [I learned] a benevolent disposition, and the example of a family governed in a fatherly manner, and the idea of living conformably to nature; and gravity without affectation, and to look carefully after the interests of friends, and to tolerate ignorant persons, and those who form opinions without consideration; he had the power of readily accommodating himself to all, so that intercourse with him was more agreeable than any flattery; and at the same time he was most highly venerated by those who associated with him; and he had the faculty both of discovering and ordering, in an intelligent and methodical way, the principles necessary for life; and he never showed anger or any other passion, but was entirely free from passion, and also most affectionate; and he could express approbation without noisy display, and he possessed much knowledge without ostentation."

For a Limited Time Only

I have already talked about change in the political arena (as neutrally as I can), but I want to talk a little more about personal change. I suppose this post is inspired by the changing weather--warm to cold--and the changing trees--green to red, yellow, and brown--and the fact that my thoughts have turned to how I have changed over the last several years.

How do we know when we've changed? It seems to me that when I think back to college, for example, I feel as though I am talking about another person entirely. It no longer feels like my life, but more like a story I read or a movie I watched. In most cases, the things I might have done with my time then are not at all what I like to do now.

Besides that, where I am in life is nothing like the plans I made for myself when I was starting out in the world. I wasn't sure I'd get married (did that several years ago), didn't think I'd have kids (I have a couple), and I was all about having a career (I barely believe in the concept at all anymore). My time on this earth is shorter, and getting shorter every minute, therefore my time is extremely valuable. I don't want to spend it in an office. I want to use that time to see the people I love. Maybe see something of the world while I'm still here to see it. Time is money only if all your time is spent trying to make money. For the rest of us post-college wage-slave types (products of parents who told us "go to college, get a job with a 401k, work until you're 65"), time and money are mutually exclusive; you either have lots of time or lots of money. If you find yourself with both, consider yourself extremely lucky.

Keep the Change

Nuts. I was hoping to avoid politics altogether, but it's hard to keep it from one's mind completely when in an election year. I don't want no trouble, I just want to think aloud.

Here's the thing: the world is clearly hurting. Yet, at any given time, there is always somebody whose world will be hurting; something will need fixing; someone somewhere will be doing something very bad, sometimes to a lot of people at once. Maybe someday none of this will be the case anymore, but history shows that the human condition has not changed much over the years. I have fear for the present. I have fear for the future. I also have hope, but above all, I have realistic expectations. While I am in no mood to continue down the path on which we find ourselves as a nation and as a planet, I do not necessarily think we have a messiah in our midst. I do not think our messes will be cleaned up easily or quickly. I say this because the changes we need in order to truly make this world a better place will not come about by simply electing someone new into office.

But that's the message we're receiving from both presidential candidates, isn't it? The promise of change. It's a beautiful concept; succinct, universally understood, widely desired. But so vague. A change in leadership is inevitable, so, really, that promise is easy to deliver. Let's try this: you're in the Oval Office, you're now President... you've inherited a national debt so astronomical they had to re-wire the debt counter to accommodate all the zeros; you're Commander-in-Chief during an unpopular war with no easy exit; you're facing an economic downturn; there is a barely functional national healthcare system; diplomacy issues; a laundry list of ongoing international needs, and an entire country (if not the entire world) looking to you for guidance, leadership, hope, money, answers, action. Where in the hell do you start?

It's true that our leaders represent us as a nation. They bring changes to policy, to international relations, and to perception, but they do not bring about real change. Politicians can talk about it, promote it, promise it to secure an election, but real, tangible, actual change has to be brought by everyone who truly wants it. Voting is first and foremost, but not the end-all. Change the way we think and act, our priorities, our habits, our attitudes. We seem to be looking to a single man to bring about our salvation--and while electing leaders is a very important first step--ultimate success depends on us all.

Sweeeeeet

Was watching this very game with friends. Never thought I'd see this again. FTW!

see more pwn and owned pictures

Time in a Bottle of Ink

In fiction, one of the hardest devices to use well is time travel.

Most who make the attempt at coherent time travel stories use a parallel time model. As in, time operates on different threads alongside each other, and you can jump from thread to thread, each having a different future depending on which thread you travel (the time traveler's presence splits the thread into yet another outcome, etc.). Which automatically means there are duplicates of all of us, living our alternate universe lives simultaneously, and this is how it is often depicted, as in you can't show your time-traveling self to your other self or you'll freak out and the universe will explode. (An exception being the movie The Butterfly Effect, where there were duplicates of everyone except the time traveler.) Examples of using duplicate selves in time travel: Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban (did OK), an episode of Doctor Who (1st season--fun, but not exactly sound), and most recently, the TV show Heroes (here, the time traveler met his duplicate self, and started traveling time with him, resulting in one of his selves being killed... it's fun, but not sure it's consistent). The hard part is resolving what happens to the duplicates when the time traveling is done (or if one of you dies)? Is it still you or is it someone else? (Heroes obviously decided it's someone else.)

In time travel stories, you often hear about the Butterfly Effect. The quickest references are the adage that talks about a butterfly flapping its wings, causing a tornado somewhere else; or the Ray Bradbury story about time travel, called A Sound of Thunder, where the guy steps off the designated path in the time of dinosaurs, and crunches a butterfly under his boot, which results in a dramatic change in the future he once knew. In fact, this story appears in a pretty good anthology of time travel-themed fiction called The Best Time Travel Stories of the 20th Century (Harry Turtledove, ed.).

Some, like HG Wells in his novel The Time Machine, opt to view time travel more like a destination. The character saw what things were like, had an effect on the present time he was in, but didn't seem to have an effect on future events directly, since when he returned to tell the story to his friends, nothing had changed as a result of his travels.

Many, many writers have used time travel to tell a story, and several have done a passable job (especially if the rest of the story and characters are awesome, like in Doctor Who), while some fail utterly. Time travel, because there are only theories about it, is a nasty temptation for use as a literary device. I say nasty, because it's deceptively tricky--the whole concept is dependent on certain assumptions of the properties of time and space, and those are very easy to contradict, especially when you're trying to push a story forward while moving backward.

Name Your Band, Part 1

I have a glitch in my brain that manifests as a constant, subconscious search for names of imaginary bands. Or, if I were to start a band, I would likely use one of these names. It often happens out of nowhere. Someone says something--or I'll say something--in regular conversation, or I'll hear a phrase in a movie or on TV, or I'll read a phrase somewhere, and it sounds like a good (or bad) band name. I've taken to writing down these names, and the resulting lists will likely come up from time to time as a blog post. If you'd like to use any of them for your band, cool, tell me about it! (And when Rolling Stone asks you how you named your band, be honest.) If one of these is already your band's name, sweet. Post your myspace page in the comments.

Today's List of Imaginary Band Names

1. Kids With Rakes
2. Coast Kill
3. Toxic Baby Bottles
4. Bitchy Trampoline
5. TARDIS Key
6. Sally Mander & The Reptiles
7. Wounded Ego
8. Tiny Red Trees
9. Congregating Pawns
   
10. Dreaded Wedge
    

Human Chemistry 101

I bet a lot of the time we really don't know what it is about someone that makes us either adore or repel them. Some people just rub us the right or wrong way, whatever that means.

Just as people will have varying effects on me, I will have varying effects on others. I find I can be friends with most types of people, but every once in awhile I come across someone that, for whatever reason, can't stand me. Several years ago I went to an old college friend's wedding. When we were in college, he was in a frat, and I was friends with more than a few of his frat brothers, who were also at the wedding. I went to their table to say hello, and got to meet all their significant others. It was cordial, though superficial and slightly awkward (they were all still close; I lost contact almost right after graduation), but nice to see that they were healthy and generally happy. I kept it short with everyone but one, who, in college, was a best friend. After mere seconds, we were excitedly catching up, rehashing old jokes, and having a good time. The conversation was abundant and refreshingly effortless. We'll call him "Kevin."

All of a sudden, the wife of someone who had been a friend to me in college came over, stepped in the middle of the conversation, and, completely disregarding my presence, said to Kevin, "Come dance." He looked at me with an expression of WTF, but I told him to go ahead.

Back Story: This wife, we'll say "Sheri," was the college girlfriend of her now husband, "Jerry." I mean, they didn't date anyone else as long as I knew them. Jerry and I were friends in that we had the same major, so were often classmates, and due to similar interests, also had some college activities in common. There was never romantic interest on either side, to be clear. As much as I saw Jerry, Sheri and I never talked to each other more than saying "hi." We simply did not run in the same circles, with the exception of the frat, and we made no effort to know each other. Well, apparently she really didn't like me, because there were several years between graduation and this wedding, and now she was incapable of even basic politeness. I couldn't begin to invent a reason for her behavior, and while her opinion is of no consequence to me, I must admit it's a curiosity.

I do live life trying not to be a jerk to anyone, yet occasionally my best efforts are thwarted by simple chemistry, the alignment of the planets, time of year, something in a past life, who knows. Just accept that sometimes it's them, and sometimes it's you.

Blog of Confusion

I have written this post twice already, and deleted it twice. I started writing about blogging (meta!), then started over writing about what it would mean to have real freedom of choice ('tis the season, after all). Now I'm thinking about how I'd like to get out of my house and get on a plane and go somewhere.

Since I am all over the place, maybe I should simply post a photo I took that illustrates my state of mind: concentric circles of my brain into which ideas fly, get trapped, then are devoured by a subconscious brain spider as the ideas try desperately to release themselves into this blog.