Work, work, work, I still need a phoney baloney job

I am working on finding work while trying to keep out of non-growth or dead-end positions. Doing this while trying to transition careers in today's economy is getting a little tough. That plus the job market here in the SF bay area is making the transition tough.

If I had spent less time in my previous industry, I think I would be more tempted to take the easy route and take a spot that I would hate and end up working way too many hours at. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind the occasional over-time. After having worked more than seventy hours a week for nearly nine months to finish a project off with over eighty hours a week working grave yard hours (7pm to 10am or later) for the last month and a half, I am weary of an industry that treats over-time as a deadline solution.

Now, I have made the decision to try and shift back to retail carrying my management experience over, hopefully, to management type of positions there. Time will tell how successful this will be. I don't know if this is going to be a new long term path but at this time I am hoping that it will provide a fresh perspective on work for me. I have to remember to keep my opinion on work being just that and not a way of life out of the interviews.

Why is it that some employers want people who tend to the fanatical to work for them? Do these hiring types really think that fanatics make good workers? Come on, how on earth are people supposed to connect with some psycho that lacks rational thought at the work place. Am I really the only one who finds those people unsettling and are nice to those people only in the hopes that when they show up with "guns a blazin", that I am spared? I know that many of the individuals that I associate with, who will remain unnamed to protect any future employment for them, agree that a job is a means to acquire the tools for happiness and not the ends. Why must we all be obsessed with what we get paid for and not just do things to make us happy for the joy of it. I appreciate being a contributing member of society, I also like doing things just for the love of the process (like a blog that noone will read).

Well that seems like a good note to sound off on. Till next time my lack of readers!!

The Dark Knight- a little too long for me

I went and saw "The Dark Knight" last week. I can't say it wasn't any good, I did like it. I don't think it lived up to the hype. It was entertaining but seemed to run a bit long. I do not like having things spoiled for me so I will not write about any specific plot items. What I ended up pondering was something I have been wondering about for a while.

Are Christian Bale's top front teeth all fake? I'm sure there is some documentation somewhere regarding this and honestly, I don't care enough to look it up. But, throughout the film, I found him covering his top teeth with his upper lip *a lot*. When we finally got a good look at them, they seemed both a little small and an odd color, a sort of translucent blue. How good can a movie be if I step out of the film and wonder about the lead actors dental work? Oh well, I can say with confidence that it was definitely not the worst movie I have seen.

If you get the chance...wait for it to be released on DVD/Blu Ray, pay-per-view or your home distribution of choice. I still can't justify >$10 for most movies these days.

cafe notebook culture

Do me a favor. The next time you are in a cafe and there are people on notebooks there, see if they have headphones plugged into the notebook. I don't know if it's just some sort of convergence at this particular SF cafe or I just never noticed before.

Personally, I prefer to think I save some battery life using my small but effective iPod or iPhone for such things rather than doing the notePod thing. It just seems like overkill for listening to digital media in public. I could be completely wrong and am sharing space with a couple of multimedia editors. In that case, I accept that I am an ass and will move on.

Also, spending more time in cafes, I find myself checking out notebook brands in the cafe. Almost keeping score. Yeah, I get really bored and tend not to be as productive as I could be.

I would love to figure out why some people plug in their system as soon as they sit down. I wait until my battery is almost dead. I find it a good indicator of how long I have been somewhere. "My battery is almost dead. Maybe it's time to move the car/go somewhere else."