Download the book by Lawrence Lessig where he "consider[s] the diminishment of the larger public domain of ideas. In this powerful wake-up call he shows how short-sighted interests blind to the long-term damage they’re inflicting are poisoning the ecosystem that fosters innovation." Basically saying why it's ok to download some mp3s without paying for them, just like it's ok to fly over someone's farm without paying them.
Wednesday, March 31, 2004
Tuesday, March 30, 2004
Here it is, a retardedly long entry about my life. It's been a long time since I've written anything about what the hell is going on with me, but this is it (who's listening anyway?)
The Good News:
I got a job!
I started at Navigant Consulting as a temp back in August (or was it September?). Either way, my job was to sit around looking at images of different forms from doctors' offices and entering in names and dates of birth and insurance companies. Sometime after November or so, THREE OF MY OTHER TEMPmates and myself were moved up to being a "project employees". This meant a pay raise to double what we were getting before and a host of new, stupid responsibilities. Responsibilities like: Doing whatever 10 different bosses tell us to do, punching holes in paper and drinking coffee.
Sometime during December, an email circulated amongst the people in the health consulting department about the upcoming Health Training Conference in New Orleans. The four of us (those of us that were temps and were moved up to being project employees) all assumed that we weren't meant to go to the conference. Honestly, how much could they teach us about clicking the left mouse button twice and pressing Control+C? But that's not my responsibility.
None of us figured we were supposed to be involed and didn't respond to the email about the conference.
Two Months Later
So last Monday I get to work and one of the other project employees, whom we shall call... umm.. "Eunice"... asks me "Hey did Claudius* talk to you about going to the conference?"
"No," I said.
"Oh," said Eunice, "nevermind, then."
"What the hell are you talking about," responded Greg
"It's just that Claude told me to book my tickets and that I should go."
"Oh."
After realizing that one of the other four people that I had been promoted with would be attending the conference, I can't say that I didn't feel slighted. Other things had also been happening around the office to make me think that I was probably not "the best" out of those of us that had been moved up. Por Ejemplo: I was told back in October that I would be moved up to the "programming end" of the team. After hearing this news, I had been told a few things about database programming using SQL and then was left on my own to buy book on Amazon and learn what I could. Two months later Eunice was being instructed by one of the programmers on how to use SQL. She was given memos and told how to bill the time that she spent learning the program. I had felt slighted then as well, but thought that maybe I just kicked so much as at programming that everyone thought I didn't need any instruction. Eunice and another one of my bosses... um... Tula*... would go out for coffee all the time and gossip. That's ok, too. I don't want to go out and spend money on coffee when there's free shite at the office... but I still felt a bit slighted.
I feel like I've gone off on a tangent. Where did we leave off? Oh yeah:
So, Eunice told me that she had been told to schedule this conference. I spend the next three days figuring that I must have done something wrong that she didn't and that I'm going to get fired (or have my contract run out on June 30th and be left out to dry). Every time Claude walks by and says hello I imagine him thinking "He did something stupid and I'm going to fire that stupid-thing-doing guy."
Wednesday happens along and another one of my 10 bosses (um... Gemma*) calls a meeting for all four of us project employees. The four of us trade some instant messages about how we're going to get fired (though I know that Eunice is sure she's not going to get fired, but she plays along). The meeting comes and Gemma (after some other stuff) explains that Claude et. al. will be trying to get all of us to be able to go to the conference and will be talking to us on Friday.
"The thing is that we might not have enough money in the budget for you guys to go."
This is a huge weight off my shoulders. I realize that Eunice was just the first one of us to be talked to and that the rest of us will hear eventually. I also realize that they've told her already and that this means that she's more important to the company. Either way, I'm happy that they "want all of us to go."
Ten minutes after the meeting, Eunice tells me that she talked to Gemma and that the order of people who get to go (as explained to her) is Eunice, Me, Billy-Bob*, and Janice*.
I'm happy with this idea.... Especially when Claude calls me into his office on Friday at 5:30pm. I come in and he tells me that he wants me to go to the conference. Fuckin' right! He follows this up by telling me that "the team" has been impressed with my performance and that they'll be offering me to come on full-time as an "associate consultant." The reasoning for telling me about the conference and crap was that they wouldn't want me to get hired and have me miss the conference by two weeks (which means that I should get hired two weeks after April 16th... ridiculous how I have to figure out when I'm getting hired for myself).
For some reason, as Claude was telling me that I had a job, I didn't have an excited reaction. Actually, the reason is totally apparent to me and was quite tangible during our meeting. I don't want to work at this company. It's a job with ten bosses, stupid pressure, late nights and no knowledge gain. I just sat there twisting the top on my mechanical pencil and watching the lead grow like a time-lapse-photography bud.
I realize halfway through that I was being an ungrateful wretch and started in on saying how excited I was and how much I'd learned and what tasks appealed to me and blah, blah, blah. The meeting ended with a thank you (which I followed up with a thank you letter on Monday... Lord, how corporate).
On my way back to my desk I realized three things, which I shall now attempt to illustrate in list form:
Now that's good stuff. Nobody gets a job anymore. Bush promised to have 250,000 more jobs in Feb and managed to create 14,000 (12,000 of which were govt. jobs)
When I started as a temp in August, Billy-Bob had been there since April and Janice had been there since June. I started two months later and was getting promoted before them. Maybe I have some kind of warped sense about seniority, but I feel like they should have been promoted before me.
Eunice and I haven't told either of them that we've been invited to the conference, let alone that both of us have been offered and given positions at the company. I know that, like me, neither of them really want to work at Navigant, but it still feels like shit to get passed over.
fingers tired... more tomorrow
*All names changed for the sake of my silly job
Saturday, March 27, 2004
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
Monday, March 22, 2004
That's funny, Iraq was planned all along. Well, at least we're safe now... or safer... or bogged down... or something. I think the only way to think of the Iraq problem is the way that we were supposed to think of it all along: We're in Iraq to make it into a democracy so that we can then use it as a base of operations to slowly turn the rest of the Middle East into a group of US friendly countries. Making friends is tough. Why do it through diplomacy? Why not do it through regime change? It's just that simple.
Friday, March 19, 2004
Hungry for home buying? Try buying a house in Loup County, Nebraska. Loup County had the lowest per capita income in the United States in 2002, but hey. There's a lot you can do with $6,235.
Thursday, March 18, 2004
Why is the House of Representatives sitting around declaring that the world is safer after the iraq war? Need they kiss ass and make statements that blatantly reflect their own denial on the real reaons and outcomes of the iraq war? The world isn't safer. The last time Saddam attacked another country it was Kuwait and we already went to war for that. Has anyone ever even heard of an Iraqi terrorist? Where do terrorists come from? Saudi Arabia! What are we doing about them? Flying them out of the country when trouble comes around, of course! Retarded.
The world isn't safer. Spain was victim to its worst terrorist attack ever. Bali? Bagdad Hotel bombing? Anyone? Iraq might be more fair, but from the news it doesn't seem much safer (of course, there was no reason to ever be reporting about Iraq before, so we wouldn't know). So, who's really safer? Hmmm... Dick Cheney is safer, he gets to hide in a bunker. And he has more money, thanks to Bush tax cuts. Either way, I'm disgusted.
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Passing off government distributed information on medicare as a news story? That's crazy!?! Or just propaganda.
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
Monday, March 15, 2004
Thursday, March 11, 2004
This message from CA from CA now in TX:
Speaking of poop, whilst I was reading your website archive about moving to your own cubicle and being that much closer to the bathroom, I heard my anal glands singing that familiar tune. So I decided to obey them and walk the (ohhh) 40 feet to our local shit deposit. On the walk there I thought about how many thousands of pounds of poop are delivered there a day, month, year, infiniti and beyond. It's comparable to trying to imagine the size of outer space. Anyhoo, I walked into the bathroom and went through my normal routine of bending over to look underneath the stalls to make sure the coast was clear. Does anyone like to poop next to another person pooping? Call me a paranoid pooer but I like to shit in silence with no distractions. As I was bending over looking underneath the stalls, it just so happened that the president of our company walked in witnessing my daily routine. To my utter surprise and embarrassment I pretended like I was tying my shoe, except I'm wearing slip-on shoes. So I quickly moved on to pretending like I dropped something. I straightened up looked in my hand and put whatever it was I had "dropped" into my pocket and said to the president, "Found it." Do you think he knew what I was doing? Maybe he does it, too. Maybe the whole corporate world does it.
Now, I was like a cornered cat with nowhere to go, the president between me and the exit and the stalls in front of me. I slowly walked towards the stalls while subtly peaking over my shoulder to see if he was following me. I entered the stall and nervously awaited the sounds of him entering the stall next to me. He did! All I could do now was to go through the motions of pulling my pants down and sitting. As he did the same, I pinched and clenched but once the safety is off and I'm in the sitting position there's no holding back. Just like two birds singing next to each other, two cars revving there engines alongside another, or two bulldozers bulldozing in the summer sun, we pooped together. There was only one thing that could make this experience worse for me... yes, he started a conversation.
"How's work going for you, Chris?"
"Pretty good, still learning the ropes."
"Let's do, hmmmph, lunch some time." (plop)
"Okay."
"How's today for ya?" (toilet paper unraveling)
"Sure."
"I'll shoot you an email." (wipe, wipe)
(flush)
That was it. A lunch appointment made over a group poop.
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
Remind me to read this article tomorrow while I'm at work. Feel free to read it too. And also, try to figure out what all this hubble stuff is about. Did they see the end of the universe yet or what?
Friday, March 05, 2004
I should really start buying my own health insurance before I get hit by a car whilst striking a piece of wood lightly with my fist.
Thursday, March 04, 2004
Tired of having your computer send information to marketing firms everytime you visit a website? This Spy Bot Search and Destroy is the shiz-nit. It's free, it takes worthless stuff off of your computer and it slices and dices small fruits.
And if you're sick of viruses and don't own a virus scanner, there's a free online virus scanner too.
Why am I just typing in nerdy links? I'm bored and nerdy.
Tuesday, March 02, 2004
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