Monday September 20, 2004 - 3:31PM EDT
Holy shit I am bored. Been sitting and doing nothing for the whole day. Not really sure what to do, not really sure I should be doing anything. This is the level of boredom experienced at my previous job. I never actually thought I would reach that level here. I have 1.5 hours left. Hopefully I won't even need to come in tomorrow. I am trying not to be negative but it is very difficult. They want a web-based system yet none of the programmers know a damn thing about designing true platform independent web-based systems. They are just VB and Access programmers masquerading as SQL/ASP programmers. Frankly it is sickening. It is not that they are not good programmers it is just that they shouldn't have been hired to do the jobs they are being asked to do. They do not possess the skillset for web-based development and it doesn't appear they are trying to learn. Fuck I can't go to that office another day, it is really aggravating! Unless the triple my hourly rate I'm done. I will finish out the week if they want me to but they probably won't which would be my preference. The only bad part about leaving is that there there will definately be a lack of interesting material for my log. Ah well those are the breaks.
Monday September 20, 2004 - 11:25AM EDT
This place is not for me. At this point I am not in a situation where I have to do it and I have other things that I wish to pursue. That's it, for real I am done. I'll call the staffing company tomorrow and let them know. I just need some time to investigate these other opportunities before I whore myself out to a corporation. Baring contact from the recruiter about the japanese related position. I will not work anywhere until 2005. Maybe if things work out I won't have to work for anyone but myself. I have to take this risk, there is no better time to take it then now.
Sunday September 19, 2004 - 9:43PM EDT
I get really tired sometimes but I can't sleep. So I just grind on until I pass out. Problem is, that when I get tired but can't fall asleep I can't think well enough to do anything constructive so I just sit around and stare into space. It sucks, because all I need is a bit of sleep to regain my wits but I can't sleep. Like right now for instance. So I will go and see a movie, that helps somtimes. Collateral.
Sunday September 19, 2004 - 1:59AM EDT
How do I find the right type of work. How does once get a job with one of those technology companies. If I have to work for somebody I want to go someplace where they are committed to technology. Enough of these places where technology is secondary to everything else in the company. Most companies just don't know how to use technology properly. Always manage to fuck up something with the technology. I read about these people in magazines and on the internet who have done all these cool things with technology. Those are the people I want to work with, not these people who just know technology because it pays well, where it is just a job to them and nothing else. It is not just a job to me, I am always thinking about it. Even now at my current job when I go home I am still thinking about work and technology, even though I don't like the job anymore.
Maybe because I didn't go to MIT or that my degree is not in Computer Science is what is keeping me out of those technology companies. In my graduating class at Villanova, of those that graduated Computer Science probably only a handful of the graduates know anything substantive about computers. Yet somehow they will get the job offers I look for, bastards.
I dread going to work, mainly because it is so boring, it is starting to become more difficult to find things to occupy myself with. Come to think of it, all of the things I have done have been the result of my own volition. I have had very little in the way of someone telling me what to do. Which is good, but I have come up against someone telling me what not to do. So it has turned into me just poking, proding and investigating various routes of action until I find something with the least resistance. That method may work in some situation but for the current situation it is not the way to go about things. There is a specific goal but no plan, I am making it up as I go along but at the same time being urged in some ways not to. I could have had the project halfway done by now if there wasn't so much resistance in weird places. I'll go in on Monday and pick my ass most of the day, hopefully come up with something to do to prompt somebody to action. Seems like the only time anyone does anything related to the project is when I say something otherwise nothing gets done. I didn't think that was how a consultant is contracted. I am hired to do a specific thing, yet I don't think they know what they want me to do so I just make up things to do. This is pissing me off and as time goes on I get the feeling more and more that they really didn't need me to program they just needed somebody to finally shout out a wakeup call and urge people to get things moving. I get that feeling because of some things my boss has said to me. His words had this sense of "oh man the issues are turning out to be something else completely." I think that one, no one had a grasp of the true technical problems of the system and two the stance by certain people on the system was miscalculated. Now that I have uncovered the real problems and exposed the stance of certain people it is looking like maybe what I originally came there for is not the reason I need to be there. This is just pathetic I have a lot of outside things to work on but so little time to do them. I think right now I need to work on that stuff because it will be more helpful for the future than my current job. I could be wrong but I think this is a situation were my current job is doing less for me than I can do myself.
Saturday September 18, 2004 - 11:57AM EDT
Since all I do is work that is all I talk about. As soon as I find another job I am leaving. I feel like that company would do the same thing with me. If all of a sudden they didn't need me they would get rid of me. There is no loyalty when you are a consultant, the way things are going with their lack of commitment to technology they would get rid of me as easily as I would quit.
Its raining and I am working on websites. I have a lot to do.
Friday September 17, 2004 - 1:47PM EDT
My ire has subsided a bit over my job. Doesn't mean my feelings about the job has changed. I am just a bit more relaxed knowing that I am gone as soon as I find something else. I am hoping to hear back from the recruiter about the job with japanese skills needed. West coast would be nice, no cold weather. Maybe a position in Malibu, yeah that would be nice. San Fran isn't bad either not as warm but not as cold as here. I could just leave now, work on my outside projects for a few months then either go to Japan with the JET program or take time to find a job on the west coast. If I work on outside projects I will build up my experience with different technologies much faster than working at my current job and it might be easier for me to find a position than if I stayed here. This company would look good on a resume but personally I want to learn about more technologies and would find that more personally rewarding. On a side note I have worked out some of the final programming issues with the software I am working on. It is going to be pretty cool. I am hoping to complete it this weekend.
Work is not all bad I do get some things done. Listen to music, read online comics, bone up on the latest technologies and coding techniques and of course keep track of the news. Lately the only work I have been doing is stuff that I come up with myself. Which may be what my boss is letting me do since I am somewhat successful with it. But I am getting to a point where I know what the next things I have to do but there are obstacles to doing it that are not in my control. In between listening to music and reading the comics I come up with solutions to the little problems and keep track of them in case I actually get to apply them to "real work." My guess is that I won't, but that is fine with me. I'll busy myself with other things. Like learning Oracle databases and JSP.
Friday September 17, 2004 - 3:59AM EDT
I don't know when it happened but all of a sudden I have way to much work. Work outside of work. It is kinda of pissing me off that I don't have enough time to do it. Fuck, I need to get these things finished. I have been really bad at returning phone calls, I just have no time to do this work when going to work everyday. I need to sleep. Because work is so far away it takes 12hrs out of my whole day, that is the whole day give me only a few hours a day to do other things if I decide to sleep. I hate this, it makes me hate the job I am at even more because I feel like I am wasting my time there but also feel like it is robbing me of time that I could be doing something useful. I got an email from a recruiter looking for a web developer who also has Japanese language skills. Pay was 70-80k, but I am not sure where the position was so that means nothing. Unfortunately my japanese is a very rusty and they wanted someone fluent. I emailed back just to see if I get a response. That would be the dream job though, web design and japanese, then chances of getting contacted about a position like that are probably slim to none.
Thursday September 16, 2004 - 12:17PM EDT
I have begun the process of investigating how to protect a certain piece of software. It will be expensive, no doubt but it may be worth it. I'll need to finish up the code, polish and package it. But I have a plan to market and distribute. Though maybe the price is a bit low. I don't know yet.
Wednesday September 15, 2004 - 8:10AM EDT
It's official, I hate my job. What seemed so promising, what seemed like a real opportunity has become another symbol of what a mess corporate america is. I haven't hated all my jobs, just the last two I have had. Maybe in the ones before I just didn't know and was willing to tolerate more. I wake up every morning now with that dread feeling of going into work. I count the seconds of each day and watch every minute become a total waste as I stare into space. I am falling behind in websites and becasue work usurps so much time of the day one rarely has time to do anything else but eat and sleep(occassionally). I refuse to let my spirit be crushed by some company so that I can make some CEO rich. This job makes me feel physically ill, I want to show just how much I hate this job by leaving a puddle of vomit in the middle of the floor when I leave. I am looking for the exit, if I can't find it I'll just have to punch a hole in the wall. Am I impatient? NO! I am driven, you think the man who founded the company took bullshit from people, probably not. I am not about to take it myself.
Tuesday September 14, 2004 - 8:12AM EDT
Call me young and naive. Call me a little nutso. Call me whatever you want but I was driving on the way to work this morning and I was thinking. What do I get with my current job. A steady paycheck. A ... hmmm can't really think of anything else. Oh yeah, the opportunity for advancement. Wait that was a knock knock joke I remeber. I remeber now, working for a company that is loyal to its employees. Companies like IBM which touted that it had never layed off people...oh wait they just layed off 10,000 workers. Well at least I have a steady paycheck. I just finished college, don't have to start payback on loans until the end of 2005, have no girlfriend, no kids, no car payment, I live at home and I am relatively healthy. I guess I could continue with the current company for the next 20 years get a decent house in the burbs, two mid size sedans, a wife, 2.8 kids and take vacations with the fam down the shore. I could also castrate myself, bend over and let the THE MAN ram his agenda down my anus. I have been consulting since I was 14, independently since I was 18, I am not new to the game. I knew computers before I could ride a bike.
When you try and start you own business the hours are long, the pay is terrible (or non-existent) and you'll probably fail. The headaches are big and the complexities are many(employees, taxes, THE MAN, etc...) Well shit I have been failing for 5 years it is about time to succeed. The chances are slim but if you can beat the odds then everything is ok. I got nothing to lose, I can fuck up for a few years and still go out and find a job working for THE MAN. But that isn't going to happen THE MAN isn't going to break me down.
PT Barnum lives again - comments(6)
Friday September 10, 2004 - 8:33PM EDT
Circus:
- A public entertainment consisting typically of a variety of performances by acrobats, clowns, and trained animals.
The circus is back in town and they have setup their tent permanently in Wilmington, Delaware. Yes, I work at the circus, a corporate circus. My leave-the-fucking-place sortie has been temporarily pacified and I am willing to give them a bit more time before I get buck wild. Maybe not buck wild, but corporate-buck wild, which usually involves things like thinking creatively and reaching goals without coming up with convienent detours to hide the fact you have failed miserably. Those assclowns have the next week to show me they are commited to doing something and stop blowing smoke up my ass. I am kind of torn on walking out because it is not the fault of the one who hired me that things are the way they are. This person understands my frustration and is much more proficient and tolerant of the games the assclowns play, but I think he concurs with me on the feeling that it is mainly bullshit. However I can't sit around and waste my time, while THE MAN attempts to make me conform to the agenda they put forth.
Friday September 10, 2004 - 7:30PM EDT
When I have to filter my words and thoughts to much in order to be PC or fit into a situation it makes me crazy. My hands start to shake and my speech can lose its consistency. But I just love looking for the same thing in other people. Particularly people who attempt to "exert their influence" or think they are superior. I just look for the tell. That body language signal or speech pattern that signifies emmotional weakness. Almost everybody has it. As soon as I find it that person can't intimidate me, and I smile inside because their percieved advantage is gone. It is much easier to pickup if you have seen or interacted with the person in a casual situation, then you can compare their normal tendecies to ones of stressful situations. I just love it when I find the tell, it gives me a rush. I will be truly impressed when I talk to the person who is able to hide all emmotional weakness. Actually there was one person that fit that description. It was my high school principal in 11th grade. When I spoke to him, I couldn't find any emmotional weakness. I found out a few years later from a friend that worked at the local pharmacy that he was a scizophrenic and always doped up on medication. He couldn't show true emmotion if he tried. To not give away a tell when speaking makes your speech truly powerful. Presidents even have tells. Bush has to many to count and although Clinton was a very good public speaker there were some speeches in which he gave away a tell. Remeber the first press confernces after the Lewinski scandal, he was all over the place.
Thursday September 9, 2004 - 9:24PM EDT
I have unhidden all my posts, let the everybody read about the adventures of my workplace. I sit in my cube and stew all day long now. What looked like a promising position has turned into crap. What else do I expect from a large company. So I have a decision to make. Do I give up trying to actually do something constructive or press on even harder and bolder than before? I risk losing my job with one decision and losing my integrity with the other. Funny how that works. This is bullshit, it just motivates me more to go out on my own. Everyday now I think about the most outrageous way to get fired. I won't quit, they will have to throw me out. I played video games for the last hour of work today. Soon I'll start bringing in my Gameboy because I'll get more accomplished by playing that all day. I can't stand another job where I go in and deal with bullshit all day. I either stay there and save money for real estate investments or leave and use the little I have saved for my own technology ventures.
Some would probably be happy they have a good job and stop complaining. Fuck that shit, that is loser talk for people who play loserball.
Thursday September 9, 2004 - 10:28AM EDT
Eagles are awesome, but the title has nothing to do with them. I see these indexes all over the place. It is alway at 97% or higher. I just want to rip it down and put a big fat ZERO there. Never have I ever seen a place with such an expensive veneer covering rotting wood. This is disgusting. The thing that is most disquieting is the fact that there are some people around that want to do something and are dedicated. But their dedication is trampled by the minority of assclowns that surround them. It is less of a people problem and more of a corporate culture thing. People have been conditioned to react and do certain things, that fly in the face of all practical sense. This is fucking horrendous. Companies piss away millions and billions for no reason. There has to be some company out there that does something right. I don't see how a company president could stand for such bullshit. Wait, it is because they pocket millions and look the other way.
Sunday September 5, 2004 - 3:57PM EDT
I just had to make a post right now. I am so pumped about the site I am launching this week. Not because it is going to do well. But because it is the first legitimate business venture into website that I am doing for myself. Well myself and my business partner. I am just excited about the design. It is definately one of my better ones to date. It is very little initial investment so I won't be disappointed if it fails. I would be happy with making $100 a month. This week it will be launched.
Sunday September 5, 2004 - 1:43AM EDT
When I see people, strangers or friends I always wonder what they are thinking at the exact moment I see them. Whether it be face to face or from afar I want to know the thoughts running through their mind at that specific point in time. People really can't be as stupid as I think they are, can they? Whatever, I am probably the stupid one. W.E.B DuBois famously spoke of a talented 10th who would lead the rest. That should updated to the talented .00000000000000001%. The band of idiots prominent in today's world is disgusting. I won't harken back to old times and say that people were smarter back then. If anything they were even more ignorant and I would probably find them as disgusting as I do today's morons. Can I call people morons without being considered concieted? I should be able to, but seems like that as soon as you refer to someone as stupid somone thinks it is because you think yourself high and mighty. I am just bored. I thought I would get a real chance to learn from some extraordinaryly knowledgable people at work. Specifically databases and programming. While there are definately some intelligent people when it comes to programming, none possess that type of awesome ability and knowledge that I seek. I'll learn some stuff but I'll probably wind up teaching them more if they are willing to learn. Unfortunately doesn't seem like some people want to do that. For the most part they bore me. They are generally good people,there are some smart ones and I don't mean to offend anybody, but fuck, I wouldn't hire half the people they did for the jobs they are doing. Maybe that is the problem, it is not that everyone is unqualified it is just that they look that way when they are put in the wrong place. God knows what the hell I would do in a chem lab or pig farm, I'd look pretty stupid too. I don't know if I am bored by the job or just frustrated by lack of innovation on their part.
I don't see myself long term at any job where I work for someone. I just can't take following someone elses rules, especially when they make no sense. There may be a place out there for me but haven't found it yet. I'll continue to whore myself and my ability out to people until I can make it on my own. There has got to be something else to talk about besides work. Not really, don't have much else besides work right now. If it is not work it is working on websites. That is my whole life websites. I get so mad at these clowns at work, I don't have the tools I need to do what they want. It is like trying to sculpt marble with a rusty nail. I just want to finish this project as fast as I can, blow them away with how good a system can be when designed properly then bolt. I would not stay there after the project is over without a substantial raise. I am talking at least double or triple what I get now. First of all I will have completed a major software project for a large company and that has got to get me someplace better and second I will have increased my knowledge greatly from working on the project. These fucking turkeys would rather pay some sloppy company 10 times what they are giving me to design a sub-par system. I should stop being so negative, but fuck I can't ignore the trash that goes on there. I can't say they are doing a good job, because they aren't. I just want to build a spaceship become a space bounty hunter and die in peace.
Wednesday September 1, 2004 - 10:58PM EDT
Hocus Pocus the linked article makes me very skeptical. Everytime Intel comes up with some new chip or process they are cheered. Frankly Intel isn't impressing me. They slowly leak out technology and milk as much money from people using their sub-par technology. Then haven't innovated anything since putting the math coprocessor on the main CPU. There have been a lot of smaller advances (MMX, SIMD, on-die cache, etc.) But the fact it has taken them until recently to make a 64-bit chip is ludicrous. They say beacause there is no market for it they haven't pushed it. Well, when you define the chip market you can pretty much push whatever you want into it. They invested way to much in 32-bit chips and need to get as much money out of them as possible, so they hold back 64-bit chips. I don't know that much about CPU design but lack of innovation at Intel is really sickening. Is there anything out there that is impressive. Organic LEDs certainly have promise and maybe soon we will see large paper thin, ultra-low power consuming displays. I still haven't seen the instant-on operating system. Better yet the OS that doesn't need to boot up. It is integrated into the hardware. Solid state storage may help that along, it is get cheaper all the time. When you study how computers work you have new respect for all the work that has gone into making computers what they are today. But you also get the feeling that the type of innovation it took to create computers is being stymied in today's environment. Profit was not a consideration when computers were created. It was just scientests working together and competing against each other to create the best equipment. Now it is who can make the most money.
I have found more jokes from the clowns. I am not even suprised anymore. I just expect to find more and more. Makes me look better in the end. Unfortunately people probably won't learn from this crap and it will probably happen again. I have nothing more to say.
Monday August 30, 2004 - 11:05PM EDT
I am so exhausted. Going to bed at 3am every night and waking up at 6am every morning is tough. Tough but awesome, because I am making progress on websites. I still think about that screenplay I want to write. Still have the base ideas but I haven't worked on fleshing out anything yet. It would be funny, maybe I will get around to it soon. My language is lacking right now. I listen to either spanish or japanese music everyday but I haven't written or read regularly in a while.
At the behest of my colleague I have removed certain posts. I won't say which ones but I will say that I have simply hidden them from view. When the time is right I will unhide them. I was just thinking that the internet is so new that someone having a personal website for more than 20 years is unheard of. The world wide web was only invented in 1991. I could feasibly have this website until I die. Seems weird for webhosting companies to last that long. Having data around for 50 years is weird. Especially when it is persistent and not stored on tape backups. Readily available data that is 50 years old and always accessible. It is truly a new thing.
Saturday August 28, 2004 - 11:24PM EDT
I was working on my car stereo wiring today to fix the problem with the attena and memory. During the process I managed to blow two fuses in the car. Lucklily there were spare available. Got caught up fixing someone computer and wasn't able to work on websites like I wanted to. I did get paid for the work however which is good. I'll need all day tommorow to finish this one website.
Wednesday August 25, 2004 - 2:05AM EDT
Ha, someone wanted to have me fired beacause of a report I wrote. Those losers are reprensentative of the problems with corporate america. THE MAN is not going to break me down. Almost done reorganizing my files. Then I can start working on websites again.