Posted on February 3, 2010
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Used to be, on lunch breaks, I would take a walk. I get an hour lunch and I could get pretty far. In twenty minutes I can get to the deli, so I can actually get a slice of pizza or something quick and make it back within my hour. It’s not all that far but it’s a lot farther than most people, who drive to the deli, can walk in twenty minutes.
There were also times when I would keep after my exercises. I’ve never been really consistent, but htere was a kind of cadence to my negligence; two or three days one week, one day the next. Never consistent enough to really qualify as a regimen. But you know, after I had been after it for a while, I didn’t get as many strange aches and strains and cramps in my spinal cervical curve. Something was always a little odd in the general geography of my hips, but whatever it is, I think it keeps it at bay to do even little exercises infrequently.
Seems like it’s been a long time now since I even tried. My new routine is to shut off the alarm, and the second alarm, and keep a surly eye on the clock, daring it to go too late for me to make it to work. I live so close that I can really leave when I am supposed to be there and not arrive late enough to attract notice, if I skip some things like breakfast and a shower, that I like to do in the morning.
I’ve been through ups and downs before. I get the blues all the time, mostly without any reason. Anymore I mostly just wait for it to pass; trying to fight to stay at “reasonably content” to “ridiculously happy” without ever going to “irrationally depressed” inevitably ends in frustrated defeat.
Waiting it out doesn’t seem to be working this time. This has gone on too long. I don’t think I am even down right now. A couple of these past weeks have gone pretty well; I’m happy with what I get done in the day and happy with the week when it’s over. I would call it a really long gray streak if it didn’t have it’s own ups and downs, if it had any of the tell-tale sulks, if it didn’t just seem to be a new normal.
It’s not like I’ve tried to get back on track. Really, it’s more like I’ve tried to get as far off track as possible. Even well rested, I go back to bed, to goad the hour on to disaster. I try to construe reasons why I must be too busy to cook supper, so I can eat out. Then I don’t, either, because I don’t actually like eating out. So I go to bed without supper.
It’s starting to look like more than anything else I am just trying to live dangerously–as dangerously as I can while pretending to be a victim, anyway. And it’s reminding me of the way I always leave something around the house totally out of order. If I clean, I won’t pay bills; if I sort out one pile of accumlated junk, I’ll leave the other one. If I have time off work that I have set aside specifically for cleaning and catching up on everything, I will resolutely bore myself out of the house before I actually do all the work.
I guessed a long time ago that I was probably doing it on purpose. I think it makes me feel needed, to have unsolved problems waiting in the wings. If there is nothing to be done, why I am even here?
Not that there ever really could be a shortage of good work to do. But I save up a collection of little problems I could solve in a minute, just so I will know I have the power to make problems go away, until at last the little problems have grown into such a tower that I am really afraid of them. Then either I muster myself for a charge, or turn my back and slink away.
I think what is really going on is not so much a general depression as a desire for excitement. I am trying to precipitate a crisis so I can be a hero. I’ll do the same thing if a conference call is too boring; I will tell myself that something else urgently needs to be worked on, or maybe even two or three other things; or I will just raise heck by finding or inventing problems in whatever the matter at hand might be.
I am edging closer to getting myself in over my head with some commitments that are coming up, and it’s starting to make me feel better. I cooked supper two days in a row now. Tomorrow I might even get up with the alarm. Well, maybe. The votes aren’t all in until 7 a.m. tomorrow. But I have been going through some mental to-do lists and wringing out some little sponges of obligation that have been (in my mind) tied to long chains of casacading steps. I’m looking for trouble and it’s making me feel better.
Soon, I hope, I will be so busy I will once again have an excuse for neglecting things, and then I can be happy once more in my stressful, impossibly burdened life.
Posted on January 27, 2010
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Years ago my credit card company sent me an offer–more of a notice, if I recall–that my card was going to be converted to a “Business” card. (Yes, in fact I still have the notice from July 2006 giving me the choice to decline the conversion pending on my account, and emphatically stating I had nothing to lose and lots to gain.)
Things have been going along fine since then until more or less recently when I decided to get another card from a different company. They did not offer me very much credit at all which I thought was odd, but I figured they were nervous because of some recent changes in my residency and let it be while I dutifully paid bills, remained employed, and kept a single place of residence. After a little while I asked for a credit line increase, which was declined.
I asked again recently and I got a very sparing increase. So I looked up one of those free credit reports and found that all the years with my first company, going back at least into 2003, did not reflect on my credit history–only a very brief time when I was a secondary cardholder under one of my parents.
The credit reporting agency allows the history’s accuracy to be challenged so I asked them to verify my information with this company. Promptly, within a few days, they responded by expunging all history with this company from my credit history.
I am at a point in life where I would like to know that my credit is good enough so that I can get good rates on mortgages or major loans, should I need such. Here I find that I have a very feeble credit history due mostly to the shortness of my accounts. And the oldest thing on my account has now been expunged, at my unwitting request.
Today I finally got around to calling my credit company and inquiring if my history could be properly reported. No; the history on this card has been reported to a commercial credit reporting bureau. Okay, I said, can I at least convert my account back to a personal account? No; you would have to cancel your account.
I nearly said “Okay do it, then,” but I remembered that I am relying on this card to cover larger purchases since I have paltry credit on my other account. Due to my short credit history. Bwahaha. I am not reliant on credit cards in the sense that I can pay all of my bills from checkings or savings without a problem and I pay all my credit card balances in full; I just rather prefer the convenience of credit cards. At least it is supposed to be convenient.
So the moral of this story is: Do NOT let your credit company give you a “business” account.
Also, I may have good credit to launch a small business. I wasn’t planning on doing that, but God speaks in mysterious ways.
Posted on January 15, 2010
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Having a low view right now of the prospects for my current company and for my potential to develop into any interesting roles within this company. Having an itch to walk away from it and find somebody who knows what they are doing and cares enough to do it right–not just successfully making money, but doing what should be done. Quality. Customer Service. Commitment. Those kinds of things. Nothing good can come out of this place.
And Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
The problem is, I never would have chosen this company in the first place. I didn’t know it existed and if I had known it existed I would not have known that it could use someone with my talents. And once I got my first job here I would have never thought my second job would be in a part of the plant that I knew nothing about from my first job. And when I was thinking about the job I have now I would never have guessed that it would be the best way for me to survive this year’s layoffs–I thought it would be worse than what I had before.
If I am master of my own career, it is high time for me to start at least preparing to find another job somewhere else. You always need a back-up plan, you know. A safety net.
“So he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and goods.’”
Posted on January 14, 2010
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I don’t know anything about making or selling cars, but I know how to fix all the problems everyone is having, so I will tell you. For free, even. You don’t even have to make me a Czar in the federal government.
Stop thinking business. Just stop. You’re ruining everything and embarrassing yourself.
Toyota made a big announcement that they were going to sell more cars than anybody. Nice move. Now they are eating muda. Who cares how many cars you sell? Customers? Or businessmen?
I don’t mean that car companies can just shut the lights off in accounting and stop worrying about business fundamentals like making more money than you spend. Everyone knows the American car companies are being cannibalized by the auto workers’ unions, through a combination of demands and protections and commitments to past workers. The unions do not have to worry about the company making more money than it spends–not directly, anyway. And a business needs to focus on very simply, very directly, making more money than it spends.
One thing I will never understand is why car manufacturers pay car retailers to sell their cars. I mean, I understand it this far: whoever sells the most cars is the most winningest car maker so the stock market is supposed to favor their stock and drive up profits for executive compensation plans. And there is probably something going on where they get to report the “market value” of their vehicles is so sweet based on the price the dealer pays, before the manufacturer rebates them money. But it’s sick, it’s perverse. Just sell the darn thing for less money. Done.
Into this world of stupidity storms VW, who, according to BusinessWeek, “built more cars than its Japanese rival. Toyota still sells more each year.” If you didn’t catch that, read it again. Did you find the stupid yet? Why are they building more cars if they aren’t selling more cars?
But VW has a secret plan to brainwash all Americans into buying their cars. Here it is (still from BusinessWeek): “VW plans to stretch the Passat’s successor four inches, add three inches of legroom, and sell it for a starting price of about $20,000.” There. I bet that made you want one, didn’t it? Those are just some numbers that you can measure and compare so you can compare some numbers on your PowerPoint slide for your stockholders so they will know you are improving. It worked on the BusinessWeek writer, who thinks that because VW spent a lot of money in important markets and plans to sell cars cheap (no word on whether they will actually cost less to make, or if VW can achieve the price targets), VW is on the road to dethrone Toyota. For most cars sold. By giving people money to buy the car with.
A business plan to sell more cars is fundamentally a stupid business plan. There are lots of ways to sell more cars without getting people to actually want your car, as we have been seeing in these past few years. A common strategy is “Look. It’s shiny. And you don’t have to give me any money for it, until later, when you get rich.” Sold a lotta cars that way, oddly enough.
For the car business to become healthier, and not simply faster moving, car manufacturers have to stop looking at new vehicles sold and start looking at used vehicles sold; stop looking at new models introduced and start looking at the number of years a model is owned; stop watching people who buy new cars ever year, according to their whims, and start watching people who actually take their cars in for repair. They need to stop thinking quarterly business results and start thinking about making the car the most useful for the longest amount of time.
I’ll elaborate more later.