Posted on August 20, 2010
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“This card was declined.” He said it quietly, professionally, his tone a mixture of sympathy and inquiry, inquiry to suggest the face-saving possibility that there was some mistake and sympathy because we both know there wasn’t. It’s not the first time I’ve heard this.
I have never been truly financially straightened, but from some muddled circumstances I was not perceptive of as they transpired I have gotten credit far below my means and have passed the meager limits on certain cards. I’ve overdrawn my checking; I’ve missed bill payments. I don’t think of myself as being one of those people; in principle I believe in paying bills in full, on time, from my savings. I have the savings. I don’t scheme to pay bills as late as possible. But I don’t behave the way I believe.
I tried to pay for my routine dental work using my credit-debit card (underwritten by a major credit agency, provided by a bank, arranged by a health care company contracted by my employer) but the card was declined. The card I am supposed to be using now was sitting on my desk in the envelop–activation not permitted when the card actually arrived, and thus set aside for later.
Meanwhile, I also got a form letter from a previous health care provider, contracted by the same employer, inquiring about a check not cashed that was written out to me two years ago. I definitely remember cashing a check of that value, but as far as my records show I had two claims for the same value within six months, and only one deposit. I can’t find any checks amidst my layers of accumulated paperwork, but all I have to do is agree with them that it is still owed.
I still feel like a shmuck for not knowing what is going on.
And that, hour by hour, day by day, is how I feel at my job. You fumble the glass and it tumbles toward the floor–alarm, dread, resignation, a desperate attempt. Telling yourself it doesn’t really matter. Getting angry anyway. The glass, at least, breaks quickly.
Posted on July 21, 2010
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Philosophy is kind of interesting because philosophers break their own rules. As far as I know they always do; I haven’t studied them all. (Ha ha.)
I got to watch R. C. Sproul make himself look unintelligent. The man is intelligent, but he went ahead and broke his own rule, on video. He explained the difference between a contradiction (two statements that cannot both be true) and a paradox (a seeming contradiction resulting from inadequate understanding or definition of terms). Then he proceeded to tell a story about Paul Tillich lecturing a class on his concept that God is neither personal nor impersonal, but rather the ground of being.
“A student asked, ‘Professor Tillich, is God personal?’” Sproul said. “And Tillich got very angry and said, ‘I told you that God is neither personal nor impersonal,’ but of course, that is not possible! Impersonal is defined as that which is not personal, so everything must be either personal or impersonal.”
Alas to be teaching philosophy with such an inflexible mind! Paul Tillich is wrong in his teaching, but he is not making an invalid argument. It is a paradox, not a contradiction. If we accept that all humans are either male or female, then what is humanity? Male or female? Neither, of course, because a distinction belonging to one category is applied to another. Or even if we accept that everything must be either personal or impersonal–what then is everything? Collectively, all together now, considered at once: what is everything? Personal or impersonal?
This of course is very close to what Paul Tillich was getting at. But since Paul Tillich’s theology is not correct, we are reduced to saying that a studied philosopher is running around babbling brute contradictions. Play fair, sir; play fair.
Posted on July 19, 2010
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I just failed a screening interview.
It wasn’t even a phone screening. It was an online survey and I was unwilling to lie enough to pass through the filter. On my resume I just avoided the awkward bits where I didn’t quite meet the requirements, but then to submit it I had to check boxes and enter numbers–cold, hard numbers–which won’t align with the hard-coded requirements for being considered.
I have been spending a lot of time thinking about how to spin this or that detail, how to re-focus on the positive, all of that good interview stuff. But the form didn’t care.
Even worse were the “soft” questions with choose-one answers. “To what would you attribute past successes?”
I cringed as I selected “Mostly individual effort.” Wrong answer! But, even though I could talk all kinds of pep about the great and knowledgeable people that I work with, all of the work I have done relevant to the job I was applying actually got done mostly by me. It’s not that I am so great. It’s just that the work I have done relevant to the job I applied for is way outside of the scope of the job I am in, beyond even the department I am in. I did the work because it helped, I could, and I loved it. But there wasn’t anybody around who could help me, really.
It’s actually possible that I’m not sunk. I am going outside the system as well as through it. Maybe the someone who knows someone has enough influence that I will still get a call for a real interview.
But I won’t hold my breath.
Posted on March 2, 2010
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It is strange to me that my thoughts can fly like leaves before a storm, rushing and tumbling in the terror and despair of the calamity that drives them on. Each leaf itself is an inconsequential tatter, but they flee like an army in route, and it is hard not to run with them. Yet I have no idea what menace this tempest threatens to unleash.
Knowledge has no part of panic; it is sudden apprehension of a profound and total ignorance; oblivion.
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