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dragonlady7Have been awake two hours now. Got bored with tossing and turning. But am not awake enough to *do* anything. Also it is dark. And there is nothing to keep me awake. I went to bed at midnight, and woke almost precisely on the dot of three, for no reason, and have been trying and trying to get back to sleep... Rgh, i know I'll get sleepy around ten am or so and will wind up sleeping through the morning and being groggy at work, and getting nothing whatsoever done before work. Stupid! So stupid!
So I'll blather about things here, to amuse myself. Blogging is such a reflex by now (although what I do here can hardly be described as blogging: really, it's a journal) that I do it in my sleep, so it's the next best thing to it, right?
So the deal is that Buffalo's (considerably scaled-down) version of the Village Voice, the local alternative newsweekly (the one that actually gets published every week and has real, original content in every issue, as opposed to the several other fortnightly-or-whenever-they-feel-like-it Angry Marxist Rant rags which often just reprint things they've already published to fill up space) needs a Computer Guy. At the moment, they have one of their graphic designers who isn't intimidated by computers doing their network and website and all their computer needs. He wants to be an artist again, they want a better website, and their network is, by this point, held together with chewing gum and baling twine and they'd like to have it just work.
So they want to hire somebody part-time to come in and make the computers make with the working. (They bought an Xserve and the salesman came and installed it and then just sorta ran away, so they can't use the thing, not knowing how the hell to administrate it. For example.) The other candidates they were looking at, they were sorta IT-types, computery guys who know how to hook things together.
But Z, he is more than that. He is a computery guy who knows how to hook computers together, but also knows about digital document production, automated workflow, printgeekery, and programming. They're currently getting a document management system put together by someone from Rent A Coder dot com. Mm, yeah.
And as they were interviewing Z, they were noticing this. He is not just an IT dude. And the interviewer said Hm. We are planning on hiring someone exactly like you, in the future, when we finally get ourselves together enough to do a real live digital edition of the paper. (At the moment they just stick a PDF of the print version online. It's about eight megs an issue. Mm, yeah.) But we won't be ready for that for another few months at least. Would you consider hiring on as the Computery Guy and spending a few part-time months fixing the things I haven't known how to do, and transition into this full-time position later?
Z said he'd think about it, and weirdly enough they ended the interview by saying 'send us an email, ok?' Which is odd, as it ought to be their decision. Is it that they think he's so overqualified that they don't know whether to make an offer? Or what?
Z has expressed that he thinks this job would be fascinating-- and he's not just talking about the digital production, hypothetical later job. They showed him enough of how things are working around the place now that I think his interest is piqued because he's seeing what they're doing wrong and what he could very easily fix to dramatic effect. In the past he has expressed distaste for becoming some small shop's sole Computer Guy because of the mundane hassles that can entail, but this one seems to interest him, because I think, well, it's an interesting shop, at the least. And he is so very much a printgeek. Er, well, a document production geek. (We tried collaborating on a novel early this year and he spent the entire time laying out the document in which it was to be composed.)
I've told him not to worry about the money. As I said. I don't want him passing up a fascinating job that could well develop into a very cool career transition, just because he wants me to stop whining about money. (I don't think he would make that kind of choice. He is, after all, a very self-willed person.) But he might let it influence an otherwise shaky decision, perhaps, and then I'd feel like a tool. Because we're very nearly almost all right with money. Last night I looked at my pending direct deposit of today's paycheck, and looked at the upcoming bills, and on a mad whim paid off 3/4 of my outstanding credit card bill. Because, well, I could, and the thing is, if I find out later I couldn't afford to do that, well then, it's a credit card: I can charge it up again. It's not like paying a huge chunk of my student loans and then having to borrow money to pay the gas bill. Which would be dumb and yet which I am insanely tempted to do at times, because that's such a huge number.
But I digress. I make ends meet, now, now that I'm not in the Club and at the moment am somewhat reliably scheduled for five days a week at least three of which will be reasonable except for this week which has sucked.
The addition of, say, two hundred reliable dollars a week, which didn't vary from week to week depending on the weather (as my income does; yesterday afternoon there were no thunderstorms and so I made $50 instead of my usual $100 for a Thursday, simply because I had no delayed passengers)-- why, that would be perfectly adequate. Of course I wish he were making $60k a year, but if this job is cool? That's worth being frugal a while longer.
And yes, not needing to buy a second vehicle because both of us can reach work via public transportation (in my case, nearly door to door; in his case, it is only a very few blocks' walk-- unprecedented, for Buffalo, which has not so much a network of public transportation as it has um, some buses and a train that runs on a rubberband around a hamster-wheel) would be a tremendous factor in that. I had been dreading the first couple of lean months after Dave started work, assuming I'd need to take the bus and frantically save up for a car. (The only days I simply can't get a bus home are on weekends. But there are some days I'd have to spend an hour or more sitting around waiting for the thing. And there are three or four times a week when I am at risk of getting caught in a line at the cash-out office and missing the last bus and having to either phone home for a ride or ride the bus downtown, take the subway uptown, and then... phone home for a ride or walk 45 minutes at what would wind up being, by then, midnight.)
So, there, in more detail than anyone (including, most likely, me) needed, are my thoughts on this hypothetical new job of Z's which he may or may not be offered and may or may not accept.
(A side note: he claims the editor of the paper looks like a cross between Keith Richards and "the old dude from Just Shoot Me". So, the old dude (whatever his name is, from that show with David Spade and the women's magazine) on heroin, pretty much. An amusing image.)
The sun is rising and I've got an increasing headache as time goes by, which is just ducky. I'd really expected, despite my whining, to get sleepy by now. Eh well. Coughing's not helping either.
Z plans on emailing the place this morning-- he's not really sure what they're expecting, as it would sort of be more normal for them to contact him, y'know, to let him know if they're interested after interviewing the other candidates, etc, but I'm suggesting he use the excuse of sending a thank-you note for the interview to express that he is interested in the position and would like to discuss the brass tacks of it. (Because, of course, if they want him for 20 hours a week at six bucks an hour, with unpaid overtime, or something, then no amount of fascination could make that worthwhile. Or I should say, the present amount of fascination will not carry him through. Z is a printgeek but not a fool.)
Oh, at the interview, the editor read over his cover letter (the text of which I posted here) and looked up at him under his eyebrows, appraisingly: "Where's your pocket protector?"
"Well," Z said, "it clashes with the suit."
I had thought I would have other matters to witter on about, but thusfar they are not suggesting themselves, and my coughing is hurting my eardrums. I am going to go chug some cough syrup and lie out on the porch and work on my current letter to Katy, I think.
So I'll blather about things here, to amuse myself. Blogging is such a reflex by now (although what I do here can hardly be described as blogging: really, it's a journal) that I do it in my sleep, so it's the next best thing to it, right?
So the deal is that Buffalo's (considerably scaled-down) version of the Village Voice, the local alternative newsweekly (the one that actually gets published every week and has real, original content in every issue, as opposed to the several other fortnightly-or-whenever-they-feel-like-it Angry Marxist Rant rags which often just reprint things they've already published to fill up space) needs a Computer Guy. At the moment, they have one of their graphic designers who isn't intimidated by computers doing their network and website and all their computer needs. He wants to be an artist again, they want a better website, and their network is, by this point, held together with chewing gum and baling twine and they'd like to have it just work.
So they want to hire somebody part-time to come in and make the computers make with the working. (They bought an Xserve and the salesman came and installed it and then just sorta ran away, so they can't use the thing, not knowing how the hell to administrate it. For example.) The other candidates they were looking at, they were sorta IT-types, computery guys who know how to hook things together.
But Z, he is more than that. He is a computery guy who knows how to hook computers together, but also knows about digital document production, automated workflow, printgeekery, and programming. They're currently getting a document management system put together by someone from Rent A Coder dot com. Mm, yeah.
And as they were interviewing Z, they were noticing this. He is not just an IT dude. And the interviewer said Hm. We are planning on hiring someone exactly like you, in the future, when we finally get ourselves together enough to do a real live digital edition of the paper. (At the moment they just stick a PDF of the print version online. It's about eight megs an issue. Mm, yeah.) But we won't be ready for that for another few months at least. Would you consider hiring on as the Computery Guy and spending a few part-time months fixing the things I haven't known how to do, and transition into this full-time position later?
Z said he'd think about it, and weirdly enough they ended the interview by saying 'send us an email, ok?' Which is odd, as it ought to be their decision. Is it that they think he's so overqualified that they don't know whether to make an offer? Or what?
Z has expressed that he thinks this job would be fascinating-- and he's not just talking about the digital production, hypothetical later job. They showed him enough of how things are working around the place now that I think his interest is piqued because he's seeing what they're doing wrong and what he could very easily fix to dramatic effect. In the past he has expressed distaste for becoming some small shop's sole Computer Guy because of the mundane hassles that can entail, but this one seems to interest him, because I think, well, it's an interesting shop, at the least. And he is so very much a printgeek. Er, well, a document production geek. (We tried collaborating on a novel early this year and he spent the entire time laying out the document in which it was to be composed.)
I've told him not to worry about the money. As I said. I don't want him passing up a fascinating job that could well develop into a very cool career transition, just because he wants me to stop whining about money. (I don't think he would make that kind of choice. He is, after all, a very self-willed person.) But he might let it influence an otherwise shaky decision, perhaps, and then I'd feel like a tool. Because we're very nearly almost all right with money. Last night I looked at my pending direct deposit of today's paycheck, and looked at the upcoming bills, and on a mad whim paid off 3/4 of my outstanding credit card bill. Because, well, I could, and the thing is, if I find out later I couldn't afford to do that, well then, it's a credit card: I can charge it up again. It's not like paying a huge chunk of my student loans and then having to borrow money to pay the gas bill. Which would be dumb and yet which I am insanely tempted to do at times, because that's such a huge number.
But I digress. I make ends meet, now, now that I'm not in the Club and at the moment am somewhat reliably scheduled for five days a week at least three of which will be reasonable except for this week which has sucked.
The addition of, say, two hundred reliable dollars a week, which didn't vary from week to week depending on the weather (as my income does; yesterday afternoon there were no thunderstorms and so I made $50 instead of my usual $100 for a Thursday, simply because I had no delayed passengers)-- why, that would be perfectly adequate. Of course I wish he were making $60k a year, but if this job is cool? That's worth being frugal a while longer.
And yes, not needing to buy a second vehicle because both of us can reach work via public transportation (in my case, nearly door to door; in his case, it is only a very few blocks' walk-- unprecedented, for Buffalo, which has not so much a network of public transportation as it has um, some buses and a train that runs on a rubberband around a hamster-wheel) would be a tremendous factor in that. I had been dreading the first couple of lean months after Dave started work, assuming I'd need to take the bus and frantically save up for a car. (The only days I simply can't get a bus home are on weekends. But there are some days I'd have to spend an hour or more sitting around waiting for the thing. And there are three or four times a week when I am at risk of getting caught in a line at the cash-out office and missing the last bus and having to either phone home for a ride or ride the bus downtown, take the subway uptown, and then... phone home for a ride or walk 45 minutes at what would wind up being, by then, midnight.)
So, there, in more detail than anyone (including, most likely, me) needed, are my thoughts on this hypothetical new job of Z's which he may or may not be offered and may or may not accept.
(A side note: he claims the editor of the paper looks like a cross between Keith Richards and "the old dude from Just Shoot Me". So, the old dude (whatever his name is, from that show with David Spade and the women's magazine) on heroin, pretty much. An amusing image.)
The sun is rising and I've got an increasing headache as time goes by, which is just ducky. I'd really expected, despite my whining, to get sleepy by now. Eh well. Coughing's not helping either.
Z plans on emailing the place this morning-- he's not really sure what they're expecting, as it would sort of be more normal for them to contact him, y'know, to let him know if they're interested after interviewing the other candidates, etc, but I'm suggesting he use the excuse of sending a thank-you note for the interview to express that he is interested in the position and would like to discuss the brass tacks of it. (Because, of course, if they want him for 20 hours a week at six bucks an hour, with unpaid overtime, or something, then no amount of fascination could make that worthwhile. Or I should say, the present amount of fascination will not carry him through. Z is a printgeek but not a fool.)
Oh, at the interview, the editor read over his cover letter (the text of which I posted here) and looked up at him under his eyebrows, appraisingly: "Where's your pocket protector?"
"Well," Z said, "it clashes with the suit."
I had thought I would have other matters to witter on about, but thusfar they are not suggesting themselves, and my coughing is hurting my eardrums. I am going to go chug some cough syrup and lie out on the porch and work on my current letter to Katy, I think.
