Sam's Backup Page

Guys, wish me luck today. I have an interview at lunch and a duck racing in the Rubber Ducky Derby at one.

The whole interview thing, it's...amusing, yes, okay, but also so frustrating to me. I basically have a lock on BossBoss's job, which I've already interviewed for, but Overboss is really paranoid about HR finding out, so he won't actually come out and say it, and I can't be seen to be anticipating it too much. So when HR told me to apply for this other job, which is basically administrative, I couldn't really say no. Especially since if HR found out about the BossBoss job thing they might interfere because, I can't stress this enough, this company really, really hates it when admins get promoted out of admin positions. And that can be all the illegal, but it still might happen and there's not much recourse I have if it does.

These people I'm interviewing with today know me, and I know them. I have to work with them. Even if I don't get the admin job, I will have to work with them as New BossBoss. And they're so excited about possibly getting me for their team.

I want to tell them, look, I have another job impending so please don't depend on me as your Golden Future Admin, take some other candidates seriously. But of course I can't do that because 1) it isn't done and 2) if the BossBoss job does for some reason go south, this admin job would be a nice backup. So now I'm wasting the the time of people I like and have worked with for three years -- I'm lying to people and there's no way they're not going to eventually know that I was lying from the start when I take another job.

It's just a small part of a larger annoyance, though, which is that however you want to cut it or argue about details or semantics, the process of hiring and being hired is essentially rooted in dishonesty. You can have all the accomplishments in the world and be proud of them and be good at what you do and perfect for the job you're applying for, but you still have to know the "right" answers and you still have to sell yourself, and a great deal of salesmanship is dishonesty. Spin, if you want to give it a nicer name. It's not the dishonesty that bothers me -- I can appreciate a good lie, and even a good lying competition -- it's the fact that a process meant to evaluate a person's actual strengths and compatibility is a process in which everyone, on all sides, lies through their teeth. And everyone knows they're lying, so it becomes a competition for who can lie the best.

Wouldn't it be nice if, when I applied for this job and was asked where I'd be in five years, I could just have said "We both know this is not a job people make a career of. I won't be in this job in five years, but nobody you hire will be, and I have a better work ethic than they do." But you can't say that. Even if the other person would be relieved to hear it.

It's a fundamentally broken system, and I know there's no real way to fix it without radically redesigning our entire culture. But it still frustrates me that we have to go through this pointless ritual, which stresses out everyone involved and doesn't actually do much more than weed out the drastically inappropriate, leaving the rest of the field to see who can sell themselves the best.

And people wonder why I don't date.

megaleena left a comment a few days ago on a post where I talked about my obsessive-compulsive reading list, suggesting it would be interesting if I shared it. Easily enough done!

So, between email, work, and writing, ( this is what I read daily. )

For bonus points, ( this is my Monday additional reading list. )

Man. Reading it all laid out like that, I do kind of look like a politically apathetic dilettante, don't I?

I also read Chicago Magazine and The New Yorker, and the Monday edition of the Chicago Sun-Times, though I don't know if those are exactly points in my favour.

This evening I walked up to the post office that I normally go to when I want to mail stuff, because they're nicer than the Ft. Dearborn post office (for real, you guys, don't ever go to the Ft. Dearborn post office, they're terrible people). But when I got to the Nice Post Office, I saw something a little odd through the window. The PO boxes had been gutted -- there were just big walls with gaps in them.

That's a little strange, I thought to myself jauntily. They must be remodeling! Oh well, I will mail my packages and make pleasant chit-chat about the remodeling and be on my way!

Then I got to the front door and there was a sign there all SUCKER WE MOVED WE'RE BACK THE WAY YOU CAME AND HIDDEN IN AN APARTMENT BUILDING NOW. Only, you know, in more formal wording and with a giant google map printout.

THEY MOVED THE POST OFFICE.

Who does that? I've never seen a post office move before. Where once there is a post office, there is now no post office! Just a big googlemap making me look like a dumbass! What is this, a Miyazaki film? POST OFFICES ARE SUPPOSED TO STAY PUT.

Clearly I need a "sam doesn't handle change well" tag.

Today I am the most misunderstood person on the internet. Not in any kind of sad, emo way, it hasn't been a bad day exactly. It's just that I am literally not making myself understood. I am cross-communicating with a vengeance. ENGLISH, WHY HAVE YOU ABANDONED ME.

We got three calls today from people wanting to talk to "the person in charge of fundraising". We are a business in charge of fundraising, but it's very difficult to make people understand this. We don't need to sell chocolates, sir or madam, we're a little beyond that now. No, there's nobody in charge of fundraising, or rather in a limited way everyone here is.

I had to explain our new security system to someone, again, but after 300 repetitions of this explanation, TODAY I effed it up.

I have three different web browsers, but only one of them currently functions well enough for me to order dinner. And it's Internet Explorer.

And then there was this thing with a man looking for a dentist, except I don't speak Arabic so it took us a while to establish that he was not in the dentist's office. (We did establish that he was from Egypt before we established that he was in search of a dentist. I googled one for him.)

I wrote the above while recovering from dinner, and then I looked down at my foot, which was tingling, and discovered that at some point during the meal I had ripped a three-inch gash in the side of my left foot. So now I'm not even communicating with my own nerve endings.

I don't have band-aids long enough for this, but I do have superglue!

Guys, don't let me glue my foot into a sock. That would just be embarrassing.

This morning I was asked to change my password on my work computer, as I must do every four months. And I sat there waiting for it to authorise my new password, and I thought, I have measured out my life in login codes.

And, as it so often does, then my brain screwed me out of several hours of productivity.

Edit to add: Why hello there, entire internet! If you'd like to know who I am or what I think of this poem, I made a separate post that you can check out. Hope you enjoy your stay here at chez Copperbadge.

( The .doc File Of J. Alfred Prufrock )

LOL, so it turns out my karmic reward for running the job fair is to get a $150 cut on tomorrow's paycheck. MY LIFE, FOLKS.

Payroll fucked up the sick day I took, and they're very sorry but the paychecks have already been cut and they can't cut me a separate check, so I'll just get that $150 on my next paycheck on the 13th. Which would be fine, except this paycheck pays my rent, thanks, and $100 of that $150 was kind of necessary. :P

I have a good job and a life full of perks, plus a savings account and a credit card, so I don't actually need money per se. I can cut a deal with my landlord and the money will reach me eventually at any rate. (If you are thinking of nipping over to paypal, consider people in more dire need than myself -- graduate_maria is short of their goal and the shelters and aid orgs always need help. Srsly, don't send me moneys.)

But it got me thinking about what I would do if I did desperately need to raise money fast, combined with a remark a friend made to me a while ago about what I could go for on the free market. And I thought, well, what if I ran some sort of original-fiction short story festival? Say, for a small consideration, I promised a thousand-words-minimum to prompt or freestyle, distinctly non-fannish.

I don't know, is this a good thing? Do we think this is taking advantage of my position vis a vis the internet? Do we think this is sheer ego? I'm not a good judge. I have no idea what amount is even decent to ask, and I doubt I have time right now anyway. But I like the idea of getting the writing practice in, making a little cash, and perhaps compiling them afterwards and putting out a volume of short stories through Extribulum Press.

It's strange, really -- if I were doing this for charity I wouldn't hesitate and I wouldn't even dither about price, but it's different when I want to earn the money for myself. Artists often devalue their own work; people don't do art because it pays well, they do it because they love it, or at least that's why I do it. So it seems wrong somehow to ask for money for it.

Anyhow. It's interesting to mull over. Your thoughts on this topic are welcome.

In other news, I did three things today:

1. POSTED MY MOTHERFUCKING FANFIC MASTER LIST. THAT'S RIGHT.
2. Added summaries and warnings to all fanfics what had it not. Every fanfic has (or should have, I may have missed some) at the very least a warning note reading "Warnings: None." Fanfics with possibly triggery content have, to the best of my ability, been tagged with appropriate warnings, and there is a specific request on the Master List to contact me if you hit content that wasn't warned for so that I can apologise and make it right.
3. Realised, whilst doing the above two items, that it really is true: I cannot organise my life. I can only cross-reference and index it.

TODAY, ON MANIPSTERPIECE THEATRE: THE SILVER PIMPERNEL.

cruentum: "The former Desperate Housewives star admits he has a number of "flaws" and already dyes his hair regularly to hide his greying locks. He tells Britain's Heat magazine, "I know I'm good-looking, but I'm not egotistical. I have flaws - I have to dye my hair twice a month to get rid of all the grey."
snaxcident: "I'm not egotistical" LOL
copperbadge: I don't know why John Barrowman is so insecure, he looks bitchin' as a silver fox.



snaxcident: OMG he's soooo angry right now. "Oh my god, how am I going to get "Handsome Youth" roles now?"
cruentum: He'd kill you, man.
copperbadge: HE HAS TO CATCH ME FIRST.

BONUS DOUBLE FEATURE: INTERVIEW WITH THE BARROWMANPIRE.

You know how he really preserves his youth?



Sometimes the simplest manips are the best.

It's hot here. Hot as fuck. Hotter than fuck. Fuck can only dream of being this hot. Mum sent me an email saying that she saw a news report about the possibility of rain in Chicago, but I think the rain decided Chicago was too hot and detoured.

There is no breeze, there is no shade, there is no God.

But then I think about the fact that this heat will end by no later than September, while it is a year-round function in Austin, and I'm okay. When I moved to Chicago I noticed that the primary topic of small talk here was the weather, which makes sense in retrospect. There's no point in talking about the weather in Austin (hot) or Oregon (wet) or California (mild) because it's always the same, but here the weather is a neverending variable.

They say the motto of Chicago is "Urbs In Horto" which means "City in a garden" but I suspect the real motto is Et Hoc Transibit: THIS TOO SHALL PASS.

It might be Adfatimne calidus est prote, "Hot enough for you?"

Appropriately, jenna_thorn has tips on how to stay safe and stay cool.

Sam Starbuck brings the internet TO YOU!

Actually I just ended up with a lot of lolarious links today.

seneska pointed out that xkcd has intriguing timing given what I posted about last night -- I swear I'm not Randall Munroe, though there are days I wish I was.

misswinterhill linked me to a video of BABY SLOTHS OMG WHY ARE THEY SO AWESOME. I especially like the Zen Sloth Monk in the last shot, he looks like he could tell us the secret of the universe but that would spoil all the fun.

hija_paloma linked to this song/vid while making a point about Transformative Works, and I can't stop listening to it. I would be ashamed, but sorry, I'm too busy ROCKING OUT.

And then....there was the Doctorcorn.

( Cut for images )