Category: The Wonders of Work

Caveat: And on…

Banalities & Journaling / The Wonders of Work

I know, it's been a really long time.  Not that anyone was reading this, right?

Toward the end of May I flew to Minnesota for just two days, to see Jeffrey (my former stepson from when I was married to Michelle) graduate high school.  High School.  Made me feel kinda old, you know?  Minnesota was beautiful, though.

The new job:  it's going OK.   On the one hand, lots of challenges, and so far I feel like I'm up to them, technically, for the most part.  Learning a lot.  The CIO, every time I talk to him, makes me feel small and ignorant, however.  Mostly my insecurities, and, actually, it's preferrable to have a CIO who knows too much to one who knows too little, don't you think?

I have this little, profoundly boring studio apartment in Long Beach, now, and I'm moving in slow motion from the little house on the hill in Highland Park down into this new place.  Walking distance from the Long Beach offices where I work – but the current project I'm on – a data migration – has me down at business offices in Newport Beach several times a week, so the commute is still happening, at least part time.  I've taken to driving back and forth to Newport on the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) rather than the 405 freeway, however… takes a little longer in the event there's no major congestion on the 405, but who can predict when that would be?  One out of 10 of the times I've tried it, regardless of time-of-day.  So I'd rather have "slightly slower but predictable."  Plus it's rather scenic, down along the coast Long Beach – Seal Beach – Sunset Beach – Huntington Beach – Newport Beach.  The oil platforms and tankers and container ships and navy ships sitting offshore, the surfers paddling about, the vaguely brown pacific. 

I'm in a weird phase lately, thinking what I think they call "nesting" thoughts – daydreaming about a nice house and looking covetously at furniture.  Haven't been in that frame of mind in a long time … like, since I was with Michelle.  The job isn't dissatisfying, but my life, overall, is.  Like… I never did decide what I really wanted to do, so I just jumped into doing something, anything to pass the time, right?  Whatever. 

Caveat: Next?

Banalities & Journaling / The Wonders of Work

Two things:

1)  I finally have a "real" website:  https://www.raggedsign.net.  At least, an embryo of one.   It's not very interesting yet.

2) I have a new job, starting next week:  I will be a Data Analyst / DBA (database administrator) with a medical management company in Long Beach.  I'll probably be moving sometime soon – the commute's a bit far from where I live in Highland Park.

The rain yesterday was really beautiful.  I've been reading a book called Darwin's Black Box by a biochemist named Behe.  It's really an anti-Darwinian tract, but well-argued and very sophisticated arguments, made from the standpoint of the "irreducible complexity" of many biological (esp. biochemical)  systems.  Why do I read this?  "Know thy enemy…"

Caveat: Long Beach, but no beach

Banalities & Journaling / Databases, Smartphones & Computers / The Wonders of Work

Long Beach, California, doesn't have a beach – that I know of, anyway.  Good name, then.   

The second-largest city in LA County, I believe.  Which is really saying quite a bit, since LA County must have at least 20 cities over 100,000.  And it's bigger than Minneapolis, anyway.  Whatever – I've always liked it there, sorta – it smells of the sea, unlike most of LA, and it is gritty, without being desolately poor. 

Why in the world did I go to LB?  I had a job interview, which went really well.  Intriguing position, as a DBA and Data Analyst (at the same time, overlapping – no room for boredom, there) at a small healthcare company (runs a few hospitals, pharmacies, clinics, etc.).  Fascinating data problems – like at Paradise Corporation, my alma mater, but with a more clued in management, one hopes. 

Check this out:  the CIO of this company spends 30 minutes interviewing me, and asks these really detailed, complex SQL coding and system admin questions.  This is a CIO who is profoundly nonclueless.  He knows stuff.  Amazing… and compelling.  If they make an offer, I will accept.

Clear and almost smogless today:  southern California at it's best.  I think… hmm, is this place finally growing on me, a little bit?  I've always had a love-hate relationship with this place, intriguing giant city, yes, but a grotesque climate for the most part.  Hot.  Boring.  Hot.  Boring. 

But then it offers up a lovely cloudscape, or a sweeping urbanized swathe of green/brown/grey with a brisk taste of sea air that charms me, on a not-unbearably-hot day. 

Caveat: Saale Valley

Banalities & Journaling / Databases, Smartphones & Computers / Hiking & Travel / The Wonders of Work

Dateline: Leipzig

Bob, Martin and I walked around Jena for a few hours, visiting some of Bob's old student-haunts. It's a picturesque university town, seat of Freidrich-Schiller-Universität, and location of former Warsaw-pact champion "optics" industry (formerly Zeiss optics I think – before WWII). Anyway, there was at least 10 cm of fresh snow on the ground, and we helped dislodge some stuck cars on narrow streets, and saw the new "Goethe Galerie" (mall) downtown, and university buildings and some medieval stuff – a fragment of the city wall. Jena is quite an old town – 11th or 12th c I guess. Martin works for Zeiss but his position is in the IT department, which was recently outsourced to "HP" – which means that Carly Fiorina was his boss – at least until last week.

This morning, Bob and I took the train to Weimar and changed for the "InterCityExpress" for Leipzig, where I am now. I spent a few minutes just now answering a frustrating email from (ex)work – looks like trouble with the National Accounts commissions reporting process (the finding of new accounts sold under National Agreements eligible for commissions). The sample report run by Ravi & al. is correct format-wise but appears way off-base in terms of content – unless it was meant as a sample (which I don't think it was), it seems like something is amiss in the kingdom of DenMARK.

Bob is off shopping for rare bits of sheet music, and I'm here in the trainstation where I found a hotspot. There's less snow on the ground here than there was farther south, but Leipzig looks like an interesting city. The trip from Weimar up the Saale valley was quite beautiful under the snow, with castles up on the bluffs and old churches and all – reminded me of the Mississippi valley southeast of St Paul, in terms of natural appearance, but with that central european overlay of orderly-chaotic buildings, roads, etc.

Caveat: Beursplein

Banalities & Journaling / Databases, Smartphones & Computers / Español Aleatorio (Random Spanish) / Hiking & Travel / Language & Linguistics / Media (Texts/Music/Movies etc) / The Wonders of Work

Dateline:  Amsterdam

I'm sitting in a cafe on Beursplein, in the Beurs van Berlage (whatever that is) in downtown Amsterdam.  I just had a very tasty soup.  I came here looking for WiFi, didn't find t-mobile but figured out KPN (dutch phone company) and for a coupla euros, I'm hooked up once again.   This is nicer than the lobby of the Ramada, where I went yesterday.

I set out this morning to go to the Rijksmuseum, but it was raining hard, and so I bought a transport pass and took a trolley (sort of indirectly).  I got to the museum and decided I wasn't in the mood (plus there was a sign announcing that a portion of it was closed), so I got back on a trolley at random and visited some grim Dutch suburb (something southwest of here, I think). 

I don't make a very good tourist, I guess – I'm just as happy riding public transport at random as I am visiting museums or landmarks.

I meet with Eurobob tomorrow in Utrecht.  Meanwhile, mostly I'm killing time.  I wrote up a a rather pessimistic review of reporting capabilities at Paradise Corp for Ravi and Tom, RE the bid for business from that large retail chain.   In retrospect, I'm wondering if it's what they wanted… but if they want me to write up the solution (as opposed to a condemnation of current abilities) that's much more in depth, isn't it? 

As in, you'll have to build such and such aggregate, using such and such process, and tie in data from here, there, and everywhere.  Seems like a request to design reportomatic 2.0.  I'm all for that, but it ain't gonna be cheap, is it?

Meanwhile, I'm reading Persiles.  So you've got this guy, Periandro (later revealed to be Persiles), dressed in drag (and looking very gorgeous, apparently), looking for his sister, Auristella (i.e. Sigismunda – and one is inclined to impute something incestuous, there).  But she is dressed as a man, and is about to be sacrificed because the barbarians want the blood from his (her) heart to test a prophecy of a future king.  But one of the barbarians gets the hots for Periandro (who he thinks is a woman) while Auristella reveals she is a woman (to avoid being murdered) and the barbarians break out into an orgy of violence and soon the whole island is in flames.  Really.

And that's just the first few chapters.

So far, Nederland reminds me of a kind of old-world New Jersey, but they talk funnier.  I don't mean that as an insult, either.  I think Dutch is a very cool language…  kind of what I expect English would sound like if I didn't understand it.  It's got similar phonetic inventory, and very similar cadences to English.  Kind of like how they talk in Jersey, right?

Caveat: A somewhat liberal metropolis

Banalities & Journaling / Databases, Smartphones & Computers / Hiking & Travel / Internet & Blogging / The Wonders of Work

Dateline: Amsterdam

I arrived around noon, once baggage was gathered and immigration cleared. Very tired, as I failed utterly to sleep on the plane – too much anticipating or something.

I read a few chapters of Persiles, and still can't get over how peculiar it is. It ain't Don Quijote, we all know… but what the hell is it?

Amsterdam is about 0 degrees C – but after Minnesota last month it doesn't seem unreasonable in the least. I walked around quite a bit, located the hotel where Eurobob set up reservations, and proceeded to check in and sleep 4 hours. I'm more with it now, so I emerged in early evening darkness to find this internet spot. Logged on, looking for a nearby hotspot for my laptop – which will be much better. I was having some trouble with the yahoo email account yesterday and Sunday, but I think it's resolved.

I still need to send to Tom / Ravi @ Paradise Corp the write up on the reporting requirements that I promised before I left. I'll send that out tomorrow morning. While on the flight I also put some time in on the "white paper" I'm trying to write on Business Intelligence / Decision Support Systems. I think I have a long way to go, but I think I have a chance of producing something genuinely meaningful.

Guy Kawasaki asks, apropos the start-your-own-business thing, in an article I read in Entrepreneur magazine: are you creating meaning? That's the most important question, according to him. We shall see, I guess, but my business concept will proceed apace while I lollygag around Europe.

Caveat: So much for posting regularly…

Banalities & Journaling / Databases, Smartphones & Computers / Hiking & Travel / Philosophy & Cultural Criticism / The Wonders of Work

Dateline:  Pueblo, CO.

I'm zigging and zagging my way cross country, basically from Starbucks to Starbucks, using their wireless access points to stay online.   

Quit my job at Paradise, now I'm looking at being a sort of independent contractor / consultant.  We'll see how that goes.  I'll try to keep things up-to-date.  The current road trip provides a good framework from which to hang commentary.  Stayed at Wendy / Aundi's last night in Santa Fe, had breakfast at Harry's Roadhouse, and had a great deep conversation with brother Andrew. 

As in… what is the nature of consciousness, among other things.  My short answer – it's quantum mechanical self-deception.  The capacity for self-awareness and deception do appear to be tightly linked in the chain of being.

More later, then.

Caveat: A rant worth remembering…

Banalities & Journaling / Databases, Smartphones & Computers / The Wonders of Work

The following was writting in January, to one of our Business Systems Managers (a sort of IT department liaison who job it is to deal with us difficult business / functional folks. All that's changed is that evidence suggests that my recommendations were not taken. That's OK – I didn't think they would be. But I still want to go "on record." So here goes… any modifications or additions I've added are in square brackets [].

Please understand, my motivations are not meant as criticism of any person, department, or process, but rather, I'm driven by a desire to make things genuinely better.

I think there is a growing consensus that the "New Data Warehouse" project fell woefully short of expectations and promises.

[er… outta time … I'll add the rest later]

[um… I never finished this rant. Just as well.]

Caveat: Welcome to Paradise, Corp.

Banalities & Journaling / Databases, Smartphones & Computers / The Wonders of Work

Keeping in mind that all names are being changed, to protect the innocent, the guilty, and the idiots, here is my world.

Basically, think "Dilbert" – but without all the glamor.

Paradise Corp is a fortune 500 company — over 50 years old, a "bricks and mortar" conglomerate. Paradise went public again in the most recent decade, after several decades as a privately held company, and — unofficially at least — is experiencing some shocks under the higher level of scrutiny that being a public corporation is subject to.

As a conglomerate, it has a number of unrelated divisions with very little in common between them, except perhaps a brand and a CEO — we're in "silos," to put it in consultantese. I work for a very autonomous, $1 billion+ annual revenue division in a specialized niche in the B2B services world.

We're one of about 5 national-scale players in an otherwise fragmented, regional and mom-and-pop industry, and, until a few years ago, we held a definitive lead, in both reputation and size. The recent economic downturn, changes in the industry overall toward "commodification" of our primary product, and some serious at-loss pricing from our competitors in order to gain market share, have all contributed to our recent bout of ill-health.

My loyalty to Paradise is based in the personalities that surround me — the organization as a whole hardly merits it. Although I've no concerns regarding the general ethical soundness of Paradise, it's hardly what I would call an exemplar of corporate excellence.

I've received some good breaks at Paradise, however, climbing from being a "temp" in the billing department through billing coordinator, programmer/analyst, and now data analyst and even "data strategist" (at least unofficially) in about 5 years — all without any help from my resume, which says I should be teaching high school or, at best, pursuing my PhD in literature.

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