Tag: job

Writer’s funk ain’t no fun

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m still in the midst of this writer’s funk, where I feel like I want to write something, but I simply don’t know what I want to write about lately.  It’s hard to explain how I’m feeling these days; I can’t say that I’m in one of my bouts of depression or being all ronery-emo, because I don’t really think I am.  Work is boring and stagnant, but it’s not like I didn’t know this was going to be the status quo when I took this job.  I’m working out and exercising along the same clip, and I feel physically fine, and mentally too, for the most part.

Yet, I can’t really find or think of anything remotely interesting to write about these days, to which that puzzles me a bit.  Usually, I lean onto local news, or try to find something remotely interesting on the internet to spark some train of thought worthy to put into words.  But Atlanta news is pretty stagnant and predictably boring, and nothing makes me want to write about racist agendas and the obvious racial bias that “my fair city” exhibits on such a regular basis.  Not to mention the fact that all the local Atlanta news outlets are money-grubbing rags that recycle the same news anyway.

The Atlanta Braves blog I occasionally write for, I’ve been informed that there are going to be some changes with.  Although it’s nothing really that serious, it does make me wonder if I want to continue to obligate myself with writing about baseball on a weekly basis.  Obviously, my fandom with baseball has grown a little disenchanted over the last three seasons, but I kind of wonder if this was an opportunity to dive head-first into trying to re-invigorate it, or if I just want to stop outright.  Sometimes I think that my position of floating in the middle isn’t necessarily the best idea.

Speaking of baseball, it’s not that I don’t love the game any less than I used to, but here’s an interesting fact: I’ve been to one Braves game all season.  I’ve been to more baseball games at Coors Field in Denver, than I have at home in Atlanta.  I’ve seen as many games in Detroit and Miami as I have at home in Atlanta.  It’s not that I don’t enjoy going to the ballpark, it’s just that the idea of going alone isn’t what it used to be.  I tell you, one of these days I’m just going to have to buckle down and get on board with an 81-game plan, and make my damndest effort to do an entire 81-game season.

Maybe this is the kind of slump that happens when I don’t really do anything in my spare time.  I’ve been spending a lot of time reading lately, and I have to admit that since I started using my iPad as a Kindle, I’ve been reading a ton of books, and I’m finding it more of a bear than anything else when I force myself to read a physical book again, but my declaring particular authors as “physical book only,” it’s something that I’m not going to abandon any time soon.

But my list of options of things to do when I’m at home is a little stale, and makes me think that it’s contributing to my overall mental stagnancy lately.  All I do when I’m at home as of late is either read, play LoL, or watch DVR’d shows.  I could be a little bit more productive and try to do some cleaning, but when 95% of the clutter in the house isn’t mine, it’s somewhat unappealing and unrewarding to even fathom, let alone do, especially when it feels like it’s just going to have to happen again in a week.

Perhaps I need more activities to do in my spare time, to stimulate my brain into wanting to write about something.  That’s usually what normally happens, when I really find inspiration to write, while I’m doing something else, creating the false conundrum that I need to address and write about something while the iron is hot, but oh noes, I suddenly don’t seem to have the time to do such.  Perhaps I should actually address these projects for Dragon*Con while there’s still plenty of time in advance, as opposed to trying to get everything done in the month of August like I ended up doing last year.

But until then, this writer’s funk blows.  I like having something a little more focused to write about.

Oh, just a veiled message hinting how I’m feeling today

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Between kindergarten and the third grade, I apparently had a very poor attention span. I’m pretty sure that if I were a kid in today’s society, I’d have been diagnosed with ADHD, and be put on medication of some sort, but since I wasn’t, we’ll just say that I was a typical kid who erred on the side of hyperactive, and it reflected in my performance in school.

Anyway, the most frequent evaluative remarks I would get during those years of contemporary schooling were along the lines of “needs improvement with paying attention, listening to and following directions.” Such sentiments would reflect in my report cards where I would apparently have low marks in those exact behavioral categories, despite the fact that I was doing pretty well in the actual educational aspect of school. It got to a point where my mother engrained the fear of god into me that paying attention and listening to and following directions were the most important categories to excel at when considering the next report card.

But since effort is one thing, and actual results are a completely other thing, there was a report card where it was more of the same thing; poor marks in paying attention and listening to and following directions. My mom apparently hit a boiling point and beat the shit out of me.

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Affirmative failure to act upon equality

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Instead of bitching about how much I hate PowerPoint again, I thought about the root of the cause for my hatred: I work with people that think PowerPoint is the greatest fucking concept on the planet. When I delve deeper and think about these people, I come to the conclusion that I work with people wholly unqualified, uneducated, and incapable of their positions, which begs to eventually ask the question of how these people got their jobs. And the answer to that, is sadly the easiest to hypothesize.

I recently read an article about how in Fulton County, the current workforce diversity breakdown currently stands at 83% black, 9% white, with the remaining 6% being “other,” AKA Asians and Hispanics. I live in Fulton County. Fulton County is pretty large overall, so these same statisticians saw it fit to isolate and examine just the City of Atlanta, which is within Fulton County. And within Atlanta itself, it breaks down to 75% black, 9% white, and 16% other.

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Secrecy can only create curiosity

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

There are three women in my office who have put blackout screen protectors on their monitors.  Y’know, the sheets of film that make screens visible pretty much solely to the user, as looking at them from the slightest angle makes them appear black and impossible to see through.  What most people put on their laptops, from when they really don’t want people near them to see what they’re doing on planes or coffee shops; shielding their personal devices in public places.

But yeah, there are a few people in my office who have put these screen shields on their work machines.  Since we all work in a cubicle jungle, what this says is that they do not want random people, passing through, to be able to see what they are doing.  The question I have to that is, what exactly would they be doing that requires the need for such extreme security measures?

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I think I love this woman

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Not just because Marissa Mayer, the CEO of Yahoo looks like total wifey material, but primarily for her actions, namely the one that has got her in the most childishly stupid of hot water. I can assume that most people have heard about it by now, but if you’ve been living under a rock, Mayer has pretty much told all Yahoo employees that working from home is no longer an option, and that they have to show up to work, or quit. Naturally, this has caused a monumental uproar from all of the Yahoo employees who abused the option to work from home, and they’re up in arms, and bringing everyone they can with them to fight the pointless fight.

I am unequivocally, 100% on Marissa Mayer’s side on this argument. The concept of “working from home” is one of the biggest crocks in the history of mankind, and there is absolutely nothing that could convince me that someone working from home, unsupervised and immersed in all of their worldly possessions and distractions, could actually be more productive than someone actually present in the workplace. I just don’t think it’s possible at all. I would really like to see each and every one of these Yahoo employees who are crying foul on this whole thing to try and prove otherwise, because already many have already fallen flat on their faces in attempting to do such.

Some of the biggest fail challenges are the people who claim that this completely screws up their parenting. That having to go to the office and do their job interferes with them being to stay home and well, not do their job, in favor of parenting, and all other job-irrelevant tasks and activities. Oh, I’m sorry Yahoo employee, that you have to GO to work and DO YOUR JOB. I guess you’ll have to be like all the other plebeians, and hire a babysitter or a nanny to care for your kids while you GO DO YOUR JOB.

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The homeless co-worker

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m pretty sure that he’s not actually homeless, but honestly there is reason for me to joke about making this claim.  But I work with a guy that if he weren’t such a blabbermouth at times talking about his living situation, there would likely be legitimate reason to believe that he might actually be homeless.

It’s not uncommon for people who work in offices to bring a sweatshirt, a hoodie, or some sort of house coat to wear while in an office environment, because everyone’s temperature gauge is different, but there can typically only be one temperature for an office.  That being said, Mr. Homeless in my office has this sweatshirt that he hasn’t taken off since his second day of starting here.  I wish I were kidding too; the day he was introduced into the office, he was wearing a typically office-complaint dress shirt, but I guess it was decided that the office was far too cold for his internal thermometer, and the sweatshirt was brought in and there hasn’t been a single minute since that I had no seen him in it since.

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The most obvious of “I give up on life” cars

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s funny whenever I think about cars that belong in the I give up on life category, Saturns never really crossed my mind.  But in a way, it’s fittingly appropriate in several ways; one, because Saturns are the most forgettable car manufacturer in history, and two, Saturn as a car company is dead, and has been dead for going on three years now.  Unfortunately, three years isn’t enough time to wipe them from existence as their turds on wheels are still being capably driven on roads across America as we speak.

Saturn was essentially a joint venture between General Motors and Rubbermaid (not actually true) that put out mediocre plastic (mostly) cars that were cheap to buy, cheaper to maintain, and supposedly cheap to repair when necessary (often, being a GM), in exchange for your dignity (factually accurate).  But after twenty years of sucking souls, Liu Kang and the automotive industry had enough of Saturn Tsung’s soul-sucking tendencies and putting an end to the Saturn brand, hopefully for good.

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