Happy Birthday to Me!

Went for a 50-mile bike ride this morning with the local bike club (they’re awesome) and when I got home, my mother surprised me with this little gem she had found in the trash!

Bad Website Design

Do you think you can find which link on this page actually downloads the Wikipedia desktop app? Don’t feel bad if you can’t find it right away…

That’s right… if you said click on the tiny word “air” you’d be right. I don’t know what the two enormous “Download” buttons are for, and honestly, I don’t care.

If you design websites, please, please don’t ever do this. It’s evil.

Fellowship Of Misery

What happens when your heart is no longer in what you do? At what point do you still consider it “doing what you love?” 10%? 5%? I don’t have hard numbers, but what I “love” doing is no longer what I’m getting paid to do, by a long shot… somewhere down the road, computer techs have become secretaries and accountants, cause all we do now is answer the phone and fill out paperwork. I relish the few hours I get to actually fix things, while I spend 30+ hours a week just answering emails and filling out forms. And heaven forbid if I forget to fill in a blank on the form! And we have to remember not to use other blanks, cause they changed the process and didn’t bother to remove the blank.

So this is what corporate America has become. Companies pay $75 an hour for skilled contractors, and the actual people working get 20% of that if they’re lucky. Why not cut out the middle man? These staffing companies are getting harder and harder to work with. They are cutting deals with global companies to provide levels of service that we can’t achieve… at a price we can barely survive on.

I am firmly convinced that a corporate environment is dangerous to your spiritual health. There is nothing uplifting here, nothing good, just a bunch of dissatisfied people working out of force of habit. It’s a shame when a company remains running simply because all the workers share a “fellowship of misery” and stick together.

Note to companies: if you want your employees to enjoy their work, try actually letting them do their job!

The only thing keeping most computer techs like me from working on their own is more paperwork. If you can find someone to do your taxes and forms for you, then we’ve got the “fixing stuff” part down.

Hawaiian Shirt Fridays

One of the few things that makes my job worthwhile is getting to chill on Fridays. I always wear a bright Hawaiian shirt on Fridays, just to remind myself that I’m supposed to be relaxing at work. Not going to let people demanding things I can’t do ruin my day.

This week, pick a day to relax where you’re most stressed… get a tiny little fountain, or put on some soothing music (I really like Franz Liszt) or something whimsical (Bob Marley?) or just do like I do, and declare “Vacation at your desk” day every Friday, complete with Hawaiian shirt.

I need to get some little paper umbrellas to put in my coffee cup on Fridays.