makeshiftmind

In response to a post on brazencareerist.com about what tip(s) I would offer someone starting a career, I submitted the following:

1. Nights and weekends invested in your skillset will pay off. Don’t run away from hard work.
2. A positive attitude is essential. You *will* go unrecognized and taken for granted. This will be true of every job you hold all of your life. Don’t get frustrated; focus on what you can get from your job instead (experience, knowledge, contacts, etc.).
3. Set your limits, stand by your guns, and be prepared to accept the consequences. If you have a family and can’t work much overtime, don’t. But if your company expects overtime, be aware that your job may be in jeopardy. No job is worth sacrificing your true values, though.
4. People at work are co-workers; be wary of forming deep friendships with them. There will come a time where you will have to make professional decisions that will make them angry, so be careful about your personal investments.
5. Never think you’re entitled. A company will pay you for your skills. They owe you only what you are worth to them. On the flip side, never shortchange yourself. Your labor is your product, and you have a right to set your price and work for what you think you’re worth–so do your research and judge your worth objectively and carefully.
6. Don’t be afraid of people who are better than you. Listen to them, watch them, learn from them. They are one of your greatest professional assets.
7. Discover your personality flaws early, and work to master them.

Thoughts? Additions? Subtractions?

I found a very powerful quote today on a blog that I just happened to stumble across through an unrelated Google search.  I’m unfamiliar with the author, though a quick Wikipedia search revealed that Charles Bukowski was an American poet who wrote about “…the ordinary lives of poor Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships with women, and the drudgery of work.”  He writes:

“What is terrible is not death but the lives people live or don’t live up until their death. They don’t honor their own lives, they piss on their lives. They shit them away. Dumb fuckers. They concentrate too much on fucking, movies, money, family, fucking. Their minds are full of cotton. They swallow God without thinking, they swallow country without thinking. Soon they forget how to think, they let others think for them. Their brains are stuffed with cotton. They look ugly, they talk ugly, they walk ugly. Play them the great music of the centuries and they can’t hear it. Most people’s deaths are a sham. There’s nothing left to die.”

This is, perhaps, the 20th century Socratic observation that the unexamined life is not worth living.  It is a reminder that the historical impact of our endeavors and social impact of our relationships are the only sources of immortality we will ever have.  And every day we get new chances to make the most of them.

EDIT: For clarity and more to the point, this quote is really about not filling our lives with the meaningless, so that when we do die something of value is actually left behind.  Not simply the mundane.

…and do yard work today.  I have the day off, so instead of squandering it (my preferred mode of vacationing) I got out the mower, the trimmer, several yard tools, trash cans, and our ladder.  I had the front lawn mowed and trimmed by noon, and decided to tackle the clogged gutters and our miserable landscaping next.

I pulled the ladder around back where the lowest point of our roof is, and realized that to get maximum height from the ladder I’d need to open the gate to our back yard, which I did.  I positioned the ladder and climbed to the top rung (you know, the one that has that warning label on it informing you that it’s not really a rung), only to realize that the ladder was really too short for a roof expedition.  Nah, I thought, I’ll just hoist myself up.  I threw my work gloves onto the roof, took a small jump, and with no shortage of huffing managed to drag myself onto the shingles.  I was wearing shorts (bad idea) and scuffed my knee, which started bleeding, but it was manageable.  Then I looked down and realized…

I wouldn’t be able to lower myself back onto the ladder.  If I tried to slip over the edge feet-first, my weight would quickly pull me over and if I didn’t hit the top of the ladder just right, it would topple and I would hit the concrete.  Unacceptable.  My only alternative was to move over to the side of the roof where there was grass and slowly lower myself over the edge until I slipped off, hoping the soft earth would cushion the fall.

And that’s not what happened.  Instead, when I landed my right ankle took a nasty, painful twist.  I managed to semi-drag myself into the house, threw ice on it right away and elevated it to prevent swelling.  Even though there was a fair degree of pain, it wasn’t too unbearable, and I could lightly put weight on it so I was fairly certain it wasn’t broken.  There was minimal swelling and no discoloration, and while it remains uncomfortable and I hobble like a broken wind-up toy, I think it will heal quickly.

A few hours later I got a call from my friend Steve.  I told him what happened and he said, “Dude, what were you doing on the roof to begin with?  Geeks aren’t allowed up there.  For their own safety.”

I promptly agreed, and will play video games religiously until my health is restored.