[This was also posted to Global Nerdy.]
Local tech evangelist David Crow points to The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You’ll Ever Need. Unlike What Color is Your Parachute? or Who Moved My Cheese?, Johnny Bunko is in manga form — that’s right, it’s a Japanese-style comic book.
An unusual book needs an [...]
Category Archives: Work
“The Adventures of Johnny Bunko” — A Manga Career Guide
May 9, 2008 – 2:55 pm
Are You Sure You Want to be in San Francisco?
April 22, 2008 – 3:22 pm
Over at Signal vs. Noise, 37signals’ blog, David Heinemeier Hansson asks Are you sure you want to be in San Francisco? Here`s an excerpt:
If your idea for a web business is more along the lines of the mundane “product * price = profit” (3P) variety, I think the culture of San Francisco and that famous [...]
Why I Took the Job Title “Nerd Wrangler”
April 17, 2008 – 9:16 am
Nerrrrrrrrrrrrrds!
When I accepted the position of b5media’s technical project manager, Jeremy Wright said “come up with a less-formal sounding title”. I did a little Googling and figured that I could “own” the term “Nerd Wrangler”. It’s happened — I pretty much own the first page of results for the search term “nerd wrangler”, with and [...]
Scenes from the Office
March 19, 2008 – 12:00 am
My first week with b5media was my best first week on the job ever. On my very first day, I boarded a plane and flew to Austin to attend the South by Southwest Interactive conference, one of the biggest events in our industry. For a week, I attended interesting sessions, met new coworkers and colleagues, [...]
The Final Countdown, Again
March 5, 2008 – 11:09 am
Didn’t I just do this?
Once again, it’s my last day at the job, which means I’m cranking that classic of 80’s hair metal: The Final Countdown by Sweden’s gift to rock, Europe.
It’s become a bit of an end-of-job tradition for me that started back at OpenCola, the dot-com that Cory Doctorow co-founded and for [...]
The New Job: Nerd Wrangler at b5media
March 3, 2008 – 12:00 am
I figured I’d start off the working week with a big announcement: I’ve landed a new gig. As of this Thursday, March 6th, I’m going to be working at b5media, a network of 320 blogs that gets a total of over 10 million unique visits every month.
Depending on whom you ask, my new job title [...]
How to Work the Room
January 23, 2008 – 2:05 pm
Over at FoundRead, Larry Chiang has some advice that you might find useful if you’re following Scoble’s advice for people who’ve just been laid off (particularly the parts about networking and attending business events). His piece is titled How to Work the Room.
Here’s a condensed version:
Be more of a host and less of a guest. [...]
What to Do If You’re Laid Off (or Just Looking for Work) in the 2008 Recession
January 23, 2008 – 1:25 pm
A still from the original “Odd Todd” cartoon, Laid Off: A Day in the Life.Click the image to watch the cartoon.
Inspired by news of the impending layoffs at Yahoo!, Robert Scoble — quite possibly the internet’s best-known tech evangelist has compiled a list in his article What to Do if You’re Laid Off in the [...]
“Putney Swope” on How Not to Negotiate Price
January 5, 2008 – 5:02 pm
In Robert Downey Sr.’s movie, Putney Swope, there’s a scene in which the title character meets with photographer Mark Focus (great name!). Things go badly for Mark when they start negotiating price…
As the blog Photo Business News & Forum puts it, it’s “further evidence of the negotiation axiom “whoever speaks first loses” after price is [...]
She Wants a Bodyguard for Her Wedding
December 20, 2007 – 9:29 pm
That’s a photo of me circa fall 1999 playing a thug for a film project of my friend Scott Watkins.
The Ginger Ninja pointed me to this Craigslist Toronto “help wanted” ad for an unusual one-shot job:
I’m looking for a polished, professional bodyguard for a one day gig. Someone similar to ex cia ,csis, fbi, or [...]
El Zone Del Trabajo
December 13, 2007 – 5:45 pm
For the curious, I’ve got a Flickr photoset showing my current workplace, TSOT’s temporary office (we’re moving to the permanent office in January).
Click the photo to see the whole photoset.
I’ll be updating it from time to time, so check it often!
Office Holiday Party Memo of the Day
December 13, 2007 – 4:10 pm
Ah, the peril-fraught office holiday party…
I’ve always worked in small- to medium-sized companies that had casual dress codes — if they had any at all. Hence when the office Holiday/Christmas/Festivus/whatever party rolled around, the most I’ve ever received in the way of a dress guideline was “it’s at the Palais Royale, so it’s semi-formal”. It’s [...]
The Office Accordion
December 11, 2007 – 10:05 pm
My original accordion, a Titano student model, has been through a lot, from the streets of Accordion City to Burning Man to saving my butt from a mugging in Prague (see this story for details). In spite of a few broken chord buttons, some missing key tops and a slight air leak, I can still [...]
College Professor Salaries vs. College Football Coach Salaries
December 10, 2007 – 12:06 pm
BAD, or The Dumbing of America — A worthwhile read 15 years ago, and still relevant today.
In his book, BAD, or the Dumbing of America, Paul Fussell suggested that one of the best ways to make America a less dumb place would be to eliminate athletic scholarships entirely.
I agree — I think that the [...]
The Office Desk
December 5, 2007 – 10:48 am
Ever since I got my first digital camera back in 1998, I’ve made it a point to snap pictures of my workspace on a regular basis. The nature of my work has meant that I’ve rearranged or changed desks about every six months since I joined the workforce full-time back in ‘95, so I’m glad [...]
