This is how I get to work most days.
Over at The Sietch Blog: an essay titled How to Ride Your Bike to Work. It’s cheap, safe and easier than you think!
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Category: Work
(This article was cross-posted to Global Nerdy.)
What Did You Want to Be When You Grew Up?
Possible dream jobs.
The poll posed these two questions to adults:
- What was your dream job when you were between the ages of 5 and 9?
- What was your dream job when you were between the ages of 13 through 19?
The results:
- 7% of those surveys are now working at what was their dream job between the ages of 5 and 9.
- 13% of those surveyed are now working at what was their dream job between the ages of 13 and 19.
What I Wanted to Be
Both my parents were doctors, so at the age of 5, I wanted to be a doctor when I grew up. This was in the early seventies, and the way I hear my parents tell it, those were some of the best years to be in medicine, from a money-making point of view.
However, at around age 7, I discovered space and astronomy books. I was glued to the TV set when the Apollo-Soyuz mission took place and followed any news about the not-ready-for-flight space shuttle, which was stilled named the Constitution. (A letter-writing campaign from Star Trek fans would later make them rechristen it as the Enterprise.) I thought I might make a good astronomer, space scientist or rocket engineer.
In my teen years, I met my friend Pavel Rozalski, whose dad did some computer/electronics work at a glass company, and he got me into computers. We developed a sort of early Apple Computer working relationship while working on our science fair projects: Pavel played the “Woz” role doing much of the building of our simulator of AND, OR, NAND and NOR gates, while I was the “Jobs” guy, doing a lot of the writing of reports and talking to the judges. Our heroes were the guys who did stuff out of their garages — Woz and Jobs, as well as Hewlett and Packard. From then on, I was hooked on computers. I wanted to do something computer-related when I grew up.
I was also a dabbler in music and graphic arts (especially cartooning — most people at Crazy Go Nuts University know me for being a DJ and a cartoonist rather than an engineering and computer science major), so I always hoped that there’d be a way to combine those two loves with computers, perhaps with some chatting with people thrown in.
I remember reading an article in Creative Computing, one of the premier computer hobbyist magazines of the late 1970s and early 1980s. In that article, a programmer predicted that in the next coupel of decades, computer programmers might get the same sort of recognition as rock stars. I remember thinking, “Yeah, I’d like that.”
I showed the article to a friend of mine who laughed at me. “That’s stupid. That’s why I’m going to be a rock drummer. It’ll be way better — you’ll be coming home, all tired from work, ready to die, and I’ll be onstage and on TV in front of screaming chicks, getting high off the audience’s smoke.”
(Dude: been there, done that. With an effin’ accordion. How ’bout you?)
Finally, at the end of my teens — or maybe just after — I became aware of Guy Kawasaki, who held an interesting position at Apple: Technical Evangelist. I remember thinking “That’s a cool job…maybe I’d like to do that someday.” Since then, Guy’s been a role model of mine.
All this is an explanation for my generally good mood: I’m working at my dream job.
Me and Chad Fowler playing the opening number for an evening keynote at the RailsConf 2007 conference.
Evon Reid, who was called the “Ghetto Dude” in a mis-forwarded email from the Ontario government. Photo taken from his Facebook page.
It’s insult added to injury: not only did poor Evon Reid find out that he wasn’t accepted for a job by way of an accidental email forwarding, he was referred to in the email as a “ghetto dude”.
“This is the ghetto dude that I spoke to before,” said the email written by Aileen Siu, who works in the Ontario government cabinet office as an acting team leader in cabinet office hiring, which was meant to be forwarded to a job-search colleague.
There’s a mish-mash of issues brought up by this gaffe, including:
- Race: Reid is black, but there’s some question as to whether or not Siu knew that. In the Toronto Star article, Reid did indicate that the office spoke to his mother, who has a Jamaican accent. Siu pointed out that she’s Asian and implied that she understands racial discrimination. Of course, not being white doesn’t give you immunity from being a racist, in spite of what the loonier elements from the left will tell you. Kudos to Reid for handling this issue well: in a follow-up article in the Star, he said “”This isn’t a Confederate flag in a pickup truck. But it’s the kind of private view that affects decisions about someone like myself in the job market.”
- Class: I’ve seen the term “ghetto” used as an adjective by people from all races and all walks of life to refer to something that’s cheap, crass or tacky: “He shortchanged us when the bill came around! That’s so ghetto!” Reid’s from Malvern, a part of the large east-end Accordion City suburb called Scarborough (which often gets tagged with derisive names such as “Scarberia“, “Scarlem”, or the one that made me laugh out loud the first time I heard it, “Scompton”). Malvern has a rep, and Reid pointed this out when he said that it’s got one of the highest levels of youth unemployment in Canada.
- Qualifications: Reid’s credentials, from what was written in the Star article, are pretty good for someone who’s not quite out of university yet. They include a summer course in international management strategies at the University of Hong Kong, some solid projects in his courses, a good resume and a glowing letter from a former employer. It’s a crying shame that he wants to work for the government.
- Using office email wisely: First, there’s the obvious issue of double-checking the list of people in the “to:” and “cc:” fields of your email — we’ve all heard stories about people who’ve forwarded mail to the wrong people. But less obvious is the fact we live in the post Sarbanes-Oxley age, which means that every last little email you send using your employer’s email system is logged somewhere. The bottom line is that you should write email on the company email system as if someone at a law firm will be going over it with a fine-toothed comb someday.
- Multi-tasking: Siu said that she was multi-tasking when she made the mistake. Let this be a lesson to those of you who still think you’re being productive when you multi-task.
Related Reading
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23 Ways to Hack Your Work
Photo by Mary-Cakes / Desiree. Click to see it on its original Flickr page.
Over at the blog Dumb Little Man (whose slogan is “Tips for Life”), there’s an entry titled Hack Your Work: 23 Ways to Get Ahead, Work Less and Achieve More with some good ideas. Here’s the intro:
It’s something we’re all looking for — the perfect solution that will minimize our work life while still getting the stuff done that we need to get done. Well, that one solution doesn’t exist, but with a combination of strategies, you can get to where you want to be.
Now, none of these tips will turn your life around. But they can make a big difference, and when used together, your work life might just be enjoyable, productive, low-stress and high fun. And these tips won’t work for everyone. They’re not meant to be used as a step-by-step guide. It’s a list of strategies that work — choose your favorites and give them a try.
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Scenes From a Job Interview
Earlier today, I had a job interview with a spiffy-cool company whose name I won’t mention just yet. The parts of the interview that would be the most interesting to most people are, thankfully, the bloggable parts:
Employee 1: Hey, Joey! Welcome to {Spiffy-cool company whose name I won’t mention just yet}.
Me: Thanks. Nice place you have here. Didn’t realise it was so big.
Employee 1: C’mon in. I’ll take you to {the CEO}‘s office. By the way, sorry to hear about the “New Girl” thing. Feeling better?
Me: Much. You know, I forget how far and wide that story travelled.
We walk over to the CEO’s office, which is right by {Employee 2}‘s desk.
Employee 2: Joey! Glad you could come. Hey, about the “New Girl” incident — hope you’re doing okay.
Me: Thanks! Yeah, I’m okay. I was more creeped out than anything else.
We enter the CEO’s office. The CEO invites Employee 1 and Employee 2 to sit in on the interview.
CEO: Thanks for coming today, Joey. By the way, I read your blog. Really wild stuff, what happened with the New Girl.
Me: It was freaky, but thankfully little harm done. Besides, I think I can drink for free on that story for months.
I’m keeping in mind that the CEO is one of the Internet’s movers and shakers, whose company is a Methuselah (nearly a decade in business!) in a field where startups appear and flame out in a matter of months. He’s so well connected that he had a bite with Jeremy Allaire not long ago and is probably one of the Chosen Few who’s seen the secret stash of erotic daguerrotypes in Bill Gates’ mansion (okay, I’m kidding about the last one).
The interview commences and proceeds smoothly. The CEO then takes me to the desk of a biz dev person so that we can talk.
CEO: {Biz Dev Guy}, this is Joey. Joey, {Biz Dev Guy}.
Me: Hello, pleased to meet you.
Biz Dev Guy: Ah, yes. I’ve seen your resume.
CEO: Yes, but have you seen his blog? And the entry about the perfect girlfriend who wasn’t?
Biz Dev Guy: Uhm, no. I’ll have to give that a look sometime.
I haven’t had such an interesting job interview in the longest time. I hope they hire me.