Take The Dice Away From The Baby, Mama
(before he craps all over the floor)
A huge win for my volleyball team last night! We lost the first game in a heartbreaker and were down big in the second. The whole season could have turned around on what happened next, which was the team coming together in a big way (it's what volleyball is all about) and coming back to win games 2 and 3 in a knockdown, drag-out brawl. It ups our record to 6-9 and puts us back in the playoff hunt. I love it!
I'm going to try and complete chapters 1-3 of The Flames of Resistance by the end of this weekend. The key night will be Friday, as I will have nothing to do but write, write, write. Martin will be expecting those chapters, so I hope to have them all done by that time. I need to have some actual rough drafts together, and then we'll go from there.
I talked to Stoph the other day and mentioned my bonus off-hand. He hadn't heard - I never remember who I tell what (or what I tell who, for that matter) - and wanted to know the details. I told him, a bit reluctantly, and he congratulated me, also a bit reluctantly.
Christoph was my roomate in senior year of college, and our only major source of strife (in the sense of a recurring problem that was never resolved) revolved around my choice of work. I was a computer programmer, he was a computer engineer, fairly similar fields, and Christoph could not believe that my plan for my life was to work for a company without 1) ever looking at any other options and 2) without even knowing what pay or benefits I would get. I, on the other hand, had had two years of internships with the company, loved the people and the culture and the work, and knew the company to be very employee-centric. Moreover, I didn't generally care about the exact dollars; I loved the fact that it was in Pittsburgh, I loved the company, and that was good enough for me. This pissed off Christoph to no end.
"You should be looking around!" I distinctly remember him saying to me one night (and this conversation came up many nights). "You should be able to start at at LEAST $50,000, at minimum!"
"You've lost it," I said, or something like it, "this isn't the late 90's tech boom anymore. They're not pulling sophmores out of college and starting them at 80k. Those days are over!"
Naturally he didn't take well to that at all, and told me I was an idiot for throwing away thousands of dollars, perhaps tens of thousands, because I wouldn't even go out and look. I told him to enjoy his money, because he could make 70,000 a year and be miserable and I would take my 30,000 and love my job.
Gradually we both let it go, each one still holding firm. We never did see eye-to-eye. It was our only uncompromised argument of the entire year.
I carried a lot of bitterness from that, convinced that if he was starting out with the expectation of starting at a minimum of 50k in what was then still just coming down from the height of the lack of jobs crises, then he would be waiting a long time. I mean, I was angry. Most people have - or shortly will have - experienced the nervousness that is inherent with every senior's second-semester life: worrying about the future. Some people worry about not knowing what to do. Trust me, making a decision isn't all that much easier. Christoph put a lot of doubt into my mind, and it made me angry, because it was such a huge career choice that I made. But I was so sure that I would be happier than he would be even if I was being paid $20,000 a year that I was still angry whenever I thought about it. So when I found out what the salary was that I was being offered by my company to work full-time, I was stunned. I would have worked for half as much. And Christoph couldn't find a job that started at $50,000 a year. There weren't any. This wasn't the late 90's anymore. He ended up getting a job doing something that really wasn't along his line, definitely didn't pay a lot, and had nowhere near the company culture that mine did (and few do, the reason I picked this company). He would complain about it sometimes, as he has a hard-working streak that is admirable by itself but ill-suited to a company that basically wants to slack around and just do enough to get by. And since the end of senior year in May, when he's had two jobs and I've been working hard programming in mine, I think we both realized over the past eight months that I was right.
I am a person who tries not to gloat. But I couldn't help feeling very triumphant, which of course then made me feel bad about it. But I was so angry that he had put so much doubt in what was originally a pretty rock-hard decision that it tried to come out angry. I think Stoph realized that he was wrong too. So I definitely wasn't planning on bringing up the raise or the bonus with him. And when I did by accident, it was awkward. I didn't feel happy about it at all. Stoph is a worker that most people would kill to have on their team. Slightly headstrong, if you can point him in the right direction he will work his tail off for you. We were a great team senior year because he got me fired up and I got him mellowed out. It mixed very very well. But the one issue was our different career decisions, and now I feel awkward discussing it at all.
In fact, my raise/bonus didn't go over well with almost everyone who is in the corporate world. Christoph, of course, but Julie's reaction was painfully monotone, more painful because I know what she was holding back. Nate is working 75 hours a week without pay and Dave is in a field that he has zero training in whatsoever and works in the kind of company where the winners of the backstabbing and infighting get the promotions. There wasn't much to relate to at all.
Actually, the one person who had the best reaction of all was Margaret, who really congratulated me and was coming up with ideas on how to use the bonus. Go figure. Really, the irony of this world is stunning.
A huge win for my volleyball team last night! We lost the first game in a heartbreaker and were down big in the second. The whole season could have turned around on what happened next, which was the team coming together in a big way (it's what volleyball is all about) and coming back to win games 2 and 3 in a knockdown, drag-out brawl. It ups our record to 6-9 and puts us back in the playoff hunt. I love it!
I'm going to try and complete chapters 1-3 of The Flames of Resistance by the end of this weekend. The key night will be Friday, as I will have nothing to do but write, write, write. Martin will be expecting those chapters, so I hope to have them all done by that time. I need to have some actual rough drafts together, and then we'll go from there.
I talked to Stoph the other day and mentioned my bonus off-hand. He hadn't heard - I never remember who I tell what (or what I tell who, for that matter) - and wanted to know the details. I told him, a bit reluctantly, and he congratulated me, also a bit reluctantly.
Christoph was my roomate in senior year of college, and our only major source of strife (in the sense of a recurring problem that was never resolved) revolved around my choice of work. I was a computer programmer, he was a computer engineer, fairly similar fields, and Christoph could not believe that my plan for my life was to work for a company without 1) ever looking at any other options and 2) without even knowing what pay or benefits I would get. I, on the other hand, had had two years of internships with the company, loved the people and the culture and the work, and knew the company to be very employee-centric. Moreover, I didn't generally care about the exact dollars; I loved the fact that it was in Pittsburgh, I loved the company, and that was good enough for me. This pissed off Christoph to no end.
"You should be looking around!" I distinctly remember him saying to me one night (and this conversation came up many nights). "You should be able to start at at LEAST $50,000, at minimum!"
"You've lost it," I said, or something like it, "this isn't the late 90's tech boom anymore. They're not pulling sophmores out of college and starting them at 80k. Those days are over!"
Naturally he didn't take well to that at all, and told me I was an idiot for throwing away thousands of dollars, perhaps tens of thousands, because I wouldn't even go out and look. I told him to enjoy his money, because he could make 70,000 a year and be miserable and I would take my 30,000 and love my job.
Gradually we both let it go, each one still holding firm. We never did see eye-to-eye. It was our only uncompromised argument of the entire year.
I carried a lot of bitterness from that, convinced that if he was starting out with the expectation of starting at a minimum of 50k in what was then still just coming down from the height of the lack of jobs crises, then he would be waiting a long time. I mean, I was angry. Most people have - or shortly will have - experienced the nervousness that is inherent with every senior's second-semester life: worrying about the future. Some people worry about not knowing what to do. Trust me, making a decision isn't all that much easier. Christoph put a lot of doubt into my mind, and it made me angry, because it was such a huge career choice that I made. But I was so sure that I would be happier than he would be even if I was being paid $20,000 a year that I was still angry whenever I thought about it. So when I found out what the salary was that I was being offered by my company to work full-time, I was stunned. I would have worked for half as much. And Christoph couldn't find a job that started at $50,000 a year. There weren't any. This wasn't the late 90's anymore. He ended up getting a job doing something that really wasn't along his line, definitely didn't pay a lot, and had nowhere near the company culture that mine did (and few do, the reason I picked this company). He would complain about it sometimes, as he has a hard-working streak that is admirable by itself but ill-suited to a company that basically wants to slack around and just do enough to get by. And since the end of senior year in May, when he's had two jobs and I've been working hard programming in mine, I think we both realized over the past eight months that I was right.
I am a person who tries not to gloat. But I couldn't help feeling very triumphant, which of course then made me feel bad about it. But I was so angry that he had put so much doubt in what was originally a pretty rock-hard decision that it tried to come out angry. I think Stoph realized that he was wrong too. So I definitely wasn't planning on bringing up the raise or the bonus with him. And when I did by accident, it was awkward. I didn't feel happy about it at all. Stoph is a worker that most people would kill to have on their team. Slightly headstrong, if you can point him in the right direction he will work his tail off for you. We were a great team senior year because he got me fired up and I got him mellowed out. It mixed very very well. But the one issue was our different career decisions, and now I feel awkward discussing it at all.
In fact, my raise/bonus didn't go over well with almost everyone who is in the corporate world. Christoph, of course, but Julie's reaction was painfully monotone, more painful because I know what she was holding back. Nate is working 75 hours a week without pay and Dave is in a field that he has zero training in whatsoever and works in the kind of company where the winners of the backstabbing and infighting get the promotions. There wasn't much to relate to at all.
Actually, the one person who had the best reaction of all was Margaret, who really congratulated me and was coming up with ideas on how to use the bonus. Go figure. Really, the irony of this world is stunning.
A recommendation to all thinking about what job to take. Take the one that makes you the happiest. Don't take the money. Money is nice. But you'll find that you begin to dislike coming to work so much, that you'd pay all that extra money you're getting just to get a job that you would like doing. I don't love every day of work here. But I am challenged, enthused, surrounded by good people and in a good environment. And those are things that most people can't get, no matter HOW much money they have.
Tonight I'll be going to my grandmother's to help redo her DVD/VCR/TV/Webmail/Toaster Oven combo. This thing has about 40 bazillion wires, and if they're not all connected just right only two of them will work at a time, or only three will work at all, or the TV can only get channel 17 if the Toaster is set to a power level of 5, or some other form of madness. So they call me.
Who you gonna call? Bacon Bits!
(doo doo, doo doo, doo doo, doo doo, doo doo do do doo)
Labels: Caissa, Forest Not Trees, Sports
posted by Mat | 4:29 PM
<< Home