Being Useful

Yesterday afternoon while relaxing after work, I was flipping through channels. Usually I’ll flip through the first large networks to see what they’ve got on…ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX. I stopped at NBC because Oprah had a guest I was interested in. Someone I was interested in listening to and getting a little background on: Barack Obama. Hopefully, in my eyes now, the next US president. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama

He’s well spoken and a great writer. He’s handsome. He’s half black. He’s well educated and is optimistic about our future. Other than Denzel Washington or Oprah herself, I’m not sure how we could get a better person to lead this nation. I’m not registered to vote, so I know that some of you may point at me and say, “You have no right to say anything on this subject because you didn’t contribute to the entire election process”. And all I have to say to that is a few things. First of all, in the past, I didn’t care. My vote wouldn’t have made the difference between Bush and Gore or Clinton and Dole. I wanted Clinton (right about the time I started to realize how much a president affects this country), and he won. I wanted Gore, but in my opinion, the guy lost the election for himself.

And the only law that I felt strongly for? Was the indoor smoking ban we passed here in Washington roughly a year ago. And it passed by a large margin. Really, would me having taken a few hours of my time during election season have changed any of these things? No. It wouldn’t have. And the smoking ban was all I cared for. Now obviously this is a problem. Not only do I feel this way, but I am sure there are millions of other Americans that feel the same way. How can we call our government a “democracy” when over half of it’s constituents don’t even participate?

And this is the problem. Just like the corporate world, employees of large corporations (at least here in my company) have completely lost the sense of ownership, or pride over what their company, or their country in this instance, stands for. The gap between someone like myself and our CEO is so large that there’s no way I could relate, or even possibly have a normal conversation with her unless I somehow was able to schedule one. But even then…what would we talk about? That emotional disconnect, the apathy…that’s what is occurring in this country. And it’s been happening for years now. People just don’t care anymore. And in turn, it creates selfish, fearful creatures who won’t even wave to their neighbors in fear of offending them or getting shot. Does that sound like a place you want to live in?

I really hope that Obama makes the run for the presidency. He’s leading most democratic polls for who the presidential candidate should be, barely inking out Senator McCain. (Thanks CNN for your lovely graph). But after only watching 1 hour (42 minutes sans commercials) of him and his wife with Oprah, the emotional attachment was there again. Here’s a guy I think a lot of Americans who are tired of the cynicism can latch on to and hopefully swing their thoughts more towards hope and a brighter future.

The most interesting part of the interview (other than the laughs and awesome family anecdotes) was when Oprah asked Obama what he thought was the most important question for Americans to ask of themselves. And he responded with something like this: Are you being useful? Are you contributing to your community instead of just thinking of yourself? And he continued on saying how much better this country would be if everyone would step up and consider more than just “what’s best for me?”

And although I’m not a fan of new year’s resolutions, I wanted to try to implement this question in the coming year, and hopefully for the rest of my life. This was part of the reason for this blog. It was for personal growth and reflection, even though at times it may have just been my outlet to vent or share certain events in my life. It is giving me the ability to challenge my own thoughts/ways of life on paper to help me make a more concerted effort to evolve in to a person I love and respect (not that I don’t already, I’m just continually on the look out to better myself in any way).

So Senator Obama – If you do end up being a presidential candidate, you’ve finally driven me (after 6 years of having the ability to) to register and vote. And in the near future hopefully I won’t be forgetting your question.

Am I being useful?

Cynicism – Office Style

One of my favorite shows right now is “The Office”. The main reason is because it reminds me of where I work. And it basically makes most of my darkest thoughts while I’m in my office come true. The show lives on a constant barrage of racial slurs, “un-pc” terms and actions, and the fake enthusiasm that abounds from the higher ups but always seems to fall on deaf ears when it gets to those on the ground level of the company.

And everyone has their own reaction to how things occur in “The Office” and also in my office. There are the people that just aren’t there. The people who do their jobs, and just shrug off everything else. They are neither excited nor offended by anything that occurs in the office. On the complete opposite side of the spectrum, you have people that are the brown noses. Those that suck up to their direct manager hoping that their good office “relationship” will in fact get them somewhere in the near future. They try their best to always show themselves in the best light. Mindless drones that follow commands like my dog does for treats.

Then, there’s the group I put myself in. The cynics. The people that sarcastically laugh in the face of both of these groups (more of the 2nd type though). I take my job as it is. I do not exert more effort than is required. My job does not define who I am and my job is not my life. Now if my job was actually interesting, or if I had some sort of larger responsibility to this company (read: power, more specifically the power to change things) then just possibly the job might mean more to me. But until that point, I’m just going to cross my arms and laugh.

Let me give you an example of something I sat through today:

http://www.the212movie.com/

We were sent to an hour long meeting, half of which was pointlessly wasted on this. My hope is that many of you find this hilarious. Because really, it belongs in some sort of comedy skit. And the reason why it is funny to me? I can just imagine the guy working on this animation. Having an entire script he’s got to include on it. Making sure he’s using photos that aren’t copy written…all that hard work just so that I could give an over emotional clap at the end of it. 212 degrees. You know what else water does at 212 degrees? It burns your freaking hand. Why didn’t they show the guy in the ER with the burn blisters on his hand from spilling boiling water on himself while trying to make a bowl of chicken noodle soup? Why did they go the route of the locomotive?

I’ll tell you why: Because they’re trying to motivate us. YOU. They’re yelling at YOU. NOW is the time. YOU must take control of your destiny. I MUST HOLD IN MY LAUGHTER UNTIL THIS VIDEO IS OVER. Luckily one of my coworkers busted up first…a fellow cynic. I just followed and then continued on with the *almost* standing ovation at the end of it. Seriously, it almost brought a tear to my eye. So vague. So generic. So riveting.

And me? The cynic? PFFFTTTT…I’ll be here the same time tomorrow. In fact, I was here right after that meeting. Did that video evoke any sort of emotion from me to do better in my job? Nope. I’m doing the same job I was before. Except now I have something to add to my blog. And to continue on with the theme:

Near Thanksgiving a mass email was sent (they are all always getting sent to me about “Spirit!” and things like, “Having a Positive Attitude!”) only saying one thing. Names have been removed to protect the innocent. I am such a blatant cynic that I confront those from other groups and laugh at my conniving ways. The first email sent starts at the top:

Sent: Tuesday, November 21, 2006 1:57 PM
To:
Subject: *** 516 ***

The number 516.
You'll find out tomorrow what is special about this number!

From: Q, SETH
Sent: Tuesday, November 21, 2006 1:59 PM
To:
Subject: RE: *** 516 ***

I just heard from my doctor that I’ve only got until midnight tonight to live

Can you please tell me what this means today?

From:
Sent: Tuesday, November 21, 2006 3:05 PM
To: Q, SETH
Subject: RE: *** 516 ***


Oh my, don't kid about things like that.
If you won't be here tomorrow, I would be willing to reveal to you in email…
but only if you wont be here tomorrow!!

This is the kind of stuff I deal with on almost a daily basis. I’m glad my office can provide such great entertainment for me. And of course, I understand the root cause of all this cynicism…but that’s all too deep of stuff for me to be talking about for today. For now, just enjoy the stuff I’m sure most of us have to sit through each day…and hopefully you can laugh at it instead of hanging yourself…

Rando "Holiday" Thoughts

Since I haven’t had a post in a while, I figured I’d write one. I’d like to get out 4-6 of them before this month is over, since I only wrote 2 (2 right?) last month.

And since I haven’t had a random thoughts post in a while, I’d figure I’d go that route.

Every morning that I work, I set my phone alarm for some time between 5:30 and 5:55 am. In my phone, you can name different alarms. One says, “Vegas!”. Others say, “Lose 10 pounds bitch!” or “Time’s up”. The one I use every morning says, “Grateful”. I am in constant flux with myself, always trying to change my thoughts – adjust my attitude. I’m not sure if it’s working. And I’m not sure if even trying like these little notes to myself every morning that my alarm goes off is worth it. The unfortunate thing is, I don’t feel like changing my alarm to, “The Same”. Because I want to be grateful for today. I want to live my life like I am lucky to have today. But wanting and doing are always different things.

In the Boeing employee basketball league, we went in to our first playoff game as huge underdogs, having lost twice during the season to the team we were to face in the first round. Expecting to lose, I was surprised to see us winning with less than 2 minutes left to go. The whole thing felt very surreal. Even after we went down by a point with a minute and 30 left I knew it was over…but we hit shots like we were supposed to. We played with heart that wasn’t there during the season…and we pulled out the victory. Both sides were shocked. It was the best I’ve felt in a long time. Tonight is our next playoff game. This time an even larger underdog than before. This time I am truly expecting to lose. And just like last time, hopefully I won’t be able to sleep tonight from how well we played.

It is hard to run in the pouring down rain. Having very short hair and shoes that are not waterproof doesn’t make for a very good experience. Rain is always getting in my eyes, and my socks are soaked by the time I get home. I set a goal of losing some weight and getting more cut this year as my new year’s resolution. I’ve got 20 days left to do it. It’s not going to happen, but I’ll make a semi-effort which will obviously not be good enough, but at least I tried.

As a gift to us from Safeco, everyone where I work has had the ability to wear jeans since Thanksgiving until the end of the year. Because of this, I’ve had some problems as far as clothing goes. I have more business casual wear than I do jeans wear. The reason being is because the jeans wear is the “in between” section that I’ve no longer been attending to. All I have now is business casual and sweats. Neither of which would be fitting during the “jeans” month. My life is obviously a lot harder than anyone else’s. *sarcastic*

The condo (except for 2 things) is done. It’s taken us 10 days longer than we wanted, but after yesterday, we don’t have to go down there anymore. Or at least we don’t have to go down there every afternoon after work now. It was fun for about 2 weeks. Then after that it got tiring. I’ll share some photos on here once I get the time (or get home).

Since we don’t have to go to the condo anymore. I’m excited to get back to the gym. Even twice a week will be nice. I’m involved in a bet right now where I have to lose a greater percentage of my weight. I figure that working out hard 30 minutes every day and making a concerted effort to eat less and healthier instead of working out every other day for 40 minutes where I don’t try that hard, and eating as much as I want to…*breathe – run on sentence*

During a discussion this weekend with a coworker I heard that after a 2 year radiology program, most come out averaging over $60K a year. In this instance, the person coming out of school was earning $90K a year. I am obviously in the wrong profession. But then I wouldn’t get to write awesome blog posts like this while working (/inflated sense of self-worth).

The only thing about Christmas that I’m excited about is arisaldo (sp). It’s a chicken-rice soup that my mom cooks after we go to church on Christmas Eve. It’s a tradition. That and baking rolls in those Pillsbury cans. Other than that, I didn’t help out with the tree. I haven’t purchased any gifts yet. I change the channel when a Christmas song that I don’t like (about 80% of them) comes on. I guess you can say it all started when 106.9 started playing Christmas music even before Thanksgiving. Since that point, this “season” hasn’t been the same. I hope I can get in the Christmas mood in the next week or so. Otherwise, it’ll pass me by and I’ll be miserable until summer…

Sad to say, there really isn’t anything else floating around in my head right now. Usually there is. But for now, I suppose I’ll save those for later.