Skyhook driver, copy editor, UIUC employee...
The hot and humid days and explosive midwestern thunderstorm nights have given way to cool, rainy days, pleasant relief after spending the last week sticking to my chair (and we have air-conditioning, which tells you something both about my cheapness and love of the "fresh air"). Also, my fingers are on fire. Not literally, of course- although with the recent recall battery recall, it certainly doesn't seem so farfetched these days (see http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=32550)- but the green chili pepper I used in tonight's mushroom and cilantro curry has dug deep in my nails, and, aghh, I never knew a little thing could cause so much pain.
Speaking of pain, it's time for a "job update," the first of what I hope, with a little bit of luck, is one of only a few. Act I: Skyhook Wireless. Yes, the name of the company itself should have alerted me to the inanity of the work. As far as I could tell, my job was to be that of "driver," and I would be hitting the streets of Chambana, a router on my dash, a map in my hand, and a tank full of gas- a whole lot of 'em, unfortunately. Pay was "$16 an hour", but this, of course, did not include the cost of the black gold, which no doubt would have wiped out at least a good portion of the pay as a privately contracted "1099" (is that what they call them in Iraq, too?). And as far as being charged for maintaining and repairing crappy equipment, or the idea that Skyhooked would be terminating my ass without recompense before the minimum required 30 hours of driving around the city endlessly, well, these were certainly possibilities that were not out of the question, given my lawyerly Dad's suspicions about the sketchy legal contract, not to forget my two-week stint as an inept Little Caesar's pizza driver. They also demanded daily downloads at Starbucks or Kinkos, which would have been a dead giveaway to where I would have been spending each day- on the side of the road staring at a map. All this- passive gathering of "wireless hotspots", seeing "the city"- so a bunch of venture vultures could make money off a driver-wench like me by selling the resulting proprietary data goldmine? I don't need you, capitalist pig-dogs, and especially if you can't handle it by getting back to me back when I politely question the meaning of your contract, Pam!
Act II: Pam again. This time she's from Information Services Inc., which in the cleverness of its name is diametrically opposed to Skyhook. At 10:30 this morning I walk in to face a scene right out of Dilbert- long rows of cubicles, poor light, ugly people looking bored- and am promptly handed the test by Pam, the second. If this is what it takes to become a freelance copy-editor, to do the work of big publishing houses and technical journals too cheap to hire their own people for editing, well then, I'm your man, Pam. After all, I find copy-editing a satisfyingly anal-retentive action: you know it's bad when you start reading Wikipedia as much for finding errors and correcting them as for the content itself. (A recent New Yorker article indicated to me that this is called being a "wikignome," a lurker who simply edits, although it seems preferable to being a "wikitroll," whose name says it all.) The test begins with a spelling test- "some of these words are misspelled, some are not"- and short-paragraph editing exercise, using something vaguely reminiscent of AP Stylebok symbology. These two went fine enough, but it was the writing exercise I perhaps interpreted a little too broadly- "what are the basic criteria by which to judge a piece of writing," or some other such horseshit. I began generically, with statements like "the criteria of spelling, punctuation and sentence flow are integral to any good writing." Then I tried writing "creatively", with a statement to the effect of "mispelt words written poor are sure to make any reader sit up and notice." And then I misspelled misspelling by writing mispelling, but it was in the context of this "joke," and, well, never mind. Emma laughed at me for presuming this pass at humour would work with the copy-editing Nazis- my application is currently being "sent away", then if I do well I will be called back "immediately"- and now all I can do is laugh and hope that Act III, my library application for an academic hourly position, will be well received by anyone in the citadels of knowledge down the street. Oh, U Illinois libraries, I know YOU'LL come through for me.
By the way, and not necessarily speaking of, anyone have any thoughts for decent redwine produced on an industrial scale out of California that costs under $10, and is available at a place such as the local yuppie grocery store at which I now shop, nicely named "Schnooks"? I've bought every Yellow Tail and Lindemans in existence for $6, and I'm thinking those ever-present discounts on Robert Mondavi, Beringer, Blackwood, Ravenswood, Fetzer, Parducci, etc., et. al could be worth the money if I knew they didn't taste like ol' Carlo Rossi Bordeaux.
Speaking of pain, it's time for a "job update," the first of what I hope, with a little bit of luck, is one of only a few. Act I: Skyhook Wireless. Yes, the name of the company itself should have alerted me to the inanity of the work. As far as I could tell, my job was to be that of "driver," and I would be hitting the streets of Chambana, a router on my dash, a map in my hand, and a tank full of gas- a whole lot of 'em, unfortunately. Pay was "$16 an hour", but this, of course, did not include the cost of the black gold, which no doubt would have wiped out at least a good portion of the pay as a privately contracted "1099" (is that what they call them in Iraq, too?). And as far as being charged for maintaining and repairing crappy equipment, or the idea that Skyhooked would be terminating my ass without recompense before the minimum required 30 hours of driving around the city endlessly, well, these were certainly possibilities that were not out of the question, given my lawyerly Dad's suspicions about the sketchy legal contract, not to forget my two-week stint as an inept Little Caesar's pizza driver. They also demanded daily downloads at Starbucks or Kinkos, which would have been a dead giveaway to where I would have been spending each day- on the side of the road staring at a map. All this- passive gathering of "wireless hotspots", seeing "the city"- so a bunch of venture vultures could make money off a driver-wench like me by selling the resulting proprietary data goldmine? I don't need you, capitalist pig-dogs, and especially if you can't handle it by getting back to me back when I politely question the meaning of your contract, Pam!
Act II: Pam again. This time she's from Information Services Inc., which in the cleverness of its name is diametrically opposed to Skyhook. At 10:30 this morning I walk in to face a scene right out of Dilbert- long rows of cubicles, poor light, ugly people looking bored- and am promptly handed the test by Pam, the second. If this is what it takes to become a freelance copy-editor, to do the work of big publishing houses and technical journals too cheap to hire their own people for editing, well then, I'm your man, Pam. After all, I find copy-editing a satisfyingly anal-retentive action: you know it's bad when you start reading Wikipedia as much for finding errors and correcting them as for the content itself. (A recent New Yorker article indicated to me that this is called being a "wikignome," a lurker who simply edits, although it seems preferable to being a "wikitroll," whose name says it all.) The test begins with a spelling test- "some of these words are misspelled, some are not"- and short-paragraph editing exercise, using something vaguely reminiscent of AP Stylebok symbology. These two went fine enough, but it was the writing exercise I perhaps interpreted a little too broadly- "what are the basic criteria by which to judge a piece of writing," or some other such horseshit. I began generically, with statements like "the criteria of spelling, punctuation and sentence flow are integral to any good writing." Then I tried writing "creatively", with a statement to the effect of "mispelt words written poor are sure to make any reader sit up and notice." And then I misspelled misspelling by writing mispelling, but it was in the context of this "joke," and, well, never mind. Emma laughed at me for presuming this pass at humour would work with the copy-editing Nazis- my application is currently being "sent away", then if I do well I will be called back "immediately"- and now all I can do is laugh and hope that Act III, my library application for an academic hourly position, will be well received by anyone in the citadels of knowledge down the street. Oh, U Illinois libraries, I know YOU'LL come through for me.
By the way, and not necessarily speaking of, anyone have any thoughts for decent redwine produced on an industrial scale out of California that costs under $10, and is available at a place such as the local yuppie grocery store at which I now shop, nicely named "Schnooks"? I've bought every Yellow Tail and Lindemans in existence for $6, and I'm thinking those ever-present discounts on Robert Mondavi, Beringer, Blackwood, Ravenswood, Fetzer, Parducci, etc., et. al could be worth the money if I knew they didn't taste like ol' Carlo Rossi Bordeaux.