the love - hate relationship with work
Funny story from today:
We had an early soccer game this evening and so a few of us went out for beers afterwards. We were discussing the work involved in managing the team and someone was talking about a webpage that the manager of his other team uses which alleviates some of the work by essentially automatically collating and tabulating players' reports on whether they will be at the upcoming game. And so we join our heroes...
Mark: Yeah, I have something similar almost set up, but it's not quite working yet.
Dell: I was going to say. Aren't you some kind of computer person?
Mark: That's exactly the problem. [Explains his job.] After 9-10 hours at my computer writing
code, the last thing I want to do when I get home is sit at my computer and write more
code.
Dell: I can see that. I'm certainly not going to come home and remodel the bathroom.
Mark: Whereas that sounds great to me.
Dell: I'm just the opposite, about all I'm good for is sitting at the computer doing nothing:
check my email, watch a little porn.
David: I dated this porn star for a while. And y'know, everyone always fantasizes about that,
but as it turns out...
Miles: What? Sorry, honey, I've been fucking all day.
David: Exactly. All she was interested in was having dinner and then doing some math before
we went to sleep.
Amusingly enough, when we left the bar shortly afterwards, I found that I had a text message asking me a stats question.
* * *
No, I haven't actually dated a porn star. I just couldn't resist. However, I did recently come across a recommendation of this
interview with porn star Sasha Grey. (Warning: much of the visual is her doing a semi-nude photo shoot with the interview voiceover). I've only watched part 1 so far, but it was pretty interesting. I mention it here because she makes a few comments about how being a porn star inhibits her sex life ("can't come to work with bruises").
* * *
I'm also reminded of a conversation I had a few weeks ago about having hobbies which generate income - even if it is less than required to pay for itself - and the sort of weird cognitive space occupied by such an ...uh... occupation. It's not something you do for the money, you'd do it anyway, the money is simply a pleasant side effect. This leads to the question of whether you can view your job that way, too. One of the things that I realized during my stint between grad schools doing clerical temp work was that contrary to the "I'd like to be able to leave my work at the office." line, that I feel that anything I'm going to spend 40 hours a week doing should be something that I enjoy well enough that I *want* to think about it in off hours. That's not a far cry from "something I'd do even if they weren't paying me". Which eventually lead to the line: "Hey, I'm not here for the money. Being a grocery clerk is my hobby."
It's interesting though. I do love my job quite a bit. And I'd like to say that I'd do it even if they weren't paying me. To a certain extent, I clearly would. I do have volunteer projects. I've been known to do nontrivial things just in yammering on my mailing lists. But it is funny how sometimes I nevertheless don't seem to get very much work done. And I haven't been for the past couple weeks, although I'm starting to pick up again. It's been easy to feel overwhelmed, especially with all the house stuff as well, and I've spent too much time in the "Oh my god, I have so much shit to do. How will I manage it?" Not by spinning wheels contemplating with terrible awe the sheer magnitude of the task list, that's for sure.
We had an early soccer game this evening and so a few of us went out for beers afterwards. We were discussing the work involved in managing the team and someone was talking about a webpage that the manager of his other team uses which alleviates some of the work by essentially automatically collating and tabulating players' reports on whether they will be at the upcoming game. And so we join our heroes...
Mark: Yeah, I have something similar almost set up, but it's not quite working yet.
Dell: I was going to say. Aren't you some kind of computer person?
Mark: That's exactly the problem. [Explains his job.] After 9-10 hours at my computer writing
code, the last thing I want to do when I get home is sit at my computer and write more
code.
Dell: I can see that. I'm certainly not going to come home and remodel the bathroom.
Mark: Whereas that sounds great to me.
Dell: I'm just the opposite, about all I'm good for is sitting at the computer doing nothing:
check my email, watch a little porn.
David: I dated this porn star for a while. And y'know, everyone always fantasizes about that,
but as it turns out...
Miles: What? Sorry, honey, I've been fucking all day.
David: Exactly. All she was interested in was having dinner and then doing some math before
we went to sleep.
Amusingly enough, when we left the bar shortly afterwards, I found that I had a text message asking me a stats question.
* * *
No, I haven't actually dated a porn star. I just couldn't resist. However, I did recently come across a recommendation of this
interview with porn star Sasha Grey. (Warning: much of the visual is her doing a semi-nude photo shoot with the interview voiceover). I've only watched part 1 so far, but it was pretty interesting. I mention it here because she makes a few comments about how being a porn star inhibits her sex life ("can't come to work with bruises").
* * *
I'm also reminded of a conversation I had a few weeks ago about having hobbies which generate income - even if it is less than required to pay for itself - and the sort of weird cognitive space occupied by such an ...uh... occupation. It's not something you do for the money, you'd do it anyway, the money is simply a pleasant side effect. This leads to the question of whether you can view your job that way, too. One of the things that I realized during my stint between grad schools doing clerical temp work was that contrary to the "I'd like to be able to leave my work at the office." line, that I feel that anything I'm going to spend 40 hours a week doing should be something that I enjoy well enough that I *want* to think about it in off hours. That's not a far cry from "something I'd do even if they weren't paying me". Which eventually lead to the line: "Hey, I'm not here for the money. Being a grocery clerk is my hobby."
It's interesting though. I do love my job quite a bit. And I'd like to say that I'd do it even if they weren't paying me. To a certain extent, I clearly would. I do have volunteer projects. I've been known to do nontrivial things just in yammering on my mailing lists. But it is funny how sometimes I nevertheless don't seem to get very much work done. And I haven't been for the past couple weeks, although I'm starting to pick up again. It's been easy to feel overwhelmed, especially with all the house stuff as well, and I've spent too much time in the "Oh my god, I have so much shit to do. How will I manage it?" Not by spinning wheels contemplating with terrible awe the sheer magnitude of the task list, that's for sure.