Took an extra shift to help pay for my top-shelf whiskey habit. Ouch. Other topics: Kinky Face Wear The Lutefisk Crowd Might Be RIght (Though stinky)
Sven decides not to be a Karen (for once): https://www.unz.com/mwhitney/in-the-race-for-immunity-sweden-leads-the-pack/
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It takes Courage and Conviction to keep this shitty caterpillar squatting above my upper lip till June.
While we’re at it let’s explore the shibboleth of ‘workin’ for a livin’.
Ah, dear yet more tedious observations regarding Millenials to contend with.
All this while YouTube seems to be trying it’s hardest to hide your comments from me.
This will take Courage and Conviction indeed.
Whiskey Review: Prelude Courage & Conviction American Single Malt Whisky
paypal.me/fractalforce – gibsme shekels i gibs u song n dance, guvnah!
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Drive thru-breakfast food is your master. Despair for the fetters of Waffle House are wrought of iron.
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A semi-solipsistic shotgun blast of impromptu theorizing.
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This video is about my recent experience as a preloader. If you came here looking for advice on filing a grievance click this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPHjXmLobfE . I’m just here to lay out some concerns peculiar to my hub in the interest of promoting communication and on a personal note to vent a bit.
I’ve held the position for two years. This is my third peak as I started in December of 2017. I believe that what one of my full time supervisors asked me to do today was in violation of Past Practice. I learned that term after I made this video. But I’m glad that my ideas (if I understood the concept correctly/there is no fine print) about something being amiss were legitimized.
We have had three injuries in my hub this year, if I’m not mistaken. Sure you could say that’s because some of our employees are sub-par. But as someone who has been here for two years I’d say that’s definitely not the whole of the story. The management style and company culture is severely compromised by corporate pressure.
I understand the need to profit. But I think that UPS has had a wide enough margin that this corner cutting, union dodging, irrational authoritarianism is not only unnecessary (it never is) but compromises the ability to perform the job safely.
It is just a few days shy of Christmas, meaning that we have already worked a good portion of peak season, does it make sense to approach an employee at the end of the shift and tell them to rescan all the packages on the trucks because of an alleged misload registration. Especially if the misloads are not misloads as admitted by management? Especially if there was no prior practice of manually scanning out of the trucks? Especially if the supervisors do not do it and the employees do not do it.
There are further details of counterproductive and arguably abusive practices in the video. I will likely follow up in the near future as I get a better handle on the situation.
Neither my coworkers nor I should have to work under these conditions.
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I bitch a lot about my day job so here are some of the perks. I’m too shagged out to make it terribly witty or poetic but I’m trying damn it!
1) My feet are strong. I got buff feet yall. They conform to surface and balance all dance like as I carry 5 to 140 pounds of christmas cheer for 4 to 7 hours.
2) I laid down to sleep absolutely exhausted and drifted off deeply into my secondhand mattress to dream of playing billiards with Boris Johnson and Bernie Sanders. It was the most vivd thing in the world. I was in a futuristic megacity with my best friends and two mad lads one of whom parachuted with a union jack flag into a mini cooper. Felt like I knew both for years. Because fuck yeah. Serious no lie. This dream pretty much happened sans the parachute.
3) Beer is 9000+ times better.
4) You have a tangible result almost immideatly ready to gauge against your last best speed and accuracy.
5) When I lay down I am very aware of my calves and all my musculture. Sure this has just as much to do with my gym habits but I feel this intense vigor pulsing through me despite the exhaustion. Physical labor especially at UPS is basically paid functional strength training.
6) When you’re done you’re done.
7) It’s always interesting to see how much my body can overcome when I get home and decide to workout and write on top of all my daily responsibilities.
8) You appreciate how much work goes into making modern life possible. And do not have any illusions about economics and where produtivity origniates.
9) Food is instantly absorbed and allocated to the most efficient use.
10) Leprechauns whisper secrets in the dawn. If you don’t like them – just add coffee. They’ll be replaced by paranoia that makes you plan your life out to the T for the next twenty years as you learn to pickle and buy farmland in western Tennessee. \
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I’m fond of the Foamy series which I’ve been watching since I was a teenager. I find that this episode I just stumbled across fits really well with the theme of some of my recent posts.
There’s sometimes a bit of language and risque stuff in these cartoons so be forewarned.
The idea of working hard for yourself rather than a company that doesn’t treat you right is one I’m on board with. But as I pointed out in my post on loving uncertainty you have to temper that feel good notion of entrepreneurship with realism, diligence, and flexibility.
Hope this was fun, helpful, and cathartic cause that’s the intent.
Cheers.
I am not a salesman. I suppose I could be if I worked at it but I don’t find it very engaging. That’s not to say that Sales is a bad career or that sales people are bad. If you believe in your product or service it can be a fun challenge with a lot of financial rewards. There are a lot of lessons you can learn about yourself and life in general by learning the art of the deal.
After just a week at small direct-marketing company I could probably write a couple of pages on what I learned. A lot of it was simply coming to understand my own reactions and thought process and learning to steer them. Since I think that the latter is important I’ve compiled a short list of ways to do it.
Things I Learned from a Week in Sales
- It’s easy to agree with objections in the heat of the moment. Don’t.
- People are much less likely to commit to a product or conversation if you aren’t committed yourself.
- A lot of your first impressions of peoples attitudes and reactions are wrong.
- It’s essential to control your inner chatter. Not only is it distracting but it’s usually wrong and can destroy a lot of potential.
- A lot of people don’t really know what they think much less why. They’re simply reacting to the perceived contours of what you’re saying.
- Blood sugar levels matter a great deal.
- Being healthy helps you be good with people.
A lot of this is common sense stuff. I chose to call it learning because there’s a difference between knowledge and experience.
Sure the above observations could come from any kind of interaction. But there is a quality to business and professional interactions that drives the point home more clearly. Probably owing to the fact that you can’t opt out of paying attention to your own reactions, or simply write off miscommunication as being ‘just one of those things.’
All in all I had a good time trying out a new venture. I think that it is especially important for artists, writers, and the like to leave the comforts of Bohemia once in a blue moon. I definitely have a slightly less cynical view of businesses than I did before.
I think understanding the workings of humanity behind corporations and their clients will help me be a more insightful writer.
Is there a career or experience that you think would challenge you and refill your creative wells?
An issue that I will be tackling in upcoming weeks is the amount of resources we spend versus what we produce.
I have had a recurring thought on many a commute that the ratio of products and services rendered versus the cost of production is wildly askew.
Many if not most people drive two tons of steel to and from work a day. You don’t have to even take carbon into consideration to see why this is potentially wasteful from an ROI standpoint.
First there is the metal itself, then there is the time in production and maintenance, then there is the cost of the fuel. Then there are hidden costs such as the 80,000 gallons of water it takes to produce a car.
Understanding how to balance the ratio of resource use and productivity requires abstaining from finger-pointing and taking a long hard look at what’s actually happening.
My goal is to find out how to produce more than we consume.
Here are some links that can provide insights into the scale of consumption for one very vital resource called water.
The Fractal Journal 