Current mood:

contemplative

Response to External Stimuli
So the ol I-35W bridge hit the water and thankfully I know no-one who was involved. However it did shake up in my mind that I haven't spoken to anyone from Minney-soda (except the family) in a good long while.

Well I really don't have a ton to say, life goes on, there are good parts (tennis tournament, family, chess, parts of my job) and there are bad parts (repetition of job functions, money, being someones boss, power struggles with a 2-year old and a general lack of time) but after reading Dan's rant about philosphizing, jobs, and the sorry state of affairs in the US of A I thought I would type an essay. An exercise which I have not indulged in since college ended:

[b] I Am an Optimist, why?[/b]
Yes, I have blogged about this before, but I'm narcissistic and self-indulgent.


I wake up every morning, hop out of bead and hit the shower to start my brain up. I start organizing the tons of mundane tasks left on my todo list, the majority of which, inevitably deal with work. Bleh! What I never remember is why I am doing these things, the end result is that most days I could crawl back into bed and sleep for another two hours or play hookey from work without too much bother from my conscience (which not too long ago was the predominant driving force in my life).

On a given day, I could think, hey I'm going to perform task A, i.e. 'testing' for the 15th day in a row. I'll probably find a minor flaw, and log it. At this point project managers will review it, assign it to a developer with minor significance, and it will never be thought of again. My day will drag, and I will head home to sink onto the couch

OR
(Enter willful ignorance & self-delusion, aka Optimism)

I can think I'm going going to perform task A, Joe Schmoe will complete his portion of the job as well, we'll compare notes, shoot the breeze, log some issues and spend the rest of the day demonstrating the flaws to unbelievers who insist the unit "functions as designed" (no, it functions as coded, but that's another issue). After weeks of this, we will release a new OS which will be much more stable than the previous, and the number of customer complaints will drop. Perhaps, I'll be recognized by my boss, maybe not. I'll head home knowing that I "done good" and have energy to play with my kids, flirt with my wife, do some minor chores around the house and play some chess.

FULL DISCLOSURE
What I envision myself doing is certainly more sweeping, more heroic than finding small gui failures. It's more of a saving the company billions of dollars type thing (and implementing the brilliant fix as well as finding the flaw), but you don't need to know that.

In the end, I have some days like the former, some like the latter and most are in between. In the end, it's personal choice. Will I put in the effort to do something useful today, or won't I? Frankly, that statement applies to a hell of a lot more than how my work-day goes.