Day 229

I am completely lost. I have no purpose, no direction. No path. I’ve caused more pain this year than in any other. No one will read this, and that is fine with me. Where do I go from here?

Day 99

One month ago I accepted a new job offer. I’d become very unhappy with my job; work environment, social segregation of full timers and contractors, and the industry as a whole. But it paid extremely well and, after having been there 18 months, I had a number of good friends…one in particular more than any other. The good of the new job seemed to outweigh the good + bad of the old job (closer to home, prospect of being converted to a full timer, among other things). Problem being…I had no understanding of the new job bad stuff.

I still don’t…but I’m beginning to get an idea.

In the two and a half weeks since I’ve been here, I’ve done roughly 2 hours of actual work. 2 out of 104 hours. 2%. $5200 paid (gross, not net), $100 earned. 5 other BA’s were hired at the same time as I (and 4 others the week before), and it feels like I’m the only one who hasn’t had to deliver anything of substance. I have a very disturbing feeling that they hired a mass of new people to short contracts, with the intention of only keeping a few. Not a bad way to weed out the non-performers…but how the FUCK can I perform if I’m stuck on the bench?

I am questioning a lot lately, and today the biggest ? above my head is the decision to leave my old job for this one.

What have I done?

Day 93

Today is Easter. Today is the holiest day of the Christian faith. But today I don’t feel a whole lot of holy. Or faith. Or Christian.

Today I am lost in conversation – debate – with myself. I was raised in a non-denominational Christian home in a non-denominational Christian church. So many of the things I believe are because they are what I was tought growing up. But why do I still believe them?

Sitting in church this morning I felt nothing. Words sung, words preached, words prayed. Nothing. I don’t disbelieve…I just don’t feel anything. Is that indifference? Is that worse than disbelief?

I’ve been home from Easter dinner for a bit now. It was alright. I’m not much for a big baked ham. Or pineapple glaze. I was just pleasant enough to avoid being asked if everything was alright. Because the answer is no.

But no one ever really wants to hear that everything is not alright. Most people are uncomfortable dealing with that. “No Mr. father-in-law, I’m not ok. I’ve been long struggling to identify the faith of my childhood with the experiences of my adulthood.”. There could be no short discussion, and certainly not without unpacking the very large suitcase that holds my heart and my mind.

But then, what do I even have to be questioning? To be ungrateful for? With one of the highest jobless rates in recent history, I was able to quickly move from one very well-paying job to another. I have very little and no serious debt. I am in excellent health. I have a strong family. I am well liked by friends, colleagues, and just about everyone else I ever meet.

But still, here I lay on my futon, drifting without sail in the sea of my own little world.

I guess it all just proves that no matter how good things look on the surface, no one can every really know what lurks in the depths.

Day 32

Normally I don’t care much for electronica or pop-type music, but this guy Ronald Jenkees is talented out the ass. Bit of a strange dude, but I think that adds to his awesomeness.

It was very cold this weekend. I was supposed to spend some time chopping wood with my dad Saturday, but the temperature never rose above 20, and there was a steady breeze. No. Thank. You. Just two weeks ago there was 3 or 4 straight days in the upper 50s. “Oh it’s global warming!”. “No it’s global cooling!”. Misinformed masses are misinformed.

Sometimes I’m the same way with things. An unrecognizable pattern of warm and cold. 3 or 4 weeks will go by where I am entirely motivated to go to the gym every day after work. Then suddenly a couple of weeks where I’ll find every possible excuse not to go. Same goes for playing Warcraft or Halo or Ice Hockey or eating healthy or listening to a particular album. I think most people are this way. Interests and intentions wax and wane. I’m not sure it’s necessarily a good or bad way to be, just that I notice it in myself. The seasons of being.

Day 26

Sometimes, while at work, I go into the bathroom stall just to spend a few minutes scratching my balls. Men will understand this, women will think it’s gross.

It’s not really much different than taking off a shoe to scratch a foot. I just cant exactly pull out my sack or plunge my hand down my pants at my desk and scratch away. But whatever, I do it. I look forward to doing it.

Day 15

13 months ago I bought a house. A nice house, in a nice neighborhood. I was able to avoid lofty closing costs and get a really low mortgage interest rate because of two things: I qualified for FHA and the first time home buyers tax credit. When I filed my taxes for 08, I claimed the tax credit for the house and paid back my parents for the money I borrowed to cover closing costs. Around October the IRS sent me a letter asking for copies of my settlement documents. So I called to find out what I needed to send, made the copies, and sent off the letter. Good enough, right?

WRONG. Not when the person who opened the letter and processed the papers into the IRS system is an invalid.

Yesterday I got a letter saying that the documentation didn’t have the proper signatures. Forget the fact that the deed has all of the pertinent information necessary to prove my purchase date and closing price. So what’d they do? Removed the credit from my account and canceled the claim. Now I OWE the IRS $8k, which is subject to 1 years worth of penalties and late fees. I do, however, have options…

I can write a letter to the IRS processing department, which will take 30 days to get a response. I can REFILE the claim, which will take 12-16 weeks to process. Awesome. I WAS planning on filing my 09 tax returns very early this year, but with the money I now owe, I’ll get nothing in return. I’m trying to find out from the IRS if I can just reclaim the tax credit on the 09 returns, which I think is the most hassle-free course of action.

Thanks IRS

Day 13.1

I want to move to a climate where I can grow produce more than 4 months out of the year…

Day 13

CTC. Cut The Check. “As long as I get my paycheck, I couldn’t care less,” often says one of my coworkers. I used to agree, but I’ve been having a really hard time of that lately. 18 months into working for a credit card bank, and I’ve learned a lot about the industry. Not that it’s much of a surprise to anyone who stays current with financial news, but credit card companies most valuable asset is debt. Not the customer, not the monthly payments they receive…but how much is OWED to them. Quarterly reports show debt owed as debt to be received. This is fairly common accounting practice among all sorts of companies across all sorts of industries. And a valid practice…assuming that company will eventually collect those debts in majority. Credit card companies, however, couldn’t care less about actually settling your debt.

Successful business is all about marketing a line of products or services in order to create a steady and reliable revenue stream. Electronics, food, cable, internet, cell phone minutes, clothes, etc. Everything is designed to develop a customer base and maintain relevance to that targeted group by conducting and adjusting to market research and trending (unless you are the RIAA). Credit card companies  are wholly modeled around three things. First, provide a line of credit to their customer. Second, use carefully crafted offers and programs to increase the customer’s debt to that line of credit. And third, keep the customer in debt for as long as possible through floating payment due dates, finance charges, late fees, and confusing customer service.

To a credit card company, the most valuable customer is not one who pays off the entire balance monthly. Sure, they are valuable in that those types of customers show well in collections reporting. But the most valuable type of credit card user is the one who pays the MINIMUM balance each month. The service is a line of credit. The asset is debt. The revenue stream comes from hundreds of thousands of $60-$200 monthly minimum payments. Each time a customer pays the minimum balance, that customer is assessed a finance charge. The minimum payments and finance charges for the entire balance are calculated in such a way that if you continue to use your credit card to pay bills and make cost-of-living purchase, and only ever continue to pay those minimums, you’d never actually satisfy your entire debt owed.

This is called usury.

I get paid very well for what I do, but it’s become extremely hard to get motivated. I just don’t feel right about working in this industry anymore.

Day 11

What a beginning to the week. Friday ended the work week with a hint of sour, and Monday came on strong with the same. It really feels like the project manager (who happens to be my boss-ish) has completely checked out. In a meeting where some very important decisions needed to be made, and attended by some exceptionally strong personalities…she had a “conflict”. Whatever, I handled what I could. Then I scheduled a meeting for 9am this morning to review all of the crazy things that were said during the Friday meeting. Of course, I assumed she’d be in by then. What did I get in my mailbox at 10am? A decline notice for the 9am meeting. THANKS, figured you weren’t going to come at 9:15 when you hadn’t showed up yet.

Anyway, whatever. All jobs have good and bad. I just want to find one where I have enough reason to put up with the bad.  This one has been the closest yet, but after almost 18 months…well, I wouldn’t be upset if they called me in to hand over my badge and FOB (that little dongley thing that lets you log in remotely). I really do like working here, for the most part.

I’ve made some pretty good friends, and met one absolutely amazing person in particular.

Day 7

Well it’s really not day 7…I just didn’t get around to posting anything yesterday. I have a lot of thoughts and opinions that feel well formed in my brain, but seem to fall apart when I start actually trying to write about them. Like…

…consumerism vs. producerism. I’ve been reading a lot of really interesting definitions and grass roots type discussions related to how consumerism in a global economy has spawned a corporate world government. Special interest groups around the world use lobbyists to greatly influence lawmakers to support or oppose legislation for the direct benefit of a conglomerate or industry. And we feed it, because as long as we get what we need (or what we think we need), we keep spending the money.

…immature corporate leadership. I work in an office where favoritism and upper management cliques run rampant. Rather than engage inexperienced project managers and mid-level team leads in mentorship and skill development, mistakes caused by plain ignorance forever throw the individual into a negative light. For as much ineptitude exists in the application of our armed forces, they got one thing very, very right: the chain of command.

…healthcare reform vs. agribusiness reform. The former is a hot topic for just about everyone, but the latter is hardly ever mentioned. Sure, we can come up with ways to make receiving medical care more affordable for more people. But can we challenge the food industry to stop producing so much of the cheap substitutions that are directly related to obesity, heart disease, and diabetes?

…how the inability of the recording and movie industry to adapt to current technology will ultimately be their collective downfall. Read this.

…so much more…