I know better than to blog about work. It should just never be done, and I’m not going to start. I have to say that it’s odd getting back to the workforce. And, it’s particularly challenging starting out at the bottom wrung again. However, this is the view from my window:
All I can think when I look at this is: Spiderman really can’t get around Soho much. All the big buidlings are in the financial district and midtown. If crime is happening in Soho, he’s better off taking the subway.
I just had what I am calling an “Otis Moment” at lunch.
I was waiting in line at a soup place, and when I got to the front, I forgot what I wanted. I said, “Where did it go?” because I was looking for it on the menu. In response, the soup guy muttered something, turned around, and gave me a bowl of New England Clam Chowder. I, completely baffled at this point, just took it.
I call this an Otis moment because it reminds me of the scene in the 1995 film Kicking and Screaming when Otis gets a fry in his beer and refuses to return it because it would upset the waitress. Very much the same thing.
Otis was played by Carlos Jacott, far right
Maybe the soup guy knew that it was my dad’s favorite and wanted to remind me to call my dad.
I walked into my new job knowing that the company I was working for had just let go of 20% of its workforce. Then the market did this:
Down, down, down
However, none of this worries me too much. The way I figure it, I should hopefully have at least a year of employment guaranteed, maybe less.
Yet, now that I have an MBA, I have become someone who gives unfortunate advice. Like when the Dow had fallen from 14,000 to 11,000, I told my mother she should stay in it because it will rebound. Now that the Dow is teetering near the cusp of 8,000, I feel like a total idiot. Even if there’s an article in NYTimes saying people are now ready for rebound and are buying in.
Ah well. I’d say buy too. But what do I know?
So, I’ve been changing things up around here.
Wish I could be writing more, but I started work almost three weeks ago. So far, no serious complaints.
It’s been interesting coming to work in times like these. Just before I started there was a massive 20% lay off at the firm. The good news is that there’s plenty of work for me to do: I’m working on the project of a guy who was laid off. That’s been awkward at times.
And, yeah, the site has moved from being what it was to what it is. It’s time to put another layer of nostalgia on adolescent love poetry . . .
More pictures of the veg coming . . . if I get around to it.
So, I had the chance to get a crate of farm fresh veg from the bar I go to. (Long story.) Anyhow, look at all we got for $30:
Tomatoes, peppers, onions, garlic, a monster zucchini, potatoes, celery, other greens, a leek, some tiny peppers. And a few things we had trouble identifying:
The root on the left we figured out was horseraddish when the Missus ate a sliver.
The herb on the right might be oregano. It tastes very sweet.
So, we made our first dish tonight with it–pasta with tomatoes and zucchini (garlic and fresh moz included):
It was pretty good.
Okay, I am taking a break from constantly checking political sites (Click Kos, Click Sullivan, Click Huffpost, and Repeat) to address my goals again.
A while back, I wrote out my incredibly ambitious goals for the summer. Here’s what I got done:
Writing
I knew I wasn’t going to get all this done, but I managed to get . . .
Casebook for school: This was the bane of my existence, and I managed to get it sent off.
Blog: I did post, usually a few times a week. So, that was good.
Essays: I have one posted somewhere and another I need to run by the missus. Hopefully, these two should be up soon.
Serial stories, prose pages, and screenplay: As I mentioned in a previous post, I lack the boredom and discontentment that fueled my creative writing back when I did such things. Also, I didn’t have as many cool video games.
Reading
I did read some of the books I set out to.
I read Predictable Irrationality which was unpredictably scattered. While we might hold out hope for some general guidelines to behavioral economics, this book only offered some pithy overviews of some not-so-interesting experiments.
I read the Innovator’s Solution which did not solve anything. Such a letdown after the amazingly good Innovator’s Dilemma.
And, I am still trying to muddle my way through The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao which reminds me of a Middlesex, only replace the hermaphrodite with a Dominican and set it in Patterson, not Detroit. The Pulitzer people are so predictable.
Other Endeavoring
I did have other endeavors, however. I got to help out with a used book and furniture stand, I began helping people with their business school essays, and I am still working on another business project.
Oh, and I managed to log in several hours of Wii playing, a lot of movies, and some lunches.
Not a bad way to spend a summer, but I wound up scoring more goals in Wii soccer than what I set out to do earlier.
So, I was thinking Thursday . . . , remember Thursday?
The commentary at the time was that this was “historic,” and it got me thinking about periods in history. The only moment where I felt history was as jets flew over my head as I walked off Manhattan and into Queens on September 11. Whatever I believe about how that moment has been exploited, it definitely was an historic turning point. However, I don’t believe the counterbalance was Thursday night. No, the counterbalance will be when/if he is elected.
But, I’m cynical. I don’t know that it will happen. In an election where people have to choose between old and new or fear and hope, I think more people will choose old and fear. Because I think most people vote with the same faculties they pick out soda or root for a sports team.
Last week I was visiting my mother in Florida, and after she went to bed, I was thinking about writing.
Earlier this summer, I posted some incredibly ambitious goals for this summer, and –surprise! — I haven’t achieved any of them. The vast majority of them are writing goals, and as I was in Florida last week and after my mother went to bed, I remembered what it was that used to propel my writing: boredom and discontentment. And being able to be the last one awake at night. (Even as I write this, the missus is asking when I’m coming to bed.)
Of course, it’s harder to maintain boredom and discontentment these days — I am too happy, and I have too many toys. Those two things are probably related
BUT, in the week that I was in Florida, I managed to think up the conceit for the “novel” that I’ve been working on for seven years, so that’s something.
This really great piece of criticism from the current New Yorker about Thomas Frank’s newest book got me thinking about seeing Thomas Frank again.
I saw Thomas Frank well before What’s the Matter with Kansas?, back when he was just publishing The Baffler and getting his PhD at Chicago. It was around 99 or 00, and H. and I went to go see a panel at Columbia about small journals. It included a well-groomed Daniel Pinchbeck of Open City, Rebecca Wolf of Fence, Dave Eggers of McSweeney’s and Frank.
Of the few exchanges that have stayed with me are the few slightly naive things that Frank said, but in those few exchanges, one could discern how Frank thinks. For example, at one point he said that the audience (New Yorkers) should move to Chicago because it would be cheaper to do what they wanted to do (make small magazines). I guess he thought that New Yorkers should be motivated by economic self-interest and not the other things that make NYC so appealing. (He could have written a book call What’s the Matter with New York?)
But, my favorite Frank moment was when someone asked Eggers why he printed McSweeney’s in Iceland, and Frank with his reductive economics-only focus presumptively answered for Eggers and said, “it’s probably cheaper.”
Eggers responded, “are you kidding? There are no trees in Iceland. We have to fly over there to read the proofs and stay there for a week. Then we have to ship it here. It costs us a ton. We do it because it is funny.”
Frank’s unfortunate frankness (ham-fisted turn of phrase that) showed me his blinkered and arrogant way of looking at the world that has turned me off to him since. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Commodify Your Dissent at that period of my life, but I have always thought that Frank has come across like a nerd with something to prove since that exchange. (Full disclosure: I’m harder on “nerds with something to prove” because I am one myself.)
I think the New Yorker article gets to the same problem with Frank.
So, in response to my nasty letter to IKEA, IKEA responded thusly:
Thank you for taking the time to contact us.
At IKEA, every effort is made to ensure the quality of our products,
as well as our service. In reviewing the information that has been
provided in your e-mail, we do understand that you were not satisfied
with the service that you received in our store. Please accept our
sincerest apologies for any inconvenience that you may have
experienced.Once again, we thank you for bringing your concerns to our attention.
It is through customer feedback such as yours, which enables us the
opportunity to improve. We hope that you will continue to be a loyal
and important IKEA customer.
It’s a fairly decent stock letter isn’t it?
But, would it be that much harder to make this somewhat customized? Like, maybe mention the store that I was at? It would make me think that this was less of a cut-and-paste job.
Or, better yet, they could have sent me a mad-libs apology letter, and like everything else from IKEA, I could have made it myself.
In addition to awful IKEA, the missus and I saw Wolf Parade at Terminal 5 last week. It was my first time seeing Wolf Parade and my first time at Terminal 5, and both were pretty cool.
Even the talking people in the crowd didn’t annoy me ’cause the band was tight and a good portion of the crowd was there to rock out. Also, we managed to get a place by a raised portion near the back bar, so the missus could see everything. Very cool.
Oddly, however, Wolf Parade’s new album dropped this week [Correction: in June, see comment], but the band didn’t bother to mention it at the show. WTF? Sure, you don’t want to seem like you’re selling or marketing (heaven forbid!), but you should mention the album to the fans, if only as a courtesy. That’s a certain kind of good marketing that the casual fans would appreciate.
Last week, the missus and I went to IKEA in Brooklyn, and I had such an awful experience, I actually wrote them a note. I think I do this once every two years, so you can imagine how bad it was. Here’s the note:
Dear IKEA,
After my experience visiting the Brooklyn IKEA twice over the last week, I am determined never to go to IKEA again. The customer service was so poor that I am also encouraging everyone I know to shop at either the Container Store or a local furniture dealer rather than have to experience the dreadful customer service from your “co-workers” at IKEA in Brooklyn.
Both times my wife and I visited, we could not get anyone to answer our questions about the Pax system, much less acknowledge we were even there. Even though the tags for the items said “ask a service representative,” the one service representative in the area disregarded us completely.
In the marketplace, there were no representatives anywhere, including places like fabric, where there was no one to cut the fabric for customers. Why bother having a fabric section at all?
These experiences were not just one time: This happened to us both on a busy weekend and a not-busy weekday evening.
Often, I had questions about your products, and the maddening signs on the wall just said, “ask us.” I ask you, IKEA, who is there to ask when there are few service representatives anywhere and the ones that are there don’t acknowledge customers at all?
If this is “affordable,” it’s not worth it.
Sincerely,
P.S. Even your store field on this web site form does not list the Brooklyn store. Maybe you are trying to disown it already?
Okay, some people have questioned my taste based on my high regard of Sex and the City, but my favorite movie of 2008 is the documentary American Teen. Saw it with the Missus last night.
Sure, they are doing the Breakfast Club take off on the poster, but the movie so freakin’ good that it made me uncomfortable. I felt like I was back in high school. Man, being a teenager sucked.
What’s more, Megan, the popular girl in the movie (lookin’ like Molly Ringwald in the photo above) is PURE EVIL! She is better representation of evil than the Joker in Dark Knight, more banal and therefore troubling.
And, Hannah! The misunderstood artistic girl! Well . . . well, it looks like the missus is reading the site these days, so I’ll just say that Hannah’s story is amazing. Obviously the filmmaker (and the NYC audience whom I saw the movie with) had a special relationship with her.
This is the best documentary of its kind that I’ve seen since “Hoop Dreams,” and in many ways it rights all the wrongs perpetrated by John Hughes who seemed to make high school tolerable.
If you have ever become wistful for high school, this movie should correct that.
I saw Sex & the City last Friday with the Missus, and I . . .
liked it.
Every guy that I talked to before I went, offered up condolences, and I didn’t do anything to correct their misplaced pity. Which isn’t to say that I was excited to see the movie, but I didn’t protest. Honestly, I would have rather seen something else, but whatever else I saw, I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much. (This situation should be enough to dispel any ideas of rational decision making. Or, you might argue, taste on my part.)
Why did I like it? I liked it because it was an easy post-romantic love story. It’s like a romantic comedy turned upside down three times (Charlotte’s storyline didn’t count), in much the same way When Harry Met Sally revised the genre. Of course, everything ends with a wedding, which is to say the genre really hasn’t moved much since Jane “T-Bone” Austen.
And, I like the puns and the clichés and, yes, I even like the depiction of wanton materialism because deep in your heart of hearts you know that buying things makes you happy. Oh, and I love the crowd in the theater who gasps at the apartment and says “no you didn’t” to Mr. Big.
And, so, almost a month after everyone else has seen it, I have to agree with Tori’s general enthusiasm for the movie. Also, I think Jesse got it wrong about the squealing greetings for Samantha: this only happened three times in the movie, and only twice were the squealing scenes noticeably too close together. Why did I count the squealing scenes? Because Jesse mentioned them beforehand.
Now, if there could just be a Sex & the City / Batman crossover . . .
