Six years, two months, and five days later…
5 minute read
September 24, 2019, 8:26 AM
September 24 marks the day that I have been a former employee of Food & Water Watch for the same amount of time that I had been an active employee there. Since leaving, I have given plenty of thought to my tenure there, and nowadays, I tend to give it a mixed review. On one hand, that job was what got me up to the Washington DC area in the first place, and it was good for me for a period of time. I grew both personally and professionally because of my experience there, and I certainly benefitted from that. I also certainly had lots of good times while there. However, I probably stayed there for much longer than I should have, as most people spent two or three years there and then moved on. I was there for just over six years, was ninth in seniority by the time that I left, and was no longer all that interested in the issues that the organization was working on by the time that I left.
One thing that I have come to realize with the passage of time is that my position ultimately came to its logical conclusion. When I was hired, the organization had about twenty people, with most people based in DC. By the time that I left, the organization was somewhere around 100 people spread across many offices. In my role as office manager, I was that “jack of all trades, master of none” person. I had no direct involvement with the program content, but rather, I was the guy behind the scenes who made sure that the people handling the program content had what they needed to do their thing. I was tasked with fixing stuff, working with outside vendors, making sure that the office had all of the necessary supplies, doing all of the shipping and receiving, handling matters related to the building, and so on. In other words, I served in a very generalist role. I knew a bit about a lot of things, and it suited me well for a time. What happened was that over the years, as the organization grew, they would carve specialist roles out of my responsibilities. It made enough sense, because a bigger organization justified creating more specialized roles. My job gradually evolved over the years as my responsibilities shifted with the growth of the organization. The view of my generalist role also evolved, with the focus of my role’s shifting from the “jack of all trades” part to the “master of none” part, as, with the hiring of more specialized roles, I went from being the guy who knew a lot about a lot of stuff to “what does he know?” And eventually, my role was whittled down to a very low-level role that I was overqualified for, and probably overpaid for as well.
Continue reading…Of all the words to split hairs over…
6 minute read
August 24, 2019, 9:18 AM
I’ve got one more school story for you. I figure that I’ve told this one so many times to various people that it’s worth putting in Journal entry form and getting “on the record” once and for all. It also demonstrates just how toxic the situation was in 1990 at Bonnie Grimes Elementary School in Rogers.
Fourth grade, as I’ve indicated before, was a pretty rough year. This particular incident occurred in late October. I was in the car rider line after school, waiting for my ride to church for the after-school program that I participated in on Wednesday evenings. The teacher on car duty was Vicki George, the speech therapist, i.e. the person who worked with the kids that had speech impediments. Having no speech impediments myself, I never worked with Mrs. George in an official capacity. My only interactions with her were when she was supervising other kids, i.e. lunch duty, bus duty, car duty, and so on. My interactions with her were generally negative, because she was a real stickler for behavior – more so than the regular teachers – and as such, on several occasions, I got nailed for stuff that I wouldn’t have gotten nailed for by anybody else. I generally tried to avoid her, but sometimes our interactions were inevitable. I don’t remember how I managed to piss her off on this particular occasion in the car line, but somehow, I did, but in any case, it was something really minor (and what I did isn’t relevant to the rest of the discussion). I remember that she told me, “I’m giving you a yellow slip,” i.e. a report about a disciplinary matter, just before my ride showed up and I left.
I thought nothing of it, and the next day, I got a copy of my yellow slip. Okay, then. I didn’t hear anything else about it for a while, so I figured that was the end of it.
Categories: Childhood, Elementary school
On public speaking…
4 minute read
June 29, 2019, 12:48 PM
I was recently listening to a HowStuffWorks podcast on fear of public speaking, and I drew quite a few parallels between what they were saying and my own experience. I’ve never had a good relationship with public speaking, and I will actively try to avoid it whenever possible, but at the same time, part of my job is to make good announcements, and I do that beautifully on a routine basis. Jerry Seinfeld has spoken about the idea that fear of public speaking ranks higher than death, and that people would rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy. I can sympathize with that. After all, if you’re dead, you never have to speak in public again.
But there is nothing that gets me wound up more than having to present something to an audience. It’s one more reason that I’m glad that I’m no longer in school. I never have to get in front of a group and present ever again. One thing that I’ve learned as I’ve matured is that I am not very skilled with presenting things in real time. I do quite well when presenting things in a written format, but public speaking is a major no-no for me. I’ve tried presentations where I speak with notecards, and it’s typically not gone well. About the only way that I have been able to get through a presentation of any sort is if I have a full-on script, i.e. every single word that I speak is written down on something in front of me and read verbatim. It makes enough sense. I am a much stronger writer than I am a speaker, and so if I take the much stronger writing component and use it to prop up the relatively weak speaking component, then we have a winner all around. But don’t ask me any questions afterward. When what I have written has been read, I am done.
Crossing the line from punishment to just plain mean…
7 minute read
May 29, 2019, 10:26 AM
Sometimes, in reflecting on childhood, you remember an incident and think, “Wow, that was really messed up.” And then the more that you think about that incident, the more messed up you realize that it was. Such was the case of a punishment that I received from my mother in November 1990 that, based on the way it all happened, was just wrong. Before I begin, though, I should note that my parents did a great job overall in raising my sister and me. But this one was wrong in so many ways. And my mother likes to bring this one up in conversation, and speaks about it as though she’s quite proud of herself for it, despite how hurtful it actually was.
Back in late 1990, I was in fourth grade. For context, recall that I did not have the best relationship with my elementary school, as it was clear that they weren’t equipped to handle someone like me (I briefly discuss this in the Mrs. Bradley Journal entry). Because of that, I had a bit of trouble in school, and things were starting to come to a head with my relationship with my fourth grade teacher. So getting punished was something that I was accustomed to.
However, this particular punishment really took the cake, mostly because of how it came about, and what happened in the course of the punishment, and the lasting damage that it caused. In the fall of 1990, Mom had started openly tossing around the idea of cleaning out my room, i.e. taking all of my toys away, as a punishment. Mom brought it up on several occasions that she wanted to do that, and nine-year-old me was terrified of the prospect, because it felt inevitable that she would eventually do that, and I didn’t know how to prevent it because I was never told what transgressions would trigger such a punishment.
Categories: Childhood, Elementary school, Family
Seeing what my innards look like from the inside…
3 minute read
April 15, 2019, 11:18 PM
So on Wednesday, March 26, I had an endoscopy as part of a weight loss program that I’m in. That involved going to the hospital, getting an IV, getting wheeled into the room on a stretcher, and then getting knocked out while they did their thing. The good news is that everything looks healthy inside of me, which is what I was expecting to see.
What I found interesting was the difference in the experience in this procedure vs. the last time that I got sedated, back in 2005 when I got a pilonidal cyst removed. This time was just a diagnostic procedure, though, while it was actual surgery back in 2005. The endoscopy was done at Montgomery General Hospital in Olney, while my 2005 surgery was done at Augusta Medical Center (now Augusta Health) in Fishersville, Virginia.
Much of the process was pretty similar to 2005. Come in, check in, change into the hospital gown, put on the hospital bracelet, get all of my information, do vitals, and so on. The first big difference was the IV. I’ve had IVs in the hand before, but for some reason, this one hurt like hell going in. I don’t know why – I’ve never had an IV hurt like that. Then I met with the doctor, who was scoping me and then a second patient. I was told that it was good to be the first one to get done. Then I met with the nurse anesthetist, whose job was to knock me out when the time came. After she told me what was going to happen, I joked about hitting me on the head with a big cartoon mallet. I wonder how many times they hear that joke. I imagine that they hear that a lot.
Categories: Personal health
Five years since I left the nonprofit world…
4 minute read
July 20, 2018, 2:34 PM
Yesterday marked five years since I left Food & Water Watch, where I worked for a little over six years. I had not been happy there for a while, and the deterioration of things in my last three months or so was the final push that I needed in order to do what I knew that I needed to do, i.e. leave the organization. Looking back, I suppose that what ultimately happened was the logical conclusion to my work there. I was hired into a very generalist position back in 2007. I was that guy who “did everything”. One day I would be doing accounting work. One day I was building furniture. One day I was fixing computers. One day I would be working in fundraising. You name it, and I probably did it at some point. Over the years, my job evolved and changed as the organization grew, and people with more specialized roles were added as various functions of the organization became too large for a more generalist position. Eventually, there became less of a need for a position like mine, but so rather than promote me to a new role, they opted to unload me. Suit yourself, I suppose.
In any case, the next fifteen months were an interesting time in my life. I was reminded of exactly how much job hunting sucks, but I also remember not really feeling any of the positions that I was applying for. More nonprofit work after just having been chewed up and spit out by one didn’t exactly ignite my passion. Especially when there was that nagging thought that in a few years, I would probably be searching for a job again, since most people tended to only stay somewhere for two or three years before moving on. By October, I had given up on nonprofits, and focused on transportation. I got a CDL, and I was applying to driving jobs. I was more excited about the work than sitting in an office all day, that’s for sure. I knew I was in the right place, because I felt like the passion and the fire were back.
It’s funny, though, what makes you realize how much you’ve grown and changed in five years. I redid my resume about a month ago for a few internal positions that I am pursuing with my current employer, and based the new resume on the one that I had used in 2013 and 2014. That old resume was trying to be a lot of different things, and focused on how well-rounded I was as a candidate, focusing on technical abilities, writing, and work experience. It was two pages (front and back), and probably had too much on it, as it had this big, flowery “skills” section, plus a section on volunteer work which covered all of my writing on Wikipedia, and also showcased the various skills developed through Schumin Web. I thought it was great in 2013 and 2014, but in 2018, I saw a whole lot of fluff. I condensed that puppy down to one page, as a lot of that was irrelevant to an internal move in a transit agency. My Wikipedia writing experience went right out the window, as I hadn’t done that in quite a few years, and thus it was less relevant. Schumin Web is now listed as a real job, as the business side of things (i.e. licensing photos for third party use) has actually become a real revenue stream in the last few years. And then my Office on Youth internship, which I did in the summer of 2003, is gone. It didn’t provide any new insights that other positions didn’t already provide, and was for such a short duration that it could disappear and no one would miss it. Kind of weird to think about, though, since that internship defined my summer that year. But then again, things change. No one from when I interned there still works there. I don’t recognize a single face on their staff bio page.
So now what do I do?
5 minute read
June 27, 2018, 8:30 AM
This exercise thing sucks. I recently came to the realization that I’m never going back to Planet Fitness, and therefore I’m cancelling my membership. No sense in spending $20 per month on something that I’m not going to use.
I can’t say that I didn’t try, though. I signed up, and I went as I planned, i.e. after work, during the overnight hours. I tried all of the equipment, and while the elliptical and the recumbent stair climber seemed like possible winners, the whole Planet Fitness environment intimidated me too much. How ironic for a company that markets itself with a slogan of “No Gymtimidation”. I got the specific feeling that they were more interested in their “No Gymtimidation” and “Judgement [sic] Free Zone” image than they were about fitness (and a few people seem to agree with me). The presence of that stupid “lunk alarm” gimmick also sent off the wrong vibe, and I never even touched the free weights, nor did I have any intention to ever use them. It’s allegedly the judgment free zone, but they’re constantly watching and judging everything that you do, and that made me feel less at ease with it than I preferred. I just want to go in, do my thing, and leave. Too much emphasis on individual conduct makes me uncomfortable because it makes me feel somewhat on edge, and that creates a sense of hostility, like I’m being micromanaged. Perception is reality here, and that perception negatively affected my enjoyment of the club.
Additionally, I couldn’t find a location that I liked. I found out that some locations were de facto closed on Sunday nights because they dismantled the entire facility to clean it on those nights. However, because one of Planet Fitness’s big selling points was being open 24 hours, they couldn’t actually close the facility to clean it. They had to remain open, even though none of the equipment was available. So on more than one occasion, Elyse and I got dressed and went out, only to be turned away because all of the equipment was offline for cleaning. That just speaks of poor planning on the facility’s part, since they could easily split the work and clean in sections over the course of a week in order to maintain full access at all times. Other locations were better, but too far from my house. I halfway liked the downtown Silver Spring location, but it was just too far away to be practical.
Categories: Companies, Personal health, Recreation/Exercise
Finding my old fifth grade teacher on Facebook…
14 minute read
June 4, 2018, 2:30 PM
Recently, a very familiar name came up in my friend suggestions: “Sharon Payne Bradley”. In other words, this person:
Categories: Arkansas, Childhood, Elementary school
When you just hate recognition that much…
4 minute read
May 15, 2018, 11:05 PM
People are always amazed when I tell them that I hate receiving recognition. I just don’t like it. I don’t find it enjoyable. In fact, I find it incredibly awkward all around. I don’t know what it is, but it just isn’t a fun thing. This came to mind recently because of two discussions that I had with colleagues in the last few weeks. One was about an operator competition that my employer was having, and another was about an employee of the month program that my specific division has.
In the case of the former, where train operators go out and demonstrate their skills for judges, I couldn’t see any way to get a satisfactory result for myself as a participant. If I don’t place, I’m kicking myself for not doing better. If I place, then I have to deal with a whole bunch of unwanted recognition. Not participating at all seems to take care of both concerns, and I have no problem attending as a non-competitor and watching others compete. I’ve done that before at a similar event for the bus, where I was there but didn’t compete, and I had a blast. Besides, I have the most fun just being myself while operating the service.
In the case of the latter, a coworker brought up the idea of it, and how I would possibly be a good candidate for the employee of the month award. I was honest about it: if I ever were to get the award, I believe that my response would be, “Thank you very much, but please give it to someone else.” In other words, I would probably decline it. I just want to do my job and call it a day, and a whole bunch of unnecessary attention just gets in the way of my being awesome.
No, I do not have the world’s deepest voice…
6 minute read
March 11, 2018, 9:32 PM
Sometimes, a comment on a post inspires me. In this case, it inspired me to finally write what I believe will be an amusing entry that I had been compiling for a while about my not-so-deep voice. It started with this post, made late at night on March 6:
Categories: Myself
Now to build on the successes of the past year…
6 minute read
January 3, 2018, 9:37 PM
A new year always brings a lot of feelings. It’s a time to reflect on the past year, and a time to look ahead to the year ahead. Reflecting back on 2017, I’d say that I had an outstanding year, and laid the groundwork for a strong future. After all, at the beginning of 2017, I was still relatively new at the whole train operations thing, and lived by myself in an apartment with a hostile relationship with the property management. Now, I’m more experienced with my work and more comfortable with all of the ins and outs of my job, and I’m also a homeowner with a roommate. I made my first mortgage payment at the end of December. Things suddenly became very real when I wrote that check.
Now, in 2018, I want to build on my successes from the past year and reach even greater heights. After all, in 2017, I got the house. Now, I want to make it my home, and not someone else’s idea of a home with my furniture sitting in it. That means getting rid of that chandelier in Elyse’s room, painting a few rooms, and getting my wallhangings up. I’m excited to design the new decor, because I have so many blank canvases upon which to expend some pent-up creative energies. My parents are delighted about this as well, because I’d been fantasizing out loud about redecorating their house for a few years in order to expend those creative energies that I couldn’t do with the apartment, but they were a bit cool to the idea. Now I have my own place to paint and decorate as I wish. The previous owner of my house decorated the place fairly minimalistically, using pale colors on walls and few wallhangings and furnishings, such as in the living room:
Categories: House, Myself, Schumin Web meta, Today's Special, Wikipedia, Work
I feel like I’m irrationally angry about this…
3 minute read
February 10, 2017, 4:00 PM
I am currently am experiencing a bout of tendonitis in my left wrist and hand. For someone that blogs as much as I do, it happens, and so you deal with it. It started on Tuesday, and by Wednesday, it was bad enough that I decided to go to an urgent care facility to get it looked at. I went to Patient First in Rockville. There, after they took all of my vitals, the doctor came in and looked at my hand. Turned out that it was tendonitis, and the doctor recommended that I take Advil for it, and gave me this wrist brace:
Categories: Personal health
Eight years of growth and change…
4 minute read
January 19, 2017, 11:19 PM
This evening is Barack Obama‘s last in office as President of the United States. At 12:00 tomorrow, Donald Trump will be sworn in, and then the Obama family will leave for a well-deserved vacation to Palm Springs. Meanwhile, based on what we’ve already seen from Trump’s camp as president-elect, what I said in my post-election Journal entry rings true: “In the end, the expression, ‘May you live in interesting times,’ seems like a fitting description of what we may have these next four years in a Trump administration.” Hold on tight, because it’s going to be a crazy ride, and there is no emergency stop mushroom to dump the country and apply all of the brakes.
Meanwhile, I really have to question whether Donald Trump will serve out his full term. Considering how much of a loose cannon he has been, I have a feeling that he will last only until the Republicans in Congress have had enough of him, i.e. when he starts jeopardizing their chances for reelection. Then they will, at the very least, find a reason to impeach him, likely for one of his many conflicts of interests that he has refused to rectify before he takes office. Don’t know if he’ll get removed or not, but I consider an impeachment likely. That or he will pull a Nixon and resign prior to the whole thing. We shall see. All I know is that Trump is making George W. Bush look like a true statesman by comparison, and Bush was an idiot. But Bush at least started acting presidential once the election was over. Trump, on the other hand…
But this Journal entry isn’t supposed to be about Donald Trump. It’s more of a look back over the last eight years, and a reflection on personal growth. In 1980, then-candidate Ronald Reagan said in a debate, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” I consider the question to oversimplify a number of factors, plus it overestimates the president’s influence on your individual life (the actions of your state and local officials affect your life far more than those of the president), but I consider the question to be a good way to judge how one’s life has progressed over a defined period of time, regardless of who the president is and what they did during their term.
Categories: Myself, National politics
Yes, that is a star costume…
4 minute read
December 8, 2016, 9:48 AM
For this month, the splash photo shows child me wearing a star costume. I normally lean towards running a vintage photo for December, because December photos, owing to the Christmas elephant in the room, are typically harder to do than most because of that extra holiday element. I own very little Christmas junk, and so a new photo requires a shopping trip and some spending to do. That or I do the photo right in the store, as I did in 2008. The December splash photo had nothing to do with Christmas in 2012, 2013, and 2014, owing to some recent non-Christmas photos of me taken in those years, but in 2015, Christmas returned to the splash photo. However, I inadvertently duplicated my work in 2015, as I had run the same photo in December 2006 – a mistake that I didn’t didn’t discover until I did the prep work for this Journal entry.
For this month, my original plan was to run a photo taken in 1987, showing my sister and me with Santa Claus. However, in a routine check of the archives to prevent duplicates, I discovered that I had run it eleven years prior. So that went out the window. I went hunting in my scans of old photos, and found this:
Categories: Childhood, Christmas, Religion, Schumin Web meta
Now, about that boot…
9 minute read
December 23, 2015, 5:12 PM
You may recall that this past September’s splash photo showed me posing with a broken merry-go-round at Pentagon City Mall, i.e. this:
Note the choice of footwear. I’m wearing a Crocs shoe on one foot… and a massive boot cast on the other. It was posted without any explanation other than a mention of its presence, but clearly, something was up, because I don’t normally wear a boot around like that.
Categories: Elyse, Personal health, Work