Faraway employment was greener

It occurred to me as my fingers clicked their way on autopilot across the Minesweeper Expert Level screen that I must have spent a lot of time being bored at work to get this good at Minesweeper. While this job is the most time I’ve concertedly spent being bored, and the one before runs it a close second, I learned to play Minesweeper at my “real” job, the one where I had friends and a decent job title and felt like I was a useful member of society. At least, where society means an IT company where you know nothing you do actually makes any difference to whether the world continues to spin on its axis, inhabited by humans or otherwise, and your anthem tends towards the “Delete entire unit. Nobody reads it anyway.” I suppose I glamorise my old jobs; it’s only natural. So I remember the great friends I made and the long uproarious coffee breaks and the fascinating comma-placement discussions and lunches in the park. And I forget the times when the heydays were gone, when people I managed made me cry or I waited in vain on Friday afternoon for someone to ask me was I going to the pub. Not to mention cycling through the rain and howling wind having forgotten my waterproofs or trying to lock the bike with numb fingers. And yes, there were plenty of times when I was bored, because that was when I honed my Minesweeper skills. I brought my cube-mate down with me, too; later when she was sitting on the other side of my partition, I could always tell when she was playing Freecell or Minesweeper from the click patterns. I liked to take credit for that.

Maybe my career counsellor was right when she said I should consider law. My best friend the solicitor never suffers from boredom at work. Of course, she’s run off her feet and insanely stressed. I don’t want to be that busy, but it’s not true that I shy away from hard work; I just think I do because indolence breeds indolence and at this stage I can barely remember what real work was like. The hardest I’ve ever worked was (a) waitressing and (b) in my first ever real job, where I didn’t even realise I was entitled to breaks, or that if I ended up working through lunch I could just take my lunch later. I turned up at 9.00 on the dot, worked like an industrious reading ant until 11.00 when I’d get a cup of coffee because all the architects (who shared the office) had their break then. But I’d scurry straight back to my desk rather than chatting. (In retrospect, this may also have been because the architects were all tall, handsome men in their late twenties, and I had a crush on at least one of them. I probably didn’t know what to say to any of them and was happier back at my desk.) Then work resumed till 1pm, when I’d go out to the shops for something to eat and read a book until the hour was up. And work work work till 5.00, when I’d be out the door and at the bus stop before you could say Jiminy Cricket. The thing is, we didn’t even have an Internet connection, and I didn’t know any computer games, so when I say I was working, I mean I really was. All the time. I was so focused during the day that for the first time ever I couldn’t read to relax in the evening.

I was only there for four months or so, because it had always been a temporary gig, though I’m sure they weren’t paying me much (or telling the accountant about me), and I’m willing to bet they never had a flunky work so hard after that.

Moral being: I’m overqualified, overskilled, underworked, and over here. Anyone want to give me a lovely job? Being busy doing something I know I can do well is one of the greatest natural highs I can get. I just forget that when the thing I’m doing right now is my 49th game of Minesweeper for the day.

Computing through the ages

I’m so bad at working with people with limited computer skills. It’s not that I’m a bigshot techie now, but I have to think really hard to remember what it was like when I didn’t know one side of a monitor from the other.

When I was in school, we got an Amstrad word processor at home. I could process words on it (in a very basic “words in, print out” sort of way) and play all of two games – Blogger and, ooh, some sort of Space Invaders thingy. During my four years in college I submitted one typed essay – and even that wasn’t required. By that stage - 1994, say - I was watching my friends at the teeny Apple Macs on the third floor of the library and vaguely wishing I had a clue what they were doing. Then I did a post-grad diploma in business and took an elective module on MIS. I didn’t learn a lot, but it was my introduction to things like Word, Excel, what a database was, and the good old interweb. And using e-mail for the first time, which was a fabulous novelty for chatting to my best friend on the computer beside me – and quite useful since I was now on a different campus from my boyfriend.

My first job after graduating involved working with another of those teeny Apples and occasionally a PC. We didn’t have an internet connection in the office – I actually read a book at lunchtime or went for a walk. So quaint. At some stage at home we’d finally dumped the Amstrad and inherited an un-teeny Mac, so I had taught myself to type on that - against the advice of my well-meaning uncle who said I should never learn to type because then I’d just be a secretary. Well, guess what, I have been a secretary, and I was damn glad to have the typing skills to get the job. Also, it’s much handier than typing with two fingers.

Anyway, eventually I got my Real Job in the online training company. Where we had real computers and the internet and a network and programmers and a tech support staff and all sorts of things I hadn’t a clue about. They were so nice to me, and so patient, when I asked things like “What’s a file? Is this a file? How can I tell?” and I learned what I needed for the job and picked other things up along the way. I discovered that I’m fairly intuitive about computers and I can generally find my way around a program given a little time and practice. And after 5 years working with greater and lesser spotted techies, I can talk the talk pretty well.

But now I look at my mother, or my boss, and it’s really hard for me to remember what it was like when I didn’t have a mental picture of how this document was in this folder that I could retrieve at any point. Or when my fingers didn’t automatically stretch to Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V to take something from one place and put it somewhere else. Or what a program is and how I can open it and use it and then close it or minimize it. I’m not talking high-level Java applet programing here, just day-to-day use of a filesystem and the basic trappings of the evil Microsoft empire. And then I get impatient and frustrated with whoever it is that asked me for help, because the words that are coming out of my mouth are meaningless to them and I can’t just lend them my brain for a few minutes to help clarify things.

Which is why I'm not a teacher, I suppose. Small mercies.

Reading matter

We got a fairish pile of books for Christmas, thanks to all those people who think that a book is a good portable, non-breakable present for those travelling. And they're not wrong. In fact, we also managed to spend the rest of my huge book token from last Christmas, because we have so many tokens that won't get spent till we finally move back home that it was a great relief to finish off one. Then we arrived back in Texas to find a big box of lovely books from Amazon as a belated wedding present. And then we joined the local library too, so we're pretty much coming down with stuff to read.
Things I've recently finished:

Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre. Really good. Like a modern-day Catcher in the Rye, but don't let that put you off if you hate Holden with a passion. It's just the adolescent boy with a penchant for bad language and scatalogical tendancies that made me think of it. And it's got Texas and Mexico too. We can tell everyone our town is just like where Vernon lives.

Dorothy L. Sayers: The Complete Stories: I haven't truly finished it because I stopped when I came to the end of the Wimsey section and I'll leave Montague Egg for another time. It was fun, though I'm not a big fan of short stories. But it's nice to fill in the gaps between the novels. This was actually from our trip to Barnes and Noble before Christmas; maybe it's just as well it's so far away.

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold: I finally picked up a copy of this and read it on the plane home. It was all a bit icky, to be honest, and I didn't really like the ending where it went all religous/fantasy, but that's just me. It certainly passed the time.

Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers: Continuing to fill in our Sayers gaps, this is the first book of all, and we found it in the library. Good stuff, though the culprit stood out a mile.

Currently reading:

I'm halfway through Dress your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris, which my sister-in-law gave me for Christmas. I was enjoying it well enough, but then I started Vernon God Little and Sedaris just seemed like a pale imitation after that. I need to give it a while and then I'll go back to it. I'm not finding it as rib-achingly hilarious as advertised, mind.

I just started The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler, given to me by my mother-in-law. So far, it's easy to read but I'm not really distinguishing the characters much. Good breakfast fodder, though, and a nice hardback cover.

And Somebody, in unwarranted celebration of a half-anniversary, gave me the new Nigella, Feast, which I had been coveting but vacillating about whether I wanted the UK or US edition as an excuse for not getting it. But really I just wanted someone to give it to me. And they did. I may make them a Chocolate Guinness Cake to show my appreciation. But mostly I just love reading it and looking at the lovely pictures. I love reading How to Eat, but its lack of photos is frustrating sometimes, so this is wonderful.

And I have to admit that I got a big fat baby and pregnancy book out of the library too - the Mayo Clinic one, mostly because everything else in that section seemed to be about having multiple births or menopause. It's just for research purposes, anyway, because I should be better informed.





3:39 pm - 01 February 2005