| November 24, 2013 | Contact | Calendar | The Mix | Archives |
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For most jobs I've had, I have redefined the job title in my head to match what I think I'm really doing, like Agent of Change or Maintainer of a Safe Geek Space for Adolescents. I think of my current temporary job, which blessedly ends in less than a month, as Advent at the Anne Lamott School of Forbearance. It is a 30 day drill in kindness and patience for which they give you a small stipend. Really, it could be marketed as one of those new age immersion experiences. There's navigating through the software for sure, but it's not about that. It's about training the cheerful, engaging and endlessly patient voice to live beyond irritation. After a while the voice is like a separate thing from your self, it's more like an avatar at your command, it's an acquired super power.
When as I'm driving home 30 miles in the winter dark with the occasional isolated house bravely lit with christmas decorations, listening against the rules to my December mixes in November, wondering why I signed up for this gig, I summon the spirit of Robert De Niro from Being Flynn who reminds me that "life is gathering material." The real purpose of this temporary job may have been to make writing code in the basement look good, and yes, a few eternity length days in the call center has made basement office time look spectacular. There is much good work to do. The languagesymbols.com project is really taking off as we appear to have found a way to create and publish symbol books as iPad and Android apps. There are other projects in which I will be the programmer in collaboration with a local design guy. And somewhere in January there should be a week or so visiting down south. |