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From Software to Soup: On Trading Coding for Crepes
Legal Serf writes "Having lived through the best of eTimes and the worst (hopefully) of times, I bet everyone (still employed) has had daydreams of chucking it all and escaping the present malaise permeating most tech companies. The NY Times ('open' but not 'free' registration) has a piece about ex-dotcomers who've traded visions of iBuzzwords for soup, crepes and hotdogs. What?s most interesting is that everyone interviewed pretty much said the same thing: It's nice to provide something of real value to customers who are actually happy to trade money for goods, even if it's just dessert. Anyone out there feeling the same? (About the value of tech or the temptations of other trades?)
(I keep thinking about these tech friends I have that fantasize about opening a hip babershop...)"
fantasize about opening a hip babershop...
Ignoring for the moment that I don't know what a 'babershop' is, and assuming that what was meant was 'barbershop,' what is a 'hip barbershop?' Is it, by any chance, a place at which one has his/her hip hair shorn? I don't know about anyone else, but I don't have a very significant problem with hair on my hips...
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
"Good evening sir, my name is Steve. I come from a rough area. I used to be addicted to crack but now I'm off and am trying to stay clean. That is why I am selling magazine subscriptions and I was hoping you could help me out."
HR Director: So, what do you want to do?
Me: I don't know. I was thinking I like... animals. Maybe I'd be a vet?
HR Director: An evil vet?
Me: [long pause]...No... Maybe like work in a petting zoo...
HR Director: An evil petting zoo?
Me: You always do that!!!
HR Director: What?
I agree with the poster of the comment you are replying to. Office life is the best thing since reclining armchairs. If you don't think office life is cushy your either don't work in an office or your just not very good at taking advantage your situation.
I do agree that yes, offices are run by moron's, but then the entire planet is crawling with moron's and they make up almost the entire population, but office are in no way like factories. There are hundreds of people in Tiwan threading shoelace's who would agree with me.
Office's are not designed to treat employese badly or to give them a hard time, they are deisgned the way thay are because they were designed by a moron who honestly thought it was a really good idea to built it that way. But this person designs offices for a living, so it was clear they were underqualified to begin with.
The key to getting the most out of office life is laziness. This must be worked at, for it is often not quick to achieve and does not always come naturally (except to us lucky few).
Office life is about coffee, free toast, surfing the web, reading email and downloading music and, if your inclined, hoarding pornography. Even meetings are good because you get to drink coffee in a quite room and bring your own reading material (I suggest ebooks on a Palm as they're less conspicuous). NB: A key tip is to schedule them over lunch time so you can order in tiny crustless triangle sandwiches at the companies expense (thus saving yourself time, money and energy buying your own lunch and from having to make do with those horrible 3 day old excuses for sandwiches that the local sandwich van will invariably bring round).
Anything else is just a distraction from YOUR personal pleasure. Remember it's YOUR time not theirs (it may be THEIR money but it's still YOUR time, for those of a skeptical disposition check your contract - at no point do employment contracts expressly forbid you from: avoiding work, shirking responsibility, pretending to work or passing the buck. If you do end up getting worked dumped on your desk, try delegating it to a cow-orker. You'd be surprised how easy this is. If you do it often enough, you'll probably get promoted.).
In all likely hood, unless your one of a small handful of 'key people' (there are only ever a small handful of 'key people' even in a office of a couple of hundred) your only there to make up the numbers in any case. It's just like real life really, about 5% of the population do all the the really useful meaningful stuff, like running things, building things or inventing things. The rest of us are just here to make up the numbers and keep the infrastructure going. The most we can hope for is not to get in the way.
Lastly, if you have any difficulty with this approach due to out moded concepts like 'guilt' (over being paid good money to surf the web, for example), remember that it's not your money your wasting, it belongs to some weasel in a suit, who, if he was standing on a high ledge as you looked on below, you'd be shouting *jump* *jump*. Put in that that perspective, all your doing is relieving him of a little cash (which will probably only cause him undue stress in the long run, so really your doing him a favour).*
* Though when his bank balance get's down to $0.00 don't let that stop you from shouting "Jump! Jump!" when the time comes. (That sort of oppertunity does come along very often and you'll kick yourself afterwards if you don't).