Boss: I need you to do Ted's job and your own job until we hire someone.
Dilbert: If I do well, you'll make me do two jobs forever. If I do poorly, I'll get no raise.
Boss: I can't promise anything, but there might be some verbal praise down the road.

This is why I gotta get out of here! Goodbye Corporate America!

Someone mentioned Corporate America in their journal recently, and it got me to wondering about Corporate Australia. The term doesn't really exist, because I don't think corporations own Australia to the same degree that they own America.

Recently, I was reading about Star Trek: Deep Space 9. I kept reading that the creators of the show felt that the Ferengi were the most "human" characters in the show. I've been thinking about this though, and I realized that the key word in the Ferengi's vocabulary is "opportunity." If I were to characterize the monetary and social philosophy of the US and Europe, by distilling the ideas as much as possible, I would use the word "opportunity" for the US and "lifestyle" for Europe. (I think Australia lives somewhere between those two extremes). I think that in reality, the Ferengi are the most American characters in the show, and I think the way American TV producers and writers equate human values with American values is a troubling sign of cultural imperialism.

I'm thinking about cooking some pasta for dinner, which of course brings up the whole low carb thing. It's a serious inconvenience that pasta is now worse than slathering your blood red cow stake with the thickest bacon grease imaginable, because when cooking for people you have to think up something more complicated to make. So I send Tyler an IM asking: "are you on any of those funky low carb diets?" in hopes that if he comes out to visit me in New York I can make something simple like pasta. But he doesn't answer me right away.

I decided I really needed a paper clip. I riffled through my desk drawer, but come up with nothing. I decide to go buy some and tell Tyler: "i need to go get paper clips. i'll be back in a bit."

To which he responds: "no; they don't work. my dad actually wrote a book which describes why"

I was about to walk out of the room, but I stop with a feeling of dread in my heart. Suddenly I had been thrust into some strange universe where Mr. Spock has a goatee and for some reasons all paper clips have become non functional. I wonder what else is different about this parallel universe? And why did Tyler's father write an entire book on why paper clips don't work? I've been so wrapped up in the future and being an optimist and all that B.S. that I have made myself susceptible to believing it just may be true when somebody tells me something like "paper clips don't work."

"huh? what?" I type.

Then I remember the question before that. "oh. heh. cool. got confused there."

Tyler responds with: "the diets"

"i thought you were saying PAPER CLIPS didn't work."

Relieved that I wouldn't have to double check my Star Trek DVDs to insure that Spock didn't have any extra whiskers (except of course for that one episode that he did), I went off to get some paper clips.

On the way back I'm listening to a CD I burned with just music that I like to listen to and none of the extra chaff which is on those CDs that those musical corporations expect us to buy. It struck me recently that with the exception of the first ("reptile") and last song ("suicide notes") it is all "happy" music, and that I haven't been much interested in listening to the "unhappy" tracks. Guthrie used to imply that the fact that I used to listen to depressing music made me unhappy. I contend (as I did then) that I listened to depressing music because I was depressed, and now that I prefer to listen to "happy" music because I am optimistic.

For a second there it didn't even bother me that I still don't have plans for New Years Eve. It occurs to me that New Years Eve is really Old Years Night... and is so about the past, not The Future.

I get the feeling that The Twilight Report is becoming a Dilbert's rant about the stupidity which is The Company. While this is not A Good Thing generally speaking, it must be because The Company has been on my mind a lot lately. Every year we have these diversity training meetings where our manager explains to us what diversity is. Today was that day for my new department. One of the slides Tom showed us went something like thus:

Diversity

To which someone in the department said "I don't really understand this chart. I mean, why is Germany and Vietnam in red, and nothing else is?"

Nobody could really give a satisfactory answer to this, but someone else did say "It shows diversity."

I think it is fabulous that you can take the emotionally charged and complex idea of diversity and encapsulate it into a single chart. It is a good thing that The Company decided to show us this chart, otherwise we might become bigoted. On another chart they lumped Women in with all the popular minorities. I know it is a cliché to even bring it up, but since when is 51% of the population a minority? (And if it isn't a minority, then why can't I get a date for Friday night?)

Today is Columbus Day (Unobserved). Yesterday was Columbus Day (Observed). Some people call it Native People's Day, with an acute sense of irony. Columbus began the subjugation of North America, something Leaf Erikson failed to do centuries before 1492.

Every year seems as though I go to the Adirondack's Columbus Day weekend for our annual cabin trip. Not because we get Columbus Day off at The Company (because we don't)... it just always ends up like that. This year was our first exception since the people who own the cabins closed shop early this year. This was terribly disappointing.

"I am at a career crossroads; should I become an astronaut, a fireman, or a system administrator?" This is the kind of question that these "handy comparison charts" were just made to answer.


• PURPOSE OF YOUR CAREER
  
  Astronaut: Advance scientific knowledge for the good of humanity.
  Fireman: Save lives and property.
  Sysadmin: Assure uninterrupted access to alt.binaries.erotica.sheep
  
  ...
  
  
• WILL YOUR JOB EVER GET ANY EASIER?
  
  Astronaut: As computers get more and more advanced and able to control more of the functions of the space vehicle, yes.
  Fireman: As more and more people install smoke detectors in their homes, yes.
  Sysadmin: As more and more clueless newbies discover the Internet, absolutely not.
  

Source: Internet (unknown)

Jonny looks around, confused, his train of thought disrupted. He collects himself and stares at the teacher with a steady eye.

"I want to code demos," he says, his words becoming stronger and more confident as he speaks.

"I want to write something that will change people's perception of reality. I want them to walk away from the computer dazed, unsure of their footing and eyesight. I want to write something that will reach out of the screen and grab them, make their heartbeats and breathing slow to almost a halt. I want to write something they are reluctant to leave, knowing that nothing they experience that day will be quite as real, as insightful, as good. I want to write demos."

Silence. The class and the teacher stare at Jonny, stunned. It is the teacher's turn to be confused. Jonny blushes, feeling that something more is required. "Either that or I want to be a fireman."

from PC Demos Explained

I am seriously considering a career change.