Work Ethics and Philosophy

[mundens]

Inspired by not having anything significant to do, I give you another deeply meaningful post. And if you believe that I've got a website I can sell you.

So, my phone call to the US was cancelled again. Get into work and I find my colleague has been given half a man-month of time by the US client to basically change a letter 'U' to a letter 'P'.

And what have I got to do today? Test that a few "not found" exceptions get generated when a part is not found and the correct message is returned. I wonder whether I'll do that in an hour before lunch or an hour after lunch?

Once that's done I won't have anything to do except perhaps study for the Sun Java Architects qualification. We had a new guy added to our team recently. He's been here now well over a week. Productive work done? Zero. Work for him to do? Zero. "Nice job if you can get" I hear people say. Well yeah, and I'm happy to do my bit to remove profits from the US, but it's not particularly inspiring or fulfilling is it?

Is it any wonder that large US corporations are haemorrhaging money and the US economy is spiralling down the toilet.? I though the UK government clients we were working for were inefficient, they're nothing compared to US corporations.

Got an email from a colleague working in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, asking if I'd like to go work with him, and he says the money is great. Tempting, but do I want to live in what is probably an armed compound and leave people here behind. It would sorta be like joining the Foreign Legion without the physical requirements. Maybe it would be good for me, it would probably be good for people here too. They'd all get away from me, all those people whose lives are being affected by my mid-life crisis. Ele could use the house and still not be with me.

I've been reading The HughTrain again. It is really worth reading. Even if you disagree with what he's saying, it will make you think about what he's saying. It's also damn funny, though sometimes the humour is quite black. That link leads to his wiki, where, if you're so inclined, you can improve his work. It's released under a Creative Commons license too, so you can distribute and use it however you like, unless you charge for it.

Hugh's a marketer and it's focussed on marketing, but really, so much of ourselves is based on marketing. I attempt to project an image of how I want other people to see me, just as others do. I have grown quite good at projecting the image I want to project over the years. So good, it's hard to tell where the image ends and the real person starts. And is it really the image I want to project?

I play a character in the calico_rock Changeling game called johnny_twotrees. He is a pooka, but unlike some pooka, the "Big Lie" he tells is himself. There is no Johnny TwoTrees really. He's a Native American, but he doesn't really know his own culture, although he pretends to for his friends. He dresses like something out of a Levi's ad because that's what the ad tells him to do. He does what is considered 'cool'. He wears white boxers because that's what all the guys in the commercials do. He hangs out late at night and doesn't go home, some of his school mates are jealous of his "freedom". He doesn't talk to his friends about the fact that his mother is an alcoholic and his father is worse, and that he comes to school hungry most days because there's never any food in the house. That would ruin the image. There is no Johnny, there is only the American marketing dream of the slightly dangerous, slightly illegal, but ultimately good, cool guy, in jeans, white T, and leather jacket.

As any long time role-player knows, most of the roles we play have roots in ourselves, amplified sometimes, but still detectable links. I'm not saying that my parents were as bad as Johnny's or that I'm necessarily as shallow as that character, but there is a lot about Johnny that is me, amplified for parody and effect. Similarly, the useless poet sebastian_beau is my weak side, also amplified.

I know several of my friends have similar obvious parallels in their role-playing characters, I know some take it even further than that, deliberately channelling certain characters to get through real life situations. I used to discuss this sort of thing with peeps on rec.games.frp.advocacy, what used to be the role-playing theory forum, and there were many stories there about replaying characters helping people out, and just as many of people using their characters for enjoyment.

I suspect all of us, even non-role players, do this to some extent. As Billy Joel says in his song The Stranger :

Well, we all have a face that we hide away forever
And we take them out and show ourselves when everyone has gone
Some are satin, some are steel, Some are silk, and some are leather
They're the faces of the stranger, but we love to try them on

Read some more lyrics of that song and I think you'll realize why I was thinking of it in particular recently.

Heh, enough maudlinity. As John Cougar says

Oh yeah, lIfe goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone

I have bills and stuff to organize.

I think I'll start buying Lotto tickets. Or planning a bank heist. Or take a contract for a hit. Something that will wipe the 200K+ debt, so I can start looking for things to do that I can have some passion for.

Or maybe I should dump it all. Dispose of all the crap. Selling the house will clear all the debt if I can get anything near the GV, and that would put me in no worse a situation than anyone else.

Comments

Considering the last time I seriously Role Played...

[jaadfan.livejournal.com]

was in the late 90's mage-game you ran, where both of my characters really WERE me. At least facets of me.

I take your point.

:o)

[yeldarb-smaillw.livejournal.com]

Of course selling the house clears immediate debt but then you're stuck paying the equivalent payments in rent to semeone else forever after. Best keep the asset and chip away at the insanity. That's my dilemma!