Today is Hero's Day in Barbados. This means many things, the most noticable being that stores are closed today.
Anyhow, today I went to a meeting of the so-called "Reiki class of 2001". Then I came home, ate, took a nap.
Right, so, moving on...
Most of my days are really busy; this is because I am working full-time, and have been since the start of March.
The company is changing a lot, but so far the consistent thing is that there is a good working atmosphere there. Despite the variety of personalities, everyone tries to work together... after all, we are all trying to give some serivce and get some money.
So, my re-introduction to the world of work has been really rough in some ways. I wake up before 5:30 am and leave before 7 am for work. I generally leave at 4:30 pm and then take two vans home, with a walk through rush hour traffic to get from one van stand to the other.
Consequently, I don't have much time available to do anything besides work. Furthermore, I have an annoying habit of thinking of work even when I am not there.
This is not as pronounced as it was when I used to work full time at a JAVA shop (not coffee, the stuff that Sun used to sell servers and rivial Windows32 API/C++ as the platform of choice... it was also popular for making Applets for webpages, before Flash and animated GIFs became so popular), so I am not that bothered about it.
Generally, I think of my work as a way to gain experience and develop myself.
I drive a variety of vechicles at work. Generally, a 2-door Mitshubishi L200 pickup. This is a contrast to the Suzuki Baleno that I drive as the family* car.
Variety is good, novelty is great.
I interact with a lot of people as part of my job. Every week I meet a few new people, wheter as customers or as associates of the company. This helps to sharpen my interpersonal relationship skills.
The WebZine thingy that I wanted to do would take too much time to do right now.
Also, I find following the tech. industry a bit depressing. Technology companies are generally either evil or run into the ground by people who never should have been involved in the running of such a company, anyhow.
General advice: NEVER hire someone to run your company for you. NEVER trust venture capitalist to leave control of the company in your hands. Hire people to help you run your company. Spin off sub-divisions or independant "first party" type companies which work with you (for example, Rare making top-notch games for Nintendo).
However, never give up control of something which is really your dream, your project, your hope, your passion.
No-one else can do what you can do; no matter how qualified to run a typical cookie-cutter company they are. Your company has your personality embedded in it, deeply. It must be... overseen (not necessarily controlled, a more hands-off managment style can help) by you.
The same goes for relationships. Friends can give advice based on their concepts and experience, but you really must make your own decisions and be aware of your own thoughts and feelings.
The same goes for careers.
My current position has so far allowed me to experience, directly and vicariously, most of the perspectives of the components of what I would call a medium-sized manufacturing company. Others might call this a small business, but I believe that when considering the high level of talent of Bajans, and in particular, the ones which work here, it is more like if each person was working for 10.
During this time of learning, I've come to the realisation that I am actually enclined towards Engineering.
Not solely, though. It is more precise to say that I am naturally a toolmaker and I enjoy developing ways to improve efficiency, create solutions to problems, provide a means of doing automatically what would be difficult or impossible manually.
Also, I am obviously very articulate.
Aviation is also something I have a sudden interest in. Well, actually, it seems that the naviagational aspects intrigue me... and I am "getting the hang of" flying. Well, starting to.
However, aviation is a lot to absorb at once. Too much, really. My instructor explained recently that it is impossible to acheive the level of piloting skill he demands initially (it comes with practice, however) ... similarly, the theoretical part of the course felt a bit rushed to me, but this may be because I was working full time as I mentioned above; I actually slept in a couple of the classed because I was so tired from work.
So, advice... if you take the Private Pilot's Liscence Ground Training school, make sure you are adjusted to doing a 2 hour class from 6pm to 8 pm, four days a week, before you start it. One of the other students dropped out of the class due to demands made by work being too extreme; I found it rough as well but I have two advantages: I did most of the stuff before, and I know someone near to where I live who was in the class as well.
What else? Oh, yeah... web pages. I find that I didn't put that much time into my web page. That is okay, all things considered... but, considering all things, I realise my energy tended to be misinvested on a daily basis. Working full time strongly encourages better allocation of time and energy. So far, I feel like I'm gradually getting used to it.
Time will tell what actual career path I choose, but it will be my choice, with the help of God.
K31. Saturday, 28 April, 2001.
That one inch above mediocracy is impossible
to acheive alone,
all humans need to rely on God to do it.
- paraphrased from a quote by Walter Russsel. Check out philosophy.org.