Category: Work
A Procrastinator’s Love Song
Lots of things to do, there are lots of things to do.Lots of things to do, there are lots of things to do.If I got up this morn, then I could do them too.Lots o...
Feedback
I don’t recall many of my college successes with great clarity, but I do recall my few failures. Two in particular stand out: both D’s on short pape...
To Do List
Home Economics is not "Consumer Sciences"
Step Away From the Computer
Nestled among the advertisements for upscale apartments (Enjoy Four Seasons Fort Lauderdale! Only $4,300,000!) in this week’s edition of The New York Time...
Science Fiction was never entirely about The Future
I’ve been reading stories from the November/December 2017 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine that I picked up at Barnes & Noble before C...
A Happy Little Working Song
This still doesn't answer the question of how to afford food without a job.
Need-Blind
The ocean of the Internet tosses up interesting flotsam, and then it sinks below the surface again. I read some passing reference, perhaps by Niall Ferguson, to...
The Timesheet
Today is a sick day. I’m not often sick. Well, here I am: sick again. It’s not from work, exactly. My love brought something back from Santa Fe, and...
Attention Must Be Paid
My work — the employment for which I’m paid, that is — is invisible. Nothing to see here; move along. Long ago, the company asked us to let un...
In the Scriptorium
Only try to do it yourself and you will learn how arduous is the writer’s task. It dims your eyes, makes your back ache, and knits your chest and belly to...
Stop the World, I Want to Get Off
The most satisfying work I’ve done has been sweeping an empty room, turning off the lights, and closing the door. Because the work was done. Had come to a...
Publish, or Die Trying
My father is a Presbyterian minister, and has been for fifty years. Sometimes I hear rumors that he’s retired, but it’s a working retirement. His la...
Who Forged These Chains?
For someone who works with computers, I have very little respect for them. Perhaps that’s left over from a programming class where the teacher reminded us...
Be Careful What You Wish For
Norway’s SlowTV film of the Bergen to Oslo railway is beautiful and deeply moving: nostalgic. Though I’ve never been to Norway, I’ve ridden tr...
What Are You Here For?
I have, since I found out about it, wanted to go to space. I remember, vividly, watching Star Trek in color in the basement of a friend who had television and s...
What is Work? What is Rest?
I spent the other day driving around. First to the doctor, where he confirmed my self-diagnosis of bronchitis, and then across the county for an x-ray to elimin...
Qualification
Certain things aren’t talked about — or at least are avoided because they are uncomfortable to talk about — in polite society; that is, beyond our immedia...
Sorry. Procedures.
I’m reading an excellent book right now that’s discussing how we surrender our judgment to detailed rules and procedures: The Death of Common Sense: How Law...