Today's Life Lesson

Decoding those job ads.

Competitive salary:

Low pay - not revealed until the 5th interview.

Flexible schedule:

You'll be working Sundays, holidays, double shifts, etc.

Be your own boss:

1099 contractor gig - no perks, no benefits, no nuthin'.

Seeking rockstar:

80-hour work weeks.

Fast-paced environment:

You'll be burned out in 3 months.

We're like a family:

Get out. Run. Run like hell.

A Song

John Denver, from his album Poems Prayers & Promises, released in April 1971.

A very long time ago, a young woman asked me to learn to play this one for her. I didn't do it. I mocked the song and John Denver, and it's come to be something I regret.

Never trust anyone who claims they regret nothing. It means they have an incredibly bad memory, or they've lived a life totally unaware of their own imperfections, or that they're just an over-privileged arrogant asshole who thinks they shit ice cream.

Something Else To Keep In Mind

It's no secret that we're more than likely heading into some pretty bad times.

Here's a look at a moment from 80 years ago - from what we were taught was among the worst times ever - with a slightly corrected perspective.

It does not mean things weren't as bad as they seemed. Look at it for fuck's sake - those folks are not having a party. They're barely scraping by.

The point is that they did scrape by. They made it. They hung together, they worked their asses off, and they helped make it better.

Today's Career Pro Tip

If you glue a dead wasp to your hand, you can smack your boss on the back of the head as hard as you want, and act like you just saved him.

--@KentWGraham

That Life Lesson Again

@PeteButtigieg:

“If we adopt a platform that's way out to the left, they’re going to say we're socialists. If we adopt a more moderate or conservative platform, they're going to say we're socialists. So we might as well just do what we think is right...”

Job Hunting Tip

Interviewer:
What did you like best about your last job?

Candidate:
Sometimes people had birthdays and they'd have free cake.

About That Loss Thing

A little poem for my own bad self on my own special day, cuz living can seem like it's all about loss.



You're not a kid who gets to spend hours throwing dirt clods at a stick in the irrigation ditch
That's lost.

You're not a bullet-proof teenager with 4 bucks and a badly rolled blunt in his pocket, looking to score some Coors
That's lost.

You're not gonna be a football star
You're not gonna be among the legends of rock-n-roll
You're not gonna be the greatest cocksman who ever strolled thru a singles joint
That's lost.

You're not gonna be a boy-genius jillionaire
You're not in the Sweet Spot Demographic anymore
You're not your sisters' brother
You're not your mom's baby boy
You're not the loving husband
You're not the pride on your dad's face when you played well
All gone. 
Lost.

Living has a nasty tendency to pare you down
To carve away everything that's not you
Til there's nothing left but you
It isn't amazing that you managed to survive all that
It's a little amazing how stridently you've resisted becoming who you need to be

Apollo's Entourage

Smart Guy

If you want to get anything done - in business or in politics or in your daily existence or whatever - the first thing you do is jam as many smart guys as you can fit into any given space, and then shut up and listen.

Here're some bits from David McRaney:

Benjamin Franklin knew how to deal with haters, and in this episode we learn how he turned his haters into fans with what is now called The Benjamin Franklin Effect (read more about the effect here).

Listen as David McRaney reads an excerpt from his book, “You Are Now Less Dumb,” explaining the psychology behind the effect and how the act of spreading harm forms the attitude of hate, and the act of spreading kindness generates the attitude of camaraderie.

At the lowest level, behavior-into-attitude conversion begins with impression management theory which says you present to your peers the person you wish to be. You engage in something economists call signaling by buying and displaying to your peers the sorts of things which give you social capital. If you live in the Deep South you might buy a high-rise pickup and a set of truck nuts. If you live in San Francisco you might buy a Prius and a bike rack. Whatever are the easiest to obtain, loudest forms of the ideals you aspire to portray become the things you own, like bumper stickers signaling to the world you are in one group and not another. Those things then influence you to become the sort of person who owns them.

The Benjamin Franklin Effect:

The Misconception: You do nice things for the people you like and bad things to the people you hate.

The Truth: You grow to like people for whom you do nice things and hate people you harm.

Why do I love my kids?  Aside from humans having evolved a genetic predisposition to love their children, it's at least partly because I do good things for them (I try anyway).

Why does it seem so many "conservatives" hate poor people?

I'm going to stop a little short, and not try to shoehorn everything into this one concept, but damn - this makes a lotta shit clearer for me.

Communication

Words.....................10%
Tone and Inflection.....20%
Body Language...........70%

St George Of Carlin

...the sanctity of life?  We made the whole fuckin' thing up.

What Are Your 10 Commandments?

Mike’s 10 Commandments

1) Think and speak of God in your own way and allow others to do the same.

2) Be true to the ideal, not the symbol.

3) Never ask a favor of anyone who will hold you indebted to him for it.

4) Spend part of every day thinking about nothing in particular.

5) Honor those who love you unconditionally; and try to make yourself worthy of it.

6) Never kill indiscriminately; and always with respect.

7) Breaking your promise hurts you more than the one you made the promise to.

8) Know the difference between want and need; and always earn what you get.

9) Lying creates a false representation of reality that can’t be sustained.

10) Make your own decisions about who you are and how you live.