Archive for the 'Idea v. Reality' Category


Big jobs

Published
by
drew
on 27 September 2008
at 00:10
in Idea v. Reality, Ma vie and Work
.
3 Comments

I went on leave today. I have two whole weeks of anything other than work to look forward to. I’ve been looking forward to it for a while and it’s almost a little scary how quickly it’s come around.

Most of this week, I’ve even been in holiday mode: not getting too stressed about things, thinking about handballing current projects to colleagues, getting a few things finished and choosing to do the kind of ongoing jobs that aren’t too stressful at all. I wasn’t even in the office today, but organised a day out with the camera to build work’s photo library. (And fuck this lens makes your camera a bitch to carry around all day.) I even finished a little early to pick up Little Miss L from school.

So I bet you can’t guess why I’m stressed now.

Well, someone sent me an email, which was a link to a job-seeking site, and there’s a job there that, right now, is my dream job. So of course, I want it. And of course, I’m going to go for it. But it’s the post-going-for-it bit that’s concerning me. See, I know I could do it. I know I could be really good at it. I know I know what I need to know to get it and I know I could grow into the bits that I don’t have down pat yet. I know it would be an opportunity to get closer to where I think I’d really like to be.

The problem is that because I’ve been doing the job I’m doing for so long, having been away from some parts of this other job, I can see how, on paper, I might not look like the ideal candidate. I’ve been doing one kind of writing for a living and this other job requires talent in another genre. I can do it; I’ve done it before, but I haven’t done a whole lot of it recently and I think that counts for quite a lot when you’re asking someone to trust you that you’re, like, really really good at it and stuff.

And the epiphany I just had in the shower was that, for the last few years, I haven’t been doing the job I really want to be doing, I’ve just been doing a job at a place that’s really good to work. I’ve been mistaking flexitime, parental leave and good coffee for job satisfaction. Yeah, this has helped me through the rearing-young-children years of my career but enough is enough. I’m done.

Anyone got any good ideas on how to get extensive, recent journalistic experience over, say, a weekend?

Delivery

Published
by
drew
on 23 July 2008
at 14:52
in Idea v. Reality and When I were a lad
.
1 Comment

TC recently mentioned that her first job was as a checkout chick back in the days when you paid, and got paid, in cash.

My first job was as a paperboy. I’d get up at the crack of too-early-to-be-out-of-bed, ride my bike across town, pick up 100 newspapers, ride to a different part of town, deliver them, then ride home and get ready for school.

Summers were great because between 5 and 6 am was the coolest part of the day so it was a bit of relief from the heat and you could do without a t-shirt in the hottest part of summer and nobody was really there to see you.

Winters weren’t so great because between 5 and 6 am was, as you may have guessed, the coolest part of the day. So yeah… “pretty cold, was it?… yeah..”

I used to rug up in about 4 layers; I’d wear gloves to get to and from places but you needed the dexterity to be able to get the papers out of the bag, fold them and put them in the letterboxes. It made the gloves almost pointless so they got left at home a lot. So some very frosty fingers were not uncommon. I’d get home and mum would run a sink of hot water (I couldn’t turn on the taps by this stage) and I’d stand there, hands in sink, thawing.

And it’s funny isn’t it, that the jobs we had as kids, we use as a yardstick to measure how well kids today do stuff. I bet checkout chicks are always checking that their milk doesn’t get packed on top of the bread; burger flippers make sure no special sauce is leaking from their beef-patty sandwiches; and I… I’m always muttering about the delivery standards of today’s newspaper couriers.

We get the weekend papers delivered. But here’s where I get tetchy because my definition of “delivered” involves placing a newspaper in a receptacle designed for their delivery. I used to painstakingly fold every newspaper one-handed, ride past a letter box and stick it in the round hole, or the little roof part, while I was moving. And if I missed, I’d turn around and go back and do it properly.

Today, it seems “delivered” can be defined as having said object thrown from a moving vehicle, landing somewhere in the vicinity of your abode. With the main papers (Oz, Tiser, Independent) I don’t mind quite so much, as they’re rolled up in that mostly-waterproof plastic wrap. My grudge with these guys though is that whenever a different guy drives the van, we have to hunt for the paper. Living on a corner, I’m never sure if it’s going to be somewhere near the letterbox, by the path at the side of the house or (of all places) way up the back, somewhere near the driveway.

But the worst are the kids that deliver… sorry “deliver” the Messenger (free, crappy, weekly adsheet, full of personals and classified ads and stories about new roundabouts written by work-experience journo students). What irks me is that these kids deliver them on foot, so access isn’t a problem, but they just walk past the house and drop them at the base of the driveway. My driveway isn’t sealed so if it rains, it just gets sodden with mud and water and turns to a big ugly muddy log, resembling a big turd.

To me, this isn’t delivery, it’s just plain littering.

Funny thing is, that because I live on a corner, I get the turd left at the back, on the driveway but another one at the front of the house, put neatly in the little roof part of my letterbox.

Must be two kids doing it… surely.

I knew it was too good to be true

Published
by
drew
on 16 July 2008
at 01:52
in Australia, Idea v. Reality and Ma vie
.
2 Comments

Just did my eTax thing for the 07/08 financial year. Looked like I was in for a pretty big refund for a minute there.

Then I remembered I had a HECS debt.

…did I say ‘refund’?

A night to myself

Published
by
drew
on 12 July 2008
at 23:53
in Idea v. Reality and Ma vie
.
2 Comments

Things I was going to do tonight

  1. tweak template
  2. some overdue photoshop work
  3. subsequent posting to flickr
  4. listen to new tunes
  5. play the bass guitar
  6. play the electric (non-bass) guitar
  7. play the acoustic guitar if it’s not too loud and might wake the kids
  8. drink Guinness, eat twisties and dark chocolate

Things I’ve done so far tonight

    1. Listened to the Flight of the Conchords BBC series (bits thereof)
    2. Read other blogs and wonder if anyone writes about anything other than cats and young children
    3. 8.

      Tribute

      Published
      by
      drew
      on 26 June 2008
      at 17:02
      in Featured, Idea v. Reality and Media
      .
      0 Comments

      I know I’m cynical about it, and I can’t believe that more people aren’t. I’m talking about whenever someone dies, the commercial news programs wheel out their slow-motion montages of the recently deceased, complete with inspirational wind-beneath-my-wings type power ballad as backup.

      There was one recently for a famous cricketer’s wife. And be assured, I’m not in any way trying to malign the deceased or their significant others in this, just the news programs that seem to think the best way to pay tribute to someone is to create a slow-motion montage, complete with sucky wind-beneath-my-wings type power ballad as backup.

      Yuck!

      I can see its worth in something like Big Brother. When a housemate is evicted, before they leave in their new car, or whatever, they get to sit through a montage of slow-motion clips of themselves doing crazy, whacky and sometimes downright embarrassing things to a not-so-sucky pop tune or piece of backing music (because the demographic is entirely different, you understand. We’re talking Bette-Midler-free zone).

      And I think to be in that situation and see yourself in that way must be great. In fact, wouldn’t it be great if all of us, every birthday or so, see the year that was in a slo-mo film clip of our favorite song from the previous year… hanging out at the pub, throwing the frisbee, doing the dishes, staying up late and working, watching TV with your loved one, getting scared by a spider/snake/mouse, running for the train, making a stupid face at someone, getting angry in traffic, reading the paper and sipping a piping hot cup of tea on a Saturday morning, snorting said tea through your nose after laughing at the Far Side comic.

      Y’know, just nice, everyday moments, made special by virtue of the fact they’re in slow motion to the tune of a song you really like.

      People see what they want to see

      Published
      by
      drew
      on 23 June 2008
      at 09:54
      in Idea v. Reality and Travels
      .
      3 Comments

      Just remembered I wrote this coming back from Melbourne last month

      At checkin, the lady asked me if I’d be willing to sit in an Emergency Exit seat. If the plane crashes they need someone who can open the door and heave it out of the aircraft. They’re looking for people who are a fit, unencumbered and maybe a bit responsible.

      I said fine.

      Then, after going through the x-ray, being male, alone, slightly unshaven and carrying a backpack, the security guard picked me for a random explosives check.

      Tongue numbing

      Published
      by
      drew
      on 16 June 2008
      at 16:34
      in Adelaide, Featured, Idea v. Reality, Language and Media
      .
      1 Comment

      For any readers outside South Australia, there’s been a recent crisis in this state’s hospital industry, with doctors and other specialists arguing over wage increases. Related story here.

      The issue has come to a head and many emergency doctors and staff have not just gone on strike but resigned their positions altogether.

      Take that!

      I’d like to put out a message to directors of TV and radio outlets now, as it’s timely. I’m mostly a humble guy and don’t like to blow my own trumpet, as it were. I don’t think I’m arrogant or self-righteous and I don’t often judge or condemn people. However, there are times when I believe a base level of competence should go along with certain jobs. So my message is this.

      If you’re running a Radio or TV newsroom, please get in touch with me and offer me a job. Why? Well, for starters, I can correctly pronounce the word anaesthetist.

      Seriously, I should put this on my résumé.

      It’s been an interesting week of watching and listening to various media, hearing them say that word and completely fuck it up in about 90 % of cases.

      Another word a lot of journos have trouble with is vulnerable. People, the first l is NOT SILENT.

      If you hear a newsreader or reporter this week saying “South Australia’s health industry is in a vulnerable position following the recent mass-resignation of emergency doctors and hospital anaesthetists,” listen for the gurgling sounds that follow as their throats go into spasm and they invariably choke on their tongues.

      I once met a med student studying to become an anaesthetist and she couldn’t pronounce it. While I hope she, and other anaesthetists, can successfully pronounce the drugs they’re administering, I’m not going to judge, as long as the right drug goes in the right patient and everyone who’s supposed to be alive, stays alive at the end of the day.

      But journalists? They’re supposed to be guardians of the language. They’re the one group of people who are supposed to get this right.  Still, when most people on TV news are either ex-footballers (read: trained monkeys (and even then, I’m not that sure how well trained)) and sexy young uni grads with zero life experience, what hope is there?

      Get back

      Published
      by
      drew
      on 5 June 2008
      at 23:55
      in Idea v. Reality and Music
      .
      0 Comments

      I think about time travel a lot. Mostly about what I’d do if I found myself in another time and what I’d do, knowing what I know, to get filthy rich. It would be easy to know what the next big thing was going to be if you knew what it was. And I’m not sure that last sentence really conveyed the importance that the conditional/past tense transition really had on what I was trying to mean. Maybe I should have used a pluperfect. It would be easy…going to be…if you knew what it had been. Better.

      I usually think of it in terms of popular culture: I could write scripts for great films (”Think of it Steven, the alien hides inside the basket of the kid’s BMX and they take off into the air… what?… oh, it’s a kind of bike); come up with great inventions (”what if the headphones didn’t go over your head, but had tiny, tiny speakers that you put inside your ears”); and the most popular thing I come up with is making music (”thanks folks… I love you all. Now here’s a little number called It’s Not Unusual“)

      Which got me to thinking one day…

      Do you think that Paul is actually from the future and went back in time and arranged for Stuart to have a little accident with a gang of thugs?

      Work tomorrow

      Published
      by
      drew
      on 1 June 2008
      at 22:22
      in Idea v. Reality
      .
      0 Comments

      What weekend?

      You go to the toilet, I’m trying to edit.

      Published
      by
      drew
      on 17 April 2008
      at 16:03
      in Featured, Idea v. Reality, Work and Writing
      .
      4 Comments

      I’m working on a really big project right now. It’s a bastard. Lots of text, lots of pages, lots of people who need to be sure that a lot of the text on a lot of the pages says what they want it to say. I’m in the middle, trying to make sure it says everything it’s supposed to say in a consistent and uniform tone. I’m trying to bring the body of work together, to make it harmonious and lovely. It’s like I’m growing a tree.

      Occasionally, other people need to see parts of the text, to make sure it says the right thing (which I just explained). For the most part, I think it says the right thing. All the facts are pretty much there. Very little of it is actually wrong. Very little of it really needs to be changed.

      But people are curious. Put a piece of copy in front of them and they try to change things so it says the right things in the particular way that want the right things to be said. Them, that is, and 25 other people. It’s not wrong, you understand, the bits they try to change. Some words, you can spell different ways. I’ve chosen to spell this word this way and I’ve done it the same way every time I’ve written it. If they spell it the other way, it’s out of place. It becomes more wrong than they thought it was when it wasn’t spelled their way.

      If what I’m doing is growing a tree, I want each branch to look the same as the other branches; each leaf to look the same as the other leaves.

      If what I’m doing is growing a tree, these people are dogs, who see the tree, sniff around the tree and have the uncontrollable urge to piss on the tree in an attempt to make it their own.

      But this does nothing at all for the tree; it just makes the tree smell like piss.

      But they don’t mind. They just want to come back to the tree when it has been chopped down, pulped, and had the information I’ve been gathering printed on it, smell it, and say ‘Yep, that’s my piss!’