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Thursday, 10 April 2008

Currently Listening
Sleep Through The Static
By Jack Johnson
Go On
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Good Days and the not so Good Days.

Welcome back. It's been awhile I know. I just had an especially stressful day at work and just needed to get this down so I could look back a few months from now and see the insignificance of it.

Clients are breathing down my neck. The boss is changing up the game plan. My passion for the work ebbs. It's a freaking catalog guys. I struggle to find reasons to want to work today.

As bad days go, this one ain't too bad, and as I walk past the copier in the hallway with the stupid little catalog paginations I just sketched out for pricing, I stop to realize this very fact. I can actually say that I don't really even remember my last bad day. I mean, a truly bad day. I'll be the first to admit that I was probably being a little baby today. I was tired, I didn't sleep well. I woke up late for work. Bitch is probably more appropriate.

So the work was not so great. The passion faded a bit today. I truly felt disenchanted and that little voice in the back of the head starts to chime in with its own little commentary. "Ya know, if you lost your job today, it'd probably be the beginning of a great few months. You could vacation, go back to school. Hit the road, surf the coast, bike the country, see this great world of ours the way it was meant to be seen. In person."

"Can we use triangle shaped bullet points? You know, like from the logo" interrupts the little voice in the bottom half of the receiver.

"Uhm, let me check with the boys." My brain is auto pilot today. There are no remarks besides, "Lemme check."

I'll be the first to admit, I wear my heart on my sleeve. I try to hide my emotions, but frustration sure can take its toll. I'm sure more than a few noticed my big sighs and moans of another bullet point format suggestion.

"It's a freaking catalog guys." No one gives 2 shits about the shape of the bullet point. Fuckin' inside baseball.

"Hey Joe, while I was ordering the 14 gauge copper wire to run the battery backup to the exhaust system, I noticed these guys decided to use a triangle shaped bullet point instead of the standard black circle. I'm glad the company that provides my electrical cable has the foresight to include little nods to their own logo like that. Pretty brilli... hey check out that girl in the pink skirt!"

My mind takes these little trips when I can't get immersed in the work.

I met with my mentee today. Nice girl. Smart. 26 (same age as me) with a double Masters? Intern. I was worried today would be a bad today to meet her. I mean, I had a shitty day at work. Ran late cuz I lost track of time at the office. 7:30 come by quick when it's quiet in the office and you can get some work done in peace.

She did more for me than I think I did for her. She reignited my passion for the work a bit. It's like Amway. When you gotta talk about it, you gotta buy into it right? Or else you feel like a bit of a chump. But I do truly love my job. Advertising. We do great things. It's fun. Creative (sometimes). We're the chameleons of business. You're an expert at anything they'll pay you for. At least you will be by the time they're done paying you. I guess I'll become an expert at putting together a catalog at the end of this one.

As far as today went, it wasn't a bad day. Just a not so good day.

Thursday, 26 July 2007

Quickie

I've been so swamped at work so I'm sneaking in this quick entry while I'm here at my desk, because I seriously need some catharsis. There have been so many things going on right now, that it just seems to be all background noise. Friends have been getting married and engaged and it seems like so many people are moving on to the next stage in life, but I just feel like there so many more things that need to be done in this stage of my life. I haven’t traveled like I plan to yet. I haven’t gotten to where I want to be professionally yet. And I just don’t feel like I'm at a place in my life where I'm ready to join another person in life together. To me, this is still one man mission. And if girls are out there reading this, this feeling isn’t about not wanting to be married so I can party hard and be a sleazy, single guy. I’ve been with Jackie for a long time and a majority of my partying days are done. I know she’s gonna read this, but I just need to write it before I clam up and decide not to talk about this.

There are a lot of contributing factors to my being this way. Yes, I grew up poor. Yes, my parents are divorced. Yes, I’m jaded about love.

I’m a workaholic. I love my work, so I don’t see it being a bad thing. I’m young, I’ve got the stamina to do the work, put in the hours and get the results that get me ahead in the game. My mom worked her ass off. She never took a vacation while she worked 7 days a week for 10+ years. When people complain about their jobs, I sit back and smile. There are people who know what work is, and there are people who think they know what work is. I’m lucky to have seen the former, and be the latter. So, keep your head down, do the work. Shut up and get it done.

I am skeptical about love. People are getting married left and right. People are getting divorced left and right. I guess I’m just not ready to go through that. Especially with kids. Maybe I have trust issues. What’s the opposite of co-dependant? Maybe it’s just fear. I do quiver at the thought of marriage, and in my honest opinion, I see it as the end of a lot of things. Many see it as the beginning, but at this point in life, I see more doors closed than doors opened.

I can see the mounting anger being built up towards me as I write this. But many who are close to me know that I feel this way. It’s the background noise that’s telling me I’m getting older and it’s getting harder to ignore. I want to be young at heart. Maybe I’ve watched ‘Old School’ too many times. Maybe I’m grasping at straws here, but as they say, youth is wasted on the young. I hope to not waste mine.

Maybe I already am.

Monday, 11 June 2007

Hot Time, Summer in the City...

WOW! it's been a loooong time since I've posted on here but I've been a busy little bee.

Last month I went to Boston for work and it was a blast! Got to see a lot of Boston on foot and using the public transportations there. My conclusion is that I would totally love to live there. There are plenty of cool little ad agencies out there too!! After a full day in Boston, I went down to the Cape to meet up with our clients and then got to see the Kennedy compound too and that whole area was just gorgeous, didn’t hurt that the weather was perfect too. After a day and a half down there, I came back up to Boston to spend another night there and hit the town. Thanks to Cindy for letting me crash at the pad, showing me around and putting up with my drunkenness! Same goes to her roommate Sanchez, who thinks I’m Crunchy. (East Coast talk for “outdoorsy”)

May was also my last month at the house with my roomies Kevin and Viet. Kevin’s office moved down to south OC and Viet is saving up for a house, so we decided it was time to part ways. Kevin is in a cool little place right near the hills and trails so he can run and ride every freakin’ day like he does. Viet is living with his girl right now and I ended up in a cool little 1 bdrm apt out here in LA 2 blocks from work.

The new place has been great for me, they were cool with my dog, I’ve got a two car garage, a full kitchen, a real bedroom, living room lots of storage for all my crap and to top it all off, it’s in a nice neighborhood. I was really lucky to find it. Oh and here’s the best part, I walk or ride my bike to work now and I don’t have to stress about traffic and commuting.

The only bad thing is I’m a bit farther from my family, my friends and Jackie. But it was time to get out of my comfort zone a bit and live on my own, get a bit more into the city and really become an Angelino. Jackie was a little sad about me moving farther away but I’m sure we’ll be alright. She’s busy working her 8-5 engineering job deep in the OC and I’m here doing my 9-730ish job out in LA but we still got the weekends together and I most certainly think it’s healthy for us to do our own things.

Oh, the other great thing that happened in May, I got my old truck running. The Green Machine, aka Green Monster aka Sandy Doll. It’s been over 2 years since I blew that motor up and now, finally... With a little help from some platinum plastic and a lot of elbow grease from AJ, the grease monkey Arbiso, she’s back in action.

I cant wait to get her back in the groove and ready for some camping and offroading! But before that here’s a little list of items needed for a true comeback.

Replace/repair radiator over flow valve.
Replace Oil Pan Gasket. (new but its the crappy oldschool cork kind and its leaking.)
Replace front drive shaft.
Replace front ring and pinion with 5.29 gears.
Get a Smog Check and actually pass.

All in all, its been a great May and I’m hoping it parlays right into June and then the rest of the summer.

Hope you all have an bitchin’ summer!

Friday, 19 January 2007

Currently Listening
Meet Virginia
By Train
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Brain Matters

Friday night, its about 7:30 and I'm here at work straining my eyes so you guys have something to read in the next 3 minutes of your life. Work has always been pretty plain and simple to me. Work hard and get rewards. Work harder to get more rewards. And of course, everyone says 'don't just work harder, work smarter.' And that's obviously a no-brainer, but as time goes by, and boy has it gone by, I'm slowly starting to learn that just because there's plenty of good quotes on how you could and should do things, there's no damn substitute for getting in there and just doing it yourself. There are of course people who are born with the ability to decipher these little things early on but for a majority of us, I think it’s the people that we surround ourselves with that truly give us these life lessons.

To be very specific, most of you know that I work for an ad agency called Boyd Communications. We are by definition a boutique agency. We have a few decently sized clients by we are a design firm that creates great work that works in a integrated campaign, idea or thought. I’ve worked in quite a few jobs in my short lifetime and I’ve worked with a lot of people and its rare that I’ve been able to work with something who is able to step back from the blind fury of work, work, work and be able to just slow everything down. Picture Neo in the Matrix slowing down bullets but instead of bullets he’s sluggin’ it out with file folders, conference calls, client requests and deadlines. I’m here because he is usually here this late. Every chance I get, I’ll pick his brain. That’s the reason I jumped at the opportunity to work here at Boyd. Where else is there a boss who knows so much and is open and willing to share his knowledge and wisdom with you so freely and with such frequency? I literally learn a new thing everyday here and it’s been almost a year that I’ve been here.

Like most people, I’ve always worked for someone who told you what to do, and most likely, they’ve told you why. Everyone wants to know that what they’re doing is making a difference and in order to do that, the task must contribute to the greater cause. But here, Doug Boyd gives more than just causes and reasons. He gives you the passion, he can instill it in you and not only make you want to do it, but he creates a need in you to be able to do what you want. That’s a rare quality and I was just privy to one of the many moments where his words made such an impression that I just had to revel in it for a bit, sit here and soak it in and even share a bit with you.

What is it that he told me? Wouldn’t you like to know… I said maybe I’d share it…