I just have to ask: How stupid is the France press? Right after rioting Muslims, put a cartoon that caused a ton of controversy in (was it) the Netherlands just a week ago or so?
There's also just a little of the same thought on Germany, too. . .even though I guess they don't have as recent of a controversy that shows them AS stupid.
Moving to Florida, I thought you were recently complaining about everyone moving away from Boston?
And the stress, sounds kind of like me lately, except probably worse. You've got a longer commute.
The move to Florida might actually help a bit, just possibly with the rent. Last night, the fiancee found some ads for supposedly nice rentals in Chicago for something like $900/month total. Compared to Boston. . .I'm really excited just for that prospect!
re: France...it's kind of a demonstration of what's sacred for a secular society (freedom of expression) vs. what's sacred for a fundamentalist society.
I wasn't so much complaining about people moving as...whining, I guess. The hard truth is that it's generally more difficult to build up friendships in such quality and quanity as it was when you were younger and closer to a collegiate mentality.
But a move right now would be a bit silly given that it's finally my family all around Boston for a bit.
Kirk, what you describe sounds very much like typical growing pains. I applaud you for bravely pushing outside of your comfort zone. This will be truly challenging for you, but I think if you tough it out, you will grow immensely.
Heh, thanks Cole. Actually, ironically.."grow immensly"...when I'm this stressed I tend to lose a little weight. Which is a faint silver lining i suppose :-)
Yeah, I think you'll be growing.
But seriously, as a private enterprise publishing stuff, weighing the principle of freedom of expression vs. the knowledge that more than likely these cartoons will start ANOTHER riot. . .I would vote for not publishing it.
On the flipside, if it's to get the truth out about injustice, like the flushing something sacred down the toilet or something, even if it causes violence, I'm more for that than the "freedom of expression."
Then again, I guess we all rate values differently.
My college graduation was the last time I saw most of my friends from college. Everyone practically went straight from graduation to the plane that would take them to their cushy dot-com job.
You know, some of this is painful "growing up" is...I dunno. Like, why NOT stay an eternal man-child? What's the benefit/reward ratio? Evil B used to say become an adult to stop other adults from killing you. One part of me says that if you want to start a family, your mate probably needs you to be a demonstrated grownup. Which may be part of what went wrong with Mo.
It's hard to know what the optimal life strategy is. Some say it's to make as much money as you can. Others think it's to do as little as possible. I tend to be in the first camp, protestant work ethic and all, but it makes me wonder if I could gear my life more towards the second without becoming destitute or at least screwing myself up finincally later on...
i read this recently:
http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html
rather interesting in justifying the more stressful, difficult work job over the coroporate whore-type thing.
you do have a choice here. less stress and less $$ and more boredom and more vegetation at work. or challenge yourself, push the envelope, and perhaps have some accomplishments you can be proud of, more skills on your resume, and interesting things to say to people at parties.
i'm very happy with the choice I've made, but i know not everyone is build to handle a lot of life stress...
your friends and family clearly think you are up to this. go get 'em!
The only optimal life strategy is "Don't Die . . . yet".
Profesionally speaking . . . when I look back at my 15 year career, wherever I see a big jump in my salary, skills and personal growth, I can trace back to starting an assignment that I thought at the time would break me or make me miserable.
1. it was the Danish Press, not French. They didn't have riots in the netherlands but they did witness the murder of Van Gogh's great (great) nephew by a fundamentalist.
2. I relate to Kirk wanting to be direct over spin. I keep running into that problem here. The more direct I am about what I can do, Avid Express vs. Avid Composer, not much After Effects, the less folks want me for work. Everyone says lie and then muddle through, but that already happened to me (by accident, what I knew was a different version of the process and they had to train me their way). It got me "discontinued" after my probabition period of 3 days. I can't fake I know After Effects. So I really don't want to lie and end up in a job getting glowers of disdain for asking a question. Most of the time assist. editor work is late at night with no one around, and we call each other help and advice, making it appear we know what we are doing.
Nick: I don't know how unusual Boston is in this, but there is a kind of gravity vortex, probably because it is a college town that can offer a lot of post-college career options.
FoSO: Yeah, I read that essay before. One funny thing is, I kind of passed on a similar opportunity, or was passed, because it was just incompatible w/ my job. The "work ten times as hard" figure in the essay still seems kind of unreal to me. Also, I'm at a weird place in terms of my company's growth; early enough to get a lot of the hard work, not so early that I know my share of stock options would be enough to adjust my lifestyle.
Sometime between school and now, I lost my love for clear goals to be met or failed. They tend to make me nervous, I've lost a chunk of the nerve I once had, maybe the fear of years of not quite applying myself may finally be coming home to roost.
Erinmaru -- I think the French reprinted the cartoon in solidarity. (There was one interesting quote about a French guy shocked at how a caricature cartoon can lead to flag burning... to me it seems like all the same thing)
So Erin, don't suppose there's any way to rent, beg, borrow, or steal After Effects and the needed equipment to get up to speed on your own, with little indyish thing? Or is it serious training needed?
Muhammed <sp?> comic: I heard recently on NPR that yesterday or the day before that the French and German press re-printed the Muhammed comic.
Friends/Work Stuff/Life Philosophy: I'm for make the world a better place, develop yourself and enjoy yourself while your at it. Most friends of mine probably understand that I try to do it in that order, which may end up killing me.
As for the friend thing, yeah, it's somewhat harder to make friends now that I'm out of school (unless I find an active UU group or take part in some kind of active group), but I've also had a lot of friends move out of the Boston area. So I guess it doesn't really make much of a difference with the cost of living migration going for non-biotech non-computer people.
It seems that this Mohammed thing is yet another example of how Muslims overreact to anything non-Muslim, and expect the entire world to change its ways for their benefit. Oddly enough, the same kind of thing people accuse America of doing.
These are the same people that found Miss Piggy offensive, and required The Simpsons to be edited with all alcohol references taken out before importing it. Perhaps there are Muslims in America who are more lax, but remember, in Europe they don't assimilate to the local culture.
I realize I cited the Egyptian Simpsons and then talked about European Muslims, but I don't have time to collect my thoughts in detail.
Interesting that CNN has chosen not to show the cartoons under disscussion. This makes an interesting connundrum (sp?) How can we judge the offensiveness of a picture without seeing it, or does not viewing it = respect?
I did get After Effects in a friend deal. I just got a tutorial book too.
Not to cause more job stress, but have you talked to your supervisor about your recent customer experience? Maybe he/she can offer some advice, direction and properly set expectations. What does the company expect you to do? How honest should you be with the customer?
This is also a CYA so your supervisor knows the customer might not be 100% happy. In my experience it's better to come clean ASAP rather than keep quiet and hope for the best. Better that they hear your side of the story before they hear the customer's rant.
You can also often stall. "I'm not 100% certain, but I'll get back to you," is often a valid response to a question you have no clue how to answer. It's often best to assume that the questioner knows more than you do, so unless you are prepared to defend your answer, don't even try. Plus, almost every question has history behind it. And if you don't know the reason behind the question even the technically correct answer can be the wrong answer in the customer's mind. (Of course there are also the times when the customer simply wants you to agree with whatever decision they've already made. Woe to those who answer those questions wrong.)
erin, boingboing has a link to the cartoons in question. Not that exciting, really.
eric...yeah, I think the thing is this is the kind of customer who isn't afraid "look we're paying you guys $XXX per hour, you're supposed to give us DEFINITE answers NOW"
Not to defend terrorism and violence, per se, but I have to admit that after looking at the history of establishing Israel. . .I can see why Arabs, and generally Muslims (since Arab countries are generally Muslim), really don't have much patience for the Western world, since they essentially see the Western world as occupiers of an illegal country (or possibly three now), creating Western chauvinism since Napolean of the those 'Oriental' countries (see Edward Said) and just a long history of tons of disrespect for their culture.
If they counquered Europe and the US then established, somehow, a more stable and even more permissive country, I can imagine plenty of Euro-centric white people doing the same thing the Arabs are doing the Mid-East.
After all, look at all the white conservatives getting all up in arms about not being able to express their Christian "heritage."
Maybe my own "history of disaffection" from my own ethnic/family group has "sensitized" me a little to any kind of "disaffection," but I really have been getting it up to HERE with all this blaming of THEM when I can see plenty of ways that we're not respecting THEM in the first place and instead of trying to creatively, positively and non-violently making things better for everyone, the Western world is taking the high ground and feeding the cycle of historical ethnic anger fire by striking back with more technology after sending an ethnic group back to the stone age without understanding.
In some ways, I can't totally blame people from lashing out non-rationally. Then again, maybe that's because from being a "victim" of violence that almost fell over the edge of rationality a couple times, myself, albeit on an individual level, but still. . ..
My husband is a professional consultant and makes the observation that 'if people don't pay enough for your time then they think your advice is worthless AND they stuff you around.' You seem like a smart guy who doesn't want to seem like an idiot - and in fact you're not - but the whole not knowing the ins and outs of every possible situation (if I'm reading it right) bugs you - but I think you're putting too much on that. After all, would it bother you so much if you were in an office and NOT in front of the client still trying to do the same thing? Believe in yourself! And failing that, move to Florida. I just can't help wondering whether there are jobs there becuase people don't want to live there after the last hurricane season.
Where was the muslim outrage when all this (http://www.zombietime.com/mohammed_image_archive/) was going on?
Now they are testing countries, one by one, to see which will cave.
Wooweee. . .with that zombietime.com link, the whole thing has gone beyond my present comprehension, especially with the 3 other pictures. . ..