my second attempt at beef stew went better than the first. nothing exciting, though. at least this time the power didn't go out, leaving me with crunchy soup.

 

i'm hoping the third time's a charm. anyone have a good slow cooker recipe for beef stew? sarah f, i'm sure you have tons of 'em. 

i have, surprisingly, not gotten any blog hits from rob bell google searchers. but i've gotten a few other ones i'm amused by, including "mdog scraping" and "help wanted"+"make believe job".

 

however, this one is my personal favorite for the irony:

 

"techinical writing skills"

 

speaking of which, would you buy a book if i wrote one? why do you read this thing? i'm taking a survey.

just got back from the glory that is grandville/grand rapids, michigan, from a mars hill bible church conference. rob bell spoke. and i really only put that last sentence in here so that i can watch my google search hits skyrocket to astronomical heights. good sessions, good thoughts, good times. much to process.

 

thanks for the invite, paul... it was a great time with great people. i love road trips!

between the use of a food discount that i believe was entered incorrectly, and a surprisingly gracious auto repair business, my entire lunch and trip to the shop was one dollar. it's a good day so far.

 

huddle tire is my new favorite business. not only have they, in the past, allowed retrieval of my car after it was clearly closing time; they have also, today, fixed a leak in my brake line. for free. and fully within the scope of my one hour lunch break. i will smell like the tires in their waiting room for the next thirteen hours, but this matters not to me. friendly, knowledgeable, reasonably priced. if you are in athens, i totally recommend them.

i just now wrote that title planning to say something humdrum about encouraging you cingular users to call me, since i am now on the free mobile-to-mobile bandwagon. but now that i think of it, i suppose "uninspired" could be a multi-purpose description for several life areas.

 

i know it's a bad idea to blog about work, but, what the hell. besides, i'm not sure it's workplace-specific, anyway. i've been wondering for awhile now if i will ever be in a place where i am not constantly scanning the help wanted ads. i know i'm not entirely fickle, as i was quite thrilled with my first "real" job for some time. i enjoyed the work, my co-workers were great, my direct supervisor was fantastic; morale was high, the grants were rolling in. it was a good two or three years until i really started looking for an escape, mainly due to upper management after my ex-direct-supervisor went back to grad school, partly due to wondering if the organization [and i use that term loosely] was just going to flop over and die. at any rate, i escaped through a rabbit hole and into an only slightly less dysfunctional workplace. no real policies, procedures, or communication; no room [or desire] to move up. on the bright side, i no longer have to worry about scraping together money for payroll and accounts payable from various funding sources. which, believe me, is a total score.

 

i don't even know why i'm talking about all this. what it comes down to is that while i do enjoy accounting in some sick sort of way... who really cares? or, as kt aptly describes, it's a "make believe" job. i mean, sure, in any culture we technically need people who can count and keep track of things, or in katie's case, people who can give counsel and guide others through trying times and conditions. but really? ask me to do basic things like grow food, or construct shelter, or build a fire, and i'm toast. and i know it's irrational, but sometimes i just have to follow the logical conclusion that i have a make believe job based on make believe rules set forth by make believe laws and somehow at some point we have accepted the fact that we have made things unnecessarily complicated just because... well... i don't know. because we can, i suppose. i can't figure out if it's the "make believe" aspect of things that leaves me uninspired, or if it's the organization, or the management, or the co-workers, or what. i hold on to the hope that given the proper mix of environment and purpose, i can put my skills to use and actually feel fulfilled in the workplace.

 

i can't recall ever seriously thinking i would be anything other than an accountant [though i did toy briefly with the thought of being a music major in college; of course, my much stronger practical side won out]. so it really throws me off when i start wondering if i want to do this for the rest of my life. i don't even know what else to contemplate as an alternative. marketing was my second major, but that seems like an even more make believe job. i'm fascinated by the counseling profession, but that's about as far as i go. hell, i didn't even take psych 111 in undergrad.

 

on top of all this is the knowledge [fallacy?] that there will always be some bigger and better job out there. gone are the days of loyalty to an organization, of working for 40+ years and trusting there will be a pension at the end of the rainbow. we aren't into commitment. we're into ourselves.

 

and anyway, i've been thinking lately that i could use any random skills i have and be perfectly happy as long as the environment and management are right, because thus far, i've never wanted to leave a job because of the actual tasks i'm called upon to do.

 

wow. this might possibly be the most disjointed post in the history of unleashed.

 

but seriously? call me if you're on cingular.