SHARE YOUR WORLD 6-7-2022

Last night I got more than 600 scam and spams in which were mixed more than a dozen real comments from real people who aren’t spammers or scammers. That means I had to actually scroll through that entire list. To say that it was a tawdry experience is an understatement.

I don’t know how much spam other people get, but 600 in one night does seem to be a bit excessive. I guess this is the price I pay for having been around for so many years. The longer you are a presence online, the more those spambots and scammers find you.

You can run, but you really cannot hide, probably because there is no such thing as a hidey-hole online. For anyone. If you are out there, you’re out there. Anything you ever posted or was posted about you will not disappear until the internet disappears — and I’m not sure it can disappear. It can change and morph into something with another name, but virtual space is endless and permanent.

It’s enough to give one serious pause for thought.

Questions

When you were a kid, did you eat the crusts on your bread?

I was a terribly picky eater. I didn’t eat anything voluntarily. I didn’t eat the crusts and barely considered eating bread. I hated milk and still do. I didn’t like meat and had serious issues with eggs and still do.

Then I grew up and discovered food. The rest, as they say, is history. I think now the crust is my favorite part of any bread — real bread, that is. Not the plastic wrapped stuff which is something, but not bread.

Are you a fan of musicals — why or why not?

I love some musicals. Not every musical. I usually don’t care for opera, although I am beginning to change my mind about that. I think my problem is with screechy sopranos rather than with opera as an art. A really great soprano is something else and I recently got to hear some singing that made me rethink the whole opera issue.

Favorite musicals: Cabaret, Oklahoma, My Fair Lady, Gigi, West Side Story (the original), Singing in the Rain, and Music Man. Add to that everything by Gilbert & Sullivan.

There are also a lot of really awful musicals lurking about and I don’t have a list of them but Chicago and Paint Your Wagon are two. There are many good but not great musicals too and that list is endless. Some of the not great musicals have some lovely music, but the story doesn’t quite “work.”

It’s hard to say sometimes whether or not it’s a movie with music, or a musical — or for that matter whether it’s a musical or an operetta. The lines are rather thin. In my opinion, by the way, Oklahoma is an operetta, not a musical. Just saying.

Was it difficult to do what you did professionally?

I never found writing difficult. I often found the research trying. If I worked for a reasonable boss and was well paid, I could handle pretty much anything that came my way. I always wanted to do my best work, but a lot of places I worked didn’t care what I wrote, as long as it was a lot of pages. Their theory was no one would read the book anyway. They were wrong. Almost no one sits down to read a manual cover-to-cover like a novel, but almost everyone will refer to it as needed. If it is well-written and properly researched, it will be a useful tool. When it’s just a lot of words thrown together without caring if the words make sense? They will blame the tech writer.

It isn’t the writer’s fault. Bad manuals are a management choice. If the writer they have chosen isn’t good, that’s a choice they made. There were better writers available, but they didn’t hire one. If the book lacks appropriate research? Usually that means the people who had the information were not made available to the writer.

Tech writers are employees. They don’t just “decide” to write a manual for the fun of it — not counting people who write the “books for idiots” independently. Many of those books are quite exceptional because the writer had the freedom to write the book as he or she chose. In this market, such an opportunity is rare.

What’s the best concert you’ve ever been to? 

Fillmore East. Jefferson Starship. I couldn’t hear anything for a week, so it must have been good.

GRATITUDE SECTION

Looking back over your life, what is one thing you’re grateful for?  One thing you really regret?

I’m glad I had the talent to find work and do it well. The ability to be good at something and get paid to do it isn’t a gift everyone gets. Many people have talent they’ve never explored. Many people wind up in the wrong profession entirely. I know lawyers who never liked practicing law (and didn’t), medical researchers who hated every minute they spent in the lab, developers who wanted to be anything else, just not that. I got to do something I liked doing and had the talent to make it work.

I took a course in college called “The Psychology of Work.” The first thing we talked about was why people work. There has been a huge amount of research on this. It turns out the number one most issue for pretty much everyone is “quality of life in the workplace.” If we get a choice between more money or a better place to work with congenial colleagues and an understanding boss? The “better place” wins. Unless there a huge amount of money involved and then all bets are off. But usually, millions of dollars are not the issue.

The second big one? Distance. Extremely long commutes are lethal to longevity and sometimes, just plain lethal. I had one job toward the end of my career which required a 140 mile EACH WAY drive. I could work three days from home, but twice a week I had nearly 300 miles of commuting per day. Six months into the job — which was a really good job except for the commuting — I was dysfunctional.

Finally money. If you are offered a lot more money and you need it, you might take the job regardless of all other issues. Life is what it is. Big mortgage? Car payments? Alimony? Single parenting? Maybe money wins. Money alone won’t make you happy but it pays the bills which might make you happier.

I earned a good living. Garry earned a better one. We also had a lot of expenses including supporting other family members, his and mine, plus mortgages, cars, and for Garry, wardrobe which in case you were wondering, is NOT tax deductible.

We could have handled our money better and I regret that. But we didn’t waste it. We gave money to people we loved who needed help. We were able to help, so we did. It’s hard to regret that.

So here we are. I don’t regret much. I wish we’d gone to Europe once more while I was still able to walk, but by the time we had the time and almost had the money, my health was failing. That’s the way it goes. Sometimes, the magic works. Sometimes, it doesn’t.

Categories: #SYW, Anecdote, baking, Communications, Q & A, questions, Share My World

Tags: #SYW, concerts, Marilyn Armstrong, Music, musicals, regrets