Kill Your Television

No, really, right now. If you have a television, unplug it and throw it out the window. It's not worth your time.

Lately I've been going to the complex's workout room to ride the stationary bike and confirm how much I really dislike running. As a new resident, I haven't really figured out the television hierarchy - aka when it is o.k. to change the channel or turn it off (this is much better than the first week when I didn't know how. Apparently you drag the stationary bike over and climb it). Since I don't really know the television etiquette, I just leave it alone, even though it is usually on. I don't own a television quite deliberately, making the workout television my only exposure to TV. And this exposure has led me to believe that there is nothing redeeming about watching television.

Granted, I am usually there between 6:30-7:30 when television may be particularly bad, but my tour-du-television has been quite disheartening. Here is what I have gleaned:

The news: I am a news junky and could drool over Anderson Cooper for hours (so pretty, so gay), but the news is uniformly awful. I do not want CNN to report on the most popular stories from CNN.com, I do not think the slick sound effects help Fox News convey its message, and NBC news actually has a segment of small stories from around the US which carry particularly "interesting" (read: graphic or sensationalist) pictures, but no bearing on the rest of the country. Spin drips off every news cast with people condemning Hezbollah or Hamas or Israel or US foreign policy. This stuff is tearing the country apart, the majority of the country knows it, but they have no good news choices. Old-school boring CNN needs to come back to actually fulfill the Fox mantra "Nothing but News".

MTV and VH1: To me, these are interchangeable except that VH1 often shows "The best of XXXX", which is just uniformly boring. Unlike the news, boring is not an asset in the music business. Music, on the other hand, should be. These stations, despite being Music Television and Video Hits One, show no music or videos. Instead, they show the vapid pop culture that millions of impressionable Americans try to emulate with fake tans and a desire for cosmetic surgery. Although often brain candy, too much of these has to rot one's sense of reality. Music videos would be nice vegetables in the MTV and VH1 diet.

Entertainment news: To combine the last two categories into one monster, there are the entertainment news channels (or maybe these are just shows on other channels?). If the other two are bad, this is badness squared. Why do people hang on the lives of the rich and famous whom they will never know? Their lives are more glamorous than yours and may well always be. This is just feeding the rampant consumerism and rising consumer debt of the world while replacing all useful knowledge with Britney Spear's children’s names. I think the inner circle of hell is watching this all day. I actually got off the treadmill I was so appalled.

Sitcoms: I used to watch television. I think I might have been in middle school, or maybe early high school, and I remember watching a lot of sitcoms. Watching sitcoms now, I think I want those hours back. The canned laughter at jokes that aren't that funny and puns seen coming from a mile away are not as good as I remember. The whole plot-line crammed into 22 minutes of tape seems to leave something wanting. I'm not so much upset at these as much as let down. What happened to this segment of industry while I wasn't watching?

"Educational" television: Specifically, I mean the Discovery Channel or other non-fiction outlets, going so far as the Food Network and Travel Channel. These, although substantially better than the rest, are still playing down the intelligence factor. The Discovery Channel, which has such gems as "How It's Made", often gives into the sensationalist programming found on the news channels, with shows on extreme weapons or a whole week devoted to sharks. I understand the desire for viewers, but these channels are running the risk of alienating the intelligent viewer base in favor of getting a little of the pop-culture viewership. Just don't touch of "How It's Made".

Although this obviously doesn't cover all of television, it has convinced me that I'm not missing much. NPR will deliver the news, Wikipedia will be educational programming, and when I want to see Brittney Spear posing nude, Google image search will work fine. As far as going to the workout room, I'm sure I will still be exposed to our rampant television culture, but the next time someone asks if I'm watching the Discovery Channel, I'm telling them yes. They could turn on Entertainment Tonight instead.

Reading

I went to the library today to get a new book and realized that I need a better selection system. As such, I am accepting suggestions, but the rule is that they must be authors other than Vonnegut, Stephenson, Doctorow, Coupland, Chbosky, Palahniuk, Pychon, Sedaris, Burroughs, Proulx, Eggers, Gaiman, Franzen, Fitzgerald, Hornby, Wolfe, Bradbury, Kesey, Hemmingway, Tolkien, Heller, Salinger or Steinbeck. There are probably others, but you get the point. It's not that I don't like these authors, but rather that I do like them. I'm looking for new voices and perspectives.

Anyone?

My job is actually pretty good

Despite many of my comments, I recently came to the realization that my job is pretty good. The reasons?

1. The project I'm working on will have an effect. The project I'm working on will affect $400m in business a year while actually reducing the environmental impact of our product substantially. For an entry level job, this is unheard of and quite fabulous.
2. The company is willing to invest in me. Sylvania has no qualms about sending me to Six Sigma training for 4 weeks or give me German lessons have the plant manager mentor me. These investments, intended to develop my worth in the company, make me feel very wanted.
3. The experience will be unique and deep. Everyone I work with is older and more experienced than I am, but also completely willing to spend time imparting their knowledge to the new hire. As a result I get the benefits of several hundred years of manufacturing experience whenever I want it. Additionally, my boss has great desire to expand my understanding of the lighting business as a whole, planning trips to central research and the parent company plant in Germany. After two years I should be a lighting-manufacturing expert with a good knowledge of the lighting industry.
4. I am truly a young minority. Although this one is very convoluted and something that shouldn't affect anything, being a young minority is becoming an asset. On a day to day basis, it distinguishes me on the production floor. I should be offended when the line supervisor calls me "little lady", but it gets me what I need faster and better. On a long term basis, the company is due to have major turn over in the next 5 to 10 years, which, when combined with their diversity initiative, bodes extremely well for the young minorities of today. Although I don't plan on staying with the company that long, it would be a very intelligent career move.

Sometimes I just need a reminder of why this is the right place for me to be right now.

The Side-effects of Exercise

Exercise is considered to be a healthy addition to one's life. In an attempt to make myself more healthy, I've begun to use exercise as a form of punishment. Eat pizza for lunch? An extra lap of the circle. Waste too much time on the internet? Walk to the library every day. Spend too much money at the farmer's market? 100 extra sit-ups. This regime is definitely making me more active; there are any number of infractions to my own sense of "right" and "good" that I commit every day. Although I'm sure this attitude isn't the healthiest, it seems to be the only way to motivate myself. It had been a long time since I was even slightly active, meaning there are a lot of little side-effects, the unpublicized ones, that I am quickly becoming reacquainted with.

• A newfound hatred of my body. Since when is there so much jiggle? I understand that I'm overweight, but really, I don't remember it being this bad in the past. And why, even after eating so very little and being so very active, do I weigh more than yesterday? I think I'm breaking laws of physics. Oh, and I could also do without the intense shortness of breath that makes me relate intimately with emphysema victims. I've never been fond of my physical self, but all this exercise is just making it worse.
• A need for (more) new clothing. I love my running shoes, but the throbbing blister on one heel and the deep gouge on the other are urging me that now would be a good time to buy a new pair. My sweatpants, comfy and drawstrung, have tried to fall off one too many times for comfort, so perhaps we need something a little more reliable and, sadly, less drawstrung. While I'm at it, there are probably only so many times I can wear the same tank top with built in sports bra in a week. I really should consider those downwind.
• A growing senility. In my daily exploits, I find myself holding conversations in my head. My activities pace themselves accordingly, meaning I often find myself meandering in a daydream conversation with myself. If I'm not careful, these conversations are going to drive me batshit insane. I can't even capture the gems of the conversation in my notebook, because who takes a notebook running? I should really look into something portable to lure my mind into an upbeat coma to ward off the crazy.

As for the positive side-effects, I'm still waiting for the ability to eat pizza without feeling guilty.

Meetings eat my soul

Today started out usual, with the normal Thursday conference call scheduled for 9AM. The conference call, besides giving me something concrete to do for about 1.5 hours a week, is always amusing. The Germans call in with their adorable, stereotypical German accents and I snicker. The Quebecois call in, with slightly less than perfect English because they just can't be bothered to thoroughly learn a language which is not French and I snicker. The Mexicans call in, always a little late and two weeks behind on the project and I snicker. The foreign offices make the phone call a chaotic mix of trying to explain things in 8 different ways in 4 different languages. The whole thing makes me smile.

As such, I usually walk into the conference room in a fairly good mood, well prepared to take notes and scrounge up any data needed for the conversation. Little did I expect to leave the conference room more than 7 hours later a little less happy and completely drained. The conference call, was, as expected, and amusing display of multiculturalism that ended with us setting a deadline for some dreaded documents. My plant had been working on these documents for the last couple weeks for an hour a day. When my boss came back from vacation on Monday, he promptly declared all our work was, well, wrong. As a result, once he had us in the conference room for the phone call, he could easily keep us all captive there.

At 4:15 I started to get antsy, so much so that by 4:30 we were released with orders to appear again tomorrow at 8AM sharp. I will be coming well equipped with caffeine this time. The confusing part of the whole experience is how it could possibly tire me so much. I spend most days traipsing up and down the stairs to my office, busily running sparking tests, moving specimen, and making samples. A day where I spend more than half at my desk, or even sitting is unusual. I spent the majority of today sitting, but left more tired than 90% of my days. Strange. Now that I've thought about it, there are several things which probably brought me (and the others) down.

1. Sitting in a dark room staring at a screen is not active. It's hard to keep your mind on something, when you only occasionally need to make comments and aren't actually doing anything yourself.
2. Further, you're just straining your eyes to see the screen, making them want to close just to make the pain stop and closed eyes are mentally associated with sleep.
3. Starting over (again) did nothing for morale. We already did all this, twice actually. Telling us we're wrong and have to do it over again is not going to make us happy.
4. Useless people just serve to suck off some of the communal energy without giving much back. For the first part of the meeting, I understood what was going on and had useful things to say. For the second part, there was little I was able to contribute, so my presence just consumed positive energy.
5. Planning was obviously not undertaken. The way the session was run was inefficient, not to mention that springing it on us did not give anyone time to prepare mentally or otherwise.

Overall, it wasn't the best working-meeting I've ever been in. In the future, if I ever run something similar, I will try to change things, like using physical paper charts and markers rather than one person controlling a computer screen, writing agendas mailed in advance, making sure that everyone who needs to be there is, and doesn't isn't, and copious use of natural lighting.

I think I need a nap now.

Fireworks, indeed

Today I decided to see how long it would take me to walk to the airport, 2.5 miles away. I figured this would be good practice for the large amount of travel I plan on doing in the next 7 months. Why leave your car at the airport, or worse have to beg for rides when it really isn't that far away? So I set out into the partly-cloudy Fourth of July afternoon, armed with a house key and the clothes on my back. I returned 75 minutes later soaked to the bone with a newfound fear of thunderstorms to an apartment without electricity.

Really, I should have been a little bit smarter and turned back in the first five minutes when it started sprinkling, but it was still sunny, and obviously not going to keep raining. Besides, there was no lightening and it felt kind of good on a warm day. I should have started walking back when I noticed the approaching darkness in the west about 1/2 an hour into the walk, but the airport was so close and this was an experiment. At 40 minutes when I got to the airport and turned to go back, I realized that I had made the wrong choice. The darkness was closer and obviously drowning the countryside. Either way, I had to walk home. I had no money and no way to call anyone for a ride. I start back, worriedly monitoring the darkness closing in.

Cars start passing with their headlights on. Then the lightening starts, jagged and vivid in the sky, but still producing distant rumbles. At this point I start to think about getting struck by lightening. Walking through the rain is one thing, it's kind of romantic in a way (in theory), but now I realize that I'm a little more than 2 miles from my apartment walking through open countryside. It's all horse farm and me, no trees to attract the lightening away from me. I felt tall in a bad way. Seven minutes after turning around, the cars passing have windshield wipers going. The wind has died for a moment creating an uneasy calm before the storm. A minute later it starts, blowing horizontal and hard in my face.

Each raindrop hits with such velocity that they feel like fire ant bites, covering my arms and face. I can see nothing, navigating by feel, trying to brace myself for every car that passes, spraying me with even more water. I went from completely dry to entirely wet in less than a minute. Lightening crashes around me, unseen, but felt too keenly. Every time the rain backs off for a moment, it returns with more ferocity in a minute or two, allowing enough time for me to clear my eyes before attacking again. As I approach my neighborhood, the stoplights and streetlights go out with a sizzle. I make excellent time back to my apartment, but it's too late. I'm soaked and cold, in need of a hot bath and hot tea, neither of which I can have.

I spent the evening reading on the balcony. I think I saw enough fireworks today, thanks.

One Month

I successfully passed the one month mark for my new job this week. That means there's only another 23 months of making light bulbs, or another 7 months in Kentucky. 7 months is entirely manageable. I can handle anything for 7 months, right?

Over the past month, I have learned a good number of lessons about work life, Sylvania, and manufacturing. Among them:

• Glass breaks. Just try not to break the important glass.
• Looking cute for work is overrated. Even looking nice for work is pushing it.
• HR will do everything to thwart you. Do not be afraid to check up on them daily.
• When the boss is gone, you don't have to work as hard.
• "As long as you need me" is always the wrong answer on a Friday afternoon.
• Minitab feels like cheating but makes everything look like magic.
• Engineering is not necessarily what you thought it would be. Pick up the skills required for what it is and do what you need to.
• Although you are not allowed in the Mercury Room, you are allowed in the Mercury Lab. This is less exciting than you think.
• There are a lot of office politics, no matter where you work. Staying out of them is hard and may be detrimental to career development.

Some of these took multiple incidents to learn. I probably had to stain 3 shirts before I grasped that second one. The third point I'm still getting after HR has messed up my a)benefits b)paychecks c)orientation and d)corporate credit card. It will probably take several more mistakes to really cement that in my head.

So, one month down and I am smarter than when I started. 23 more months of making light bulbs. I can survive anything for 2 years.

Curmudgeon

Today was one of those sunny, 85-degree, perfect summer days, so it surprised me when I came to the depressing conclusion that I should give up on people while walking back from the library. I had just gotten two books that I wanted, read a graphic novel and mailed letters, I should have been pleased with life, but something seemed askew. I thought about my plans for the weekend, which are reading, sleeping, and maybe hiking. All enjoyable things, true, but all solitary activities. My Fourth of July plans are similarly alone.

This lead to thoughts on my sociability. I have never been good at making friends. At school you end up living and working with people, eventually forming friendships bound by your common stresses and goals. You are the same age group, at the same stage in life. Work is not always comparable, and for me, is definitely not comparable here. Even if it were, I'm really just not good at making friends. I can play nice and accept lunch invitations, but soon enough those pleasantries will be dropped. I am standoffish, not wanting to offend and overcompensating by being bland. I've just never been especially great at it. And since trying and failing is much more painful than never trying at all, give up now.

So, I give up all hope of making friends, instead deciding to spend my time in Kentucky accompanied by Ernest Hemmingway and Cory Doctorow, but the rest of the day did not get better. When I went to turn in my rent, I ended up being a not-altogether-pleasant person to the leasing agent. When I drove to the grocery I yelled at the other drivers, who often were behaving legally, but somehow irked me. When at the movies, I pointedly mumbled something about "obnoxious, no mannered children" while passing the family with the 12-year-old-who-yelled at the R-rated movie.

First, I give up on being a social person, and second I start getting angry at other people with little provocation. How did I become such a curmudgeon?