I'll play you a prostiTUNE on my WHOREmonica.

So today was an interesting day at work for a change. For basically two reasons.

1) Apparently my crappy geocities comic page* has been outed. A dude I somewhat know from training stopped me in the hall today and told me it was awesome. This made me feel good and bad.

Good: It is very flattering to anyone when anyone compliments their crappy geocities comic page.* Especially if they are as shitty at drawing as I am. It also makes me glad that there are other people where I work who share the same weirdo sense of humor I have. Okay, I sorta knew it about this guy already, we'd already had a brief conversation on UCB once, and caught him making a Bloodhound Gang reference too. I've never really been able to connect with him, or anyone I thought cool, because I am socially retarded, and it's hard to make friends with anyone anyway during 20 second snippets of conversation between calls. I asked him how he found it, and he said another dude from my training class told him, another dude I knew was somewhat cool already due to a few brief conversations months ago. So I guess it can only be good news that two people I thought of as friend material in the beginning (substitute UCB & Bloodhound gang with a discussion on TMBG, blowing up the building and another on clowns) think I am funny.

Bad: There are a lot of people that I do NOT want seeing this. I'm basically making fun of customers, talking about drugs, and or being creepy/filthy for most of it, which is probably something that does not look good to management. I tried not to come out and say which company I work for in them, but there are a couple that are indicative. And if it's that easy to randomly find it, I'll have to take it down. I saw the guy who supposedly linked it to the guy I talked to on my way out of work today, and wanted to ask him, but he was with a couple of other people who I don't know at all and hence don't know whether I should bring it up in front of them. Plus I feel weird going up and asking him anything. The first guy and I have stayed somewhat friendly (saying hi in hallways and all that) but the other dude and I never talk.


2) I had a long talk with my supervisor RE: what I should do with my career. He and I have been corresponding via email a little while, and I guess he decided it was best to just have an actual face to face conversation and get it all out. Anyway, I can't decide how I feel about the conversation. I mean, I'm glad we talked. I'm glad he showed an interest, because he seems to be very big on people asking for help before he gives it to them, whereas some of the other supervisors seem to be a little more proactive about helping their people. I don't know if it's necessarily his fault, because I've been shuffled around quite a lot since I started, but when I talk to other people they seem to know a lot more about the opportunities around (not so much promotional opportunities, but the things around the dept. I work in now that look good on a resume) than I do, and have already gotten on committees, and have talked to efficiency leaders and done a million other things that will help them out and I've just sort of gone in every day doing my job not really knowing I was supposed to know about and ask for all these things. Anyway, he's seemed sort of distant to me. So I'm glad I got to know him a little more, and I'll probably feel more comfortable asking him things in the future.

But as for actual career prospects I feel about as on the fence as ever. He seems to be pushing taking a job in claims. Not pushing, per se, he told me to feel free to go for anything else. But he sort of laid it out why it's way easier to get a job in claims than anything else at that pay level (significantly higher than my current one, btw) and how it gives me more experience to put on my resume and look good if I want another job at that pay level. He said I shouldn't be afraid to try it even though a lot of people I know (including him) hate/hated working in that dept. Things turn out alright! I might love it!

My thing is I'm already working with 18 year old kids. Which means I'm like 8 years behind everyone else, basically. I don't really want to waste more time on something I hate before I get a job I can actually like. I'm terrified of spending my entire working life doing shitty jobs that I hate and finally finding one I love like 5 years before I retire, and having it pass in an eyeblink because the older you get the faster time passes. And he was going on about positioning yourself so that when all the baby boomers retire you can shoot up to the top. And I'm afraid that I won't be in that position, and everyone else will just rocket past me and I'll still be doing shit jobs because I don't know how to get the right skills.

He also made me realize how freaking confused I am in general, I don't even know what I want. He asked me what I wanted in a job. What I want is a degree of creativity and to actually like the people I talk to every day, and interact with people I like every day. And he was talking about how librarian is actually more of a solitary job, if you're going into corporate library, and do I want to stay with the company or not? And I don't even know. I'm going to spend two fucking years and a TON of money on a degree I'm not even sure of. I wanted something like Borders but with more respect & above poverty level wages (not to mention no psycho tami), I guess, but that is probably not how it is, I don't even know. Academic librarianship sounds SO fun, but they're downsizing hardcore, corporate library seems to be the way to go with that.

I told him how I loved TV when I was in college, and how bad the reality was. He made me sort of feel like a tool for not sticking it out and getting better at driving, though I don't think he did it intentionally.

He told me about how he kicked around doing a lot of different jobs for awhile before he got where he was, and how it all turned out alright. But again that terrifies me, I don't want to kick around 10 more years hating life and myself and the jobs I'm doing before I can get into anything worthwhile. And he told me about his Dad, and how his dad had passion for his job and how he'd always envied it until he found out what it was about his dad's job that was great and how he could get it for himself in a different way. And he told me this story about his dad when he retired which, basically is the end of Mr. Holland's Opus, if you're curious, which made me depressed that there are people like that in real life who really make a difference in people's lives and that I'll never be one of them.

So it sort of made me depressed, which I don't think he was trying to do. But I guess what I'm supposed to take from it is that sometimes jobs you think won't work for you do, and if they don't that's okay too. And I should try for whatever I want (even though I don't know what it is) but I shouldn't rule out anything I don't want either if it could be a good move for me. Which, I don't know. I'm still about as confused and depressed as before.

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* There's a chance that it's my crappy photobucket page which has less about my poop than on geocities, but more weird photos.