Over-sized fruit and the merits of being paid
1. I am moving to New York in approximately 6 weeks
Yes, I have decided to leave my beloved London for pastures fresh, or in this particular case, pastures fairly smelly and a tad on the filthy side, but still pretty interesting. This move doesn’t mean I like London any less, I don’t. I love it here. But I am a firm believer in learning from experience, and I don’t intend to limit that experience to just one big city. So I’m off. If I’m not back in 2 years, avenge my death. But eh, email me and check if I’ve just moved to Asia first.
2. There is a reason I took the blog down in the first place
Recently this blog was gone, for about 6 months or so. The reason for this is that through an odd set of coincidences, people I work with became aware of its existence and location. Yeah, I know, I don’t care what people think, why does it matter, I am a great bit pus-filled hypocrite. Right.
Obviously, if I don’t use profanity in a professional email I am censoring myself. If I wear a suit to a meeting instead of jeans I am being fake. I work for a global company, owned by a big company, owned by a huge company, clearly I have sold out.
Of course I have bloody well sold out, that’s what having a job means. I sell my time and my abilities for a portion of my life and in return I get paid. I just don’t happen to feel bitter about it. During the time that I am doing that job, I do not behave in the same fashion as I do at home. In the same respect that I do not put my feet on people’s desks, eat sandwiches in a meeting, play guitar hero, or randomly lie down on couches, I also do not generally discuss my personal opinions or feelings in a professional capacity. Nor do I particularly want those to come up, because I don’t necessarily want to intertwine them with my job.
I get paid to do a job in a professional fashion, and I believe that one should give value for money or get a different job. Since I don’t currently want a different job, I choose to segregate my ranting from my working. I feel no obligation to excuse myself for the things I write here, but I also have no desire to be in a professional situation in which principle will require me to state this. I sell my attitude and my behaviour in the exact same way as I sell my time. My moral decisions are not for sale, matters of personal taste however are another matter.
Everyone sells themselves. The key is to sell yourself for lots and lots of money.
January 17th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
1) I envy you for moving to New York, it sounds like an awfully big adventure and should be good for at least 2 nights worth of stories.
2) The last line in your post sounds like you’re a high priced hooker. Go you!
3) Are you going to keep the blog going so we don’t have to avenge your death, be it premature or not?
January 18th, 2008 at 3:16 am
“Yes, I have decided to leave my beloved London for pastures fresh”. I read this as pleasures of the flesh :).
“But eh, email me and check if I’ve just moved to Asia first.”
You’d make a great technical support team leader. Go for it!
January 18th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Best of luck in the big apple. I’ve only visited there for a short time but I liked what I saw. :)
I don’t think having a job necessarily means sold out. There has to be at least one person in the world who doesn’t have to sell out to have a job.
January 18th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Michelle - Technically I am a high-priced hooker. My company rents me for $2000 a day. Why does the principle involved change just because the part of me they rent out is my brain and not the rest of my body?
Also yes, I will keep the blog, definitely for the moment, I am looking forward to making some New York based entries…
Kevin - You have a filthy mind :)
Liv - Define “selling out”. To me the term is redundant, selling is selling. When most people say they are selling out they mean they are selling their integrity, or their beliefs. What it really means is they don’t have a stroong enough instance of either.
January 19th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
That’s my girl! For a while there I thought someone had performed a blogectomy on you! Opinionated, ranting, blogging daughter welcome back. God did I enjoy reading all your new stuff and rereading some of the older stuff. Keep it coming Diane
January 21st, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Selling is selling. However if you work for yourself and towards your own goals you can’t really sell yourself to yourself can you? Well you could but that would probably require multiple personality disorders or some very creative accounting.
January 21st, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Again, it depends what those goals are. If your goal is to promote world peace and you work for a munitiions manufacturer then you have either sold out, or you are terminally stupid. If you are a prostitute then technically you are self-employed, but you might feel morally disgusted by what you do. Or you might see it as just a way to put food on the table. So is selling out defined by the fact that you do it, or that you feel bad about it?
January 22nd, 2008 at 11:25 am
If you put it like that I would have to say that selling out as a rule is doing something and feeling bad about it. But I don’t know if that’s a hard and fast rule. Like if you say that then you could say you felt bad as an aid worker, that you couldn’t help more people. Technically you help people so you’re fulfilling your goal but then your goals become bigger because you realise that there are still so many worthy causes. This could be a circular argument.