So there is this book, Sex, Intimacy, and Business, which I haven’t yet read. A friend recommended it to me, but I haven’t either picked it up yet. Still, I found tonight (through a very roundabout path) that they have a blog, so I started reading through some of the more recent entries.
It’s a pretty good corporate blog – or at least it looks like it’s heading that way. Probably the best business blog that I’ve read recently is Guy Kawasaki’s blog. I’m not even sure you can call it a “corporate” or “company” blog. He’s just dealing some straight stuff on business that really rings home. Of course, he’s an author – so some of his business is himself… which is why I class it as a “company” blog. Ah… anyway.
One of the BE posts really rang for me tonight. It talks briefly about how you see your job – as a job (done only for the money), as a career or as a calling.
I’m not sure where my view really falls into place. It’s definitely not just “for the money”, because I always leave a gig when it gets to that point. But I also can’t really say that I’m taking a plotted out career path in either a historic or modern sense. I’m usually just looking around for something that sounds interesting, that sounds fun, and where the people are really great. It’s mostly, actually, about the people. That being said, technology and making things with technology I think is a calling for me. I’ve been intrigued and pulled towards building things since I was a kid, and computers are the medium that I’ve just really attached to. My father builds (general construction), my mother builds (artist, author – I think she denies both, and raising me and my brother – which I’m sure she wants to deny at times, but can’t), my grandfather built (machinist), my great-grandfather built (carpenter – and I’ve got his tools!), and my wife builds (web developer AND artist). I’ve been surrounded by creating and building.
I suppose I could have as easily gone into architecture, but a fascination with Rube Goldberg machines at an early age led me to engineering when I hit college, and by then it was clear that computers were, indeed, the shit – and I was hooked. I even did finish my electrical engineering degree too (I got two degrees all said and done), because I was also somewhat stubborn. I mean, really – I was going to be damned if I would let a single class on power (electrical power – transmission, motors, generators, etc) stand between me and another degree.
So which of those buckets to I drop my view on jobs into?
Heh. Screw it – I don’t need no stinkin’ buckets. I’ll build my own.
(for the record, I try very hard not to allow my software to get into a Rube Goldberg state – I relish simplicity in design, which drives my wife nuts sometimes when it comes to art and the house)
Rhonabwy 