Ploofle

This flowed from various conversations I’ve had today as well as a slashdot article called “The Stigma of a Tech Support Background.” I’m sympathetic to this person’s job woes, though it’s not a great time to be looking in the US and as several commenters suggested perhaps it’s him, not the job. From that post, anyway, I got a few books to look into concerning interviewing.

In my field, whenever I breathe “computer science” I get back a flurry of responses roughly like “bioinformatics! data manipulation!!” Any further discussions about social sciences, behaviour change, or structural health issues are swept away, much to my dismay.

Don’t get me wrong - I like data. I like learning new programming tricks, or connecting disparate data sets, or arguing that all this data isn’t worth a thing without a way to easily access it. Data helps make good decisions. But, for all the interest I hold in it, data’s only truly neat to me if it distinctly relates to people and change. This change could be a new approach, a new program, or just a better understanding, but it needs to be rooted in something that affects us.

Fundamentally, I like getting things done and seeing a change. I especially like getting things done that help ^[1] people, irrespective of what shape that help takes. I know that to get more things done, you have to work with (more) people. So I’m going to work with more people. I don’t like to admit it but I actually rather like people - albeit in some cases only in a wtf!? sort of way.

One of the comments on the slashdot post brought up these points:

Try telling your prospective employers these three things :
1) If I don’t know what you need me to know, by the end of the day I will learn it.
2) If my project isn’t done by the end of my workday, then my workday doesn’t end.
3) I want this job, and am willing to work my ass off to get it.

#1 and #3 are exactly how I feel a job should be; #2 is a bit painful but I tend to err on the end of long workdays rather than short anyway. Unfortunately, most people only focus on this flavor of work style in service-oriented jobs such as IT when this philosophy actually applies to all work, in particular people-centric work. With IT, ok, your computer’s down. With people, there is real shit going down. It’s why I would find it frustrating at times to work at a deliberate, pre-planned-3-years-ago pace.

I want to see things not only get done, but in the best/most appropriate way possible, and that means I’ll get passionate even about plans that are seemingly set in stone. Part of what I’ll bring to a job is my own self, and that means needing to be convinced that what we’re doing will work in the best interests of people or if not working hard to make sure it becomes so. If my job truly cares about people, I’ll care about my job. Though it would be nice if the job gave me partner and health benefits…

Other random bits related to work - your career decisions are only as good as the information and preparation you had at the time of the decision. If it doesn’t work out, don’t mull over the event; try to figure out what didn’t work and be ready for the next go-’round. There’s not enough time in the world for people to be rehashing old work decisions, of all things. If I’m going to think about the past, it’s going to be about non-work things: times I was happy, things I miss, tasty secret ice cream, that kind of stuff.

Anyway, hope I have a job that fits all this someday.

[1]Yes, yes, “help” as in facilitating or supporting in a culturally sensitive/empowering manner, not what I filter as appropriate change or next steps, as that’s not really nice. Among other things. [back]

Tags: work

Today a bunch of us went to the (big? small? I know little about mountains) mountain called “Red Goat Hill” that dominates the landscape here with the idea of trying to climb it.

Wow, that was a shitty idea.

It was actually nice to walk but in the end some of us didn’t get to the top and just came back.  Amber and I got about 2/3 the way up but we’re both out of shape (despite my silly aerobics) so it was just too much. Kinda bummed me out though, that even with semi-regular exercise I can’t do such things.  I’m going to try again next time some other folks decide to go there as it’s good exercise.  Roundtrip, even not getting to the top, it was about 3-1/2 hours of walking and climbing.

Afterward I got lunch with Amber and did my shopping for the next 2 weeks or so.  I’m working on both traditional sourdough starter and the semi-sourdough yogurt french bread that I made last week which was super tasty.  Also I have lentils soaking for dinner.  Right now though I’m just tired, need a haircut, and definitely need a shower.  Hope to get a haircut tomorrow…

Speaking of playing, I wonder in general how much of work is playing at being a worker, or making progress.  For example, your funder wants statistics or justification - so we better get them! Hence, playing at knowing what is going on.  But what about stepping back and actually really looking at those numbers and what they mean?  Is it too depressing to realize how big a task is at hand?  Or is it inspiring and give you more determination to get cracking?  It hopefully at least gives you some target demographics…I would think.  Why bother to do a job if you’re not going to do it well?  Blah.

Tags: hiking, hills, red goats, work

Despite all the random tech postings, I actually still reside in Mongolia and it’s high time I actually talk about that for once.

The weather’s cooling down for real now - overnight I close my apartment window and use my fleece blanket, and yesterday I actually was a little chilled in pants and a long-sleeved shirt. The weather here, though, tends to have this downward trend made up of dips and peaks, so I hope to get a little bit more warm weather a time or two before it settles into Fall.

The days definitely aren’t as long as they were a few weeks ago. Light starts fading about 8pm and it’s full dark by around 9pm now. The fruits and vegetables still remain pricey, though, and oranges and bell peppers haven’t come back yet. Thus lots of apples and onions for me.

Yesterday we had a birthday/welcome back party for Khovd volunteers. It was really tasty - instant falafel and latkes were fried, yogurt-garlic-dill sauce was made, and chickpeas were boiled and smushed for hummus. Add to that fresh tomatoes and cucumbers, homemade wheat pita bread, peanut butter-chocolate cake, and several melons and you got what here definitely is a feast. We even had leftovers - I suppose that’s what happens when you end up having only two guys at site, one of whom never eats, compared to the four originally.

We watched women’s volleyball and basketball, which was cool, and generally picked on each other, which was of course fun

Lately at work I’ve been starting to get into other interesting things - like helping improve the quality of service at the adolescent reproductive health center in Khovd. I haven’t done anything concrete yet; more reading up and thinking, but I’m looking forward to this as I find I continue to like working with young people. One of the stranger difficulties was finding STI/RH statistics for ages 15-24 in the aimag - my counterpart and I went to the health department to talk to the statistician (doctor; everyone’s a doctor) and he pretty much said he didn’t have them and go talk to the adolescent health center. The thing is, their numbers focus more on their internal intake and testing results, not the whole aimag, and I was curious to see how much of an impact the center has, if any, on those overall numbers, so it wasn’t quite what I was looking for - and they were all on vacation besides. This also reinforced for me the idea that mystery shopper-style assessments for accessibility will be a good tool for checking things out.

Anyway, after then walking to the regional hospital, talking to random people (though technically I didn’t talk; my counterpart did most of the talking based), and looking for the RH one-point service center people (also on vacation), we went back to the office, somewhat bewildered. My counterpart saved the day though by calling different people on vacation (eh, well) until we found someone who actually had the information - and we’re going to go by Monday to pick it up. Yay!

Today has been calm - I’m working on this Yogurt French Bread recipe (which seems more like a sourdough) that needed me to make starter to sit for at least 12 hours. I forgot to add the yogurt after I had made the dough and had to squish back in a cup of yogurt (which was messy by hand; got yogurt all over myself), then had to go to the store to buy more flour. Bleh. Regardless, it’s rising now and I hope to punch it down and bake in an hour or so. It better be damn tasty for all this effort.

As a side note for bread, I think here especially I need to be a little more patient with rising - instead of waiting to it to get to being doubled, I tend to focus on the actual time it says it’ll take and go along. But the brioche I made a bit back was really spectacular because I gave it time…so I’m going to work on being better about that. Of course, when it’s wintertime and the special challenges of attempting to make dough rise in a 40-degree apartment starts, all bets are off.

Oh! and it looks like I will indeed be going to Thailand next year. My 50k frequent flyer miles are enough for a free RT inter-asia ticket, and I’m going to play that up, as it seems like Delta’s mile usage in the US is getting pretty crappy (up to 60k for just a domestic RT?? bah!).

The 1001 nights LaTeX conversion is going well, and I actually found a full-color scan of the original that I’m going to use to make sure I have similar layout. I also found a neat site that covers historical illustrations of the book, including quite a few works that are by now in the public domain, so I’m going to add some illustrations to it too. The only big deviation, I believe, will be the use of margin notes versus footnotes - but that’s easily changed. I’m excited even though it only Volume 1 and who knows if I’ll get to Volumes 2-9.

Finally: Biden? Hmm. I’m curious to see how this pans out - wish I could see/hear the Democratic convention…

Tags: books, bread, mongolia, work

So, due to a variety of reasons too convoluted to explain in the time I have left, I will be leaving for UB starting 25 of May and not be back until mid-July with Bonnie. This was determined yesterday afternoon. Sooooo…for those who have internet, I will be more available for talking prolly (and coffee and wifi…drool…). For those who are hoping to send things, this is the heads up that I won’t get it until mid-July, so plan around that if it’s time sensitive. The volunteers still in Khovd will pick up my mail/packages if any arrive for safekeeping, so don’t worry about em. I haven’t lost anything yet in transit, though some things have taken up to 2 months or so to get here.

Um, I have 27 items on my to-do list before then, I will miss the Khovd going-away party, and the Peace Corps Expo activity we are working on, and there’s a big conference on maternal mortality reduction next week that will suck away a huge amount of time. So you all probably won’t hear from me again until the 25th or so. Sorry for those who use this to get through their law school classes And thanks to those who sent me almost a dozen “sampler” bottles of smirnoff when you know full well the only hard liquor I can get here is vodka. You all are the best

Last night I ate smoked trout out of a can for dinner. woohoo!

Tags: ugh, work

Ugh. Suddenly I have even more way too much work - a couple wikis, a training db, a paper-writing project, a project-developing project, capacity-building lessons on various office topics, media standards ad hoc committee, PST…

And my lentils would not cook last night perhaps not a large enough water to lentils/veggies ratio? They’re still crunchy after 2 hours of cooking. Maybe overnight they magically absorbed more water. Is it bad to eat undercooked beans? I’ve heard it gives gas, but anything else?

So far no gas tho

Our office now is the proud owner of a secondhand microwave. My guess is that it’s the approximately 3rd microwave in Khovd. Microwavable dishes shenanigans ensue.

Also my boss got a washing machine and says I can use it some. So perhaps finally I will wash the pullovers and stuff that never get washed by hand.

I’m hungry, too, and all I have are some chocolate/nesquik flavored wafer cookies.

Tags: lentils, work