This week went by really fast. Guess it could have something to do with the holiday, but it was also a really busy week at work for me. I’m glad it’s over. My pre-planned weekend activities amount to nothing save mowing the lawn and doing some housecleaning, which is good – I like unplanned time better than planned. I like to be able to choose nothing as something to do, and not be tied to anything. If I’m not committed to anything, the prospect of spending a Saturday working around the house or tinkering with a web page is almost too great a temptation to resist. Also, I kinda think it’s more fun to plan things at the last minute. I like when people call up and spur-of-the-moment plans are made to meet and do something. When you look back on things, spontaneous fun events always seem to be remembered as “funner” than planned ones. I think because there’s that extra bit of “good luck” in the fact that something last-minute worked out so well. Also, I’m lazy and always like to have the “do nothing” option.
I’ve been spending a lot of time working on webpages lately. If I’m not working on the t-shirt site, I’m working on the Pac Man Project pages. I’ve been concentrating on both really. I really need to update the Pac Man pages and get them on “auto pilot” so I don’t have to mess with them anymore. I guess now it’s down to a minimal amount of content that I still need to write, but the major work is in re-arrangement and making it look pretty. So, I’ve been fixing the layout and flow and making the whole site easier to navigate and read. I don’t really know why, since there’s no reason really… I guess I just like the project. For the t-shirt site, my motivation is profit. I think Shaine and I (partners in this enterprise) stand a really good chance at making some dough from that project.
I read a really interesting article in Wired magazine on the plane over to Taiwan. It was about the current state of “outsourcing” software jobs to India. While I’m not a software person, being in the high tech industry I am well aware of the outsourcing craze. While the software jobs are going to India, hardware jobs are going to China. Right now we’re on an “accelerated hiring ramp” in Shanghai, and we have yearly percentages of headcount we need to acquire there. The company line is that they’re not actually moving jobs from here to there, but “growing the workforce” to help with some global economy or something. My direct boss-man says he doesn’t buy it, and thinks they are grooming our replacements. I’m not sure how I feel, but I definitely got a whole new perspective on the issue from the Wired article.
I mean, I suppose the whole outsourcing cycle has been going on, on a more basic level, for a long time. In human history, strong people move in and exploit weak people. Eventually, the weaker people learn to be stronger, and at that point the original strong people move on to yet another weaker people and exploit them. I’m no economist, but it seems like: move in to a place, exploit a weaker economy and workforce, drop that place as soon as the weaker economy and workforce strengthen as a result of being exploited, find a new place and repeat. My job seems safe for the time being, but I can foresee a time when I may have to alter the way I think and do things to make myself more valuable than some alien dude who can do exactly what I do at a 6th of the cost. For now, I’ll just keep getting fat and living my American dream-life while they starve. What?
Well, I guess that’s it for me. Dave out.
Also written on this day...
- on the moors - 2019
- comforting. permanent. - 2009
- topic-jumping - 2008
- running away - 2007