Tag: Jobs

Life at the Workshop, part one

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Starting to get squared away at office: so much space amazes me [my own room!] and then all the backup material, staff, and freedom of movement. I feel like I’m in heaven. Hard to readjust to open work scheduling. New freedom, large-vocabulary return: academic life and performance seem somehow foreign, though I’ve never really left it. Either I perform/deliver now or flunk forever.

Feels very good to work at a slower, more thoughtful pace …

“Have the girls fill this out,” Charlyne said, as I trotted down the hall.

Our administrative assistant, incredulous when I wickedly passed the word along while getting my three carbon papers: “Tell Charlyne the girls are very busy; tell her the girls send their love.”

Charlyne was the uber-feminist in the outfit.

Openly referring to myself as “Jnana” sounds strange again: kept starting to say the legal equivalent of “Boy.”

The leisurely pace of academic reflectiveness, gestation, can be guilt-inducing after the gut-busting pace of the Review-Times [or other newsrooms or assembly lines]. But guilt will only clog intuition. I must learn to pace myself so that I will be producing at peak quality [not quantity]. More than three or four hours of heaving editing or writing is too much for one day, since concentration slips.

Sometimes, on this slower pace, it seems I’m going nowhere, that I should be producing on an 8-5 shift and doing my homework – reading – at other times.

Workshop, a place where craftsmen bring design/theory/aesthetics/tradition/discipline to fulfillment/practice in diverse materials …

In our sense, a place of testing and integrity …

A whole garden to delight the mind’s eye and the physical touch …

Somehow, right after the “little stroll around the block,” I note, 13:XII:74 [a Friday], just back from St. Louis, much energy. [No idea where we stayed – out near the airport? – think we did go to a fancy German one evening.] Came back with a clearer sense of the newsletter, greatly simplified: more like our yoga newsletter!

I think we settled on WORKSHOP REPORTS, with the potential of designating different series such as a police or city government.

Lynn wants at least one foundation or funding source thanked in each workshop paper: it builds their files, gives them a sense that their work is going somewhere (even if only into a folder).

VO discussing difficulties he’s had in writing for publications and how he developed the strategy of writing to write and then usually delivering the work as a paper when invited. Using this approach, he learned he didn’t spend a year to find out the editor had “chickened out” and that if an editor is interested, publication is a byproduct. This way, we have a good backlog so that when the shit hits the fan, we will be ready to market.

He mentioned that Hobbes worked over several decades revising his work.

Another time, he mentioned that his most depressed period was in trying to write a water report and not being able to frame his words: the theoretical framework was weak.

Also, the difficulty of maintaining a creative tension while writing.

My pace is recovering my yogic …

Kat on VO and EO: “I couldn’t imagine them married to anybody else,” and he was now Kat’s favorite person. How curious, considering how upset she would get at my political discussions.

~*~

On the side, Vincent enjoyed designing furniture with carpenter Paul Goodwin. Here’s a sketch of a bookshelf system in his house. I’m not sure now, though, how it connected to the floor, wall, or even ceiling.

~*~

Etienne and Amelie could frame a novel.

Her mother from a very wealthy, steel-making family that lost and regained its fortune; her father, from immigrant Ukrainian miners.

Etienne, from a morbid, divisively argumentative peasant family. It was preoccupied with death. When he was 12 or 13, the grandfather was living in the same farmhouse, not knowing he was dying, though the house reeked of the odor of rectal cancer. The father, in a furious argument, told the old man, “It doesn’t matter, in two months you’ll be dead!” something the wife, Etienne’s mother, could never forgive. The fights that followed led to separation but also their remarriage a week before Etienne and Amelie’s wedding, “so it would be proper.” Yet they still fought.

America? “Here it is just eat your brother!”

France? The mad pace of Paris or the boredom of the provinces.

“I’ve broken many bottles over such cars,” the ones trying to run down pedestrians. “Oh? Did I do that?”

In an office, I feel trapped or cut off. Want to be closer to sun or wind. My mind is no longer original.

Perhaps I write this under the weight of Saturn: I feel sluggish, sedentary. I have piles there and here, projects I do not know how to resolve.

That “little stroll,” by the way, led to my Leonard Springs poems. The site has since been developed into a public nature reserve.

~*~

From Spiralbound Hoosier, with commentary from now.

On work itself, when done right

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Reporter Tom: “I was building a cabinet several nights ago and everything kept falling into place, everything fit, I cut the wood just right and there was such a good feeling of simply working that in a way I didn’t want to finish the thing. They never taught us to work that way. It’s always to get the thing done.”

Nowadays, no sense of craftsmanship. No unity of elements or workers. Just things, not creation.

For Esquimaux artists, objects do not have to be seen but treasures to be unwrapped and felt on special occasions.

~*~

The downtown since I left. Main Street by Nyttend via Wikimedia Commons.

Within the journalism trade

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

When it comes to mass media, the real power brokers are the big advertising agencies that foot the bills or at least allocate the payments. Forget “liberal media,” the rig of the game is elsewhere.

Here are some of my early journal entries along the topic.

  • Journalists are not eunuchs, or shouldn’t be. Those are the propagandists.
  • More people know the latest Alka-Seltzer ad than what Scotty Reston wrote last night.
  • The people of Fostoria hate the paper; they pick at the people who write for us, isolate them, castigate them. Within the city our only hope for recruits is among those outsiders who, like Teresa Beatty, simply don’t care about the neighbors. Yes, paradoxically, among the surrounding areas, our virtues are appreciated.
  • Another difficulty is in our correspondents; they want to write only about their interests, will not take assignments or cover feature-news … In writing only what they want, they miss the cream …
  • The R-T is a sinking ship. I see no hope … the paper cannot meet the city residents’ level of expectation without losing half of its circulation, the half that matters, beyond the city limits …
  • These “news” items they send in: “such-and-so met at the home of so-and-so and discussed the topic of (insert title). Mrs. A was in charge of refreshments, Mts. B was program chairman, Mrs. C was greeter, and Mrs. D was hostess. X, Y, and Z were elected.”
  • I used to think that if people were interested in the event, they would have been there and already know the outcome. Now I suspect they really don’t know where they were till they read it in print.
  • So much potential here, nobody in our five-state (but not five-star) circulation area touches: so many “off news” angles, one could win it all. [Thinking now of Marcy’s touch / specialty / inspiration …] [Also, of Kurt’s later … and wishing we hadn’t lost contact.]
  • Monday, an unsigned letter at work today, man who didn’t like anything: if we’d put out the kind of paper he wants, he wouldn’t like it: there would be nothing for him to rage about.
  • Some people exist on their dislikes.
  • Living devils, caught in their own hells.

“I used to think I had some control, but I’m finding out more and more that I have no control over the film. The film is gonna come out the same way,” depending on the performers, scriptwriters, prevailing moods, and other factors. “The material is being filtered through me, so it’s gonna wind up having my shape. And for me to think I can unshape it is crazy.” – Robert Altman, producer and director

My feelings after “having my own paper” on the prairie

“I hate to admit it, but everybody’s got the same news.” – Chicago Tribune Managing Editor Maxwell McCrohen on promoting features and columnists. He broadened the definition of “news.”

 

So I wasn’t losing my eyesight or my mind, after all

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Back when I had an hour commute home after working an evening shift at the paper, there were a few nights when I was mesmerized by what I saw in my headlights while driving the country highways in heavy rain. As the drops splashed from the shiny black pavement, they seemed to turn into frogs that were hopping wildly. That part was freaky enough, but all of the ones I saw were leaping in the same direction, say from right to left. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. There was no way to avoid them, either. Naturally, it was difficult to see at 60 miles an hour, and I was always anxious to get home, have a martini, and hit the sack promptly.

Why one direction? Something to do with the wind? Maybe just the angle of my headlights, so I didn’t pick up on just as many hopping in the other direction?

A few miles later, I would encounter another flock (officially, a group of frogs is called a knot, a colony, or an army, go figure) all flying in the other direction, left to right.

The phenomenon didn’t appear every time I had a heavy-rain midnight, but it did happen enough times over the decade to repeat the show, something I didn’t connect to springtime.

Turns out, as a recent Sunday Afternoon presentation at the Eastport Arts Center prompted, I wasn’t hallucinating. Didn’t need my eyes checked or a pair of glasses for driving. And wasn’t losing my mind. Frogs, toads, and salamanders have a Big Night (or two) in early spring when heavy rain, an inch or more, combines with thawing ice and snow to signal the amphibians to leave their winter shelter and return to emerging ephemeral vernal pools for breading. The high, shrill chirping chorus of peepers soon fills the night air for a few weeks after.

The temporary shallow ponds are fishless, and thus free of predators in the amphibian-breeding forest wetlands. With their job done around the time summer rolls in, the pools dry up for another year.

How do you feel about money?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Here’s a collection of captivating money quips, should you want to showcase your success and financial flair. Better yet, as I suggest in the Talking Money category at my Chicken Farmer blog, use these and others you come across as prompts for personal examination and study-group discussion. They’re more loaded than you likely expect.

  1. Money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy freedom.
  2. The best investment you can make is in yourself.
  3. Money isn’t everything, but it sure does help.
  4. The only way to have more is to make more.
  5. Money makes the world go round.
  6. The key to success is financial intelligence. (And what, dare we ask, is success?)
  7. Making money is hard work, but it’s worth it.
  8. Focus on making money and the money will follow.
  9. The more you learn, the more you earn.
  10. Wealth isn’t measured by money, but by the impact you make.

 

 

Fir tipping is a big job around here

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The signs “fir tippers wanted” this time of year can be puzzling, so here’s the scoop for those of you who don’t live in Maine.

  1. Christmas wreath makers need stands of evergreens to shape into their festive rings. In Maine, the traditional material is the tips of balsam fir branches. Don’t confuse the inch-long needles for spruce or hemlock.
  2. “Tippers” are the folks who have the skills to collect tips that usually range between 12 to 20 inches.
  3. Quality needles are found only in the mid-section of the tree. Tops and bottoms are deemed unsuitable.
  4. The season is short. The greens cannot be collected before the “tips” are set when a tree goes dormant for winter, usually around November 1, and that’s if the stand has had three nights of 20-degree or lower nights. (Beware of global warning.) Any earlier and the tips lose their needles prematurely. But the wreath-makers do need to get the product to market before Christmas Day, too. It gets busy.
  5. Millions of wreaths are crafted in the state each Christmas season. The trees are abundant and the fir branches are easily worked. Balsam is pleasant to smell, too.
  6. The work is a welcome boost in income for many rural families and comes after the crops are in.
  7. Tips can be harvested by a firm grasp between forefinger and thumb followed by a quick downward motion. Loppers or pruners do the trick for more out-of-the-way tips.
  8. Skilled tippers leave enough on a tree for it to recover in about three years.
  9. The tips are commonly gathered on a “stick” made of a small conifer stripped of most of its branches. When the stick has 40 to 75 pounds of tips, it’s carried off. Bundling the tips into smaller bunches is another method of transport.
  10. Tippers do need to get permission before harvesting from a site. Sometimes that means paying a fee for a permit.

– Source: University of Maine Cooperative Extension Service

Show some sympathy for those poor, lowly paid beleaguered clerks

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

They’re probably not to blame. Look, they’re usually struggling figures who all too often have to face self-entitled a-holes at the checkout counter or their equally crushed managers overhead. Here are a few things they’d love to tell you or maybe the offender before you or even their bosses.

Yes, here’s what they’d really love to say.

  1. “Let’s trade places. I’ll be the rude one, and you try to stay patient.”
  2. “If only our coffee was as strong as your attitude!”
  3. “Your tone is getting a price tag.”
  4. “Customers like you really test our ‘service with a smile’ policy.”
  5. “Your points would be more valid if they were less veiled in rudeness.”
  6. “We’re here to serve, not to be served attitude.”
  7. “Your words are as sweet as a lemon. Sarcasm intended.”
  8. “We promise fast service, not a tolerance for fast insults.”
  9. “You’ve mistaken my patience for a dumping ground.”
  10. “Have a nice day, somewhere else.”

While we’re at it, let’s go for a second round.

  1. “I appreciate your perspective, but rudeness is an extra charge we didn’t agree upon.”
  2. “Your impatience is understandable. Is it as urgent as your need for a manners refresher?”
  3. “Don’t worry, we charge by the item, not by the attitude.”
  4. “The ‘customer is always right’ policy doesn’t cover personal attacks. Please read the fine print.”
  5. “Did you mistake this conversation for an auction? Because you’re really bidding high on rudeness.”
  6. “We provide services, not psychic readings. Kindly state your problem, not your tantrum.”
  7. “Our products come with a warranty, but our tolerance for rudeness does not.”
  8. “Patience is a virtue, but it seems your cart is empty.”
  9. “The complaint box is for suggestions, not character assassinations.”
  10. “In our store, ‘sale’ applies to items, not civility.”

Or even a third.

  1. “We value customer feedback, but your rudeness is more of a monologue than a dialogue.”
  2. “Our goal is customer satisfaction, not ego inflation.”
  3. “Let me put you back into the waiting line.” However many hours that means.
  4. “Our service may be fast, but ‘instant respect’ isn’t on our menu.”
  5. “Our prices are competitive, but our patience isn’t limitless.”
  6. “We accept all major credit cards, but we don’t accept rudeness.”
  7. “This is a business, not a battlefield. Let’s keep the conversation civil.”
  8. “This is a store, not a stage. Kindly lower the drama.”
  9. Merry Christmas to you, too. And a *** New Year.
  10. Expletives deleted.