Matching Tracksuits

This is a test — I’m going to keep my journal in Word just for the hell of it this month. I don’t know whether this is a wise thing or not — I’ve been keeping it in Word Perfect for such a long time and I’ve always been such a staunch opponent of Word. Of course, I do everything else in Word because of work, so I’m more accustomed to Word at this point than to WordPerfect. Perhaps I’ll end up converting this at some point. One thing that WordPerfect has over Word at this level is the ability to change keyboards. Of course I’m sure you can do it in Word as well, so . . .

Today was our first day at the new office in Medford. I can say one thing about it — corporate. It’s certainly not as homey as the office in Arlington, though the commute is about the same. And of course there’s all the cubicles. I don’t know if I’m so anti-cube as others, but it’s a drastic change from the other office. At the same time, I was in that little private office for such a long time that I really wasn’t part of the outer gang.

One thing that really struck me today was the hierarchy that has suddenly appeared. Well, not “suddenly appeared” — it’s always been there, it just wasn’t visible. Until today. For example, Adam now has a private office with very nice furniture and such — of course, it doesn’t have any windows whatsoever, and I guess that’s the trade. At any rate, what became obvious right away was that I am rather far down the rung, so to speak. As is Rob for that matter. I’m about as far down as you can get, I guess. I don’t really care — and I really expected nothing less — but it was startling to realize that suddenly today. A little disturbing as well. I’m just accustomed to seeing everyone around at the same time, and now it’s certainly not the case.

On the other hand, it’s interesting how much things have changed since I first arrived a few months ago. I remember Bob running around, Celina at Beth’s desk (I think?) and such — pastries and lots of empty space.

(The Word experiment lasted only a few minutes — I’ll just continue keeping it in WordPerfect for the foreseeable future.)

Today was a day of hierarchy — as I rode the 86 home, some police officers roared down the road and began directing traffic (though they didn’t block things off until we’d passed) so that, at some point, some person we’ve decided is important could pass through without waiting. Why shouldn’t they have to wait in traffic like the rest of us? “People will assassinate them!” Chhavi responded, and I suppose she has a point there — it is certainly a possibility. Still, it’s a little annoying that we’re sitting there waiting while this joker roars by without any interference.

One last thing about today’s adventures: just after I got on the bus (the 86) at Sullivan Station, someone else boarded — the woman with curly hair and a semi-flat, long nose that gets on across from the Harvard Stadium every day. I’d noticed that she doesn’t get off at the Harvard stop, but I’d no idea how far she went. Now I guess I know. Funny thing is, I seem to see her all the time. She was at Stop ‘n’ Shop a few weeks ago — she was with a bunch of folks, whom I assumed to be her roommates (though I could very well be wrong. So now I’m wondering if I see her again whether I should now talk to her. She’s drawn my gaze several times and I’d really like to see what kind of a person she is — in a way, part of it is simply that I’d like to know what kind of voice she has. Anyway, I think I’ll strike up a conversation if she’s waiting at the same time tomorrow — or any other day, I guess.

Another interesting happening today — I talked to Jill (the absolutely stunning sales woman) for a few minutes and actually felt as if she wasn’t just tolerating me. I often feel that she’s merely gritting her teeth and enduring any short conversation we might have. Today, however, was a different story. We had a very pleasant — albeit very shallow — chat. Of course I’m not really looking for more than that, but it was certainly a nice change.

God, this is like something I would have written in high school — perhaps about Christy Anderson. chaut. I guess it just shows that we don’t ever really outgrow certain things — insecurities remain no matter what.

My weekly, pathetic journal entry. The end of the month and I’m at the top of page seven. I should be flogged — after the journal I kept in Poland, I feel so guilty about writing so very little. “Guilty” is perhaps the wrong word — I don’t know what the right word is, but I don’t like “guilty.” It’s just a little odd — I feel sad I guess that my life isn’t so filled with activity and interactions as it used to be. I’ve been keeping an extensive journal up to this point because I was in college, then in Poland — lots of interaction with lots of people. Now, few people at work.

That being said, lots of stuff could be written about how things are going at work. First, Friday was our last day in Arlington — tomorrow I take the 86 all the way to Sullivan, then take the Orange Line to Wellington Station. I’ve no idea how long that will take, but it sounds like a slightly easier commute in a way. But I have fewer choices coming home — I must take the 86, so I’ll have to keep track of the time better since it leaves so infrequently at night. Anyway, that’s not the truly interesting event-of-the-week. More significantly — things on the religion course have been shaken up quite a bit. Val, Adam, Kali, Rob, and I had a meeting on Tuesday about the future of the religion course. Adam had finally read the proposed demo chapters and come to the conclusion that we need to write the theme chapters last. And, to a large degree, I now agree. In fact, I’ve proposed — or will — that we finish up the Judaism chapters and market it as A Thematic Introduction to Rabbinic Judaism and clean up the Christianity chapters to be marked as An Introduction to the Life of Jesus as Presented in the Gospels or some similar nonsense and then start all over and write a true introduction to world religions. We can follow the thematic outline/idea set forth at the beginning, but at any rate, I don’t think we’re going to be doing ourselves any good by continuing this project as it stands.

Another decision I’ve made — I’m going to do everything in my power to be working full time with on the tech side within a year. I’m going to talk to Peter tomorrow to see if he’s still willing and desiring such a thing, and if he’d be willing to pay for me to take an intro to Java course. Then I’ll have to talk to Rob, Kali, and Val about this and see if I can get the cliché wheels in motion. The whole religion project is getting to be a nasty mess and I want less and less to do with it. I’ve been working with the Visual Basic editor in Word and Excel and thoroughly enjoying it — I think that’s what I want to do. It might get my personal writing back on track if I’m not spending all day reading and writing about religion as it stands.

Instead, I stayed inside all day and developed pictures — about 25 total. It amazes me how much time is required just for a few pictures. I think I’m getting faster and faster, but it’s growing to be a bit of a pain in the ass. I’d love to have a little room like the shoe/coat room in the LW apartment where I could leave it all set up — including the chemcials, covered in plastic wrap or something — and then I could just go in and develop three or four pictures here and there and it wouldn’t be so damn time consuming. But I would also probably spend more money doing it that way (by developing more pictures, of course) , so maybe this is for the best.

No letters this week. A bit of a disappointment, but nothing major. I have consolation in the fact that I’ll be leaving for Poland in only a few weeks now. In two months and a week, in fact, I’ll be arriving in Lipnica. And in two months, a week, and a few hours, I’ll be walking in to urek again for the first time in over a year, seeing tons of people I haven’t seen in ages. Well, not “ages” — that makes it sound like it’s been a matter of years as opposed to a single year. Of course for me, in many ways, it has been more than a year.

Things at DLG are fine. I did a shitload of hours this week, but I guess that’s good. I finished reading all the theme and Christianity chapters we’ve received thus far. We’re still waiting on the “Casting Jesus” chapter from Harvey Cox, but I’ve no idea when that will arrive. Some of the last chapters Whit wrote, though, were absolutely awful. The chapter on sacrifice was so poorly organized with so many content questions that it was all I could do to make my way through it. The introductory chapters for both “courses” had about 700 words in common — he plagiarized himself, basically. Does he deserve the $10,000 for getting it in before 15 April? I’ve no idea. I’m inclined to say he deserves some of it — maybe $5,000, but Rob thinks that Bob will want it to be an all-or-nothing deal. Who knows.

The point is, I’ve done everything I can do now and I’m just waiting for a content developer to go back and deal with all the issues I have. I think some of the chapters are just going to have to be re-written. That bit on Durkheim is completely inadequate — in fact, it’s not even accurate. So frustrating. And the sacrifice chapter — a waste. The chapter on the resurrection and appearances — a waste. He spends most of his time in that chapter talking about what Jesus is like in the Gospel of John. Three pages on the resurrection, then six on some nonsense.

Jim M. (editor for Western Civ I) said that Val told him about a conversation he (Val) and with someone from Houghton Mifflin about writing textbooks. When they get the text from the author, they look at it and if it’s not acceptable, the send it back and tell the prof to re-write. If it’s still unacceptable, they send it back again — and they don’t pay until they’re happy with the product. Not a bad approach. Would it work for us? Who knows.

I woke up at two this morning thinking about — of all things — DLG, Rob, and coming interviews. He’s put an ad in the ARA bulletin and we’ve been swamped with resumes and writing samples. Monday we had a gentleman come in and we basically hired him to do the temple module. That’s fine, and from what I can tell, he’ll do a good job of it. The problem is two-fold:

• The job description in the ARA ad describes the need for someone who specializes in Christianity, particularly early Christianity.
• Rob is completely unwilling to advertise for a world-religions scholar at this point. He wants to wait until we have the other courses.

Of course, once we get the other courses up, then the majority of the work that a full-time person would do will already be done. What do we need a full-time person for now? Rather, what could a full-time person be doing right now?

• Writing glossary terms
• Writing bio terms
• Writing overviews
• Checking for general content clarity
• Writing study questions
• Developing modules

Instead, we’re getting together today at ten to talk about what we want this person who’s coming in for an interview this afternoon to do. So Rob’s already decided that he wants to hire her, but not full time. He only wants her to develop some modules or something. We’ve got someone else coming in on Thursday and a fourth dropping by on Monday. That’s just entirely too many.

I’m worried about it from their perspective, too. These are not grad students looking for a little extra work to put some money in their pockets; they’re not professors looking for some kind of research project. They’re people with doctorates who need full time jobs using the knowledge they’ve spent X years developing.

So what do we do? We talk to Timothy and give him a project worth a maximum (if he’s lucky) of $1,000 with no assurance that he’ll get any more work, and a virtual assurance that we won’t be hiring him full time. That’s completely unethical.

Not only that, but it takes an inordinate amount of time for me to come out and talk about the stupid modules. Why the hell can’t Rob? That’s his job — interviewing and so on. I’ve got plenty I need to be doing. Among other things, that chapter six is going to need some serious work. I’ve not touched it in a week or more simply because I had other responsibilities and I thought I’d just get Whit to re-write it. But what was I thinking there!? Whit’s got enough work as it is. He’s probably not going to make the 15 April incentive date and we’re going to be scrambling to get stuff up by 1 June. I could very easily take a day (which is probably the maximum needed) and do some research and re-write that section. But Rob has told me (and I hate being told what to do) that he doesn’t want me spending any time on that. Well, not spending too much time.

Working with him can really be infuriating. He’s always second-guessing things. But more infuriating is his unwillingness to learn how to use a computer. “Have we glossed this yet in this chapter?” he asks in a comment about a particular word, and I want to scream, “Press ‘Control-F’ and search for that word. If the first occurance is that awful green we’re using for glossary terms, then yes, it’s been glossed already.”

“Why don’t you just show him how to do that?” Chhavi might ask, were I to complain about this to her. The reason I wouldn’t even dream of it is that Rob has convinced himself that he cannot do anything with computers and he’s closed to all suggestion to the contrary. I don’t know if it’s “learned helplessness” but he’s certainly not open to suggestion concerning this. And so he’s always calling on me or Asnel or Luis to come solve a problem that he could easily do himself. I’ll admit that some of it is just knowing your way around a program. For example yesterday he asked me to turn off the auto-formatting in Word and I did so. He was wandering around the right place (in the tools menu) but he was in the wrong specific locality (options). No problem there. It’s things like his unwillingness to learn now to “convert” files when all I do when he forwards them to me is save them to “My Documents” and then double click on it. I could download the Mac converter I have on my computer for him, but he wouldn’t want that. Dragging and dropping is too complicated. “I’ll just send it to you,” he’d say.

There’s so many annoying things about that company. Today, for example, is Wednesday and we all know what that means — editors’ flogging, uh, meeting. It might as well be a flogging considering how torturous it is. We go on and on about some of the stupidest things! And I’m sure everyone thought the whole gloss/bio issue was fairly stupid, but it was a matter that would affect the content. Mark’s nonsense about writing things as they appear in their native languages was simply a matter of taste, to a degree. In writing things in their Anglicized form we’re not making any sort of normative claim like we are in putting “Jehovah” or “Zeus” in the glossary.

When all of this was swirling around us at the last meeting, I scribbled a note to Mary: “Does this mean that we should write *** instead of Fyodor Dostoyevsky?” Stupid nonsense.

It’s all just an incredible waste of time in my humble. And it makes me think, “Maybe I should try to get myself ‘moved’ into the tech department.” Certainly there’s similar issues there, though. But it’s much less a matter of taste and interpretation, I would hope.

Strange things happening at work today. I was plugging away when Peter came into my little shared office and asked if he could talk to me for a few minutes. He motioned me to follow him into the techies’ room. Once there, he closed the door and began by saying that this was a “confidential” conversation. After the brief exchange we’d had over Kali and the linking tool, I was fairly sure it had something to do with that. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

To put it bluntly, he offered me a job. He knows that my knowledge of Visual Basic and programming in general is non-existent (though I think/fear he believes that I’m simply being modest when I say, “I don’t know any of this stuff.”), but he’s willing to train me/have me trained. He feels that I would be more of an asset to the company working on the tech side.

I really didn’t know what to say. It was like being offered a job to translate Russian literature: it’s something I’m interested in, but I don’t know the language in either case. And of course there’s the issue of abandoning Rob. First, I don’t want to because that would be immoral. And Peter expressed qualms about this as well, wondering aloud how quickly another editor could be hired. Second, I don’t know that I want to stop working on this side of the religion project. It’s really starting to take shape and it’s exciting to be see it happening. Third, I don’t know which would be better for my future plans. I want to get back into teaching at some point, and I don’t know which would be more advantageous for such a goal — most likely, my present job.

I still haven’t talked to Rob about this. I was going to mention it today — this afternoon, after we’d talked about modules — but I didn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to. I know he’s not going to be thrilled that I’m even considering it, even if I explain that I’m going to be working extra.

And that’s my initial answer: I want to do some overtime and perhaps work two or three hours a day (or more) on tech stuff after fulfilling all my editorial responsibilities. I talked to Peter briefly about coming in this weekend to begin learning a little Visual Basic, and he seemed to indicate that Sunday would be possible. So I might end up working six days a week, ten or more hours a day.

But let’s assume I do that. That would be twenty hours a week extra, and compensation for that would certainly be greater than the $15 an hour I was getting while working part time as an editor. Let’s say it’s $20 an hour. Then that’s an additional $400 a week (before taxes) which would wind up being something like $1,200 more a month. I could handle that. If I could keep up such a furious pace that long, I could pay off my entire undergrad loan in a year — or less, possibly. If it’s $25 an hour then that’s $500 a week, or $1,600 more a month (after taxes). At that rate, I would pay off my loan in a little more than six months! Who knows how long I could keep such a pace up, though.

This morning I woke up and I was barely able to think, let alone read, so I wrote a letter to Lidka and Bogusia — and I wrote it by hand, something I haven’t done in ages. I’ve been thinking that I should write to Halina again because I don’t really know if I answered her question, or rather, whether I gave her adequate advice as she asked for. Anyway, I was thinking about writing that letter by hand as well. What’s this world coming to, anyway? Gary, of all people, writing letters by hand?

I received a letter from Bogusia and Lydka (last year’s IIIB) — all in Polish, but I’m grateful nonetheless. They didn’t tell me much about school except to say they’re busy. No mention of Adam. In many ways I think that’s best because I don’t really want to get upset after reading a letter. And any time I hear about Adam or think about him, I want to strangle him. A perfect stranger.

Things at DLG are getting annoying. In a sense, anyway. Rob is incredibly opinionated, and while this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it’s grating on my nerves simply because he’s to the point that he sees many of his pronouncements as fact. He read over an “Overview” that someone (Jim, I think) had written and said it was simply awful: bad idea, bad writing, bad everything. And he was a little vocal about it — embarrassingly so. Since he’s writing the overviews, I’ll tell him he should just discuss it with Kali.

And that’s another issue altogether as well. She’s just as opinionated, I think, and that can be a pain in the ass as well. Not too bad — she’s not as bad as Rob. Or even Adam — though Adam does listen to your point of view a bit more willingly in a sense. Back to Kali — she wasn’t pleased with the work that Peter did on the linking tool because it doesn’t spit out gloss and bio lists. That’s easily enough solved, and to be honest, I did describe that in my initial proposal to/discussion with Peter. He was talking to me about it, somewhat perturbed for having spent time on it that could have been spent on the professors’ site. Oh well — such is life. Miscommunication.

Anyway, I guess I’m discovering the nature of what Dad was always complaining about when he came home from work: stupid work-place bureaucracy. Everything is discussed, discussed, discussed — until I’m not sure I can talk about it anymore. Today, for example, in the editors’ meeting I didn’t say much of anything until we were discussing the biography issue. And that was settled with merciful ease: we’re going to rename it “important figures” and then we can dump anyone in there.

I can just hear Rob talking about how awful “important figures” sounds. “That’s so bad. It’s vague. It’s just vague.” If he says something, I’ll just tell him, “Rob, I’m not the one with whom you should be arguing your case — talk to Kali about it.” He is just really critical of almost everything. But, to his credit, a lot of the things he says are quite pertinent. It’s just his method that’s a little askew at times. At least that’s what often puts me off.

Today has been a long but productive day — unlike yesterday. I went to work only to find that they didn’t have a free computer for me. Finally, Val (the new VP of production) told me I could use Regina’s because she was in a meeting, but I quickly determined that I’d be wasting my time there. Using someone else’s computer like that is akin to cooking in a stranger’s kitchen. And I knew I’d never get anything accomplished if I stayed there, so I did indeed just come home. I’ve overcome the “distraction factor” of being at home, so I do actually accomplish things while working here.

Today I worked on Neusner’s first two chapters, and Whit’s latest. I still feel a little uncomfortable having someone write the biggest chunk of the work (a total of twenty-eight chapters) who is just beginning work on his Ph.D., while Neusner has written over five hundred books and taught for many years. But that’s really not my concern, and I’m glad I don’t have to worry about it. I worry about it nonetheless, but it’s not my responsibility to worry about it. Anyway, Neusner’s first chapters are quite good — a little more academic than Whit’s work, but I don’t know if it’s inaccessible to undergrad students. Granted, a lot of it will have to be simplified, but it’s the wording/phrasing that will be changed (breaking sentences into two or three separate sentences) and not the actual content, I think.

I’ve begun reading my third Berger book, Invitation to Sociology. He has a chapter subtitled “Alienation and Biography.” In it he discusses how we view our biography depends on our perpective and what’s important to us at that given moment in our lives. Since, as Henri Bergson pointed out, even memory is a matter of interpretation, then it’s clear that even for ourselves we don’t have a definitive, normative biography. Things that seemed important as we did them (like talking to Deanna on the YOU trip) are later subsumed under the category of “irrelevant.” “As we remember the past, we reconstruct it in accordance with our present ideas of what is important and what is not” (56).

In this light, what we call “maturity” is radically different: “Maturity is the state of mind that has settled down, come to terms with the status quo, given up the wilder dreams of adventure and fulfillment” (55). What I see as “maturity” (i.e., having given up on my dream of being a musician) I would have seen as a pathetic lack of confidence as a “youngster.”

I have to decide what I want to do with my life; I have to make a decision regarding teaching — do I teach at the high school or university level? I don’t think I would mind the high school level if I could teach writing, but I don’t really care to teach literature at all. But I can be highly creative and sneak in bits of philosophy, sociology, and such. I re-read my letters from class IV and the overwhelming sense I got, even from them, was that they felt I should continue being a teacher because I’m good at it; I agree. So what to do?

I was reading from Pomerleau’s Western Philosophies of Religion a section on the debates between Copleston and Russell and the second set between Ayer and Copleston. They’re at (to use Pomerleau’s term) “loggerheads” at on many issues simply because they have conflicting, mutually exclusive rational explanations of the world around them. In a sense the debates were useless in that they didn’t provide a clearly victorious position. At the same time, they showed the weaknesses of each position and they illustrated (at least the first one) how dogmatic even a non-believe can be. We non-believers often like to think that dogmatism shows itself most often among “irrational believers” but quite often, the opposite is true.

One of the issues at stake in the Copleston/Russell debate was the argument from contingency. I find it interesting that people are still trying to prove God’s existence, or for that matter, trying to disprove it. I hope I avoid that issue personally, in my musings here. I realize that I can point out all the “logical” problems of Christian theology, but that even a mountainous pile of such problems will not constitute a “dis-proof” of Christianity. And I’m not even sure I want to do such a thing. It’s a matter of faith, and convincing a Christian that Christianity is illogical would be like stealing something from her. It provides some meaning in her life, and as long as her holding these ideas doesn’t result in anyone else’s harm, then what right have I to try to get her to change her mind?

And yet I do this with Chhavi all the time — especially regarding music. It seems kind of a silly thing to do, really. And yet I’m constantly criticizing her music. Well, not constantly, but enough. Or rather, too much.

Oh — an interesting thing happened on the number seventy-seven bus to work Wednesday. Marlon, the new graphics designer with a long, straggly goatee (it must be four inches long, maybe longer), mostly-shaved head, and a long wisp of thin, brittle hair in the back, Rob, and I were talking. We were sitting in the back of the bus, Marlon and I on the driver’s side, Rob directly across us — we were sitting in the seats that face each other and not the front of the bus. At some point the conversation moved to a topic that either excluded Rob or about which Rob had nothing to say. I believe we were talking about rent. Rob began singing to himself, with quite a bit of animation, as if he were performing in fact. It was very disconcerting, and I really felt like I was with a child who, not getting enough attention, was doing something to remedy that. I don’t know whether it was such (i.e., Rob didn’t like the fact that he felt excluded by the conversation) or whether it was simply a bizarre coincidence. It seemed a little too odd to be mere coincidence, though, for Rob’s never done anything like that. Of course how much time have we spent together outside the office? Certainly not enough for such a strange thing to be the basis of the assumptions I’m making. Perhaps he does this all the time. Curious, though, that he picked that moment to do it for the first time around me.

Another thing that lends credence to my interpretation of the situation was the fact that when I asked Rob what he was singing, he looked at me for a moment and said quickly, “Oh, you wouldn’t know it,” and just kept going. As if to exclude me by that act.