Thoughts and ideas swirl around in my head constantly. I can’t seem to turn it off. I’ve tried meditation, going for long walks, and just listening to music. Yet the noise in my head is ever present, like a wild rain.
I discovered that journaling was a great way to clear my mind. The very act of writing down my thoughts and ideas would instantly bring relief. It felt like an overflowing water butt leaking from the lid and then someone opened up the tap to fill a watering can. The purpose of the butt being realised: to collect and dispense rain water. The pressure relieved.
Wild Rain is my digital journal of thoughts and ideas that swirl around in my head before being poured into this digital repository for me to play with, edit, refine and then.. forget. Returning only when the pressure builds up again.
I’ve learned that if you leave too many thoughts and ideas in your head for too long then new ones don’t happen. It’s like your brain is waiting for you to action them. Saying “Hey I thought of these great ideas, now it’s over to you to do something with them”. Writing them down feels like they’ve been addressed, now the brain is free to think about something new. Content in the knowledge that whatever it thinks about will be processed later.
Category: life
Retirement is wasted on the old
What would you do if you didn’t need money?
Think about that for a moment. Most of what we do each day is dictated by money. Going to work, shopping, holidays, going for a drive, eating out, etc etc.
If money was no longer an issue, what would you do?
Travel the world, visit family and friends more, write a book just for fun, learn to paint, get fit, sleep more, spend more time in the garden.
I’ve been hanging out with a few retired friends recently and they had faced this very question. They no longer needed to work. They either reached retirement age and had enough saved, or they inherited money or sold a business and decided they were done working for money.
So what did they end up doing?
One learned to paint and spent more time in his garden, joining a few clubs such as a book club, mahjong and scrabble, and a dining club. Another tinkers with old cars in his garage and buys stuff that he couldn’t afford when they were younger just to tinker with or display for no one but themselves to see. Another travels and writes about their adventures.
Thinking about it, there is nothing stopping us non retirees from doing any of this. We can travel, paint, garden, tinker. Why put something off til the tail-end of your life? I mean, there’s no guarantee that you will get there so why put the fun stuff off? Why not have mini retirements? Save up and take breaks throughout your career. Six months here, a year there, and so on.
Retirement is wasted on the old.
Make a list of what you would do if you could and start doing them now.
Head in the clouds
Not everyone wants to constantly work in the cloud. Some of us like to be offline on occasion. Yet the extra hurdles you have to go through just to create something offline can be taxing.
Take Microsoft Windows for example. Let’s say you want to create an account on your laptop for your spouse or child and they don’t have a Microsoft account and don’t need one. Yet when you try to create an account for them it takes three times as long and it’s not immediately apparent how to do it.
Using Google drive and you enter an area with no internet or phone reception? You are done. The app stops working even though you should be able to work offline. You can’t edit your files anymore. They become greyed-out. Same with a myriad of other apps. It’s as if app makers these days don’t understand how someone cannot be online. The amount of errors my phone apps generate when I go offline without selecting the aeroplane icon. Did the QA guys not test the possibility of someone wanting to work offline?
Nowadays I have backups. Really basic free apps that allow me to work without constant internet access. I just copy my files into them and work on them when I’m in a dead zone. Plus there’s the added bliss that no one can reach you to disturb you.
Rant over..
Big faceless organisations
I miss the days before the internet sometimes. Especially when dealing with companies. They think they are being efficient dealing with customers only through the web or an app, using AI agents to deal with enquiries and having complex digital complaints procedures.
Once they have your money and you experience problems with their product or service, good luck reaching an actual human to talk to. Or getting your money back.
If you are an IT geek though you might have a chance. I’ve managed to talk to humans and get my money back on several occasions, but it took a bunch of skills that the average person just doesn’t have such as:
– Understanding how web pages work and reading the page source
– OSINT
– How to hack AI
– Side-channels
– Exploiting software bugs
It shouldn’t require a degree in IT in order to get decent customer service but that’s been my experience.
Lists 2.0
I’m a big fan of lists. To do lists, checklists, packing lists, you name it I’ve turned it into a list. I recently learned that ChatGPT is great at lists.
Very detailed lists.
Need to plan a vacation? It will generate a list of things you need to take into consideration, in addition to what to pack. Shopping for a new laptop, car, or even a house? It can quickly knock you up a list with indented bullet-points on everything you need. Need to make a plan should a disaster occur, maybe a nuclear war or zombie outbreak? Yep it will create a detailed survival plan complete with supplies list in seconds.
Lists 2.0: create your unique custom lists with AI!
Online job hunting in 2024
Looking for work online, especially in the IT industry is pretty brutal in 2024. Assuming you do find roles that match your criteria, over 100 applicants have probably already applied. Using tried and tested techniques you tailor your CV and cover letter to the job description in the hope of moving to the front of the pile. Fingers crossed!
You hear nothing.
LinkedIn will usually provide information on the agent advertising the role along the lines of “This person generally responds within X number of days”. Yet they never do. You hear nothing despite all the time you took to research the role and craft your application.
It’s not rudeness, it’s a combination of inefficiency, a lack of automation, and unprofessionalism. Don’t take it personally. Assuming the job is real (more on that later) chances are that there were too many applicants and the agent did not have enough time to respond to all. Automation would help here, but not many agents use it, or use it well. Then there’s the unprofessionalism. A lot of agents are young, college graduates, or fell into the role after their intended career path didn’t lead them where they wanted. Recruitment is not their passion. Don’t bother remembering their names, next month they’ll be doing something else. The recruitment sector has a high turnover rate. Combined with mad incentive schemes and recruitment targets it’s all just a fast-paced game that many fail, and you, unfortunately, are just a pawn on the board.
Then there’s the jobs that don’t exist. Or might, possibly, in the future. Some recruiters like to predict market trends and monitor local news to guess who may be hiring and what kind of jobs. So they create fake job profiles to bring in candidates so that they are ready to go should the roles actually materialise. Most don’t and your data has now been harvested into a recruiter database.
You did read the terms right?
Chances are they may put you forward for roles without your permission just to prevent other recruiters from doing the same. It may be worth requesting your data be removed from recruiters that have not successfully sourced you a role. They may even sell your data on. Or if they are swallowed up by a bigger firm your data may be merged into another database that you did not consent to.
Between being ghosted, ignored, and harvested, you may become somewhat depressed. Don’t be. Its just a game and unfortunately in 2024 it’s brutal. But there are ways of taking back control, one of which is to become your own agent. One with a single candidate: you.
Look for potential employers or clients yourself. Tap your network for leads. Promote your candidate at every opportunity. Sell sell sell!
Go give it a try. You might find it fun. You’ll definitely learn what it’s like to be a recruiter, and about self promotion. Just don’t take being ignored, rejection, or being ghosted personally. It’s just a game.
See you in 2025!
Merry Christmas
I miss the Christmas I enjoyed as a kid.
To me it was all about family and being together. It wasn’t about decorations, lights, food, toys and gifts. It wasn’t commercial. I would probably be happy with a lump of (smokeless) coal. As long as my family was there and we were all healthy and happy.
Forget the handing out of (wish)lists and Amazon vouchers. Forget having to deal with packed town centers and inflated prices. Forget having to pay for packs of over-priced postal stamps.
A mince pie by an open fire. Playing family games and forgetting to watch the royal speech. Marking everything you intend to watch in the only copy of the Radio Times you’ll buy this year and then promptly forgetting to watch anything as planned. Having a drink or two after the kids have all gone to bed as the embers die down in the open fire and the Christmas tree lights twinkle. Remembering all the good things that happened this past year whilst ignoring the bad. Making resolutions.
So that’s the Christmas I intend to enjoy this year.
Merry Christmas all!
Museums
I love museums.
My friends and family get bored easily when I drag them around yet another museum or art gallery. But I love them. They transport me back in time into history. They bring what I have read in books alive. I can see the objects, clothes, furniture, and rooms from different periods, cultures, and countries.
I can get lost in a museum. The bigger the better. I’ve spent many hours in the British Museum and The Louvre. I’ve stood beneath objects so big in the Cairo museum, and stared at the small Mona Lisa as tourists walk by, snap a pic, then keep on walking. Did they really see it or did their phone see it for them?
I’ve been in museums in the Americas, Australasia, Africa, and Europe. I’ve been invited into archives and restoration rooms, been to early screenings, grand openings, and closings.
I love museums.
Distances as a kid
When looking for work distance is something that we generally take into consideration. How far do we have to travel to get there each day? How much is it going to cost in time and money? We consider distance when we consider going shopping, collecting something or someone, holidays, and buying a home; how far is the nearest pub, shops, or public transport?
Yet when we were children distance was something to be conquered. The further the better. When I was twelve I cycled on my single-speed Raleigh Tomahawk all the way to my Grandma’s. Eight adventurous miles through dodgy housing estates, parks, open land, and beside busy roads. My folks thought I was still playing in our street until Grandma called to say I had arrived.
In my early teens I once cycled over thirty miles from a caravan site back home on my own after my mate, who had cycled there with me so we could spend the day with family, suffered a bike accident meaning he and his damaged bike had to be collected and returned home. There wasn’t space for me and my Raleigh Phantom so I decided I’d race them home. They gave me a ten minute head start and I got there twenty minutes after them but it was an exhilarating fast ride back! Not a thought entered my head about how far it was or that I’m having to cycle on my own with no one to talk to. Just the drive to get back as fast as possible, just me and my bike against the world.
Half the fun of travelling is the journey.
Don’t be in a rush to get somewhere.
LAN parties of old
About twenty years ago I started attending LAN parties with a bunch of mates. Over the years we would use these LAN parties as an excuse to catch-up, play some games, eat pizza, and drink beer.
Twenty years later and we are still doing it. Still playing the same old games (running in compatibility mode), still eating pizza and drinking beer.
Should it feel strange at our age? No! You are never too old to reminisce over a retro game or two with friends.