Retention Deficit Disorder

When I was a kid, I was proclaimed the smartest thing on the planet by my parents and every teacher I ever met.  I was constantly told that I was smarter than either of my siblings (and they both graduated with almost perfect grades), and that I was going somewhere great.  That is a lot of pressure to put on a kid.  I certainly didn’t appreciate it, and I didn’t deal with it very well.  The main problem was that being a smart kid usually means getting beaten up and generally picked on almost every day of your life.  When you add smart to the already lethal combination of being short with red hair, you are guaranteed to be destroyed.

I was in the Talented and Gifted program, of TAG for short.  There were about half a dozen kids from the school who were deemed worthy and we got to get out of class once a week and sit around with some other teacher who ran the program and challenged us to bigger and better things.

How did I cope with it?  Not very well, actually.  I didn’t really enjoy being forced to sit in the back of the classroom reading silently while the other kids learned a task that I mastered several months before them.  I saw who the cool kids were, and what it took to be one of them.   I realized that being smart was not the way to go.

So how do you not be smart, when you already are?  You slowly, gradually dumb yourself down to the level of other kids.  As you are trying to master being average, you also hone your wit to a cutting edge.  You master sarcasm (because no one understands your jokes anyway), and use it as a weapon.  Before you know it you are the class clown, and  no one really knows why they are laughing at you when they can’t understand your jokes.  But you dumb down the jokes enough and people really start laughing.  The same people that were beating you up a year before are now laughing at the things you do and say.  What a relief!  Then you quit the TAG program because it really cramps your style.

It took many years to dumb myself down to the level of people around me, but it worked.  I graduated high school with a meager 3.0 average.  I didn’t go on to college right away, but worked in dead-end physical labor jobs.  Eventually, I went on to college to get a degree in Forestry, not exactly what my parents and teachers thought I would be doing with my life.  After all, I was the smartest and most talented child they had ever seen.  The only problem was, they hadn’t done the right things to encourage greatness.  They pressured for results, instead of encouraging growth and exploration.  I felt trapped in a world I didn’t understand, and even worse, I was alone there.  Maybe the right kind of environment would have helped propel me to greatness.  Maybe I wouldn’t have almost flunked 8th grade because I didn’t care anymore.  Maybe I would have aspired to bigger and better things.

But I didn’t.  I chose the path of least resistance.  I went the way of the clown, the one who everyone wants to be around.  I wanted to be accepted way more than I ever wanted to be respected.  Friends were more important than grades and accolades.

You want to know something else?  I am probably better off because of my choices.  My life is great.  The only real stress in ly life comes from having 3 (yes, 3) daughters.  The stress I feel there is mostly my own fault, because I let the little things bother me, and I am working on letting it go.  I just want to enjoy them, not yell at them for making a mess.

So here’s to all the smart kids out there.  If you’re lucky, you will figure out that friends and family are way more important than getting straight A’s on your report card.  Try to enjoy the little things in life, not fret over them.

Doomed to Failure Again

So I promised myself that I would spend more time with my friends after one passed away recently.  I have tried, but it seems that my friends don’t like me.  At least that’s what I assume when I call them several times and never get a return call.  I leave messages every time, but they never seem to get back to me.

This has been apparent to me on several occasions.  Once, a few months back, I was traveling for work.  I was in the hotel lounge having a few drinks when it dawned on me that there were several people I hadn’t spoke to in a few months.  After making about 6-8 phone calls and not getting a single person on the other end of the phone I came to the conclusion that my “friends” were ignoring me.  How else can you explain not a single person being available to talk at 9 o’clock in the evening on a weeknight?

Have I been a bad friend to everybody?  Am I just really annoying and nobody will tell me?  If that’s the case, I would love to know so that I can attempt to not be pain in the ass so that I may retain at least a few friendships.   It’s not like I gave any of my friends my blog address so that they can see my pain and suffering.  I will have to figure it out for myself I guess.

Job Update

So I didn’t get the job with the State. Oh well. That just means that I don’t have to sell the new house and uproot my family. A good friend of mine actually got the job instead. I am torn between being happy for him and wanting to strangle him for getting the job.

I am perfectly happy with the job I have and make decent money. This was just a chance to advance my career a little earlier than I had planned. And now we have time to finish the updates to the house before we have to sell.

Job Worries

So, I interviewed for the job with the State of Michigan, and I did talk to my employer about it. He was very understanding and encouraged me to apply for any job that would further my career. I was very relieved to get that off my chest.

The new problem is that the State of Michigan is currently in a budget crisis. There appears to be a governmental shutdown on the horizon. This means that all “non-essential services” would be shut down on October 1st and not resumed until a budget is passed and signed by the governor.

This means that if I am offered the job, there won’t be a job for sometime still. If they offer, what do I tell them? “I would love to accept, but I have to wait to see if you have any money to pay me.” How does that sound? Ugh.

They are supposed to make a decision and offer a job sometime in the next few work days, I believe. If there is nobody working in the DNR, who is going to make the decision and offer me my new job? This sucks.

Joey? He’s Just Faaaabulous!

There is a fantastic article over at the Detroit Free Press website about former Lions quarterback Joey Harrington. I think many Lions fans have not forgiven Joey for his crap-tacular performance a few years back. Oh well, here’s to Jon Kitna-the only NFL quarterback to take every single snap for his team last season. I can’t think of another quarterback that has done that in recent history. I swear there is a clause in his contract that says he can’t be pulled from a game no matter how bad he is playing, or how many interceptions he throws, or how bad the team is losing.

Random Thoughts About Family Vacations

After a wonderful (almost) long weekend of cabin-camping with my entire immediate family, and then some, I am reminded of why we don’t do it more often. It’s not that we didn’t have a good time, because we did. It’s just that my wife and I really hate being on anybody else’s schedule. When we are on vacation, we make the rules (or lack thereof). When we are on vacation with 10 other people, the rules are made be random committees, or sometimes they appear out of nowhere (“Well, I heard that dinner is at 5, and so-and-so said this, and…). This can be very frustrating, especially when you are sharing a cabin with your parents, and your brother.

When you only have 3 days to cram a whole lot of visiting in with people you only see every few months, things can be hectic. Everybody wants to do something, and trying to fit it all in can make you crazy. Everybody else that was there was staying for a whole week, so they had plenty of time after we left to just relax and enjoy the beautiful scenery and the wonderful weather. Again, I am not complaining, just thinking out-loud about how to enjoy this better next year (and, yes, this trip happens every year for the last few years-this was just the first time we have been able to join them).

My wife and kids got to see all my favorite spots of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, while I stayed home and worked to fund their little jaunt through nature. Lucky little ungrateful snots. I merely joined them for the aforementioned 3-day trip to the lovely Curtis, MI.

The highlights of the trip? Getting to canoe the Two-Hearted River (Not the Big Two-Hearted, for that is just a fictional representation of some river in the U.P. Many think it was actually the Fox River, some say it was the Two-Hearted River, but it really doesn’t matter). Although 6 hours on the river without a shirt lead to second-degree burns on my back that are now peeling and generally feeling icky. Also, we got to see where the wildfire had swept through just recently. And we got to see planes from Minnesota’s DNR scoop water out of the lake we were camping on. Very cool!

So, what is the final culmination of my incoherent ramblings about family vacations? I don’t know. I just needed some time to babble incoherently. If you read this post, I am very sorry for your luck. Please see Marge on your way out the door. She will refund your entry fee and give you back the five minutes you wasted here today. Thank you and Come Again!

Here I Go Again…

So I submitted my resume for a job as a Forester with the State of Michigan this week. This was only 1 day after complaining about not being able to settle into a job! I blame my wife and kids for me looking for a job with benefits. How dare they expect to be taken care of! I could have coasted along aimlessly for another year or so in my job before I really had to make a move. But my wife always inspires me to grow professionally as well as personally. The Nerve!

So to make matter worse, I haven’t told my employer that I have applied for a job. What is the rule on this? Do I wait until I have an interview to tell him? Or should I wait until I have accepted a position with another company or a gov’t position? Should I give him a “heads-up” that I am shopping around? I know he can find somebody to fill my position in a relatively short time, but I have been here for almost 2 years now, and I would like to think I am an integral part of the company (mind you-I am the only employee in the company, so I have been working side-by-side with the owner for the entire time I have been here).

What is the etiquette here? I have never felt this way about leaving a job in the past. Maybe it’s because I really love my job, along with the flexibility it provides me as far as hours, location and so on. I make a good wage (better than other entry-level positions in my field), but I have no chance for benefits working for a small company. I have a certain amount of loyalty to my employer, but more to my wife and kids.

I guess I will have to wait until I at least know if I will get a interview before I start stressing out about informing my employer of my intentions. Or maybe not…Gaaahhhh! I really hate being a grown-up. It really sucks sometimes.

What do You Want to be When You Grow Up?

How many of us actually have the job that we said we wanted when we were in school? Is it possible to pick a career path at the age of 16 and stick with it until we retire?

In high school, I thought I wanted to be a computer engineer, or a programmer, or something else in the exciting world of computers. That was in the early- to mid-90’s when computers were just starting to gain mass popularity. I am not working with computers for a living now (except for the fact that every job now entails several hours per day at a computer, so I guess we all are in a way). Instead, I chose to go the opposite route. I am a forester. Most people don’t know what a forester is, and this is not the post to discuss the finer points of my choice of careers. The point is that I went from wanting to work with the highest technology possible to working in a field where my measurements are taken using centuries old methods.

This wasn’t even my second, or my third, or even my fourth choice of career paths. This pattern led to a very long college career as well. I heard a statistic a couple years back that said the average American would change careers 3-4 times in their lifetime. That amount of change must sometimes come along with a change of address and sometimes a new state or even a new country of residence.

So maybe I am not the only person who, at the age of 29 (I won’t say I am 30 until that fateful day actually arrives), is still trying to figure out what he wants to do with his life. I have a family to take care of and a mortgage and a car payment too. I can’t afford to just sit around trying to figure out what I want to do. I have to make a carefully-considered choice while planning for the months ahead and making sure there is food on the table for my little girls.

I see this pattern in my friends as well. Those with good jobs are still taking calls from head-hunters about different, better jobs which will supposedly be the one to fill the void in their lives. Is it possible to fill that void? I think that as a species, we have not been able to evolve as quickly as the technology we continue to invent has. We are bombarded by stimuli that our grandparents (only 50 years ago) would have thought was “The Devils Work.” We can’t process all of the new stuff as fast as it gets shoved in our faces.

I don’t think I will ever know the answer to the question in the title of this post. I am constantly exploring new options, hoping that the next job will be the one that makes me stop wondering about what it all means. Until then, I am off to crash through the woods and try to enjoy the time I have left in this position before I find the next big thing.