I took my first phone interview Friday, really two interviews. I spoke to the two guys in charge of an operation in Oklahoma. It’s a small outfit, but it makes real money licensing a product it develops, patents, and redevelops, then patents again. It would be a significant career shift, but it would require that I constantly experiment hands-on in a large lab space to keep the innovation cycle running. There’s also a clear path to leadership replacing the guys already running the operation. There’d be some light travel, too. And they want to meet the wife. According to the recruiter, the bosses are very impressed and very eager to enlist me with their firm. I scheduled a visit in approximately two weeks to meet face-to-face and see the facilities (and the promised corner office).

The only red flag (besides all the usual red flags which may be nothing) was the boss’s throwaway comment regarding showing the wife the local community: “Happy wife, happy life!” I don’t subscribe to this advice, and I’ve found it very deceiving. Women really want to be led (exceptions prove the rule), and so all the wife-pleasing tends to create interactions contrary to leading a woman.

I advise (after thirty one years of marriage) that men do what makes themselves happy. For most men, that includes treating his companions – including his wife – like valuable people. With that attitude, all the rest comes naturally.

One more bit of advice. I’ve read repeatedly that a man, if he’s interested in a woman, should invite her to join him in his life as he’s living it. That “first interview” needs to be something that the guy was doing with or without her. If she likes how he lives, then she’ll want to be part of that life. “Be yourself” has truth in that regard. Self-improvement feeds into that, too. I knew she was hooked when she just wanted to “come along” to where I was going anyway.

I’m getting through the worst of “hell week,” and I received a reprieve of sorts: the crew next in the production queue won’t be ready for my work product until late next week, so I can enjoy the long weekend and maybe slow down a bit this week, too.

In other news, I read some Spanish this week and didn’t need translation software. I hate understanding Spanish. It always leaves me feeling… dunno. Like I ate overripe fruit. Or bad milk. But in my brain.

My first conversations with recruiters started today. Two so far. I’m curious what will come of the effort. Every time I get serious about job search, I find much more opportunity than I anticipated.

Updates as things develop.

Now that I’ve ranted & generally blown my stack at everybody who dared to ask, I’m slightly reconsidering departing.

The boss took a minute to encourage me to hang with GloboCorp even if I can’t hang with the job. But I will take this weekend to update the resume and get a sense of my current worth on the open market.

Sorry this post is short. I’m considering some other changes. I’ll post an update regarding those, too.

I decided to get another job today. I blame the blogging.

Kidding. Kinda. Self reflection creates an urge for improvement. The current gig has its advantages, but it’s probably reached its limit. Mostly, I’m sick of the high pressure bullshit. It’s just a job.

So, I cleared out my office. I’ll probably hang around until bonuses, but then I’m gone. So… about one month. I’ll try to get a job between now and then.

I’d hoped to make this the final employer. I guess it didn’t work out.

Following are quotes from internal corporate social media.

great session – looking forward to growing the ideas

a woman

We had “[redacted]” in the room today! Brilliant!

a man

This is inspiring – amazing learnings. Culture making, customer focused, testing, collaboration and action. The creativity has blown me away! Well done and Super proud

a woman

Totally blown away by every single one of today’s [redacted] at the [redacted]! All six teams – working globally did a brilliant job pulling together their learning, the problem they are solving, idea and ask to further test/implement their idea. Setting the standard for pitching across the business I might add.

We will keep you posted on [redacted] and next steps of these ideas. But for now lets take a moment to congratulate everyone involved.

a woman

What an entertaining event! A huge well done to all involved. Many great ideas and a lot of knowledge shared.

a woman

Among those five comments to an internal post, only the fourth had enough substance to require redaction of the subject. The redaction in the second comment didn’t identify a person, it’s just a comment about a pseudonym I removed out of an abundance of caution.

I think many of us must endure stuff like this regularly.

The boy returned to college today. From the photos, he’s in a very nice apartment with his buddy. They’re both engineering students and both bound for foreign study two years hence. It’s looking good for them both. I’d say I’ll miss him, but I’m not really wired that way. I am happy for him, and I hope he does well. He’s the first in my family for several generations without a life story hiccup.

We appear destined for a break with the AC system replacement. That’s still gonna be real ugly. I’ll have to finance it, short term. Then we’ll need to go from there. I’m hoping the bonus is good because cash flow really disappoints.

The wife is out meeting a friend previously invited to the house. The friend is new, but she’s been a strong support and reliable, as far as friends go. I genuinely like this woman, which says a lot. I find most women uninteresting and naturally selfish. The wife cancelled – postponed – the invitation until we can restore the AC. I think the idea was that the friend would stay overnight. I don’t recall; I’m way too overwhelmed with other concerns to worry if a woman I can tolerate is staying for one day or two.

And now the wife is en route home.

Her moods have been up & down lately over the littlest things. Right now I’m generally angry and sad, and melancholy, and just generally worn down, but she seems to run hot & cold a lot lately. One hour she’s verging on bouncy, the next she’s angry or annoyed with me somehow. For instance, she called me from home after she and the boy returned from trips the same afternoon, clearly in a sour mood, but didn’t voice any specific complaint. She blamed the heat in the house later that evening, apologized, and seemed chipper, but then got surly again. Odd. I’ll try to sort that out this weekend.

I often wonder at the details of other couples marriages (or LTRs – but I don’t know anybody attached more than five years without a marriage), and wonder how they relate when nobody’s there to see. For instance, do they stay joined at the hip, or go to separate corners? Do they shop for groceries together? [We do.] The wife often tells me about her sister’s marriage. Funny details, mostly, like, yes, they also shop together, but they also have a TGIF routine that’s evolved over thirty years of marriage, and she watches him play console games after that being a solo hobby for decades, and they try to hike together, and they own a sex couch. That last bit is funny because she’s such a prude.

Work stress and home repairs and MEP maintenance aside, we’re finally approaching a semblance of the “new normal” in this house where we relocated. I’m eager to find a new rhythm that will work for a few years. We’ve both endured so much change I’m surprised neither of us is in the nuthouse. Maybe that’s just a matter of time.

My folks seem to be doing okay, but I think the farm is too much for them. Neither has any experience managing such an immense collection of acreage, and my grandmother let it go fallow during her final years. Hundreds of acres of pasture now designated “timber” for property taxes, and there’s no lie in the categorization now.

I just realized my mom’s been the owner for more than a decade. Wow. Time and life just flies by. When the property passed to her, the boy was still a toddler, and just barely. He never knew his great grandmother, so he has no proper relationship to the land. I’ve never considered it that way, but he’s only ever seen the farm fallow, the house(s) dirty, and never observed a working farm. He has no idea.

My mom never took proper interest in the workings, so she can only relate to others the recollection of a child, and as an adult, now elderly, woman she lacks the broad set of skills and knowledge necessary to apply and comprehend what must be done. My father can do some work, but lacks the vision for larger projects. I think that my mom could bankroll improvements or even operations, but they appear to lack investing acumen. I’m not much better, to be honest.

That will be an awful mess to restore. My brother also lacks interest. I think the best course of action, when they pass, will be to sell the old Texas farmstead and purchase a (larger) parcel in Arkansas. It may be prudent to keep the acreage with the old farmhouse (and new house), but it will need renovations, cleaning and remodeling. We can probably lease the land for cattle, or keep it as timberland and hunting lease(s). Those are all conjectures. Circumstances change.

From the statistics, somebody’s reading this, so I’ll try to keep posting just for the sake of it. I may at some point return to general essays, but journal entries satisfy me more right now.

I make that sound like it’s been a long stretch. It’s been just two nights.  Two HOT nights. Because the AC broke.

Actually… it exploded. The condenser, that is. I make that sound worse than it is, but it’s a real mess, and it’ll cost me something more than ten grand to replace the whole AC system. There went my bonus. I hope it’s big this year, but I’m preparing myself for disappointment.

I was up until 1:30 am last night / this morning cycling through iterations of a building model. God, I hate this software. I’m starting to understand why my boss takes it just so far and stops modeling. This shit is such shit it makes more shit. Sorry. Ranting.

Anyway, a final night alone. Soon the boy will be back to college. I expect a visit from the girl with husband and grandkid in tow thereafter. They reside nearby, but they sometimes stay the night. That’s unlikely with the AC out. Fortunately for the boy, he only needs to endure two more nights, then it’s off to his first apartment. Me and the wife are stuck in the heat. Maybe I should make her stay naked in the house while I’m home until it’s replaced. I’ll see if that idea has traction Friday night. Better not damage the boy. He’s righteous, he is. I’ll save that for another post.

Hey, that’s worth writing about! His apartment is purpose built off campus housing. Can you other old people imagine that? Not open-market apartments, but for students only housing. The way they rig the contract, it’s for one year, fully furnished, with move-in day coordinated with the college schedule. Totally the opposite of what a normal person wants, but perfect for college students escaping campus housing and campus food service.

With any luck, I’ll get to see it, but I’m not hopeful. Deadlines! Now I’m getting depressed again. And sad. About the AC. The boy can take care of himself and I’m not sentimental. I just hate losing (money).

The exploding AC condenser really took it out of me. I’m living in a money pit. Once the AC is paid (and several other expenses), then I think electrical systems are top of the list. Too many unreliable circuits. It all makes me very nervous.

Lately, everything makes me nervous. Or angry. Or sad. Yes, I’ve been lifting. No, I’m not on steroids. Sometimes life is just really, really hard and there’s not much a man can do except feel sad and indulge in self-pity for that short span when nobody’s home to see him.

I’m staring at the title of this blog post. “Work” isn’t the most appropriate term, but I’m struggling to better label this essay, so “work” is what I’m using.

I’m designing a large building for a military base. The design includes heavy cranes and a coordination with some existing structures, but, on its face, shouldn’t be difficult to accomplish, except, like all such designs, our proprietary software isn’t up to the task. The slightest hiccup breaks the model. Major elements (concepts, not parts) cannot be modeled. I can’t tease the loading out of the system because load reports lack options to filter information by load case or load combination. I’m reduced to treating building design software as a black box, which is a general software challenge most of us encounter, but should worry all of you who sleep inside rather than under the stars.

I discussed a major impediment for this design with one of the old software writers a few months back. He made light of the issue. I had some choice words for his attitude. He retired within a few months of that conversation. I comfort myself with the fiction (?) that I helped drive him away. Good riddance. I know that’s a bad attitude, but it’s the best I can manage. Men like him writing the programs for this old proprietary software beast are the problem. “It works well enough,” is their answer to everything. Or, “Back in the day, we had to do all this by hand.” The next time I hear that, I’ll suggest they discard every pharmaceutical invented after 1980. Or not. Without the drugs, they might live longer.

I’m ranting like some kid, but I’ve been working this career for three decades. It’s been the same problem from the beginning. There’s a class of men in my industry (construction) who will not innovate even to improve their own lives. It’s like they want the stress, long hours, and pain. A guy I follow wrote an essay about this as a geopolitical issue vis-a-vis the “Trump tariffs.” One of his many points was that we can’t make things better due to “unions” which stifle innovation. I have no intention to debate the merits and flaws of collective bargaining; however, some of the economic drag others sometimes attribute to “unions” may be more accurately blamed upon this class of people who get “enough” and won’t push for better.

I’m not advocating a life of unrelenting striving. But, like a man who sees debris on the road and feels compelled to stop and clear the roadway of a hazard, I see these multiple little things costing my company labor and time, and I want them gone. Not only do these delays cause us headaches, each one contributes to lost revenue or, worse, claims. This shit makes my bonus check smaller.

Which is to say, the nature of “work” appears to be ruinous, fruitless, wasteful labor, and there are people who seem intent upon inflicting it on others as some strange means of spreading their pain.

I’ll try to post something more hopeful tomorrow.

I finally swam in the pool.

The boy is trying to complete a project before he finishes his last day at work today, so he stayed late at work. He’s ahead of his 40 hours, so he’ll arrive late and leave early. I expect to do the opposite, but yesterday I left work “early” (6:30 pm), so I finally enjoyed the pool after work.

Waiting for the “pool guy” to renovate the pool has been a real chore. One thing I’ve discovered about these guys is they “know better” how I want my pool than I do. There’s a level of arrogance from the guy that’s very startling. I’ll give you an example.

I asked him to drop the manuals for the pool equipment at my house. He neglected to leave them when he made his final visit. While I was working yesterday, I saw him on my security cameras in the driveway, then open my gate, and then walk around my pool with another man. Only then, after I am already en route home to see why he’s in my yard after the work is done, do I receive a text with a photo of where he left my equipment manuals: stuffed among conduits on the side of the house!

And I’m still missing at least two manuals.