. : s t e a d y . org : .

Call me a Curmudgeon.  Go ahead, get it out of your system, cause you’re probably going to disagree with me on this post.

The “Tip Jar” has gotten way out of hand.  Everywhere I go, there seems to be a tip jar on the counter.  From Starbucks, to the local pizza joint, to the freakin coffee shop in my building at work, everyone’s got a tip jar out.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to tip people working in a capacity where tipping is customary and usual.  This is especially true where someone’s base salary is below minimum wage because they are expected to make the difference up in tips.  But come on people, not everything in life deserves or requires a tip, especially if you aren’t doing anything but filling a cup of coffee or putting a slice of pizza on a paper plate for me to take to my table – and subsequently bus – myself.

At the risk of sounding like my grandfather, when I was a teenager working in a sub shop the idea of putting out a tip jar on the counter never even occurred to me, because I wasn’t performing a service that deserved or required a tip – I was making sandwiches, which was in actuality, my entire reason for being behind the counter.  Tipping me for making a sandwich would have been ridiculous.  And even if I had thought of putting a tip jar out, my manager would have summarily dismissed the idea and threatened termination of employment if I’d done it.

This is part of what I call modern society’s “entitlement syndrome.”  Everyone seems to think that they are entitled to something.  Apparently, now everyone is entitled to be paid extra for doing their jobs.

I’m putting a tip jar on my desk.  Feel free to put a five-spot in it the next time I create a VLAN for you.

Webster’s defines bootstrap in three ways; as a noun, as an adjective, and as a transitive verb.

Main Entry: ³bootstrap
Function: transitive verb
Date: 1951
: to promote or develop by initiate and effort with little or no assistance <bootstrapped herself to the top>

Sometimes I feel like I am completely capable of bootstrapping my day.  I get up, get going, and get a lot accomplished.  These days fly by and when they are over, I’m tired but not exhausted.  I’m actually somewhat energized.

Then there are days when it just seems impossible to get things going.  When I’ve got tasks that need to be done, but I just can’t get it together to make them happen.  I can sit for hours in front of the computer and not accomplish a damn thing.  Eight hours can seem like an eternity.  On these days, I’m physically and mentally exhausted at the end even though I’ve not accomplished anything.

Somehow that seems incongruous, but I know it to be true.  And I know why.  When I can’t get started my sense of guilt kicks in.  Nothing good comes from that.

I’ve had two such days this week, and today doesn’t look to be shaping up a whole lot better so far – despite getting out to the gym at 6:00 AM.  Where is my Mojo? Maybe this is a post holiday slump?  Maybe its a sign that 12 years in the same field is enough?  I don’t know.

But I do know I’ve got to break this streak.

If there’s one thing that annoys me, it’s when people fail to put a signature on their email.  This is especially annoying when the said person is in a sales capacity.  How much time have I wasted searching for an email from someone so that I can find their phone number, only to find that they didn’t include a signature?  And yet, these same schmucks are the first ones in a meeting to walk around the room diligently handing out their business cards…

If you don’t have a signature on your email, you probably do a lot of other irritating and stupid things like play facebook games.  Please read RFC1855.  Among other things it recommends the following:

Make things easy for the recipient. Many mailers strip header information which includes your return address. In order to ensure that people know who you are, be sure to include a line or two at the end of your message with contact information. You can create this file ahead of time and add it to the end of your messages. (Some mailers do this automatically.) In Internet parlance, this is known as a “.sig” or “signature” file. Your .sig file takes the place of your business card. (And you can have more than one to apply in different circumstances.)

I sliced through the tip of my left index finger Saturday night. Right through the nail. Spent some time with our medical community as a result. It’s really slowed me down. I’ve got a lot going round in my head on the following topics – be on the look out for some more substantial posts as soon as I can type without doing this hunting and pecking with my left hand.

• mindfulness
• kindness
• compassion
• consumption
• limits to growth

Last night at 8:09 PM Eastern, I tweeted:

making applesauce from old apples, mentally transitioning into a week at the office

This morning at 2:44 AM Eastern, Motts began following me on twitter.  I’m fairly certain that nobody at Motts is actually reading my tweets.  I’m also fairly certain that no person at Motts is actually paying enough attention to tweets about apples or applesauce to have made a conscious decision to start following me because of my tweet.

What I suspect is that Motts has some BI type application that is reading one of the many rss feeds that exist for twitter and then following people via the twitter API.

Now, I’ve got no misconceptions about my privacy or lack thereof as a result of my choosing to use twitter or any other service or site, but no matter how you slice it, this is disturbing.  It makes you wonder what other company, government, or organized crime group is reading tweets.

And to think, Motts just thought that maybe I’d follow them so that they could sell me applesauce instead of me making it from scratch.