Let me get a little meta for a moment and dissipate the fog of war that obscures my blog-theme-selection process.
Firstly, because I don’t blog for profit, I’m not a slave to an algorithm. You don’t get any filler.
My ideas have time in embryonic form, so when I sit down to write it’s like the birth of Athena (minus the headache) insofar as the post is born whole. But, unlike poor Zeus, I’m fully aware of the gravidic ideas bloating my brain.
But where do these ideas come from?
This week, the first thing caught in my synaptic net was Evy Pompoura, the author of a book on situational awareness called Becoming Bulletproof which the salesbot on Audible recommended to me.
Doing some background, I segued to how people promote product by selling themselves. Pompoura in person looks nothing like the glammed-up promotional photos. She’s anorexic-thin, self-tanned an odd shade of orange, and whip-smart. Seems legit.
But I didn’t buy her book. I mean, why would you, when she gives everything away for free on YouTube? Hey, I’m whip-smart too! And cheap.
The next thing that snagged was a reply to a tweet by some ex-Marine who’s following the Russia-Ukraine war fairly closely. The old boot opined that junk American weaponry isn’t exactly helping the Ukrainians against Russians armed with tried-and-tested AK47’s, for example.
The reply was incisive: “This is just a Russian field-test”.
Put in that context, I literally had the theme from Fallout 4 start playing in my head.
What if Ukraine is field-testing US willpower, armaments and capacity? What if Putin’s grand plan is a war with the US, and China militarily back the Russians? What if Putin and Xi planned this a decade ago?
WWIII would be like nothing anyone ever multi-played on Steam.
The third fish in my net this week — in everyone’s net — was the stock market.
I have an account on the Investopedia simulator, and it copped a hiding this week. Compare my rankings one week apart:
My pretend losses are significant, but poor vbbstonks just lost nine trillion pretend-dollars!
I’m hopeful that an audio book I did purchase — The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham — can help me understand some basics, i.e. why did my ranking suffer disproportionately more than others. I went from top 2% to bottom 10% and lost $22,981.88 (-12.85%) of my pretend-life savings!
I want answers!
Another splinter to lodge this week came from close to home.
There’s a growing rumour at work that I’m in line to be involuntarily redeployed to a different business unit. Not for any measurable work-performance metric, but simple due to tenure. I’ve enjoyed a 15 minute commute for eight years, so working anywhere else would be awful.
The unofficial explanation for inflicting unnecessary pain on your most senior employees is that the organisation wants to “re-engage” us and “revitalise” our career by taking us out of our comfort zones.
Pffft. This will have the opposite effect.
The real reason, I suspect, is the very specific gender-equity target the executive promised to meet won’t be achieved unless a lot of us fellas retire. They had to amend federal anti-discrimination laws to make this project legal.
Just think about that!
They could send me to fucking Antarctica and I wouldn’t resign before I’m ready. But for every kilometer they arbitrarily force me to travel, subtract 1% effort and interest. We’ll see who wins.
But I’ll say no more until I know for sure.
Don’t be surprised to read more on these topics in coming weeks. They just need to grow some arms and legs. Plus there will be all the usual vitriol and sarcasm you love. Don’t miss your next installment, subscribe today!