Up In Flames
After spending four full days cleaning up after a rather vigorous windstorm, collecting and burning many piles of debris, I had a sudden thought: this is what I do on Steemit every day. I do things and my time goes up in flames!
Okay, so spending my time gathering thoughts, organizing, and posting to Steemit so the time involved can go up in flames is not necessarily a bad thing.
Is it?
I'm not sure.
Will's Morning (and photo)
Other than a fraction of satisfaction, what did I gain from it?
On Steemit, I earned about 29 cents. That's not bad, because of the low market price for the crypto, no one is earning much. Besides, I made a neat new friend, @jhoevhee, and that made it worthwhile. No complaints for all that.
Had I been outdoors, as I was yesterday, I would have earned nothing, although I did pick up over 1,300 fallen pinecones, and at least half that many fallen branches and stack them all to be burned. That means bending over, picking up one at a time, putting it in a cart, then transporting, dumping a load, and returning to do it over and over again for the next four hours.
When I got through, I had four smoldering fires, a pile of ashes that would be added to the compost pile, and the absence of scattered debris. In essence: nothing at all visible was accomplished. I also did not make any new friends in the process.
The intangibles count: my quality of life was improved by reducing the clutter, and I had a good workout (try bending and stooping over 2,000 times!)
But the morning also illustrates that there is more to maintaining infrastructure than making a required number of posts and comments every day. Even if you do make them, they slide into the forgotten past after seven days, outside of your revenue stream and into the mist of time past. Plus, while you were so diligently working away, trying to be genuinely creative by adding quality content, other new Steemians were paying bots to super-vote their poor content, increase their reputation score to ridiculously high levels in one week, while another one who has learned how to "game the system" (called cheating, in days past) has posted his 2,400th photo of a flower with no other text than a creative caption that says "FLOWER".
So, I console myself when I'm doing physical, necessary things, that at least I'm being productive and am purging my mind of addictive behavior for at least one day.
Watching things go up in flames can help purify your mind...along with the rest of the debris.
About Me:
My Writing:
- Losing Shirley
- Jules, Freddie and the Monkey Man
- The Foot
- Beans
- Timeline
- The Time Tree
- The Little Lake Without a Name I
- The Little Lake Without a Name II
- Dog Friends – Inza
- Dog Friends – Sara
- Dog Friends – Millie
- Philonous, Where Are You?
Steemit is what it is, I guess. There are rewards in fractions of dollars, and there are people to meet that you wouldn't otherwise, even though meeting them is somewhat of a misnomer. Maybe that's okay, depending on who it is and how much they want you to know about them.
I find little value, other than piece of mind, exercise, and some form of organization, to constantly cleaning, picking up, and putting away things. Better to do it only once and get on with life. As it would happen, though, I married someone who thinks entirely the opposite I do, and frequently wants me to come with her on her journey through ensuring the entire universe is clean and clutter free. Maybe I should just send her over in your direction. :)
At whatever point we manage to automate chores, I will feel that man has finally arrived, and then I will find ways to complain about it, like the fact that I don't ever get any exercise at all anymore, even the forced kind. :)
You mentioned in a previous comment about being a bean counter. Did that include pine cones, branches and how many times you bent over to retrieve them? :)
I totally agree. What a perfect world it would be if thing never got messed up and had to be made right again. But, when you live in the woods, that's not gonna happen! Pine treed drop their cones every summer and at random times when the wind blows and, as luck has it, they take many years to decay, so if you don't pick them up, you will have a blanket of them when you finally give in and move them. The Southern White pine has big, healthy cones with hooks n the end of each tip that will grab on to a glove (or into your fingers if you try that once) so it's not an easy chore. You can't mow them because that is almost like mowing golf balls, so manual removal just gotta be done!
Life around here if pine cones and limbs never fell, but trees shed things they are through with and it is my job to remove it all. I could make a list of things I would rather be doing, but walking across a bed of pine cones is not one of them.
I am often accused of being too neat, if there is such a thing. I put things back where I got them so I'll know where they are, so little cleanup is needed.
Being a natural born bean counter is what got me into accounting in college, I guess. I liked the organized way of keeping up with money and thought I wanted to be an accountant so I got a Bachelor's in bean counting. Besides, I have always had an infernal ability of subconsciously counting things and I just do that without thinking about it.
I had a couple of accounting jobs and then found a nice gig as the financial director for a retail chain. That was stressful in the beginning, and then was enjoyable and then boring, especially when I decided I didn't like accounting. I quit and went back to school and got another degree (in Finance). Somewhere in there, I got interested in computer systems development, did some more educational stuff and in another few years was certified as a Systems Analyst. My work background was a bit varied but was interesting and I got to do a lot of different things, and that made it decently rewarding.
Accounting and finance seem to go together, and both seem to be in demand. And I doubt you could go wrong as a Systems Analyst, either, as far as work opportunities and earnings go. Especially now, when so much of what we do anywhere is online, running through networks to a server.
After sitting in front of a computer most of your life in an office somewhere, running numbers or diagnostics, I could see you wanting to get outside and doing some kind of manual labor for a while. And I could see how the ability to count and organize would lead you to removing debris and so forth as quickly and as orderly as possible.
My wife is a homemaker mostly, though she's been the one working of late. Her desire for cleanliness and order are of magnitudes of degrees far above mine. I don't really think of myself as a slob, but as I alluded to previously, there always seems to be something else to do that makes cleaning and decluttering secondary priorities.
Next to her, I'm Oscar the Grouch. Sometimes in demeanor, too. :)
I guess we gravitate to those things that we have natural predispositions to do, and those that are positive and potentially marketable, we try to augment and use, and those which are more negative and would probably lead us to jail time, we try to suppress or channel in other ways.
I think that's good. There are times when I would like for people to be more like me—at least think how I think—but if we all had the same interests and abilities, then life would be boring and we wouldn't have new things to try because there would only be what we always ever do.
The combination of accounting and systems analysis experience led to some interesting jobs where I got to suggest structural changes in how things were done to improve accuracy or efficiency. It was pretty amazing how, over time and with personnel changes, errors would creep into a process that cost companies a substantial amount of money. One in particular, where some deliberate changes had been made by an ex employee and they continued to benefit certain profit centers by deliberate losses to others for a number of years afterwards. Finding that was one of those WHOA moments!
On the much more personal side of life, we bought a piece of land in an adjacent county some time back and my first purchase after that was a 40 HP tractor and an array of attachments. I was a bit intimidated by it at first, not knowing the what or how of using a tractor, but there were hundreds of stumps and snags left from a previous logging operation and many acres of land that needed all kinds of prep work before it would become pasture and i started near where the tractor had been delivered, pushing around piles of dirt.
It took about ten minutes before I became glued to the seat and promised not to move! After sitting at a desk, pounding a keyboard and looking at a computer display for years, I had real MAN power under my control and the feeling of picking up a substantial size tree and moving it with ease was an addictive experience.
Pushing stumps and debris up and burning it, smelling the smoke as I worked on another pile, feeling the vibrations and sound from the heavy diesel machine, and not having interruptions was such a change from what I had grown used to, it was liberating.
Running a bush hog turned into one of the most physically satisfying experiences I have had. It was physical work after six or eight hours, but it gave the feeling of actually having accomplished something. There were occasions when I would see a silver car crest the small hill between me and the road as my wife came to make sure I had not been plowed over by the tractor, and often bringing my dinner for an impromptu picnic. Losing track of time was one of the best stress therapies I have found. Good times to remember. Changes in lifestyle can be good things.
About neatness: it depends on how it is defined. I read once that Abraham Lincoln, as President, insisted on keeping his desk neat to show he had things under control. In a front corner of his office were two stacks of paper that were as high as he could reach. On top was a small sign that proclaimed, "It must be here." It was sufficient neatness for his goals, and that's all that matters. I assume it was also understood that no one should mess with his filing system!
I am more in the Felix Unger category, I think. When I get things in place, I don't see any reason they should not be put back where they were intended by Nature for them to be. It's the not returning them that causes a mess, as I have often pointed out during my more anal retentive stages (which may occur any moment). That's another of my endearing features. ;)
So, the ex-employee, was he benefiting from the redistribution of funds? Did the company make changes to correct it right away? Was there anything done to him? Was it done with knowledge of the people in the actual profit centers, or were they oblivious to it?
I have this strange affinity for large machinery, myself, especially cement trucks, the more modern the better. I could watch a guy on a large front loader or cat moving earth all day. Not sure what it is, but I'm fascinated by all of that.
When we were having my office/shed built, they had to extend a chute through the front part of the building where my office would be into the shed portion to pour the cement. The driver had a remote control that he could use to drive, position, and send the cement down the chute. And since the extension didn't quite reach far enough, he had to send the cement at a rapid pace so if went flying off and into the middle of the shed. It was some of the most fun I've ever had watching construction.
The best time was with the sheetrock guy, the one that does the texturing. Don't need heavy machinery for that, but it's got to be the sweetest job ever. Make a mess on the ceiling and walls and walk away. :)
If we ever ended up with acreage, I could see myself being the same way on a tractor. Being able to do things quickly, effortlessly and efficiently is awesome.
I really do like being out and doing things, but when I'm trying to make something here, as you have noted, it's hard to be in too places at once. I've been trying to do as much as possible when my wife is working and then still do as much as possible when she's off work, while still getting something in otherwise. She doesn't like it so much, but the way I figure it, I'm nearing seven months on an enterprise, and most enterprises take at least two years to get anywhere.
Abraham Lincoln had to be the right president for that time. What I've heard and read of him, you had to have a sense of humor and a strong will to get through what he did. Even if it was just his desk.
Well, even I consider myself closer to Felix Unger than Oscar Madison. My youngest son though might be more of an Oscar. My wife would give Felix a run for his money. She'd probably ask him what was taking him so long to clean and get organized, too. I don't think she's as big of a germaphobe, but she claims to see dust on a microscopic level. :)
The employee who managed the unit getting the raked-off profit left a week before I arrived, and had left the state. It was six months later when I got down to that level of detail and found the error which had been integrated with the overhead calculation. It got fixed and the current year recalculated. Overall profit was not affected since it took from other units and went to his. Management didn't believe he would have done anything like that "because he was such a nice person", and they decided to do nothing since he was gone and it had not affected the bottom line.
That plus the fact the the legal fees would probably result in a net loss!
When I issued the corrected profit center calculation that resulted in other managers' profit bonuses being increased substantially, I became quite popular! Sometimes, busy work pays off!
That seems like a different lifetime ago. I remember the person doing it, but somehow it seems to be a different version of me.
Too much of a good thing gets over the line into OCD and keeping neat becomes a compulsion rather than a good practice. On the Felix-Oscar scale, I'm 3/4 of the way over towards Felix and my Significant Other is about in the middle, so it works out okay. I just want things in place and don't obsess over the dust as much as I should. She doesn't care a bit where something is put but will keep it dust free when it is there. I did know a guy once who was very OCD and even combed the fringes on his Oriental carpets and made certain every strand was parallel. He had many serious issues that kept him home-bound, but it was a very neat and clean environment.
Being in an enterprise project can be all-consuming. I was in one once that involved setting up a giant retail store in a new shopping mall and worked for 18 months from seven AM until nine PM with Thanksgiving afternoon and Christmas day off. Three other days I had short days and left at three PM. The odd part was, I got so plugged in to the dynamics that I actually felt like that was not enough time and being in my office or on the work site did not bother me at all. I was directing a lot of people in a lot of parallel things during the organizing phase and time simply passed without my being aware of the weeks or seasons; just the PERT charts and the flow of the daily effort. It was exhilarating at the time, and still remains that way in my memory, but I am beyond being able to care about running in high gear at maximum RPM to create something for someone else. I actually miss being in that kind of environment and would love to "crank it up" again, but nothing seems to set the same kind of fire under me now.
Note: It's odd how things like the above end up on the screen and I see truth that I haven't consciously thought about or knew was there. I was a different "me".
Things change.
Entropy increases.
Yes, it does and yes they do. Aside from trying to make a go here, and spending quite a bit of time at it, I'm sure I wouldn't take on any major project I've done in the past now. Not without a lot of assurances in place, and even then, probably not. Fires are just harder to light I think. :)
I'm trying to think of when I've been that excited. Maybe writing the books. I would say I spent a lot of time doing those, and if I could, I would have slept in the office. I mean, if it weren't for my wife being upset about it, I would have.
Otherwise, time could pass, and I wouldn't care much at all about it other than it meant I would eventually have to do something else—sleep, eat, run an errand, something, and that would draw me away from the books.
I can't say the same about the newspaper business. I mean, I made sure that layout was done and that the papers got printed on time, and I did take care of some unpleasant situations when I needed to, but otherwise, I spent a lot of time trying to stay away from it. Not exactly avoiding it, but more of trying not to get stressed by getting to close to it, if that makes sense. I've spent way too much time in my life being stressed.
I guess it's quite possible my wife could have OCD, but in a Mexican kind of way, which means it doesn't translate very well, pun intended. I think in some ways, though, it's less about the clutter or being clean as it is being useful. She's not technologically savvy, and I think she's afraid she won't matter if she doesn't do things like clean. She's good at it, too, so she's wanting to matter.
re: the employee
Amazing how things like that can happen. He's a nice person, so he'd never do anything intentional, even though it sounds like the fact it was set up the way it was made it intentional, so apparently the error happened on its own, which is the least likely scenario of all.
I guess there's always other things to consider, but what's to stop the guy from doing it again and again? Is there no accountability for that?
Does that mean if I'm generally considered to be a nice guy that I should start my embezzling spree now? :)
I understand that and have a similar relationship myself. My S.O. excels at cooking and I'm going to eat the best meals ever, whether I want to or not. Certainly not a source of complaint, but a plain old Southern cooking meal can be gravely missed after years of the foreign fancy stuff.
Why not? I have seen multiple occasions when that "reason" was given for going easy on outright fraud. As long as it is non-violent, the "good" people are far more likely to get the easy way out by covering it up and then forgetting about it. The next best thing is declaring that you're an alcoholic and want treatment and you even get to keep your job.
The thief in question had help from the accounting department in getting the numbers spread around to benefit him, and the man I replaced would have been the most likely one to have done it since the process to implement it would have been complex and no other one person would have been able to integrate it into the accounting system. Thing like that are not rare and this one was smoothly done. It essentially transferred performance bonus money from other managers to him. I gave a one page description of what had happened to everyone with their bonus recalculation, just to make sure the change would stick. It did!
I agree with that! When I look back down my timeline and then ahead at the much shorter strip of blank film, it is very obvious that there is no need getting involved in something that will be a multi-year task. Sustaining the energy required and assuming that there will be a decrease in available time to see it to fruition take the energy and desire away from starting another fire. Facing that truth is not easy in itself.
It really does get to the point where listening to the birds and feeling the sunlight and fresh air are far more important than typing words.
Flower.
Just kidding. Hey, I've had so many brush burns I've lost count. But the reward is a clean, healthy yard space. And the reward for posting quality content versus bot fluff is having an actual circle of friends and followers who support you. Eventually these accounts will get flagged down to zero and then what will they be left with?
Oh, I totally agree with that. The thing most rewarding for me is getting to interact with people who actually like being here. I get a bit miffed at the users who try to game the system and make no attempt at all to add anything of interest.
I think that rant was triggered by just having read a new introduce yourself where the new Steemian had been here one whole day and had a Rep score of 40 based on two posts and four comments. That and the bid bots just feel like...wrong.
It's not going to change my life, other than maybe make me choose my topics a bit more carefully in the future. I actually spend a lot of my time reading comment threads and time passes before I realize I haven't written a thing, but that is another thing I like about the platform: there's something for almost everyone.
I'm pretty sure it took me months to reach 40 =( .... and it'll probably be months before I hit 61...
@willymac Thank you for not using bidbots on this post and also using the #nobidbot tag!
That's so sweet of you :-) thank you so much for including me in your post. I might not express in words how much thankful I am to have met real people like you here on Steemit because of language barrier(my english is limited :-) ) but I am truly grateful to bumped into you guys who have the same love for animals and nature like me.
I'm still a newbie here. I had the same sentiments whenever I see post of grass or leaves with no caption in it and garnered upvotes more than my one sentence caption post. Lol! I couldn't help it but compared my work to others. But a couple of months had past since I joined this platform and I no longer look at the upvotes and earnings. I enjoy posting and sharing, and if two or more persons appreciated my post, I'm happy already. :-)
I feel the same about wanting to share and to find others who like similar things. Since we do, there is everything to be gained by comparing our photos to others' because we can learn better how to make good photos (maybe by not doing what some others do ;) )
And I don't think your English is limited at all! You express yourself very well.
WIll