My Old Blog

I read this website every once in a while: www.bigfatblog.com. It is devoted to defending fatness and I admit to being a regular visitor. I have resisted writing, commenting or judging for a long time. After several whole minutes of deliberation I am now ready to have an opinion.

Mr. BigFatBlog says some pretty intelligent things. He makes the point that being fat does not mean you need to wait until you’re skinny to go out and do something with your life. I come to Mr. Blog’s defense at times. Being fat is not the end of the world. That is a pretty true statement.

However, there are some other points he makes that brought me to my final opinion: “The only thing that’s ‘wrong’ about a fat person wearing a belly shirt is that society sees it as ‘wrong’.” What??? You could make that argument about anything….the only thing ‘wrong’ with a dead person as a best friend is that society sees it as ‘wrong’. The only thing ‘wrong’ with sleeping with blood relatives is that society sees it as ‘wrong’.

Here is my favorite: “You should love your body, no matter what it looks like.” Really?? I tell a slight variation of that to all the really hot girls I meet. “You should like me even though I’m not as hot as the guys you usually date.” Or how about potential employers: “You should hire me, no matter how lazy I am.” How about the NBA: “Don’t discriminate against me just because I’m short, white and have no talent.” It just isn’t realistic. And if realism isn’t your bag, it isn’t desirable even in that perfect world we’ll never find.

And here is my final opinion about fatness: All things being equal, it is better to be skinny than to be fat. Being fat usually creates problems. Being skinny can occasionally create problems. Fatness isn’t always the worst of personal issues, but it can add to whatever is. So…all things being equal, it is better to be skinny than to be fat.

I wonder what reaction Mr. BigFatBlog would have to that?

I have been doing taxes. That is why there have been no updates.

I could say many things about the art of preparing taxes. I have learned a lot of debatably useful information. But its really sort of immaterial.

The most interesting part is the people. The people I work with are nice, but pretty boring. The people that get their taxes done at H&R Block are changing my opinion of “the masses”.

I never realized how many people are getting by on 10 to 15 thousand dollars a year. And these people have kids. How do you support a family, pay rent, go to the doctor, eat, and keep a car running on 10k a year? I haven’t done a financial analysis, but it would seem almost impossible. And yet they do it.

There are even a large number with incomes in the 4 to 8 thousand dollar range. That is absurd. There are a lot of poor people out there. I had a guy come in the other day that worked 6 jobs during the year. Not at a temp agency….6 separate jobs. How do you get jobs so fast? Wouldn’t an employer wonder if you never stayed at a job over a few months?

I never realized how many single mothers there are. I’d say 70% of the single girls that come in have kids….and they aren’t making any money.

I fear for the future. There is not enough to go around. These people don’t have enough going on in their head to get ahead. They have no concept of money. The fees they pay to H&R Block are outrageous and they all get the Rapid Refund thing, which is really just a short term loan with interest rates bordering on predatory. I tell people all the time to take their W-2s and leave…go to the library, get a 1040EZ and fill out their taxes themselves….but I realize they can’t.

I understand and I don’t understand. I understand that poverty begets poverty and small lives lead to small hopes…but I’m missing something. They watch the same TV I do, listen to the same music….they go to the same public schools. They may not get a college education, but my basic ideas, world view and hopes for the future were already shaped before I left high school. And they were not all shaped by my family. I think TV, movies and a high school education were a large part.

They may be learning the same reading, writing and arithmetic as me, but they’re missing some other, more important part. They have low expectations for life, a general lack of dignity and an inability to realize that present actions affect future outcomes. Those are extremely serious problems.

So taxes have been passing the time for me. I went on a job interview the other day. I sang karaoke at a bar the other night. I go to the gym a few nights a week. Thats about it.

I am still jobless and uncertain when that might change. I am very restless.

Edward O. Wilson, world-renowned Harvard biologist and founder of Sociobiology, writes this in his new book, Consilience: “Philosophy, the contemplation of the unknown, is a shrinking dominion. We have the common goal of turning as much philosophy as possible into science.”

Good luck Mr. Wilson. I am a fan of science for the most part.

I have two things to say. 1) Science is a largely rational effort. 2) People are largely irrational efforts.

Science can allow you to put someone on the moon, but only contemplation of the unknown can inspire you to do so in the first place.

I guess I am a skeptic when it comes to the promises of science. It may one day let us live hundreds of years…but it will never tell us what we are supposed to do with all that time.

I sometimes claim that I keep this site as a surrogate for returning emails. “Just check my webpage” goes my reasoning.

Well, here is my update: I am preparing taxes for H&R Block during tax season. I’ve been taking classes since October. I am now a tax professional…ish.

Why? I wanted to learn how to do it. The people are nice (my mother knew them previously). I could use a buck or two. I need something to occupy some time.

You know what they say: Death and taxes.

As a service to the (hopefully) small number of people that read this page, feel free to email me with tax questions.

Some people were born to question things. I am one of those people. But it gets really annoying sometimes.

Here are a few things I thought about today:

The Golden rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Ahhh…what a perfect world it would be right? Not really. Some people are masochists, some would eat broccoli for every meal, some like camping, others have foot fetishes. People already too often make the mistake of treating others how they would like to be treated. If there were a pot luck dinner I would bring cheesecake. Why? Because I want other people to bring cheesecake to my dinners….I love cheesecake. But what if everyone at my dinner is lactose intolerant?

Taking it too far you say? Is it an extreme example that doesn’t apply to the general rule? Sure, a little bit. Most of the time the golden rule works ok…but any rule that claims to be “golden” had better have its shit together.

What if you only had a month to live? Would you be doing the same things you are doing now?

This is part of the whole Just Do It culture. But its silly. Of course I wouldn’t be doing the same thing if I only had a month to live. I’ve heard it like this too: Live every day like it is your last. To somehow imply that you’re not living your life to the fullest because you are not acting like you’re about to die is just plain stupid.

There is an agreement we implicitly make with ourselves when we get out of bed everyday. I agree that because I think I will live about 75 years that some things are worth building towards…and in fact, some things really are worth building towards. The effort you put in today will pay off later…because you think there will be a later.

The point here is not that the golden rule sucks or that we shouldn’t Just Do It. The point is that I wish I could shut off that part of my brain that must always ask why.

I remember they were interviewing this guy on TV with a photographic memory. This is what he said: “Yeah, having a great memory comes in really handy sometimes. But alot of the time its annoying. I wish there were a delete button so I could get rid of all this junk in my head.”

I don’t really dream about sailing anymore. Only unrealized dreams stay forever perfect in your head.

But the image of sailboat and sunset still makes me think….not about sailing, but about greener pastures. What was it Tolstoy said? “Everything known is small and unimportant, everything unknown magnanimous and all-important.”

That about sums up my life.

I have gathered an absolutely staggering amount of information on the art of job-hunting. Like many other things in my life, I am a virtual expert….without ever actually having done it or been successful at it.

In fact, I decided I should write an article for the Greenville News Career Builder section entitled “What is you job-hunting IQ?” Here is the article:

What is your job hunting IQ?

Job-hunting 101 is not a class I ever had in school. I’m not even sure it is a class, but it should be. The average person goes job-hunting 8 times during their career. It literally pays to know how to find a job.

It isn’t as intuitive as you might think. The skills needed to be a mechanic do not necessarily serve you in finding a job as a mechanic. The most qualified candidate does not always get hired. The best job hunter does. So what should you know about job-hunting?

Employers want a resume right? Not really. Companies use resumes to screen people out, not screen them in. On average you have to mail out 170 resumes to generate one interview. Often as many as 500 people respond to a classified ad. Because of the volume of resumes employers receive; they may look at each one for only a few seconds. Most of us simply do not have the writing skills to compose a resume that stands out in a crowd of 500.

Is the Internet a good place to find a job? Not really. Less than 10% of on-line job hunters land a job through the Internet. Out of curiosity I registered with every major job board on the Internet (6 months ago). Number of responses to my resume and job applications: 0. On a positive note the Internet is an invaluable research tool for investigating companies, preparing for interviews and finding salary information.

What about headhunters and employment agencies? People do get jobs this way. After all, if headhunters never placed anyone they would go out of business. However, the businesses pay the bills for the employment agency, not you. They have little incentive to place you in a job; they want to fill jobs for businesses.

Knowing all this, does anything work for getting a job? Well, most job search methods have low rates of success, but low does not mean zero. Using 4 methods with a 10% rate of success gets you up to 40%. If you play that game long enough, you eventually win.

Of course, there are techniques to increase your chances. Talk to the person in the organization that has the power to hire you. Impressing anyone else is unlikely to get the results you want. Target small companies. Experts have claimed for years that small organizations create two thirds of all new jobs. Competing against an international pool of applicants for a Fortune 500 job will always be an uphill battle.

Not surprisingly, one of the most successful job-hunting methods is asking friends and family for leads. Tell everyone you know that you’re looking for a job. Keep in mind that only 10% of job openings are advertised to the public. Friends and family can help you compete for that other 90%.

Most job-hunters don’t do much hunting. They apply for anything that seems bearable, let a company pick them, and do most of their research after they are hired, only later finding out they “picked” the wrong job. U.S. Department of Labor statistics indicate that 40% of all new hires leave within the first six months.

The most successful job-hunters and headhunters advise actually hunting for a job. Write down on paper what you are good at and what you would like to do. With that in mind, target 5 to 10 companies you want to work for, regardless of whether or not they have any known vacancies. Oddly enough, this is the most successful strategy for finding a job. Forget what’s available; go after what you want most.

In the end job-hunting is a numbers game. It is estimated you’ll spend one month searching for every 10,000 dollars you want to make. The number one reason people don’t find a job: they quit trying.

So how did my article work out?

It is as yet unpublished, which is to say that I am having the same success with writing that I am with the job hunt:

I am a virtual expert.

I want to wish everyone a happy holiday season. Christmas is always a fun time of year. I think the fact that no one has to work and everyone knows they’re gonna get presents is a very large part of that. But I’ll take it anyway I can get it. Actually, the tacky decorations and special music and colors and all those things specific to Christmas…they help too.

I just looked at my email box. It has come to my attention that I suck at writing people back. How can that be? I don’t even have a job. Can I really make the excuse that I don’t have time?

There are 5 emails in the past week or so I just read and enjoyed and never responded to. Good emails. Someone that sat down at the computer and thought about me and wrote a personal note. Not just the normal: Hey. Just thought I’d drop you a line. Happy Holidays, XXX.

I’ve gotta do better. In my defense that is why I keep the website: so everyone interested can keep track of the stuff I end up repeating in emails. However, I recognize that my defense is super weak.

So what do I do? I just wrote a long email to someone that wrote asking for my mailing address and said nothing personal at all. Very smart Elliott.

Its been a while since I’ve written something sort of interesting. I’m actually in the process of writing 3 articles, which will be completed as soon as I finish gathering my thoughts on the respective subjects…..which is to say they may never get finished at all.