Boom

"black cat, white cat; all that matters is that it catches mice."- Deng Xiaoping

So, I listen to audiobooks. It all started forever ago when I worked a job as a private detective.

Oh yes, it was glamorous.

When I wasn't trapsing around Hawaii following people in my bright red Ferarri or gut-punching lowlifes for crucial leads or kicking back with hotties-in-distress...

I spent a - l o t - of time sitting on my ass.

That's mostly what a PI does. He ( or She ) sits on the ass and watches. Watches a door, a car, a person, whatever. They watch for something wrong to happen, most times. I'd go whole 10 or 12 hour days sitting in the surveillance van watching the driveway of my subject, waiting for him to go somewhere and fuck up so I could follow and get it on tape. Lot's of times, the guy ( it was invariably a guy ) would just veg at home on the particular day I happened to be watching him.

Besides sometimes causing me to nuture a bizarre anger towards the subject ( how -dare- he sit on his ass all day and do nothing. Wait, that's what -I'm- doing. Hmmmmmm. Grrrrrrrrrrrr ) it also did more damage to me psychologically then watching reruns of Golden Girls.

For fun, do this: Wherever you're at, turn away from the computer screen and pick one thing. A clock on the wall, a wastebasket, whatever. You can even cheat a bit and pick a window with a view. Now sit there and watch your selected thingy. After a minute, when you feel like looking at something else, keep watching your thingy; if your thingy was a subject of an investigation, I -promise- you that if you looked away for 30 seconds, those would be the 30 seconds where your subject would dance naked in front of your field of view, before skipping off to do evil while you whizzed or did whatever while not paying attention.

You'd look back, and never know he was gone.So after a few more minutes, keep looking, and looking, and realize that you had 10 more h o u r s of these minutes, all spent doing the same thing. After two days, I was starting to go a bit buggy. I need just a little more mental stimulation then staring out a window. A fellow agent and buddy from high school Dan Riggs suggested the obvious.

"You like to read, right Pete? Try audiobooks. I love those 'Spenser' novels... you know, 'Spenser: for Hire'?"

Dan Riggs changed my life, that day. So on stakeouts, and then later on in life where the only free time I'd have to myself was the 90 minute one way commute to wherever I worked, I did all my recreational "reading" with audiobooks. They're amazing. Well, most of them are.

A tip: steer well clear of any audibook read by the author. Writing a book and -reading- 30 hours worth of words are two -totally- different skills, and so very few people have both skills in enough quantity to keep you from flipping out when you listen to them read their own book.

John Stewart and Lawrence Block are notable exceptions, here.

Anyway... to finally get to some sort of point... the cat-quote at the top is from an audiobook vesion of The World is Flat by Tom Friedman. It explains huge important things in my life in one sentence.

Let me explain. Briefly.

The book is all about the concepts, issues and happenings that are shrinking the world, and making it possible for some dude or dudette from Bangalore ( that's in India ) to do your job. The reason why people think this is a Bad Thing is mostly because they are lazy and stubborn and prideful, and don't want to work to stay competitive.

~laughs~

That's me being subtle and delicate. Really, with the world getting all flat and everything, Raji from Bangalore can do your job -at least- as good as your lazy, GameBoy-and-MTV-addled ass can... he'll -love- your job, and he'll do it for about a third of the rate you think you're being ripped off for doing it at.

This pisses a lot of Americans off... but mostly that pissed-ness comes from the same place that I imagine a lot of farmers way back must have been in touch with when everything in this country was going all electrified and industrial and such.What if we let the complaining farmers "win", and we backed off on the whole industrialization thing about a hundred years ago?

Wouldn't the US have been a -cool- place to live, comparitively speaking, right about now?

Of course not.

And we'll be just as screwed tomorrow if we let the whiners dictate that we don't advance ( like the Raji and the rest of the world ) today. Which steadily brings me to my point...

So, way back when, I got real ( -real- ) tired of my job at the casino, and I retrained.

"Reinvented" myself, as they say. I got into web design. I didn't have a degree in it ( and God knows I have enough degrees ), or any previous expereince. I took a couple classes one semester at a community college, blew off all my free time and had no life... then got a job in web design. It was awesome.

Leaps and effing bounds from the job I had at the boat. Paid more then twice as much, worked with people who were married like me (back then, anyway ) and who didn't carry guns or have friends who sold crack. People who I could talk to about Shakespeare or computers or things like global paradign shifts and not have them look at me funny.

And it didn't matter that I didn't have any background in web design, because web design is like that; the only thing that matters is if you can do the work or not. Total meritocracy. Which was fine with me. I could do the job.

"Black cat or white cat; all that matters is that it can catch mice."

After a while, though, I forgot this principle, and got a bit complacent. Not in my skills... I was a learning fool; got my Masters there and kept up with the latest technologies... but the problem is my team at work, the group I was a part of, did not.

We kept doing the same old stuff. We didn't adapt, or keep on the edge. So we were all outsourced, and most of us were downsized.As in fired. Apparently Raji and his buddies had just learned to do my job; he never complained about it like I did, and he was happy making about a third of what I was making. Rather then complain about it... I found a sucky job ( with a longer commute ) but that taught me an awesome skillset, and then I found an amazing job ( the one I'm at ). Once again I was the innovator.

Once again, the lesson came through in my life, the cat thing. But This time I'm paying a bit closer attention. It's only a matter of time before Raji ( that bastard ) learns how to do my New, Cool Job. I need to innovate. I need to be either special, specialized, or anchored. ( I have the most chance given what I do and who I am of being specialized ). And beleive me, if you are not one of these three things, you will definitely get caught with no chair once the music stops playing in this country, very soon.

With that in mind, I'm looking for a new job. I'm developing my skillset to new dizzying heights, and I'm taking advantage of the whole World is Flat thing by looking for a job that will let me telecommute, and live in Hawaii. Few things are as sweet ( in some warped way ) as looking for an awesome-er job, while you already have an awsome job.

Anyway, here I am. Endeavoing to be the cat, black or white, it doesn't matter. Just as long as I can do the job. As long as I can do something that makes me specialized, something Raji or Dimitri or Sengey or Guadalupe can't easily learn and outsource... I'll keep myself in the lifestyle to which I've become accustomed.

It is Sunday, late. and I am rambling a bit, I know. Maybe soon I'll take a much better whack at explaining why the quote is so powerful... But as I listened to the book on my way back up to Madison this evening, I had one of those special moments where things lock into place, and I see my life in a different, clearer sort of light.

Yay me.