Too bad Wallace isn’t here, it was a perfect day and I was in a cooking mood. Alls I can tell you is it was a totally home-made breakfast that kept you coming back for thirds. Even the coffee and oranges were fresh from El Presidente (Latin market). Wallace should be here by March. He’s staying with relations, and you know how that can be even under ideal circumstances. Come to think of it, what are ideal circumstances? Let me think. Joke time.Okay, that is when they put you up in a motel in the next county, give you a credit card, and visit only they can’t stay up late. Am I right, or am I right? Meanwhile, everything here is exactly as he left it, but that is partly due to my music adventure. Remember, I make more with music than with computers, and the way things are, glad of it. I have some words on that, words you won’t find in the newspapers.
The supply of “no-skill” jobs has dried up. The people doing them might disagree, and why not, they got nuttin’ else to do, bwaaa-ha-ha-ha. You know, demo salesmen, middle-management, substitute teachers, and the lot. All gone, and there were proportionately far more of these sorts in Florida than in the Dakotas. This causes them to begin seeking the next lowest levels of employment, such as advertising, real estate and telemarketing, only to discover two more things. Those jobs were gone a year ago, and what I really meant by “no-skill”.
Oddly, the few people doing well around here (and it is becoming more obvious each month) are those with some primary skill, that is, a skill congruent with self-employment. I’ve felt companies that stress “team work” do so to discourage members from learning to operate independently. So, if you worked in an office or corporation, good luck setting up shop in your spare bedroom when your time comes. Hmm, am I about to coin a term? I’ll call those “negative-skill” jobs.
Negative-skill is a job like dental assistant. After a short while, they think they know as much as the dentist. But if they strike out on their own, they reach for something, and it isn’t there. They forgot how it once got there. Other such negative-skill occupations would be bus driver, office trainer, assembly work, and mail man. But if you can sharpen a saw blade or fix a tire, you’ll never starve.
Later, I get feedback about the big party at Artie’s last Friday. Around five people have told me about it. I heard there were lineups in the parking lots. How does this affect me? Well, now I’m going to hear about it forever. This random event will become a standard defense against improvement. “We didn’t do it your way and we still made good money at Artie’s. And it could happen again if we play more Grateful Dead.”
The fact of the matter is that neither the bar nor the music was responsible for the turnout. What really happened was the Fair down the road raised their price to $3 per beer, driving all the boozers up to Artie’s and Walsh’s (which also had a record crowd).
This afternoon, I did some computer work, mostly anti-virus and “watch your ass on-line” coaching. Few people appreciate it is nearly impossible to learn to operate an Internet computer on your own without messing up. While I was working, a couple of so-called whiz kids were in attendance. What fun is was to pause every other moment and ask them what I should do next. I purposely worked about twice as fast as they could follow because I like that blank stare of wonderment.
There are “50--” more where they came from.
