Tuesday, January 13, 2009

"Immanentizing the Eschaton"

The phrase is from "Doktor Sleepless," one of Warren Ellis' current projects. Excellent book so far (I'm not finished with volume 1 yet). According to issue 4, "immantentizing the eschaton" means bringing on the end of everything, i.e., inciting the eschaton. Do not mess with Warren Ellis. He is King of the Internet.

A friend of mine commented on my lack of posting and, though I don't have quite enough time to give this post the attention it deserves, I thought it high time I put something up in place of that outdated Amsterdam one.

Work is... unsettling right now. A week ago Monday, they let someone go. Oh it was one of the "new" people (hired about six months ago) and it wasn't unexpected (one of our big clients drastically scaled back their work at the beginning of December), but it's a little off-putting. Yesterday, another of the new people resigned. The e-mail states that he wanted to go back to school, get a Ph.D., pursue a career in academia. Both of the aforementioned new people were unexperienced. Another of the new people, this one being experienced in the field, was told last week that he needs to "become profitable" within a month or he's gone. As for the rest of us here at work, the quantity of work is drying up a bit. None of us are overloaded, as we all were a year ago.

As for me, I don't think I'm in danger of losing my job. Do I want to lose my job? That's the real question. I know I want a new, different job, but I also want to weather the declining economy. I want to survive and, in this case, that means keeping my job until I get a new one.

Last night, I bought an iPhone. Yay. I am tempted to use it to begin Twittering. We shall see if that comes to pass.

While I was at the mall last night, it hit me – the downturn in the economy is making the world a scary place. Oh I've always been pretty insulated from the bad things(TM), but now the recession is making it real. The mall is already a pale shadow of its former self. More stores are closing all the time and the mall is becoming a hollow shell filled with empty stores and hanger-ons. It's starting to become real now and it's scary.

Home, car, family, dog, World of Warcraft, all going well. Catching the occasional movie. The DVR is a godsend. New furnace recently. A while ago, mom was in a minor car accident on her way to school. She's fine and her car is undergoing repairs.

As for me, well, I'm surviving. When I returned from my trip, things at work had changed. I was given a new system to implement and changed to an hourly rate. I swear the vacation did me well and I returned ready to work. I'm not working enough, not yet, but it's been better than it used to be and my bosses are okay with me. I'm getting things done and putting in time.

But I'm not happy. Though things have improved a bit, I'm still not happy with my career and I still view this as a temporary gig. Someday I will have to get a new job, move out of my mom's house, make my way in the world. In many ways, it feels like I've stalled for the past 3 years. I don't regret any of it, I almost never regret things, but I do need to change it at some point. Fear keeps me from diving over the edge, though, so no radical changes.

But it will change. It must.