New Year, New City, New Job

2014 is upon us.

Just as 1814 saw the Congress of Vienna redraw the landscape of Europe and the colonial world.

Just as 1914 saw a world war break out that changed the identities of nations and framed the struggle for peace in the 20th century.

Just as 2014 will see a period change from me that will forever be linked with the future of world as we know it. (I suppose this is technically true.)

Last year saw complacency break down into chaos as I left everything and spent 40 weeks wandering (part of which time I was in a desert). This year will see a return to the normality of life, but in a new and improved framework. Yes friends, I am moving away from Seattle and relocating to San Diego. I have accepted a job in San Diego with - surprise - The Navy.  I'm getting back on the same horse, but this time in a different organization doing different work. So it's all the thrill of a new job, but without restarting at the bottom of the totem pole.

I was offered the job right before Christmas and accepted it, and I'm moving down there next week. My girlfriend Carly will stay up in Seattle for the time being and eventually come down when she finds a job. But this means that I need to find a place to live again. So I'm back on the craigslist looking for places. I realized this might be my last new roommate for awhile and I've had quite a few roommates in the past.

In my first "Roommates" post I counted I lived with 20 people over the course of college. That number didn't change much post college until this summer when I moved back into a house in Ann Arbor. So I think it is time for a new count of my total number of roommates. Remember I only count people that I lived with for at least 2 or 3 months so summer sublets count. Someone staying at our place while they were between leases for a couple of weeks doesn't count. Live-in girlfriends don't count either unless they really lived there.

Roommate count by year we started living together:

Pre-2005: Laura, Julie, Mom, Dad - 4

2005: Max -1

2006: Jake, Sara, Rachel, Ross, Pete, Aaron, James, Fritz - 8

2007: Sara, Paul, Courtney, Emily, Brett, Al - 6

2008: Brick, Andy, Jay, Max, Paul, Matt, Zola, - 7

2009: N/A

2010: Tyler - 1

2011: N/A

2012: N/A

2013: Kevin, Tyler, Carly - 3

2014: ?

So I'm at a cool 30 different roommates.  Only five of which I've chronicled in "Roommates" posts. Some may not be worthy, but perhaps I should do a few more of those posts. They are awkward and fun. 

But overall I'm excited about the new job and moving to sunny San Diego. It has all happened pretty suddenly, but I think it will be an exciting life change. So California here I come.

I Resigned My Job

Some easy listening for the post.

It's true. I formally resigned my job last Friday. It is the biggest life event to happen to me since I started my job. After almost 4 years with my organization I hit the ceiling for growth and was just treading water. There were no opportunities for advancement, and even so the only promotions I could get would be jobs that would make me miserable. At the same time with the budget reductions I had very little work and was staring down a furlough that was going to cut my pay anyways. It was a good time to leave.

Even so, I'll look back on my first job with a since of thankfulness  I really did cherish the work I did and the people I've worked with. I'm very grateful for the opportunity but I'm also looking forward to doing something different.

The other reason I chose to leave my job is that ever since moving out here I've always dreamed of going back to Ann Arbor for at least a summer. I've decided to spend the summer living in Ann Arbor and travelling around the country visiting friends and family. I'm going to road trip from Seattle to Ann Arbor at the beginning of June, and then planning an east coast road trip for July or August. Then I'm looking at going to Europe in September for Oktoberfest. So if you live in the US, or want to go to Oktoberfest and would like to see me, let me know. I will drive to your house and sleep on your floor.

Eventually I'll need to go back to work. Probably after I return from Oktoberfest. Which also means I'll be looking for a job starting this summer. I've also been thinking about staring an enterprise, which I think would be fulfilling and challenging.

As always, I tell myself that I'm going to blog more. I'm really hoping this is true. To inspire me, I've changed the banner name.

Work Emails 1

I work with mosty engineers that are about my age. It's amazing to see how quickly emails can go from innocent, professional emails to any direction we decide to take them. Best to start from the bottom.

-----Original Message-----
From: Jonathan
Sent: Friday, February 12, 2010 2:29 PM
To: Sara; Brian
Subject: RE: ESB 1st floor square footage

I like the direction that conversation went. Well done.

-----Original Message-----
From: Sara
To: Jonathan; Brian
Subject: RE: ESB 1st floor square footage

OMG!!!!!!!!

-----Original Message-----
From: Jonathan
To: Brian; Sara
Subject: RE: ESB 1st floor square footage

I have nipples Brussels, can you milk me?

-----Original Message-----
From: Brian
To: Sara; Jonathan
Subject: RE: ESB 1st floor square footage

You can milk anything with nipples.

-----Original Message-----
From: Sara
To: Brian; Jonathan
Subject: RE: ESB 1st floor square footage

Like for breast milk, with a pump...it's weird

-----Original Message-----
From: Brian
To: Sara; Jonathan
Subject: RE: ESB 1st floor square footage

Describe this "boob pumping"

-----Original Message-----
From: Sara
To: Jonathan; Brian
Subject: RE: ESB 1st floor square footage

I wasn't sure if you meant like to do construction to put a door on the outside or something. I've never seen anyone use the couch...oh wait yes I have. The one girl used to pump her boob in there...HAHAHAHA so funny

-----Original Message-----
From: Jonathan
To: Sara; Brian
Subject: RE: ESB 1st floor square footage

I was 100% joking about an office. I think that would violate like 10 codes. And, you'd want headphones in like all the time.

-----Original Message-----
From: Sara
To: Jonathan; Brian
Subject: RE: ESB 1st floor square footage

There is a couch in there, but I don't think it would be big enough for an office. It would be crazy small, almost like a closet.

-----Original Message-----
From: Jonathan
To: Brian; Sara
Subject: ESB 1st floor square footage

B-Russ,

Attached is the square footage of all the rooms (excluding non-office areas) on the 1st floor of ESB. I got this information from the AutoCAD file (not the incorrect Visio file layout. I just used Visio because I could enter in the values). The square footage values are in (RED).

I will work on the 2nd floor next.

Sara,

See the "possible office" attachment. Regarding the gray area- what is this mysterious room in the girl's restroom? Are there couches?

More importantly, could we turn it into an office?

That is all, for now.

I work hard for my money

I got up this morning at 6:45 am. I rolled into work to do a 6 hour charter. The charter was to drive a bunch of student to the Target on Main Street for some corporate thing. They were supposed to be ready at 7:30. They didn't board the bus until 8:10. I then drove them to target and went back to base. I didn't have to pick them up again until 12:30 in the afternoon. That left me with a good amount of time.

I drove home and got some books and papers so I could study. I also grabbed some breakfast while I was home. I came back and started reading Call of the Wild at the table in the break room. Then I sat on the couch. Then I laid down on the couch. Then I was asleep. Eventually I started snoring and one of my co-workers woke me up. We started talking about how inefficient the bus system is. Of course, as we were talking both of us were getting paid to sit around the break room. Anyways he told me that I should present my ideas to management. So I spent the next 40 minutes outlining one of my ideas that I believe would save the department $10,000 a year and reduce fleet miles by 2,500 miles a year. I told this to my supervisor, and he said I should look into it further. Though I don't know if I want to spend my spare time doing free consulting.

Anyways, it was about time to go get the kids from Target. I decided to stop on the way for a McChicken and Double Cheeseburger. Then I sat in the Target parking lot for 20 minutes waiting for them to come out. When I thought about it I couldn't believe that they would pay to charter a bus to take them to Target. The price to charter a bus is $60 per hour, with a minimum of $180 dollars. So their 6 hour charter for the 25 of them cost $360. They could have taken cab's down there for less money. $360 to take 25 people 2 miles away and back. Wow.

So I dropped them back off at Campus and then I went to go finish of another driver's charter. It was a bunch of High School kids going to some thing at the B-School. I sat in my bus for about half an hour and then drove them back to Huron High School. Then I drove back to base and went home.

I worked over 7 hours today and spent approximately 40 minutes driving people around.

No one explicitly enjoys working, but most people have to in order to make money. So if you must work you should make as much as you can for the least amount of effort and least amount of risk. The only problem is that effort generally affects pay rate. So most high paying jobs require a considerable amount of effort (generally in time and mental strain). But what's weird is that most low paying jobs also require a great deal of effort like being a janitor or coal miner (generally physical). So the best jobs then are the ones that pay well for very little actual work like the students who work at the information desk's or in the fishbowl. It makes me wonder why some people work really hard at jobs that pay so little money, when really anyone can drive a bus, or become a receptionist or something.

So take three jobs students generally have; Cafeteria Worker, Tutor, Drug Dealer, and my job, Bus Driver. On a scale of one to five (five being the highest) here is how I would rate them in effort, risk and payment. Assuming no one gets any satisfaction from their job of course.

Job	Effort	Risk	Payment
Cafeteria Worker	4	2	2
Tutor	3	0	4
Drug Dealer	1	5	5
Bus Driver	2	1	3

In terms of an effort to payment rate, I would guess the best job on campus would be dealing drugs. But the only problem is that it is a high risk job. Injury's and arrests would deter me from doing it. The amount of effort that is involved driving a bus to the amount of payment is pretty good. Of course I risk getting a ticket (which is rare in a bus) or getting into an accident. I'm not certain that I have the best job on campus but I feel like compared to many other jobs mine is significantly less taxing and the pay is very decent.

I will say that being a Minority Peer Advisor in a residence hall is probably the best job on campus in terms of effort to pay. Apparently the time commitment is only 15-20 hours a week and for that you get free room and board and a cash stipend of about $3,000.

P.S. I coded the table in HTML myself. Booya! But I can't figure out the gap between the text and the table.

FYI

I just ate a sandwich that was just bread, mayo, cheese and very undercooked bacon. I now feel terrible.

Also, it is job recruiting season and believe it or not this blog might be viewed negatively by some employers. So the blog might be down for indeterminate lengths of time over the next several months. Thank goodness there is someone out there to push me down the Google search results.