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Browsing category: Uncategorized

  • April 2, 2012

    It’s your job, but what does that actually mean?

    What does your job mean to you

    I’m not talking about whether you’re doing what you’re most passionate about.

    Let’s not get into that.

    I’m talking about whether you feel like you’re doing meaningful work.

    Do you find fulfillment in what you do, regardless of what your job actually involves – customer service, admin, engineering, design…? Do you feel like your work has a useful purpose or that it’s making a difference?

    Chatting to some of my high school girlfriends, it’s evident (I don’t know if they could all say their job is their passion – I should ask them) their chosen fields are uber rewarding. Medicine. Osteopathy. Audiology. (Oh yes, and law – which if I didn’t have such a love for writing I guess I would have pursued – it is, at least here, the default for smart high schoolers who don’t go into the technical/scientific degrees.)

    All crazy important, worthy, noble jobs, helping their fellow humans, huge responsibilities. (Handily, also all very lucrative, which is a bonus; they do have higher education requirements, and high student loan repayments to match their higher starting salaries…but they’ll still make more than me in the long run.)

    Sometimes I can’t help but feel inferior, as the least educated and, I guess, the least ‘professional’ of all. Whenever I mention how insanely amazing what they do is, though, they’re always quick to praise me, my creativity, the fact that I’m less about book learning and more about real knowledge (ha). Bless.

    While I may not do anything particularly noble on a daily basis – I’m hardly serving the greater good of humanity – I create something new, every day. Stories people read, content they engage with. And maybe I do make a small difference for some of these inspiring and deserving people and companies.

    While I can’t really say the same of previous jobs I did before getting into my current field, they definitely had their moments.

    Example: I used to hate answering the phones at work. You just never knew what to expect. But when it wasn’t some crank, and when I could actually help the caller with what they were after – that felt really good. I sincerely like helping people, and if they’re grateful for it, that’s just the icing.

    At another job, my general office admin tasks were, in all honesty, rather dull. But in transcribing and typing out legal documents, I took real pride in my work, getting used to each consultant’s style, correcting any grammatical errors, doing my best to be a star support person.

    I don’t know if that’s quite the same thing as finding meaning in my work per se, but it certainly lifted the job above just something I did to get by.

    What does your job mean to you?

  • March 31, 2012

    Link love (Powered by blogging peeves and other woes)

    Some weird shit has been happening in the blogging world.

    First, WordPress and Google’s Blogger stopped playing nice with each other. Despite putting in the correct Captcha codes, I could not post comments on Blogger blogs using my WordPress credentials. I had to use either my Google account or Name/URL (if the latter option was even available).

    Then I noticed a few blogs recently go to partial RSS all of a sudden, apparently through nothing they’d done.

    (I’m curious, by the way. How do you keep up with blogs? Email? RSS? Bookmarks? Something else?)

    Now WordPress isn’t playing nice, either – if you’re using an email that’s ever been associated with a WordPress or Gravatar, apparently, it will ask you to log in. Either that, or you gotta use Facebook/Twitter. Lame.

    I checked my commenting settings. For wordpress.com users, there are two:

    Comment author must fill out name and e-mail – When this setting is on, anyone leaving a comment will be forced to leave a name and a valid email address. If the setting is off, visitors can leave anonymous comments.

    Users must be registered and logged in to comment – If this box is checked, only logged in WordPress.com users will be allowed to leave comments. If it is not checked, any visitor can leave a comment.

    As per this thread, I checked, and I already had the second unselected, but now I’ve also deselected the first in an effort to make the process easier.

    If you were having issues but can now comment, I’d really appreciate feedback – even just a Yes or a smiley face! Otherwise, well, perhaps it’s time to figure out my branding and consider going self-hosted…

    WORK

    At Fast Company, my favourite publication,we have both 8 reasons to choose a startup over a corporate, and 9 reasons to do the opposite.

    Similarly, Susannah Breslin defends working for the man in her latest column.

    The 99 Percent talks to some lifestyle design types (shudder) about how to do great work while travelling the world.

    Five stories of graduates whose student loan debt determined their careers, via The Grindstone.

    At Publishing Trendsetter: the things you enjoy may not have the broadest appeal – it’s the things others enjoy that will make you money.

    Like me, Her Every Cent Counts doesn’t want to move into management.

    Budgets are Sexy features a guest who moonlights as a bouncer (T has done it a couple of times, but obviously, the hours are rather crap)

    So Over Debt lists 10 things that suck about job hunting.

    Krystal asks: would you relocate for a better job?

    How much money would it take for you to clean somebody else’s bathroom? Via She Bloggs.

    The ultimate post-layoff to-do list, at Sense to Dollars.

    Financial Samurai has a kickass post on what it’s like to be unemployed.

    MONEY

    Some tips for handling freeloading friends and family, via You Have More Than You Think.

    It’s not about just increasing income or cutting costs – it’s about maximising that gap in between, says Fabulously Broke.

    Budgets Are Sexy on using daily deals to make dating more fun.

    Making money isn’t glamorous, says Afford Anything. Ain’t that the truth…

    FOOD

    Raspberry coconut macaroons. How good do those sound? At Smitten Kitchen.

    Double berry oat muffins, by the Joy of Caking.

    Okay, Perks of Being a Jap has convinced me to make these peanut butter cup cookies.

    Chocolate peanut butter ice cream! Also, raspberry coconut loaf, both from Hungry and Frozen.

    LIFE

    Shannon from According to Me reflects on the then and now of her relationship.

    Like Ashley, I have a complex inner life. And like her, I have trouble expressing it. I often feel like there’s no possible way I can ever be the full me, project the full me, in the real world.

    I love Redhead Writing’s take on life – it’s all about filling in the blanks.

    Chelsea reminds us that it’s OKAY to ask for what we want – and what we need.

    In a rut? It’s okay, embrace your 20s – this is actually the most free and least stuck you’ll ever be. A rockin’ post at Thought Catalog.

  • March 30, 2012

    Friday Five: Odds and ends

    • Sometimes I pick up a book I’ve just finished and reread passages at random just for something to read.
    • Last week I watched 10 Things I Hate About You for the first time in years. It’s one of my favourite movies – the Heath Ledger bleacher/stone step serenade scene is one of the best and the location is just breathtaking. The outtake with the band playing on the roof of the most seaside building on the school grounds? Amazing. (And I didn’t realise just how many of the cast went on to bigger and better careers.)
    • Recently I have experienced outstandingly epic incidents of corporate douchebaggery (no, not by my own company). Please God, if I ever sell my soul to a big corporation, let it be for one I truly believe in. Friends have gone into Big 4 firms and it worries me when I discuss examples of said corporate douchebaggery and they barely bat an eye. The brainwashing starts early. It’s scary.
    • I have no problem talking about money on this blog or to people in the real world, but when it comes to actual transactions? Not so much. I hated dealing with money matters when flatting and I was head of the house. And my first experience dealing with paid contributing writers was no different – I got all jittery and sweaty during the process of hashing out details.
    • Sometimes I wonder if I am in entirely the wrong kind of line of work for my personality type. I am a good listener. Not a good talker. And while I love writing, I am not so good at the people side of things. I may not be quite as awkward as Dr Park from House (who doesn’t love Charlyne Yi?!), and while I’ve come to be a lot more comfortable in my own skin overall, I am still awfully uncomfortable around other human beings. I would probably be more suited to a heads down, bums up kind of job – programming, analysis, something like that. But neither my interests nor my strengths lie in those areas.
  • March 29, 2012

    Adventures in the kitchen: Pasta, potatoes and cabbage

    Need an easy, hearty comfort dinner? This will hit the spot.

    The original recipe is a little fancier – using baby red potatoes. Those are crazy expensive so we only had dirty old potatoes from the ground I peeled and cut up.

    I used roughly:

    Two cups pasta
    One large potato, sliced up into thin, kind of rectangular pieces
    About a quarter of a large cabbage
    1 clove garlic, chopped finely
    A splash of EVOO
    A chunk of butter – maybe 25 grams’ worth
    1/2 cup grated cheese
    salt and pepper

    Cook the pasta, and when half done, add the potatoes, until cooked through.

    Meanwhile, get the garlic going in the olive oil in a pan. Add cabbage and season. Cook until done to your liking (we like it fairly soggy). Add the potatoes and pasta to the pan, mix through butter and cheese, and add more salt/pepper as needed. (The recipe also suggested adding half the starchy cooking water, which we skipped, but probably made up for with the butter.) Commence chowdown.

    Frugal factor: high. Cholesterol level: let’s not go there.

  • March 27, 2012

    Personal finance topics I’m so over

    personal finance topics i'm so over

    Let’s kill all these off for eternity, thanks.

    Saving for your kids’ university vs saving for your retirement

    I may be biased.

    In New Zealand, everyone can get an education, if they are so inclined. Schooling is “free” (annual fees, or “donations” as they call them, are just short of being compulsory – but you can get away without paying them. I didn’t pay my fees in the last year of high school as I was financially supporting myself and that $150 or whatever was a lot of money. It does mean you might miss out on certain things, like getting a yearbook, and of course you have to pay for school trips and stationery and whatnot). And everybody is entitled to an interest-free government student loan to cover your tertiary education.

    But you know what? No matter where in the world you live, some things don’t change. You, and you alone, are responsible for your financial situation. Nobody else will put your interests first. So if you don’t, what do you expect to happen to you?

    Sure, you can help out your kids, if you would like to and can swing it. I know fees in the US are reaching ridiculous new highs. But you won’t be doing anybody any good by jeopardising your own twilight future and potentially becoming a burden on your offspring later down the track.

    Do both by all means. But put one of these priorities – yourself – first, and don’t go for the other on its own.

    Why buying name brand items is a waste of money and how a kitten/fairy/unicorn dies every time you do it

    Look, there really is no difference sometimes. Budget milk is the same as Anchor (and even if not, the price difference is too staggering to make me fork out for the blue label). Budget pasta is the same as the next brand up, and a few more beyond that. Heck, T gets by just fine wearing Warehouse own-label jeans, though he does spend most of his time in Dickies.

    Here’s the thing, though. Some generic brands are downright godawful. No-name ketchup. Instant noodles. Canned vegetables. I’ve done it, and never again. That’s wasted food I couldn’t stomach, that never got finished, and money down the drain. I know what items it pays to pay a little more for, and I stick to it.

    Cellphones are a luxury and if you think otherwise, you’re a spoilt, entitled Gen Yer

    I work in media. Having a cellphone is expected (and in fact I now have a work phone). But even when I worked in hospitality, I was still expected to be easily reachable for last-minute shift changes or in the case of another job, to be contacted in regard to my availability to serve at various functions and events. You don’t have to be super important and way up the hierarchy to be needed, if you know what I mean.

    Cellphones don’t need to be expensive, either. I’ve had a phone since about 16 (I’m now 23) and in those years, I rarely spent more than $20 a month. A home phone costs more than that, with extra for voicemail. (Incidentally, we do have a landline with our broadband package, but doesn’t actually work with our modem – we have to unplug it to use the phone – and we use it so infrequently I can’t be bothered doing anything to remedy the situation.)

    Any blog topics you’ve had enough of, finance or otherwise?

  • March 26, 2012

    Can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em

    I’m not a fan of absolute statements.

    So when I read “it is way harder to live without someone, than to live with them“, that got my back up.

    When you don’t see someone day in and day out, when you don’t live together (and that generally corresponds, though not always, with the earlier stages of a relationship) it’s a hell of a lot easier to romanticise them.

    The saying goes that absence makes the heart grow fonder, and it’s a classic for a reason. Being away from someone tends to make you miss them (the principle of scarcity, after all, is that you want what you can’t have) as you focus on their good points (similar to why we tend to sugarcoat the past – my high school memories are pretty rose-tinted, although I had a heck of a teenagehood toward the end of it).

    And yes, I know what I’m talking about – T and I did the long distance thing for six months when he had no access to a cell phone or internet, so we communicated via letters and a couple of in person visits. It was lonely sometimes, but on the other hand, we never had any disagreements  or in fact any issues, really. However. I can tell you that if we had spent those six months in the same city, there would have been fights, and there would have been ups and downs.

    We all have faults. Annoying or downright gross habits. T doesn’t rinse the basin properly after he shaves. I moult hair everywhere and am slack about picking it up. Sharing your home with another human being that you’re not used to sharing with can be tough. How they like to clean, socialise, eat or sleep may not mesh with how you do things. And we’re adults. Most of our routine habits are pretty well ingrained. Not saying these are dealbreakers – far from it – and some people may slot perfectly into each other’s lives! But the adjustment period can also be rough.

    If we were to be separated NOW, that’d be a different story. It’d be undoubtedly harder to live apart after having built a life together. But I don’t personally buy the premise that the pre-moving in together stage is so much more painful than the post.
    What do you think?
  • March 25, 2012

    Adventures in the kitchen: Coconut lentil soup

    Vegan coconut lentil soup. Experimental success!This is vegan – and delicious!

    From the original recipe:

    “Although ‘spiced’ this dish is not particularly spicy – even with the added chili and paprika. The spice is very mild and subtle but absolutely essential in aiding the soup to be bursting with the incredible flavor it possesses. Sheer aromatic excellence if you ask me.”

    Couldn’t agree more. It’s excellent.

    Granted, mine wasn’t vegan as I only had chicken stock on hand. I also didn’t have fresh ginger or chili or lime, and used normal salt, not Himalayan (what the heck is that?!)

    It was still awesome, though.

    Ingredients:

    1/2 onion, chopped
    1 clove garlic, chopped
    1 cup red lentils
    1 can coconut milk
    3 cups water
    1 cube of stock
    1 teaspoon ground coriander
    1 teaspoon ground ginger
    1 teaspoon chili powder
    1 teaspoon paprika
    1 teaspoon cumin
     salt
    black pepper
    1 heaping teaspoon coconut oil (I had only ever used coconut oil for melting with chocolate in baking before. It smells foul when heated on the stove.)

    Get the onion going in the coconut oil in a pot. Once translucent, add the garlic and all the spices and cook for a few minutes.

    In go the lentils (mix, mix mix), along with the coconut milk, water and stock. Season with salt and pepper.

    Cover, bring to boil, then simmer for about half an hour, stirring in between. Season to taste.

    Frugal factor: high, depending on your spice rack. I don’t see any reason why you can’t substitute coconut oil for something more mundane.

  • March 24, 2012

    Link love (Powered by scallops and samosas)

    Lately I’ve found myself in some rather foreign situations.

    Taxiing multiple times a week (in a day, even)

    How do they arrive almost instantly after I hang up the phone to call for one? We’re out in the burbs; it’s not like there are rows of cabs lined up around the corner.

    The (horse) races

    I find this a strange, kind of anachronistic concept – very old school English – associated with a certain class of person, one to which a girl from the immigrant working class, who finds taxi chits and fancy restaurants daunting, most certainly does not belong.

    Yacht sailing

    Again, obviously such a moneyed activity. An enjoyable one, though. Also, very, very masculine. It was particularly interesting to see that the majority of fellow sailors were very courteous and friendly, in a crowded harbour, there was also anger – in one case outright yelling from boat to boat, and in another, simply holding up a peeved sign as our yacht passed by.

    Anyway, March has been madness on the events front and I’m hoping for/looking forward to a quieter, calmer April. It’s great to get out of the office from time to time but it does mean I get behind on all the other things I have to do.

    On a slightly different note… I know I’m often a ring-in, a seat-filler if you like, at events. Sometimes this works out quite nicely (in one case, dinner in a very quirky location and lots of freebies).

    But I’ve gotta wonder; do planners overbook for capacity? If so, by how much? And what does that mean when they STILL need to fill spots at the last minute?It has to be said, however, that too often they go overboard. I can’t count the number of inane event invitations that come our way that have zero value – publicity for boring product version 3.1.1.0, or with a deathly dull speaker nobody outside your company cares about – even with the most copious amounts of free and awesome food, there just isn’t any way to justify taking the time out to go.

    WORK

    I’m at Twenties Hacker pondering when it makes sense to freelance – and when it doesn’t pay

    One of the most balanced/nuanced takes on passion work vs plain old work I’ve ever read, from Get Rich Slowly. Two thumbs up

    And at Blog Maverick: Follow where your time and effort is, not necessarily your passion

    Young and Thrifty shares the worst jobs she did as a teenager

    At Journalistics, some tips for bringing online networking into the real world

    At Ms Career Girl, a counterintuitive way of dealing with workplace enemies

    FOOD

    How to plan dinner,at Dinner: A Love Story

    Chocolate peanut butter cheesecake. Enough said. From $120 Food Challenge.

    What looks like a straightforward, three-grain bread recipe, by Liberal Simplicity.

    LIFE, ETC

    Young and Thrifty shares the reasons that led her to quit Facebook.

    From the new crop of Stratejoy bloggers, a post on analysis paralysis and discovering values

    Yes and Yes features a reader who’s childless by choice

    Married with Luggage explains how to go about starting a kickass book club

    And finally, from the Atlantic: I didn’t tell Facebook I was engaged, so why is it asking about my fiance?

    This totally freaks me out. I will be really unnerved if this happens to me – I am still “in a relationship” on Facebook and plan to keep my status the same until we actually get hitched, and have participated in virtually no wedding/engagement talk anywhere on Facebook since.

  • March 23, 2012

    The ring thing: Commitment does not equal bling


    I do not wear any jewellery. I don’t even have my ears pierced. I take 10 minutes to get ready in the morning (low-maintenance WHAT).

    So, I definitely wouldn’t consider myself a girly girl.

    Yet for some reason I insisted T needed a ring to propose to me.

    I didn’t think about what I would actually do with that ring.

    Let me tell you, it took a long time to get remotely used to sporting a new, foreign, object on my hand.

    So I totally identified with RINGPOST, who wrote in to A Practical Wedding about how she wasn’t really down with the whole wearing of the ring.

    How did I solve this?

    Well, I half-ass a few things in life.

    Car parking.

    House cleaning. (But thanks to my new canister vacuums I think I’ve upgraded to quarter-assing it. What? I spend half the time I use to with these.)

    And yes, ring wearing.

    I try to remember to put it on most weekday mornings. But I generally skip it on weekends, when we’re often out and about doing more active things, and cleaning the house, and whatnot.

    (It’s not that I don’t like the thing. I wasn’t sold on it initially, true, but I warmed to its individuality; it’s not your usual one gem on a plain silver band, and it has a family history – and its shape means it can’t inconveniently snag on anything.)

    So yeah, I wear my ring. Just not all the time. It’s probably a 70/30 or so ratio.

    How do you feel about wearing your relationship status on your hand? Or, what will you admit to half-assing?

  • March 22, 2012

    Recap: Round the Bays 2012

    Army boys in their boots. T reckons they would’ve run in those. To which I say, fuck that.

    Cuteness. Nothing like seeing entire families kitted out for the run. And power to anyone running with a pram.

    Just about a year ago I ran my first official 10k.

    This weekend I ran my second race, the 8.4k Round the Bays. According to the official stuff, I crossed the line in 58 minutes, but really, at least the entire first 10 minutes were a wash.

    Looking backwards from my starting point

    When 40,000 odd people turn up for a run, you gotta get in early. My first mistake as a rookie. I was a block back from the starting line, and the majority of the thousands in front of me were only in it for fun. Bang! goes the start gun. Then…we waited. Shuffled forward. Did that for a while. (Walkers to the left, runners to the right DID NOT WORK. Rules fail when people don’t obey them. There were walkers, kids and prams all over the road.) It got a little more spaced out after that, but the next 15 minutes were still very tight – rather than focusing on getting my run on, my energy went toward weaving and dodging people in order to try and get somewhat ahead. Oh, and nature started calling pretty early on in the race, which made for kind of an uncomfortable 7k or so.

    It got insanely hot – so much so I had to tie up my oversized company shirt and roll the sleeves up over my shoulders. Believe it or not, the weather actually played along – the sun beat down until about noon and it started raining JUST after I got on the bus. Another note for next time – bring more than one safety pin, because the last thing you want is your runner’s slip flapping around on your chest.

    My just crossed the finish line face. Hawt.

    Where it all finished – right across from Rangitoto.

    All up, I’m glad I did it – it was a great atmosphere at the start, music and all, and it was nice towards the end to see people on the footpath from Mission Bay on watching and cheering us. (Towards the end, you start to see the earlier finishers walking back along the route…the freaks who can literally sprint 8k…which kinda made me consider running back to town myself, which would almost comprise a half-marathon…) There are water stops all along the route, and Pump tents at the finish line spraying fine mists of water that are quite fun to run through. And the day wouldn’t be complete without queues for the rip-off buses ($4 for what would normally cost $1.80 – given that most of us used them, why not include this in the entry?).

    Last year I decided I never wanted to run anything longer than a 10k. This year, I definitely feel I could do a half-marathon if I wanted (which is debatable) as long as I get better shoes. But I don’t think I can be arsed with a half – I’d want to do a full – and yet 42k really does not sound like fun at all. And while my company sponsored our Round the Bay entries, I doubt it’ll fork over the $100-plus for the Auckland Marathon apiece. Jury’s still out.

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