Rich's Rules of Life

Here are a few of the things that I have learned. 


Some of these things I learned the hard way(tm)(t). 

Other things, were told to me by really cool people. My mom and dad, friends, my bosses, podcasts, books, magazines, celebrities....

The odd thing about this, is sometimes I was told one of these things, but I still had to learn it the hard way(tm)(r).

Still others were learned by simple observation.

I'm going to try and trim this list down, and create posts for each item. Where an item has some subtext, that is the start of a new post. I hope you read this list and get something out of it. 

Rich's Rule of Life # 1 - If, at your place of work, you cannot identify "side show knob", then you are that person.

There is always that guy,  or gal at work.  

The one that annoys everyone. 

The one that jumps up from their desk the second your arrive at work, before you can make your goddamn coffee, and comes running at you with some stupid problem about the stupid customer that has no bearing on the import....

Oh, sorry. Let me take a sip of coffee..

No, its the one who just wants to remind you that you haven't filled out your United Way card yet, and that "there are really easy ways to donate a percentage of your income to this wonderful charity" that's an umbrella charity for all of the charities that you hate, but don't worry they will only send your money to the charities you like, just fill out the form with the amount you want give... "Oh, you don't want to give? Why not? If you don't like some of the charities then your donation will be colour coded to only go to the ones you like.. Oh, you've set up your own donations? Are you sure they are doing the important work that the United Way is doing?? And it really looks great for the company when it's employees give so much money!"   !@$@@$% LEAVE ME ALONE I WANT TO DO WORK!!!

sip of coffee.. ok, I'm better...

Ok. Or maybe it's that person with model airplanes all over his desk on nice little stands, all perfectly painted with the real liveries of the actual airplane, or the actual load outs of the attack plane, who grabs your client to show them the actual little man sitting in the canopy of the goddamn YF-22 Advanced Tactical Fighter, and how he's fucking anatomically correct, with all the actual goddamn colour of the goddamn uniform...

Ok, one more sip... 

Or maybe, just maybe it's that developer that hangs out at the receptionists desk and offers to bring her a coffee, oh, she doesn't like coffee? What about a tea? He can go to the tea shop around the corner... oh, ok, what about a coke? @#$@% LEAVE THE POOR WOMAN ALONE AND FIX THE F'ING BUG I ASKED YOU TO FIX ALREADY!!!

Sigh... another sip..

Or maybe, just maybe, all of your co-workers are awesome. No one is pissing you off... But, you notice that people seem hesitant when you walk by...

Rich's Rule of Life #0 - If the worst thing that happens to you today is that you've lost your job, you're doing OK.

This rule was given to me by the vice president at the first post-university job I held, it took me many years to realize the truth of it. For a long time, I felt that my job was my life and that if you failed at your job you failed at life...

After a quitting, or being laid off a few times, I realized that, in general, the next job was better. I was able to identify the types of jobs I really wanted and sought them out actively. My job hunting skills became much better with practice... Lot's of practice.. IMMENSE amounts of practice.

I had sent out so many cover letters and resumes that I was excited whenever I got a rejection letter! I had been keeping a really great database of my job-hunting activities and I was able to correlate rejections to job-hunting actions. When I saw that something wasn't working, I changed things up a small bit and kept moving on.

I learned very early to go to interviews with applications that I had written and always gave a small presentation to those who were there. I judged their reactions to my presentation and decided if *I* wanted to work with them.

Interviews suddenly became me interviewing the employers, not the employers interviewing me. I realized that I had a bit of control, I could say "no".

I no longer worry about losing my job. I will always find a new, better one.