Work: the godzilla of all addictions

I am a workaholic

Took me a while to admit that shit. I love working. I love being engaged. I love the feeling of integrating variables and deadlines and considerations in my head, moving my body in time to the rhythm of the situation and drinking copious amounts of coffee. This is basically my process, whether I'm webmastering or writing, digging ditches or directing.

For our purposes here, "Work" is anything I do for money or similar compensation. That includes acting, teaching, consulting, programming, babysitting, and manning the counter at The Holy Cow.

08-20-02 Strange Jobs I've Worked
I've worked a lot of jobs in my days. Probably the weirdest was right before I went away to school. I sold vaccum cleaners. Did ok for a rookie, but I skipped town before I could collect $300 in cash bonuses I had coming. I suppose the guys I worked with used the money to get drunk at the sales meeting. Sales is like using your power for evil instead of good, exerting the force of your will over another human being to make them do things that aren't neceseccarily in their best interest. I was selling a $1,800 machine and most of my leads were people in trailer parks. Gave me a lot to think about.

When I was in college I worked in the NYU computer lab about 15 hours a week and did some Mr. Fix-it stuff on the side. Eventually I got out of the computer lab and became a Resident Assistant, working for free housing and food. It was an ok scene, got me started on the leadership trip. That's how I met Jeremy, too.

In the summer of my freshman year (1998) I worked like a dog. It was a good time, steady girlfriend and between three and five concurrent jobs. Every moment precious. I worked nights retrofitting a grocery store with Robin and the two managers, who were a laugn riot. We'd take a break at 2am or so and make huge dagwood-style sandwitches in the deli. I worked in that same store for a bit as a courtesy clerk, stocking shelves. The worst of that was the dairy case, standing in a huge walk-in cooler where it's 35 degrees and rotating the yogurt.

That summer I also worked at a mill, and I did some landscaping and other temp labor too. Stuffed envelopes for a software company and got moved up (in stature and pay) to tech support when the owner realized I was clueful. They made software for real-estate agents and were going out of business because of some legal battle with their main competitors. The rest of the support staff consisted of the owner's cute punk-rock daughter, a grad student in psychology, and two semi-disabled guys. They were probably some of the best co-workers I ever had, even though I only worked there for a few weeks. Can't find any trace of them on the net, sadly.

The next year at school I got involved with my shady .com dealings and that was the end of odd-job Josh. Though I was now a "developer" I'd have to say my "job" was certainly odd. But that's another story for another time.

These days I work virtually for a Dutch foundation (my job interview was in irc: how 21st century!) and consult on the side in my own two-fisted anti-corporate style. I also occasionally get paid to act.

01-15-02
Today I had the odd experience of teaching one of my first Acting teachers some things about her computer. She's this crazy (in a wonderful way) Dutch woman named Saskia, who taught an improvization/acting class my first semester at ETW. She's a rather intimidating teacher with wild moods and a foul mouth, but it was a great class. I put my fist through a wall. I thought it was pretty intense (which I guess it was). Later in my career there I understood something like that happens at least once in every freshman section.

Since I ended up being the resident computer guru in that place, she of course called me for help with her iBook. It was odd to talk creative and tech and try and fix netscape and outlook express issues on an iBook that's in Dutch mode. Oh well, it's my policy to get my mind blown as often as possible, and that might just qualify.