I didn't pursue any internships in college and found achieving my first position to be harder-than-expected.
I'm a pretty smart guy, and I've earned my degree, so why wouldn't people actively want to hire me? Oh, how naive. (A 2.7 GPA scares off a lot of potential employers.)
I went to an interview with a battery manufacturing company. The first interview was with a geeky individual similar to myself. I thought I did pretty well, and he must have also. I went to the on-site interview that required a short flight.
The interview lasted ~6 hours with ~6 different people. I was doing fine, but was a bit exhausted as the 6th interview of the day approached. The 6th interview did not go so well. The interviewer was an attractive female. I have never been entirely comfortable around attractive women, and this was an interview situation, making it even less comfortable for me.
Somehow, the topic of ethics came up. And my mouth just kept going off without my brain. I said things like "It's a shame that we have to teach ethics in college these days. So many people lie, cheat, and steal. Hundreds of people got caught cheating on Biology exams at my school. Half of marriages end in divorce." But I didn't stop there. "I keep notes on my calculator on how to solve complicated problems. But I erase them right before the test so that I won't be tempted to use them."
I no longer remember exactly how the conversation went. But I'm sure I left her thinking that I was a very unethical individual that thought 'everybody' was unethical. While I do actually think that nearly everybody is unethical in some behavior or another, I try to be very ethical in my own behavior. I do realize that I am not perfectly ethical, but I keep the frequency of my unethical behavior quite low and I regret it when my behavior goes out of bounds. (I personally do my best not to tell lies, but that is the only aspect of my behavior that sometimes ...)
Wait. Ok, now I see what happened in that conversation. I kept on trying to say "No wait, I really am ethical except for these minor exceptions..." I view that as being quite honest. But the person you are talking with will not be likely to share your opinion. You may view it as being forthright and giving full honest disclosure. They may view it as "He just admitted to being a liar in a job interview."
I've lied a half dozen times in the last 10 years or so. This is my unethical behavior that I regret.
Anyway, I'm sure you've heard that it is best to remain overwhelmingly positive during an interview? This is good advice. Focusing on all that's wrong in the world may be a good topic for an informal Wednesday evening church service, but it's entirely the wrong tone for a job interview.
My rejection letter beat me home.
That particular job interview was a unique experience for me, and I don't believe I've ever had one go that way since. All of my following interviews seem to have gone one of two ways.
Most interviews go well for me. After all, I'm interviewing because they saw something in my resume that indicated I might be a good fit working with them. I'm usually a bit more sociable than a lot of engineers, so I don't have problems finding rapport with interviewers on most occasions. (And it is truly rare that you are interviewed by an attractive woman in engineering, so the nerves that were involved in that interview 10 years ago were an exception.) That's the kind of interview that occurs when I am comfortable.
Perhaps around a third of interviews go another way entirely for me. These are the interviews where I am decidedly not comfortable. They typically begin with a (very) short social setup. The interviewer will ask one question like "So, did you enjoy the trip up?" and one follow-up social nicety, such as "Well, that's good." And then it's on!
He'll start asking technical questions and wanting me to do prepared written questions, etc. If I've prepared for what he's asking, I do fine even with this interview method. But If I'm going to an interview where I'm expecting a programming position and they give me time-variant analog circuit analysis problems? I don't do so well.
And it's not that the questions in these interviews are ever hard. More than 99% of the time, I know the correct answers before I make it back to my car. But the fight-or-flight part of my brain does not accept stressful challenges well. The problem-solving portion of my brain doesn't engage well when I'm asked to produce an answer right-now and I know I'm being judged by the person or people sitting there across from me waiting on my answer.
I seem to do much better on such written skills tests when I've been given 20-30 minutes to chat with the interviewers, get a drink of water, and get used to the new environment. (I've never been to this company, building, or room before. I've never met or spoken with these people before.) I would ace them every time if they would mention during the phone interview what they would like to give an exam on during the on-site interview. I've never received explicit mention of this. But usually they will at least divulge the focus of the work, and I'll prepare for that. Unfortunately it's when you arrive for the software position that they'll surprise you with "You'll be designing analog and digital circuits as a primary part of your job, please take this test while the five of us stare at you."
I remember an electronics lab in college where the teaching assistant had friends going to job interviews. He would put the 'stumpers' from the job interviews on the board. And I was always thinking to myself, "How could someone get that wrong?! It's so easy!" I didn't understand the stress and pressure to perform in an interview. Your brain can go right out the window, along with your chance of getting that 'simple' problem right.
I think this mental state is similar to 'tilt' in magic or poker. The game is going along according to your opponent's plan, and then you wreck their plan. Sometimes they recover fine. Sometimes they go on tilt. Their play suffers immensely and you will have a hard time losing until they come out of it.
When you're on tilt in an interview, you've lost that job. Not because you aren't a smart guy or can't do the job. It's because tilt turns you into a total idiot in an interview.
I recognized an opposite problem while I was still in college. Some total-idiots are very good at not ever going on tilt. They have a ready answer for anything, and they sound good. Unfortunately, following the advice of a total idiot in most situations is not a good idea. The sad thing is, these people interview extremely well. From what I can tell, this kind of person easily ends up in management and has no problems keeping their job.
Later in life, I accidentally hired one of these guys as an engineer. During the interview he answered any question about his capabilities with the facts that he had a lot of experience in this field already (18 years!) and that he would have no problem. He's done it in the past, it's easy, etc.
Well, he kept the same attitude when he got the job. But somehow he couldn't fix anything. When I would go to troubleshoot broken equipment with "Bob", it would go something like this.
Me:"Bob, we see failure condition X. We've rebooted the machine and still see failure condition X. I suspect a problem with hardware or connectivity in the area of P."
Bob:"That's not it!"
Me:"? What leads you to that conclusion?"
Bob:"That's just not it!"
Me:"Well...what do you think the problem could be?"
Bob:"I don't know, but that's not it! Maybe the boards are bad."
Me:"Well...it's only this machine that's failing. These same boards pass when tested on the other machines. What would you do to troubleshoot further?"
Bob:"I don't know, but that's not it!"
Me:"Well, let's swap module P with the module next to it and see if the failure changes."
I digress. I ended up taking a job as a contractor with the phone company. It was quite Dilbert-esque, but that is another story.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
College
I put very little effort into High School and very little effort into applying for colleges, and went to a nearby public university.
It was a decent school, but the two full-ride scholarships had more to do with it's selection than anything else.
The summer of 1994, I was exposed to a game called "Magic: The Gathering." I wasted a lot of time playing that game when I should have been attending class. I also had a very needy girlfriend at the time.
I remember one weekend spent playing magic and not sleeping. The needy girlfriend demanded that I drive an hour to see her that Monday, eat lunch with her, and then drive an hour back. She knew I had no sleep and a calculus exam that night. I did not do well on that exam.
I would regularly skip classes for various reasons, and sometimes for no particular reason at all. I had no problems making it to work. (While I didn't fail any classes in my first year, I did do poorly enough that I lost both scholarships and had to take a job to continue attending.) For some reason, making it to work was important to me. I think it had to do with people's expectations. Nobody really noticed or cared if you missed class. I skipped all of my lectures and most of my recitations.
I remember an anthropology instructor that thought he had things figured out. He would randomly take attendance and give a random point value for being in attendance. He viewed this as random positive reinforcement for attending, or random punishment for not attending. I had a different viewpoint.
I skipped his class profligately. Every time I skipped and he didn't take attendance, I received positive reinforcement. Every time I attended and he failed to take attendance, I received negative reinforcement.
I will mention that the (very) few classes that regularly took attendance, I attended with regularity.
I remember taking Calculus 2 and skipping all of the lectures and only coming to 1 recitation per week. Recitations were Tuesdays and Thursdays, with quizes on Thursdays. I didn't do the homework, and I would only go to the recitations on Thursdays because of the weekly quiz. I would slip into the classroom 10 minutes before the end of class so I could take the quiz. Sometimes I would be playing games and would even miss the quiz. I only earned a 'C' in that class.
I took a 500+ level geography class as an elective to fulfill some requirements for my degree. The class was supposed to be "North-American Geography." I attended most of the classes before the first test. Did fine on the first test. (Most of the factual questions were straight from the course materials. The instructor seemed to have a huge hard-on for story and history of the Appalachian people, however.) I decided to skip all of the classes until a week before the next test, as marked on the syllabus. That week would allow me to get all of the review information prior to the test.
I walked into the classroom and sat down. I was a bit surprised at how many people were in attendence, as usually only ~2/3 of the class would show up on a given day. I got a bad feeling as the instructor walked in with a sheaf of papers and started handing them out. Ahh, the test had been moved up a week. The first question was an essay question that I can still recall. "What was the Pick-Sloan Plan and why was it called a shameless, loveless, shotgun marriage?" I felt like I couldn't just leave it blank, so I wrote a nonsensical tongue-in-cheek full-page essay regarding the abuse of the Appalachian peoples at the hands of slick lawyers that I'm sure made it quite obvious that I hadn't the slightest clue.
I did poorly on that exam and only barely ended with a 'C' in that class.
I took Biology, skipping all of the lectures, the vast majority of the recitations, all of the labs, the 'required' pig-practical (yuck!), and the paper worth 10% of the grade. I only showed up for the exams. Connie, the owner of the local magic shop, told me that I should write my paper. But she didn't stop me from joining the tournaments.
In all, I forfeited and did not even begin to attempt a full 30% of the points available in the course in addition to skipping a number of 'required' items in the syllabus. In addition to that, the weekly exams (which I did attempt) would frequently have BS questions like "What was the brown liquid in last-week's lab?" How exactly is that a biology question? Luckily, a number of jocks and their girlfriends brought the curve down enough that I passed with a 'C' anyway. (This seems nearly-impossible, as the very next semester hundreds of such students were caught cheating on the Biology exams. But I guess they must not have even been very good at cheating.)
I attempted to take Calculus 3 over a summer. Perhaps that was not a good choice. I was skipping all of the classes and homework and playing games at every opportunity. I remember going to Origins '97 instead of studying for an exam on the following Monday. I drove from Kansas to Columbus, Ohio and played magic for 3 days straight without a hotel room. I had gone with Lindley and Eicher, and they had both assured me they would help with the drive back. It is a 12+ hour drive, after all.
Unfortunately, they had failed to sleep during the convention as well. This resulted in me driving the entire way back myself, hopped up on caffeine. While I don't recall the exam, I recall not doing so well. Ultimately, my lack of personal responsibility and misplaced priorities resulted in my earning a 'D' for that course.
I had finally gotten a bad enough grade to motivate me to do better.
I retook Calculus 3 and went to all of the recitations and did the homework, though I still skipped all of the lectures. I earned an 'A' that time around. And then I did the same for Differential Equations.
I still skipped a lot here and there and was hit-or-miss with homework, but at least I was attending the recitations and getting decent grades.
I remember taking a programming course in Turbo-Pascal. I took the first test and had reason to believe I had done fairly well. (I had attended the classes.) I arrived at the first class following the exam slightly late. The instructor had already begun going over the (now-graded) tests. I grabbed my exam from the table and took a seat. I had achieved a near-perfect score, but the grader appeared to have overlooked my correct answer for the last question on the test.
I had taken the test in pencil, and wanted to avoid any appearance of impropriety, so I only kept a red pen in my hand as the test was gone over. I also kept the exam well out in-front of me and my hands away from it. The instructor asked for all questions to wait until the end, so I waited until the end to ask about the overlooked answer.
I took my exam up and waited in line to talk with the instructor after the class. When my turn came, I explained that I believed he had simply overlooked my answer and pointed it out to him. (It was the final question of the exam and I had utilized the white space below the question to work out the answer that I had circled.) He mentioned that he had not graded the papers and that it was now 'too late', as I may have written in the solution as he was going over the answers. I was rather irritated by this accusation of cheating after-the-fact on an exam that was already scored as near-perfect. I asked him to please simply hand it to the grader and ask him if he had simply failed to see the answer, or if he perhaps remembered it to be blank. If he remembered it to be blank, call me a cheater and give me an 'F' on the exam.
Around two weeks later, I got back the exam with no marks, changes, or comments. And the instructor remained unhelpful. He had simply sent it to the grader without comment. And the grader had sent it back to the instructor without comment. So I went to see the grader, who quickly gave me the points with no trouble.
I finally graduated with a BSEE in 2000, after being a tourist in Chemical Engineering and Computer Science for a while and a gamer for longer than prudence would have allowed.
It was a decent school, but the two full-ride scholarships had more to do with it's selection than anything else.
The summer of 1994, I was exposed to a game called "Magic: The Gathering." I wasted a lot of time playing that game when I should have been attending class. I also had a very needy girlfriend at the time.
I remember one weekend spent playing magic and not sleeping. The needy girlfriend demanded that I drive an hour to see her that Monday, eat lunch with her, and then drive an hour back. She knew I had no sleep and a calculus exam that night. I did not do well on that exam.
I would regularly skip classes for various reasons, and sometimes for no particular reason at all. I had no problems making it to work. (While I didn't fail any classes in my first year, I did do poorly enough that I lost both scholarships and had to take a job to continue attending.) For some reason, making it to work was important to me. I think it had to do with people's expectations. Nobody really noticed or cared if you missed class. I skipped all of my lectures and most of my recitations.
I remember an anthropology instructor that thought he had things figured out. He would randomly take attendance and give a random point value for being in attendance. He viewed this as random positive reinforcement for attending, or random punishment for not attending. I had a different viewpoint.
I skipped his class profligately. Every time I skipped and he didn't take attendance, I received positive reinforcement. Every time I attended and he failed to take attendance, I received negative reinforcement.
I will mention that the (very) few classes that regularly took attendance, I attended with regularity.
I remember taking Calculus 2 and skipping all of the lectures and only coming to 1 recitation per week. Recitations were Tuesdays and Thursdays, with quizes on Thursdays. I didn't do the homework, and I would only go to the recitations on Thursdays because of the weekly quiz. I would slip into the classroom 10 minutes before the end of class so I could take the quiz. Sometimes I would be playing games and would even miss the quiz. I only earned a 'C' in that class.
I took a 500+ level geography class as an elective to fulfill some requirements for my degree. The class was supposed to be "North-American Geography." I attended most of the classes before the first test. Did fine on the first test. (Most of the factual questions were straight from the course materials. The instructor seemed to have a huge hard-on for story and history of the Appalachian people, however.) I decided to skip all of the classes until a week before the next test, as marked on the syllabus. That week would allow me to get all of the review information prior to the test.
I walked into the classroom and sat down. I was a bit surprised at how many people were in attendence, as usually only ~2/3 of the class would show up on a given day. I got a bad feeling as the instructor walked in with a sheaf of papers and started handing them out. Ahh, the test had been moved up a week. The first question was an essay question that I can still recall. "What was the Pick-Sloan Plan and why was it called a shameless, loveless, shotgun marriage?" I felt like I couldn't just leave it blank, so I wrote a nonsensical tongue-in-cheek full-page essay regarding the abuse of the Appalachian peoples at the hands of slick lawyers that I'm sure made it quite obvious that I hadn't the slightest clue.
I did poorly on that exam and only barely ended with a 'C' in that class.
I took Biology, skipping all of the lectures, the vast majority of the recitations, all of the labs, the 'required' pig-practical (yuck!), and the paper worth 10% of the grade. I only showed up for the exams. Connie, the owner of the local magic shop, told me that I should write my paper. But she didn't stop me from joining the tournaments.
In all, I forfeited and did not even begin to attempt a full 30% of the points available in the course in addition to skipping a number of 'required' items in the syllabus. In addition to that, the weekly exams (which I did attempt) would frequently have BS questions like "What was the brown liquid in last-week's lab?" How exactly is that a biology question? Luckily, a number of jocks and their girlfriends brought the curve down enough that I passed with a 'C' anyway. (This seems nearly-impossible, as the very next semester hundreds of such students were caught cheating on the Biology exams. But I guess they must not have even been very good at cheating.)
I attempted to take Calculus 3 over a summer. Perhaps that was not a good choice. I was skipping all of the classes and homework and playing games at every opportunity. I remember going to Origins '97 instead of studying for an exam on the following Monday. I drove from Kansas to Columbus, Ohio and played magic for 3 days straight without a hotel room. I had gone with Lindley and Eicher, and they had both assured me they would help with the drive back. It is a 12+ hour drive, after all.
Unfortunately, they had failed to sleep during the convention as well. This resulted in me driving the entire way back myself, hopped up on caffeine. While I don't recall the exam, I recall not doing so well. Ultimately, my lack of personal responsibility and misplaced priorities resulted in my earning a 'D' for that course.
I had finally gotten a bad enough grade to motivate me to do better.
I retook Calculus 3 and went to all of the recitations and did the homework, though I still skipped all of the lectures. I earned an 'A' that time around. And then I did the same for Differential Equations.
I still skipped a lot here and there and was hit-or-miss with homework, but at least I was attending the recitations and getting decent grades.
I remember taking a programming course in Turbo-Pascal. I took the first test and had reason to believe I had done fairly well. (I had attended the classes.) I arrived at the first class following the exam slightly late. The instructor had already begun going over the (now-graded) tests. I grabbed my exam from the table and took a seat. I had achieved a near-perfect score, but the grader appeared to have overlooked my correct answer for the last question on the test.
I had taken the test in pencil, and wanted to avoid any appearance of impropriety, so I only kept a red pen in my hand as the test was gone over. I also kept the exam well out in-front of me and my hands away from it. The instructor asked for all questions to wait until the end, so I waited until the end to ask about the overlooked answer.
I took my exam up and waited in line to talk with the instructor after the class. When my turn came, I explained that I believed he had simply overlooked my answer and pointed it out to him. (It was the final question of the exam and I had utilized the white space below the question to work out the answer that I had circled.) He mentioned that he had not graded the papers and that it was now 'too late', as I may have written in the solution as he was going over the answers. I was rather irritated by this accusation of cheating after-the-fact on an exam that was already scored as near-perfect. I asked him to please simply hand it to the grader and ask him if he had simply failed to see the answer, or if he perhaps remembered it to be blank. If he remembered it to be blank, call me a cheater and give me an 'F' on the exam.
Around two weeks later, I got back the exam with no marks, changes, or comments. And the instructor remained unhelpful. He had simply sent it to the grader without comment. And the grader had sent it back to the instructor without comment. So I went to see the grader, who quickly gave me the points with no trouble.
I finally graduated with a BSEE in 2000, after being a tourist in Chemical Engineering and Computer Science for a while and a gamer for longer than prudence would have allowed.
Monday, July 6, 2009
High-School
My father provided me a 1975 Plymouth Valiant to drive to school. It was an unattractive Beige, and the floorboards were mostly rotted-out. But it ran well.
I was relatively uninterested in my schooling. There seemed to be a lot of people jockeying for social position. I was not the slightest bit interested in that.
As a 10th-grader, the coach wanted me to be on the starting Varsity team. I was ~195 pounds and 6 feet tall. I was a strong kid, but he had me practicing against people considerably older, larger, heavier, and stronger than me.
One particular practice, I was supposed to be blocking two such individuals at the same time. I was experiencing some difficulty accomplishing that, and some other team members thought I could use some words of encouragement.
"DilbertIRL, you make your blocks or I'll beat your ass after practice!"
Hmm...
This was perhaps not the best method of encouragement for me. I didn't really understand how I could be expected to perfectly block 2 larger and stronger people at the same time. Failing that, I didn't understand why my teammate should want to physically assault me.
My parents were filing for divorce at the same time.
My mom was the first to file. She had my dad kicked out of the house via restraining order. Rather than telling me, or letting my father tell me, she had secretly called my friend Jason in an attempt to have him get me out of the house so that I wouldn't be there as my father collected his things.
Timing didn't work out, so I was there. He gave me a hug and a very short explanation and left.
I was stressed and confused and needed some time to think. I decided I would quit the football team. I told the coach. He told me I would have to turn in my things at beginning of next practice.
This was a set-up. He made an announcement to the entire team as I was there turning in my equipment. "DilbertIRL is a quitter! Tell him what you think!" I turned in my equipment and left to a chorus of derision.
I almost stopped for a moment. I heard one voice that had a different tone. It said "We'll miss you." But that voice was quickly drowned out and I left.
I had been used to set a social example of what would happen to you if you chose to quit the team.
The coach spoke with me in the following days and weeks. "If you quit now, you'll always be a quitter. You'll quit your job. You'll quit your wife." Etc.
For the rest of the year, there were 3-4 seniors that bore a grudge against me for quitting the team. They would insult me in groups. I was quite strong and I suspect that most of them did not want to meet me alone to insult me without the support of the others.
I have a brother that is 5 years my senior. He was always a storyteller, but he was my brother.
When I was in ~12 years old, he took me to the arcade for my birthday. He provided me a few dollars in tokens to play the games and he bought me McDonald's on the way home. Wow! What a great brother!
As I was going to the bathroom after returning from the afternoon of fun, I noticed an envelope in the trash. Being a nosy individual, I examined the envelope and found that it bore my name. It was addressed to me!? Ahh, inside there is a birthday card from my Grandmother. (She was in the habit of sending us all a card and 10-20 dollars for a birthday.)
Well, I guess my brother got to the mail first and decided to 'treat' me to an afternoon with my birthday money from my Grandmother.
It turned the really cool brotherly-bonding event into a different kind of experience entirely.
My friend Jason started to tell stories in the 10th grade. We played a game (among others) called Warhammer Fantasy Battle. My birthday was coming up. I enjoyed the modeling and painting aspects of the game quite a bit, but it was a competitive game. There was a particular model, the elven war chariot, that was quite expensive at $30. It was a very pretty piece and I would have loved to have one to put it together and paint. Unfortunately, it was expensive and utterly ineffective in the game.
Jason and I were talking about it one day as my birthday was coming up. I said something like "I would never buy one of those, it's just terrible."
He paused for a moment and sounded hurt as he said "But I've already gotten one and primed it for your birthday present."
Wow, I hadn't expected any present at all. For him to get me such a large and thoughtful gift ahead of time was a grand and unexpected gesture. I was very thankful and assured him it was a great gift and that I would love it.
As my birthday approached, Jason refused to let me see the model. You see, I shouldn't see it until my birthday. Bad luck, and all.
Hmm, as my birthday arrived, the model still failed to materialize. As it turned out, he had made the whole thing up.
I don't know why, but he began making more and more things up. This bothered me a lot, but not as much as him making things up about me and telling his lies to others.
At one point, I simply refused to acknowledge him any further. Since nothing he said could be relied upon and he chose to tell falsehoods about me to others, I chose to stop seeing, hearing, or speaking to him.
It was unfortunate, as I didn't have many friends to be so picky.
I was relatively uninterested in my schooling. There seemed to be a lot of people jockeying for social position. I was not the slightest bit interested in that.
As a 10th-grader, the coach wanted me to be on the starting Varsity team. I was ~195 pounds and 6 feet tall. I was a strong kid, but he had me practicing against people considerably older, larger, heavier, and stronger than me.
One particular practice, I was supposed to be blocking two such individuals at the same time. I was experiencing some difficulty accomplishing that, and some other team members thought I could use some words of encouragement.
"DilbertIRL, you make your blocks or I'll beat your ass after practice!"
Hmm...
This was perhaps not the best method of encouragement for me. I didn't really understand how I could be expected to perfectly block 2 larger and stronger people at the same time. Failing that, I didn't understand why my teammate should want to physically assault me.
My parents were filing for divorce at the same time.
My mom was the first to file. She had my dad kicked out of the house via restraining order. Rather than telling me, or letting my father tell me, she had secretly called my friend Jason in an attempt to have him get me out of the house so that I wouldn't be there as my father collected his things.
Timing didn't work out, so I was there. He gave me a hug and a very short explanation and left.
I was stressed and confused and needed some time to think. I decided I would quit the football team. I told the coach. He told me I would have to turn in my things at beginning of next practice.
This was a set-up. He made an announcement to the entire team as I was there turning in my equipment. "DilbertIRL is a quitter! Tell him what you think!" I turned in my equipment and left to a chorus of derision.
I almost stopped for a moment. I heard one voice that had a different tone. It said "We'll miss you." But that voice was quickly drowned out and I left.
I had been used to set a social example of what would happen to you if you chose to quit the team.
The coach spoke with me in the following days and weeks. "If you quit now, you'll always be a quitter. You'll quit your job. You'll quit your wife." Etc.
For the rest of the year, there were 3-4 seniors that bore a grudge against me for quitting the team. They would insult me in groups. I was quite strong and I suspect that most of them did not want to meet me alone to insult me without the support of the others.
I have a brother that is 5 years my senior. He was always a storyteller, but he was my brother.
When I was in ~12 years old, he took me to the arcade for my birthday. He provided me a few dollars in tokens to play the games and he bought me McDonald's on the way home. Wow! What a great brother!
As I was going to the bathroom after returning from the afternoon of fun, I noticed an envelope in the trash. Being a nosy individual, I examined the envelope and found that it bore my name. It was addressed to me!? Ahh, inside there is a birthday card from my Grandmother. (She was in the habit of sending us all a card and 10-20 dollars for a birthday.)
Well, I guess my brother got to the mail first and decided to 'treat' me to an afternoon with my birthday money from my Grandmother.
It turned the really cool brotherly-bonding event into a different kind of experience entirely.
My friend Jason started to tell stories in the 10th grade. We played a game (among others) called Warhammer Fantasy Battle. My birthday was coming up. I enjoyed the modeling and painting aspects of the game quite a bit, but it was a competitive game. There was a particular model, the elven war chariot, that was quite expensive at $30. It was a very pretty piece and I would have loved to have one to put it together and paint. Unfortunately, it was expensive and utterly ineffective in the game.
Jason and I were talking about it one day as my birthday was coming up. I said something like "I would never buy one of those, it's just terrible."
He paused for a moment and sounded hurt as he said "But I've already gotten one and primed it for your birthday present."
Wow, I hadn't expected any present at all. For him to get me such a large and thoughtful gift ahead of time was a grand and unexpected gesture. I was very thankful and assured him it was a great gift and that I would love it.
As my birthday approached, Jason refused to let me see the model. You see, I shouldn't see it until my birthday. Bad luck, and all.
Hmm, as my birthday arrived, the model still failed to materialize. As it turned out, he had made the whole thing up.
I don't know why, but he began making more and more things up. This bothered me a lot, but not as much as him making things up about me and telling his lies to others.
At one point, I simply refused to acknowledge him any further. Since nothing he said could be relied upon and he chose to tell falsehoods about me to others, I chose to stop seeing, hearing, or speaking to him.
It was unfortunate, as I didn't have many friends to be so picky.
Junior High
For some reason, the people from the elementary school were fed into two separate junior high schools.
My best friend Robert went to the other school. I was still a bit of an odd-duck, but at least I had learned to shower regularly and while I was still a bit heavy, I was getting taller and becoming more athletically inclined.
I made a new best friend by the name of Jason. He had a commodore 64 computer and was into role-playing games. Both of these things seemed very cool to me at the time. (I am quite a nerd.)
I made a new enemy very early. This school was for 7th-9th graders. As a lowly 7th-grader, I mocked a 9th-grader for something I no longer recall.
Unfortunately, she was well-schooled in the arts of deception early, as most women are. She informed her more-popular (and super-hot) 9th-grade friend "Sally" that I had said something nasty about her. This was patently untrue, as I didn't know "Sally" whatsoever.
But I came to know Sally somewhat over the following months.
Every day at lunchtime she would come to find me with her band of supporters and make fun of me and mock me and threaten to have her older boyfriends beat me up. I was entirely confused by this, since I knew nothing of Sally and had no idea why she felt the need to put me down.
It made my days a bit hellish. I was never actually attacked physically, but it sucked to spend every lunch being put down by a hot girl for no reason I was aware of.
After a full year of this, Sally's friend must have come clean. Sally came to me at lunchtime and apologized. Expecting more mocking to follow, I didn't know what to make of it. But it was the last time Sally talked to me.
I went to church-camp for the last time that summer. For some reason, my mom had to drop me off at her church-friend's house for the weekend before camp. As I was getting out of the car, mom was crying and telling me that she and my father would likely be divorced by the time I got back from camp a week later.
She was somewhat hysterical and crying. I came back with the "Everything's going to be all right, Mom."
She said "It's not all right! Nothing will every be all right again!"
And then she drove off.
I was a bit depressed during church-camp.
When I got back a week later, my parents were still together. What this meant was that Mom slept in the big bed in the master bedroom while Dad slept on blankets on the floor in his in-home office.
Dad would leave for work around 6 in the morning and come home around 10:30 at night.
He appeared to be mostly avoiding mom. If he spent additional time at home, it was likely she would corner him and start crying on him.
At the time, I blamed her for driving him out of the house so much. After all, who wants to be around someone that's just going to cry all the time?
Eighth grade was a bit of a transition for me. I had escaped the prior stigma of being overweight and under-washed. But I was far from a popular kid. I mostly kept to myself. I never bothered anyone, and I was getting large enough that few chose to bother me.
Ninth grade, I was getting a bit full-of-myself. I had new clothes for the first time (that I can recall) in my life. I was on the football team, and I was in-shape. Some girls (never the ones I wanted) had crushes on me.
There was a final dance at the end of the ninth-grade year. I had had a crush on Sarah for the past 3 years. She was a very cute and intelligent girl, but the time had never seemed right to let her know that. Unfortunately, my sense of timing has never been very good.
I got up the nerve to ask her to dance. She said she would dance with me on one condition. I had to dance with her friend Buffy first.
I was aware that Buffy liked me. But I was not attracted to Buffy whatsoever.
Well, I had to bite the bullet, I guess. I asked Buffy to dance with me. I figured I would get it out of the way so that I could have my dance with Sarah.
Unfortunately, Buffy wanted time to think over what she was going to say to me. So, she refused to dance with me until the time was 'right'.
And Sarah wouldn't dance with me until Buffy had danced with me. Damn.
So I danced with random girls and had a little fun, but mostly it just sucked not dancing with Sarah.
Buffy is finally ready to dance at the last dance of the night. I'm supremely irritated at not having my dance with Sarah. Predictably, Buffy professes her admiration for me. I try to be not-too-crushing with my rejection, but honestly, I was pretty absorbed in my own situation at the time.
My best friend Robert went to the other school. I was still a bit of an odd-duck, but at least I had learned to shower regularly and while I was still a bit heavy, I was getting taller and becoming more athletically inclined.
I made a new best friend by the name of Jason. He had a commodore 64 computer and was into role-playing games. Both of these things seemed very cool to me at the time. (I am quite a nerd.)
I made a new enemy very early. This school was for 7th-9th graders. As a lowly 7th-grader, I mocked a 9th-grader for something I no longer recall.
Unfortunately, she was well-schooled in the arts of deception early, as most women are. She informed her more-popular (and super-hot) 9th-grade friend "Sally" that I had said something nasty about her. This was patently untrue, as I didn't know "Sally" whatsoever.
But I came to know Sally somewhat over the following months.
Every day at lunchtime she would come to find me with her band of supporters and make fun of me and mock me and threaten to have her older boyfriends beat me up. I was entirely confused by this, since I knew nothing of Sally and had no idea why she felt the need to put me down.
It made my days a bit hellish. I was never actually attacked physically, but it sucked to spend every lunch being put down by a hot girl for no reason I was aware of.
After a full year of this, Sally's friend must have come clean. Sally came to me at lunchtime and apologized. Expecting more mocking to follow, I didn't know what to make of it. But it was the last time Sally talked to me.
I went to church-camp for the last time that summer. For some reason, my mom had to drop me off at her church-friend's house for the weekend before camp. As I was getting out of the car, mom was crying and telling me that she and my father would likely be divorced by the time I got back from camp a week later.
She was somewhat hysterical and crying. I came back with the "Everything's going to be all right, Mom."
She said "It's not all right! Nothing will every be all right again!"
And then she drove off.
I was a bit depressed during church-camp.
When I got back a week later, my parents were still together. What this meant was that Mom slept in the big bed in the master bedroom while Dad slept on blankets on the floor in his in-home office.
Dad would leave for work around 6 in the morning and come home around 10:30 at night.
He appeared to be mostly avoiding mom. If he spent additional time at home, it was likely she would corner him and start crying on him.
At the time, I blamed her for driving him out of the house so much. After all, who wants to be around someone that's just going to cry all the time?
Eighth grade was a bit of a transition for me. I had escaped the prior stigma of being overweight and under-washed. But I was far from a popular kid. I mostly kept to myself. I never bothered anyone, and I was getting large enough that few chose to bother me.
Ninth grade, I was getting a bit full-of-myself. I had new clothes for the first time (that I can recall) in my life. I was on the football team, and I was in-shape. Some girls (never the ones I wanted) had crushes on me.
There was a final dance at the end of the ninth-grade year. I had had a crush on Sarah for the past 3 years. She was a very cute and intelligent girl, but the time had never seemed right to let her know that. Unfortunately, my sense of timing has never been very good.
I got up the nerve to ask her to dance. She said she would dance with me on one condition. I had to dance with her friend Buffy first.
I was aware that Buffy liked me. But I was not attracted to Buffy whatsoever.
Well, I had to bite the bullet, I guess. I asked Buffy to dance with me. I figured I would get it out of the way so that I could have my dance with Sarah.
Unfortunately, Buffy wanted time to think over what she was going to say to me. So, she refused to dance with me until the time was 'right'.
And Sarah wouldn't dance with me until Buffy had danced with me. Damn.
So I danced with random girls and had a little fun, but mostly it just sucked not dancing with Sarah.
Buffy is finally ready to dance at the last dance of the night. I'm supremely irritated at not having my dance with Sarah. Predictably, Buffy professes her admiration for me. I try to be not-too-crushing with my rejection, but honestly, I was pretty absorbed in my own situation at the time.
Grade-School
I went to a public elementary school in Kansas.
I never really understood why the other kids would complain about the homework assignments, etc.
I can still recall doing my homework assignments as the teacher was assigning it and explaining how to do the work to the class.
I never took any work home and never got anything but A's.
I was not popular among the other students. The teachers seemed to like me, but I was picked on somewhat by the other children. I was overweight and didn't maintain good hygiene, so I made myself a fine target for the more athletic kids.
I remember a kid named Daniel playing a joke on me. There was more to it, but it basically consisted of spitting in my hand, punching me in the stomach, and running away laughing.
I was a bit slow. Physically slow, in the sense that I couldn't run very fast. But also slow mentally. Not slow/stupid, but actually somewhat slow in mental processing time. It seemed that I saw the world in infinite shades of gray while others saw in black and white.
I never really understood why the other kids would complain about the homework assignments, etc.
I can still recall doing my homework assignments as the teacher was assigning it and explaining how to do the work to the class.
I never took any work home and never got anything but A's.
I was not popular among the other students. The teachers seemed to like me, but I was picked on somewhat by the other children. I was overweight and didn't maintain good hygiene, so I made myself a fine target for the more athletic kids.
I remember a kid named Daniel playing a joke on me. There was more to it, but it basically consisted of spitting in my hand, punching me in the stomach, and running away laughing.
I was a bit slow. Physically slow, in the sense that I couldn't run very fast. But also slow mentally. Not slow/stupid, but actually somewhat slow in mental processing time. It seemed that I saw the world in infinite shades of gray while others saw in black and white.
Why I'm Writing?
I'm a 33 year old white male unemployed engineer.
I graduated with my BSEE in 2000 and have worked various jobs since that time.
I'm currently (July 2009) unemployed since an unfortunate layoff event in December of 2008 and I thought I would post some of my thoughts on the internet for no particular reason and in no particular order.
I graduated with my BSEE in 2000 and have worked various jobs since that time.
I'm currently (July 2009) unemployed since an unfortunate layoff event in December of 2008 and I thought I would post some of my thoughts on the internet for no particular reason and in no particular order.
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