The Life of Riley is a weekly post that details my activities since I ended a thirteen year career as a corporate drone. These posts are usually long, personal, and geared more for my own memory than the reader’s entertainment.

Sunday (Day 280): The Pirate Whittling Tech Union Boss

I made egg, cheese and capicola bagel sandwiches for breakfast, and I have to say that it turned out pretty well. After breakfast, we went to the mall to search for presents for #1GF!’s Mom’s birthday. I think it was the moment when I realized that “Hanging Tough” by New Kids On the Block was playing on the Mall P/A, that the mall became a depressing place. It somehow made me notice all the shitty music that mall workers must have to listen to endlessly looping them through their days, one shitty musical minute at a time.

When we walked through our third department store, I realized that Department stores have even shittier music than the mall, and not one worker I saw seemed happy. The stores were full of merchandise that no one wanted, being stacked and reorganized by people who seemed like this was the end of their careers. There was no perkiness or joy in these department stores outside of the holiday season. I told #1GF! with a look of seriousness that I would never want to work in a department store. She looked at me like I was nuts and continued on her quest for the perfect gift.

The whole day was filled with shopping, and we decided to go the local restaurant for dinner. during the meal, we talked about what the hell I was doing with my life. I still think that it was a good decision to leave my last job, but I’m no closer to figuring out how to make a real living outside of the corporate walls than I was 41 weeks ago. We talked through what I liked to do and whether I should continue on or try to find a small company that is working on something interesting, but we both knew that I’m happier without a boss. At one point, I remember saying that my rebellious, but rational streak and my disdain for authority would be perfect for setting up a tech worker’s union.

In my experience, tech workers get the shit end of the stick when it comes to being chained to a job. Even entry level tech workers get put on call 24/7 with no extra pay. I remember a time where pagers and off hours calls meant extra compensation, but those days seem to be gone. Other people work nights and maybe weekends, but tech workers are tied and reachable 24 hours a day. This strategy allows companies to under report their labor costs, and that’s something that I think would be fun to economically correct by getting tech workers paid for off hours work. No more free O/T. No calls at three AM because the company won’t cover 24 hours with additional shifts. A union might make the labor pool mediocre, but 2% raises and forced off hours work make that happen anyway.

While I enjoyed my imaginary role as an IT union rep, I drifted off and started mentally dissecting some hand carved pirates that were on the ledge next to our table. I began trying to figure out if I could carve them because I thought it would be funny if I carved pirates and sea captains and made more money for them than I could writing my ass off every day. When I vocalized my pirate whittling idea, #1GF! probably realized that I was out of my mind and the conversation died out. #1GF! paid the bill, and we went home.

Monday (Day 281): MORE Cowbell!

I wrote my Life of Riley post for half the day, and then started obsessively adding tracks to one of my cowbell play lists. At 4:30, I came up for air and went out buy a gallon of milk and get a check for the contractor. I had fully intended to clean the bathroom and cook some more biscotti, but I never made the time for either one. I more than doubled my cowbell playlist to 180 tracks, so I guess that’s something, right? You bet it is. It’s madness.

Tuesday (Day 282): Demolition Starts

I met the contractor in the morning to drop off a check and a key, and he showed up with a full crew and started demolition. Building is under way. I was so happy that I went home and cleaned the bathroom while listening to the cowbell list. After I was finished, I couldn’t help but add even more tracks to the cowbell playlist. I couldn’t help myself.

Once I ran out of cowbell steam, I wrote for wrote for a bit, and went to the fancy market to buy supplies for dinner. While wandering around, I got aggravated that I’d have to pay for the meat at the butcher and the produce at another register. I have no idea why this seemed like a big deal, but I left and drove another ten minutes to Stop & Shop where the prices are lower and you can check yourself out once without human intervention.

When I got home, I made some calls to the gas company, the kitchen people, and Mitsubishi who is looking to buy back ROCKET CAR because there seems to be a shortage of them.

Wednesday (Day 283): Reading and Stumbling

I dropped off our door choices to the contractor, our cabinet choices to the cabinet folks, switched phone services, and spent the rest of the day reading and stumbling.

Thursday (Day 284): FineTune Friday Poster

I seriously worked on the latest Finetune Friday poster all day. I am not an artist, so simple things take me a lot longer, and I was using the GIMP, which I’m still learning to use. I thought it came out pretty good though.

Friday (Day 285): Best Foot Forward

I got a request from a reader who was looking for a plugin that allows a WordPress user to easily create a “featured posts” list like I have a the top of the page. I didn’t know of one, and couldn’t find one, so I wrote one called Best Foot Forward. It took me all day to write and works by utilizing WordPress’s tagging system. That’s my third WordPress Plugin.

Saturday (Day 286): #1GF!’s Mom’s Birthday

I started the day by making an offhand remark right after I woke up that I should’ve made a T-shirt wishing #1GF!’s Mom a happy birthday so that I could wear it to her party. We were going to the party that morning, we still had to run into Boston to get cannolis from Mike’s, it is a known fact that #1GF! lies to me about what time we have to be places because of my extremely slow speed in the morning, so I thought #1GF! was kidding when she encouraged me to make the shirt.

I’m extremely inefficient when it comes to art projects, so even at high speed it took me some time to put something together. I only had one sheet of transfer paper, and halfway through the first print, my printer ran out of yellow ink. Luckily, I had a new cartridge and was able to get the thing printed.

I thought I was in the clear until I turned on our iron which has no way to shut off steam. I emptied the thing out, and started the iron on process. That’s when all the gunk that was melted onto the iron started coming off on the shirt. I did the best I could cleaning it off, and gave up. We went to the party, and #1GF!’s brother made a whole chicken, 28 lobster tails, and more steaks than you could count.

What I Learned

• I learned to write another plugin using wordpress’s tagging system.
• I learned a lot of the basics on how to use the GIMP.
• Clean the iron before you do an iron on.
• The uncoolness of wearing a T-shirt that says “Happy Birthday ______” will make the person whose birthday it is feel cool.

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