How did that happen?

[cybermule]

Well, here I am sitting at work. We have a three day weekend so basically I can't wait until I get home tonight :)

The thing that puzzles me is that I distinctly remember my career plans mainly revolving around being a wizard with a longbow. And I feel in a lot of ways that this was my true path in life. So how the hell did I become an analyst?!!?

I blame my secondary school with all its notions and aspirations of having proper careers...

Comments

[quercus.livejournal.com]

I had plans for a career in the bright new future of software (sic), but now I find myself making furniture for dungeons and knife-fittings or crossbows for wannabee wizards.

[cybermule.livejournal.com]

Heheh - do you want to swap?

Joking aside, if it's not too personal a question, how upset are you by the change of career? The cost of living in Bristol is high, I know, but other than that, would you go back to software design?

[quercus.livejournal.com]

Upset ? Upset ?! I'm not upset, I'm frigging furious !

I'm skint, this is the main problem. I don't know whether I'm an unemployed geek, or a skint furniture maker. Either would be OK, but there's no money in either of them right now.

[cybermule.livejournal.com]

Upset ? Upset ?! I'm not upset, I'm frigging furious !

Yeah, sorry. That was the crap understatement of the year. I guess what I was trying to ask in my usual bimbling way is which job you'd prefer. I think it's some sort of fundamental screw-up in the world that nobody ever gets rich as a furniture maker.

[kidkarrot.livejournal.com]

There's plenty of fundamental screw-ups in this world, and not all of them are necessarily bad, which is a very interesting trick of the universe. ;) The only three things I've learned so far in life that are constant are death, change, and the powers of human stupidity and creation are boundless.

[cybermule.livejournal.com]

I agree with your three constants, but I'm having trouble thinking of good fundamental screw-ups of the universe...

[quercus.livejournal.com]

Planck's constant is wrong. We should all be able to have godlike powers and transmute elements at will.

[cybermule.livejournal.com]

We should all be able to have godlike powers

No - only a select few should be allowed godlike powers, otherwise they wouldn't be as much fun.

[quercus.livejournal.com]

The thing that annoys me about the software biz right now is the stuff that's not happening. There's a lot of good stuff that ought to be happening, and isn't. A lot of really good stuff (semantic webby stuff, is the stuff I see) almost works now, and it's time we could build useful things with it. Sites like Arkive ought to be good, but aren't.


There's a big difference between being a furniture maker and a furniture seller. I always used to make this stuff, but I used to just make it and then give it away to get rid of it and make space for more (I have more chairs than will physically fit into my lounge). I avoided having "customers", because that meant hassles.

Trying to make money from it changes everything. I not only need to make things well, but I now need to make them in almost no time, and from cheap materials that still turn out to cost me more. Previously I made a lot of one-offs from found stuff, but it's hard to sell something if you can't offer a shop an ongoing supply of identical ones. And then try to compete with Ikea !

[cybermule.livejournal.com]

Sites like Arkive ought to be good, but aren't.

Agreed. There is so much untapped potential in the world, and people just seem to fixate on certain accepted and popular solutions.

Rather like IKEA, in fact. I've bought stuff from there to quickly furnish a new house, but it was hard to live with it until I'd at least customised it a little.

I was spoiled growing up - my father was a furniture seller and a carpenter, subsidising the latter with the former. He was lucky, as he didn't have to compromise his quality and uniqueness of carpentry, as his bread-and-butter already came from selling furniture and gifts. And I was lucky because it meant that I got to grow up with some lovely bargains that he'd picked up at auction sales, and still have some beautiful things around me that he either made or kept as heirlooms.

Hopefully one day I'll either have skill to make things, or money to buy the things I really want (like your beautiful medieval chairs!). It's people with stacks of money that shop in places like Ikea that do my head in!

[quercus.livejournal.com]

That medieval chair is an ugly piece of plywood crap, with the small advantage that it folds up small enough to pack onto a mule (if I could borrow a mule, I'd love to photograph this). It's off camping at some LARPfest with sarah_mum this weekend - hopefully she'll sell a few.

I make nice things too.

[cybermule.livejournal.com]

It didn't look so bad in the photo, despite an element of mass-production, and I was taken by being able to fold it into my cupboard, but whatever *shrugs*. That was the one thing of yours I'd seen, and it appealed.