# May be getting busier (1 Viewer)



## Kat (Jul 7, 2010)

This is already my busy season with craft fairs. I joined a congo- similar to a co-op, for greater exposure. So now I have three venues in which I have to stock my bags. 

I just interviewed for a volunteer coordinator. I'm excited about the opportunity, it's right up my alley. More so than selling overpriced lingerie. It is a contracted position so I will be able to pick my own hours. It is local, within walking distance. Wish me luck!


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## ash somers (Jul 7, 2010)

good luck with your endeavours, kat!


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## Sigg (Jul 7, 2010)

wait is a 'volunteer coordinator' a person who coordinates volunteers or a volunteer who coordinates?  Is it a paid position?


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## Linton Robinson (Jul 7, 2010)

That's great, Kat.   It's so cool you can do that, make stuff and sell it.   I often wish writing was more like that: do something, lay it out for people without having to convince a bunch of jerks that people should get a chance to see it.
Maybe we need a writers' congo.

Be careful what you do,    
Or Mumbo-Jumbo, God of the Congo,    
Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you,    
Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you,            
Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you
     Vachel Lindsay


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## garza (Jul 7, 2010)

New projects are always good, so long as they do not come under the definition of work. I've added web page maintenance to my list of ways to get out of doing anything that resembles that ugly word. Three people now pay me to manage their web sites. Each one pays 25.00 per week retainer plus an hourly rate for changes. There's a certain level of guilt here. Getting money for having fun. I'm being paid to polish my Perl.


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## Linton Robinson (Jul 7, 2010)

Is "Perl"  a local euphemism for, you know, a guy's equipment?


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## Kat (Jul 7, 2010)

Sigg said:


> wait is a 'volunteer coordinator' a person who coordinates volunteers or a volunteer who coordinates?  Is it a paid position?


 
My job would be to wrangle people into volunteering, train and schedule them, paperwork and such. So I am coordinating the volunteers. It is a paid position although very minimally. I will still be making as much as I am working at Victoria Secret though. Maybe more when you factor in the gas and drive time.


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## Kat (Jul 7, 2010)

lin said:


> Is "Perl"  a local euphemism for, you know, a guy's equipment?


 
Yes I do wonder what type of websites he is managing.


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## garza (Jul 7, 2010)

Uh oh. Now you know my secret.


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## The Backward OX (Jul 7, 2010)

Too early in the a.m. for this little black duck. I had to read all subsequent posts before the penny dropped about polishing the perl.


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## garza (Jul 7, 2010)

And can you be certain that blaze of sudden illumination lighted you on your way to true understanding? Remember always that the path that can be named is not the true path.


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## MeeQ (Jul 7, 2010)

I feel a day is borderline procrastination if I haven’t worked, physically.

Something about the morality of the wasteful losers that stroll through this world looking for handouts and tax-free services just pisses me off. Way of life. Meh; work through it.


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## garza (Jul 8, 2010)

MeeQ - So you see writing for a living as being a parasite on society, and the professional writer as a 'wasteful loser'. That's an interesting concept coming from someone in a writing forum.  

I've never asked for any kind of handout. I've never had to. What I do for a living, mainly writing, many people call 'work'. I define work as that which you don't want to do but that you have to do in order to live. And I don't know what you mean by 'tax-free services'. I think you don't know what you are talking about.

I've been fortunate enough that people have paid me to write books and articles for them to publish, and to take pictures to illustrate other people's books and articles, and now to manage a few websites, all activities I enjoy and that I do not call 'work', and that pisses you off does it? 

Well, sorry about that, sport.


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## MeeQ (Jul 8, 2010)

You obviously have no idea what I am talking about. And for that I am sorry for you... oh well, boo hoo

A tip if I may? By putting words and references into people’s mouths; merely makes you look the fool. And perhaps before becoming the hostile like chimp n' ape, maybe you should ask for more information. Especially considering your lack of understanding on my own personal point of view. silly silly

  Plus, your mentality seems poor quality; when the topic involves labour.


garza said:


> MeeQ - So you see writing for a living as being a parasite on society, and the professional writer as a 'wasteful loser'. That's an interesting concept coming from someone in a writing forum.
> 
> I've never asked for any kind of handout. I've never had to. What I do for a living, mainly writing, many people call 'work'. I define work as that which you don't want to do but that you have to do in order to live. And I don't know what you mean by 'tax-free services'. I think you don't know what you are talking about.
> 
> ...



    You obviously have no idea what I am talking about. And for that I am sorry for you... oh well, boo hoo

A tip if I may? By putting words and references into people’s mouths; merely makes you look the fool. And perhaps before becoming the hostile like chimp n' ape, maybe you should ask for more information. Especially considering your lack of understanding on my own personal point of view. silly silly

  Plus, your mentality seems poor quality; when the topic involves labour.


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## garza (Jul 8, 2010)

MeeQ - I put no words in your mouth. I built my response strictly around the language you used in your post.

Your exact words were 'Something about the morality of the wasteful losers that stroll through this world looking for handouts and tax-free services just pisses me off.' 

And if by '...wasteful losers that stroll through this world looking for handouts...' you did not mean 'parasites', then one of us sadly misunderstands the meaning of the word 'parasite'.

And in your recent post you say '... your mentality seems poor quality; when the topic involves labour.' I've never said anything against labour. A friend of mine in La Gracia Village grew up on a farm, has farmed for himself since he was 13, and like me has never had to work for a living. He labours hard, puts in long hours cultivating his fields and tending to his livestock, but for him it's not work. He would never be happy with a day job, any more than I would. Is he, also, a 'wasteful loser'?

I'm off to Cayo for the weekend. Back Monday.


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## MeeQ (Jul 8, 2010)

> ...has farmed for himself...



We obviously both have a different opinion of what work is.


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## garza (Jul 8, 2010)

A quick note then I'm off for the weekend.

There's no doubt we define work differently. I define work as something you don't like to do but that you have to do to live. If I had to I could work in a shoe store selling shoes. I'd hate it, but if that's all I could do to pay the rent and buy the groceries then I'd do it, and it would be work. There are, on the other hand, people who love retail sales. For them it's not work as I define work. 

My friend Oscar in La Gracia had a choice at 13. He could go on to high school and study to get an office job, or leave school and be a farmer. His father offered to get him started with a few acres to farm on his own for himself. He's told me that he never hesitated, that the idea of sitting for years in a classroom just to learn to sit in an office for the rest of his life was an idea he rejected and he's never been sorry. 

I love tending my garden every morning for an hour or two, but to be forced to spend all day every day doing that just to live would turn it into work and I'd hate it. Oscar and I have the same definition for work. If you are doing something you love to do, it's not work, no matter how much physical or mental effort may be involved. If you are doing something you hate, but must do to live, that's work, no matter how little physical or mental effort may be involved.


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## Baron (Jul 8, 2010)

Apart from a period in the RAF, the majority of what I have done has related to literature and the arts.  I've occasionally been employed by others but for most of my life I've been self employed.  Do I enjoy what I do?  Definitely.  Do I regard it as work? Yes.  

When being questioned about a current project, people don't ask me what I'm _not_ working on, do they?  In both writing and visual arts, I've had to work and study to become any good.  It's ridiculous to say that, because I do what I enjoy and am fortunate enough to get paid for it, I'm not working.  One can play with words to transcend to some ethereal position of imagined mental superiority but it's what one gets paid for that pays the bills.  What one gets paid for is the work that one produces, whatever that may be.

With regard to the OP; Kat, I don't wish you luck, I wish you great success.  Just don't work too hard.


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## The Backward OX (Jul 8, 2010)

I would've supported garza's ideas about work but looked it up in my Oxford anyway and their definition supports Baron. Okay, I hate work as the dictionary defines it. My income-earning activity of cab-driving was as far removed from work as I could find, yet I constantly had people in the cab saying to me, "I couldn't even imagine having to do this type of work."


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## Patrick (Jul 8, 2010)

The Backward OX said:


> I would've supported garza's ideas about work but looked it up in my Oxford anyway and their definition supports Baron. Okay, I hate work as the dictionary defines it. My income-earning activity of cab-driving was as far removed from work as I could find, yet I constantly had people in the cab saying to me, "I couldn't even imagine having to do this type of work."



Taxi for Ox.


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## MeeQ (Jul 8, 2010)

Mermaid on the breakwater said:


> Taxi for Ox.


 
Taxi drivers have my condolences. Dealing with 'creme of the crop' losers, on a daily basis; no small task.


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## Patrick (Jul 8, 2010)

MeeQ said:


> Taxi drivers have my condolences. Dealing with 'creme of the crop' losers, on a daily basis; no small task.


 
What do you mean? Most of them fit right in.


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## Linton Robinson (Jul 8, 2010)

We'll take your word for it.  Spare us the details.


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## Patrick (Jul 8, 2010)

lin said:


> We'll take your word for it.  Spare us the details.


 
Your imagination is twisted.


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## The Backward OX (Jul 8, 2010)

MeeQ said:


> Taxi drivers have my condolences. Dealing with 'creme of the crop' losers, on a daily basis; no small task.


You're right. One tends to forget the details. You've dragged one back - the dirty filthy boong who shat herself, all over the back seat. Next to that, a drunk's vomit is nothing. 

Fun times.


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## MeeQ (Jul 12, 2010)

Boong, how I miss the use of that word. Onomatopoeia is a beautiful thing, no?


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## garza (Jul 12, 2010)

Baron - You will need to explain what is an 'ethereal...whatever'. I'm not into that artsy stuff, never have been. 

As for 'mental superiority', I've always rated myself a comfortable mediocre. I hope I'm not one of the dimmer bulbs on the tree, but I don't try to kid myself that I might be among the brightest. I figure my brain power as somewhere between average and ordinary.

My ideas about work I inherited from my grandfather as one part of a complete set of principles to live by. He was forever preaching to the younger people in the family that if we could find something we enjoyed doing that wouuld provide a decent living, then we would never have to work. He told me more than once that if what a person is paid to do is also something that person loves to do, it is not work; it is pleasure doubly rewarded. 

And that's not playing with words. It's a key part of a philosophy of life I grew up with and in which I believe. Dead is forever, so why spend the little time we have alive doiing something we do not want to do? There are times when I do play with words, but this is not one of those times.

I know what Oxford says, and in many contexts I will use the word as it is commonly used. 

It shouldn't, but it does vex me whenever I meet with this attitude that because I do not physically labour then I am a parasite on society, a loser strolling through life looking for handouts. I've never looked for a handout because I've never needed to. I've never been wealthy, but neither have I ever had to worry about money.

I make no apologies for what I'm paid to do. I write. I make a decent living by it. If that pisses off someone it's their problem not mine.


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## Kat (Jul 14, 2010)

Okay- the tangents.... you guys are entertaining at least. Thanks for the well wishes. I got the job. I will be turning in my two weeks at VS as soon as I go into town next.


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## garza (Jul 14, 2010)

Kat - Congratulations on getting the job, if that is what you wanted. And if you enjoy it, remember, it may be your way of earning a living, or it may be your vocation, or it may be your profession, but if it's something you really love, then my grandfather would say it's not work.


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## Kat (Jul 16, 2010)

Thanks. I am glad I got the job, a little trepiditous as it's a new thing but it's more in line with my degree (I was working retail, just about anything else is) and it's local. That will save me 80 min of drive time a day of work, not to mention the daycare costs. I would have taken the job for that alone.


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## garza (Jul 17, 2010)

The Ministry of Agriculture in a certain small country which shall not be named recently hired a young woman who grew up on a farm and has a masters degree in agronomy from one of the region's top agricultural universities. She loves doing research work in the field. She is an expert on soil types and vegetable production. Those who make these kinds of decisions stuck her in an office writing press releases. 

Be thankful that your job is a step closer to what you were trained to do, and closer to home as well.


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## Eluixa (Jul 22, 2010)

Congrats Kat! Hope it works well for you.


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