A Sometimes Love But Mostly Hate Relationship

To the disenchanted and never-enchanted,

Not sure if I ever posted this (perhaps in my previous blog): No matter how much you love your job, you'll always love your paycheck just a little more.

I said this to a gentleman when I got my first paycheck as a pharmacist a little less than 2 years ago. It was a relatively massive payday for a formerly Ramen-eating college student without much money to his name. I had just moved to the Dallas area, signed a 1-year apartment lease on the fly without looking at any other places, and survived my first week as a night pharmacist.

I had a stupid, toothy grin on my face, and the cash office manager made a note to tell the technicians when I left. 'So [g], I heard you were pretty happy this morning...,' my coworker teased with a devilish smirk.

Those were happier times. And though it was a difficult at first, it's turning out to be the best job I've had thus far. And I was so ready to commit to it, to being a night pharmacist, to living in Dallas, to a white picket fence, 2.5 kids, being a big disappointment* to my parents, everything.

But I guess it just wasn't meant to be.

--

Less than two years later, I'm still a night pharmacist, but things are different. It's unlikely I'll settle in a college town, let alone commit to a company whose business model relies heavily on Eli Whitney's interchangeable parts.

And this being my 3rd workplace thus far, I've grown dissatisfied, remembering all the good times and none of the bad of my previous two.

So I've been thinking about what I want to do with my life, because this doesn't feel like it. This no longer feels right. This relationship has stagnated and the end seems inevitable. But what will come when daylight finally breaks? Why am I so terrified of waking?

Is the known darkness preferred over the unknown light? Or will the light simply illuminate the cliff's edge where my un-derail-able train is heading?

But a check is a check, even if it's direct deposit. And although those electronic numbers don't hit my online savings account until tomorrow, I got to view the paystub online, and it reminded me of that first morning when I had that several thousand dollar check in my hand.

Too bad every payday can't be like the first time.

My solution for happier employees: Pay everyone his/her earnings right after their shift in cash. Better hope there's not a 'gentlemans' club near by.

--

*I've become less of a disappointment to my parents, but it's only because they've warmed to the idea that I've refused to become a medical doctor :)

Blown Fuse & Healthcare Reform

To Current Events Buffs,

Do you seriously watch CNN/CSPAN? I understand why people leave news networks on the in the background but that stuff is strangle-yourself boring/depressing. Unless it has a chance of affecting me somewhat indirectly, I don't really care. My political view is that if it gets so bad in the U.S., I'll move to Canada or some other English-speaking country.

Though healthcare reform does affect me a little, considering I'm a drug dealer, I could care less about the whole debate and the death panels, etc. It's not like I can really change much (please don't get P Diddy to text me with, 'Vote or Die!'). Like one vote matters anyway. Incidentally, I did register to vote when I renewed my driver license but that's in the off-chance that I meet some girl who'd find my non-voting an issue.

So let's make light on the whole healthcare issue by relating it to a practical problem: The AC in my car went out last August. In the Texas heat. 120 miles southwest of Houston, which meant that it was even hotter. And it wasn't fixed until 2 weeks ago, when my mom finally visited my uncle to get it check out.

The problem? A blown fuse, probably costing less than $10, for which I spent the better part of 8 months sweating away whilst driving 2hrs to and from Victoria (TX). And suffering on drives around Houston, sometimes in dress clothes. I'd have to hold the steering wheel in such a way that the fan blowing warm air would reach my axillary cavities* so as to not have pit stains by the time I got to where I needed to be.

Why didn't I just visit a body shop just to see what was wrong? Well, that's pretty good 20/20 hindsight you have there! I should have done that very thing when the AC went out, but you see, my uncle is a Toyota mechanic and being the younger sibling, he's obligated to do pro bono work for his older siblings, namely my parents. Thus, my parents always take it to him to check it out. That is when they have the time.

The great thing about my beater of a car is that the only thing I pay for is gas. It's in my parents' name and they pay the insurance. It's been paid off. And until recently, I've done zero maintenance on it. It's like borrowing your neighbors' tools: you can abuse it and run it to the ground without a second thought.

But when it's broken, you have to wait for them to get it fixed. So August passed, and so did September. And the weather was cool some weeks, so Mama put off getting the car checked out. Then it was winter during which some freak 85-degree days ruined some shirts. Then I stopped working, so there was really no point in getting it fixed since I was no longer driving to Victoria anyway.

But then I started working again in April, at another place 2 hrs away from Houston. Twice I had to drive in the hellish heat. No more! After much pleading, threats**, and guilt trips, she finally took that damn car to my uncle's shop.

A. Blown. Friggin. Fuse...

Mama made it sound like something expensive and magical. She popped the hood and the fuse box to show me what had been wrong, and the 'expensive' $10 replacement fuse. I should've simmered over in the boiling blood of all those stupid 100-degree drives, but it was my fault too. If I had gotten it checked out (and possibly invested in the beater), I wouldn't have suffered.

--

So it is with the new healthcare reform, supposedly. In the U.S. you can get the best healthcare in the world so long as you have the greenbacks or greenback equivalents to pay for it. With the new socialized medicine, you might have to wait to see a specialist or spends months on a waiting list for a 'life-saving' procedure. Again, I don't care either way. When I get sick, I'll put more thought into it. After all, that's the American way of thinking.

The car story parallel explained: Free uncle fixing car = socialized medicine. Paying some random auto-mechanic who could price gouge me and find 'other problems' = non-socialized medicine.

But I would've gotten AC much quicker the second way.

Moral of the story: Get a free estimate somewhere, then get the free uncle hookup.

Thanks beater, for burning me up with your [lack of AC].

--

*armpits

**'Just watch! I'm going to buy a $40k car just to show you!' One of my mom's worse fears is that we waste money.

De-Gentrification of Golf

to weekend hackers,

Don't play golf on weekends, silly people! You can get a noon tee-time during the week for $20 tax included with a cart. That is if you can off work/school during the week to enjoy this new trend in sport/leisurely activity.


(playing here sometime this week)

If you had told me 10 years ago that I'd actually sorta/kinda like golf when I got older, I would've made a pity-filled half-smile/frown I reserved for people I thought were mentally/physically challenged (there were 3 slashes in that last sentence, which is/are a bit much).

But here I am today, hacking away at a stationary white ball like millions of people across the world, doing my figurative part to pay back for years of oppression by the chang** men. And now that I can actually hit the thing with some consistency, it is actually pretty fun. It is honestly a really stupid game made by rich people in developed countries who have no worry about food, clothing or shelter, but when you have no frustration in your life, you have to make some or else you die or cheat on your wife. So wives, be thankful that your husbands' mistress is the fairway wood and not another kind of wood.

But besides thinking every once in awhile that the white golf ball is the head of some colonist a hundred years ago who came and raped Vietnam, it's a plus to see the irritated faces of the my chang when my friends and I invade their little side of paradise. Fourteenth Amendment! You lost the Civil War and the Vietnam War--them's the spoils of victory/defeat.

If it's convenient, we'll replace the divot and perhaps a ball-mark if it's nicely in our path. But we're here to play a cheap, fun round of golf, not pay homage to hundreds of years of upper-class snobbery. We're here to de-gentrify golf, just as rich folks are tearing down projects to build $3 million houses next to run-down shacks on MacGregor near Univ of Houston. Because more than a few people in the 15% tax bracket knew that Rory McIlroy choked horribly at that Master's.

But I guess in a way, the de-gentrification of golf and the gentrification of urban slums are moves toward a more homogeneously heterogeneous middle, a death by entropy. It is not combative or controversial, it is simply natural and eventual.

That is until the robots take over, either those that we create now or those that come back from the future to make us their slaves. And I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords. But we'll assimilate robot parts and be like cyborgs or something, so it will be cool until the aliens come, and then they'll eventually mate with us after all that probing is done so we'll be one species. Punctuated equilibrium to dynamic equilibrium, rinse & repeat ad infinitum.

Yes, I just moved from golf to a broad generalization and trivialization of gentrification to a shout-out to Terminator/Watson, IBM's new supercomputer, and then stuff about aliens and equilibrium.
--

*I don't know the number, just throwing this out there
**white

Two Overlooked Reasons for Needing a Girl

to the single,

Guys really just want one thing from women, and that--as we all know--is the thoughtful conversational skills that they offer that other dudes simply cannot supply unless horrendously drunk. Oh, and that other thing too.

But besides those two things, there are two very overlooked reasons for needing female companionship, and those are as a supplier of nail polish remover and conservative country fodder.
--

In Texas, we have our vehicle registration sticker on the driver side windshield, generally above the inspection sticker. In the past, it used to be a couple of laminated, heavy stickers put directly on the license plates.*


(not my stickers, not that I'd have any stalkers, but you never know)

And because they're stickers, they come with an innate problem. They're sticky. And they leave that awful sticky residue after you remove them, which is a serious problem for people with mild OCD. Global warming almost compares to this problem since there is still some doubt about its verity (those people likely also doubt evolution), whereas you can clearly see the mildly sticky contamination on your windshield not unlike spots on Monica Lewinsky's wardrobe circa 1996: not blaringly obvious, but they're there if you look.

Usually tape will take care of most stickiness, the stronger the better. Double-sided is the best; duct tape usually makes it worse. Adhere to the sticky spot and quickly tear it off like a Band-Aid. The stickiness should come off eventually. It's best if the sticker was recently removed, but if the residue is old, you're really SOL.

That is unless you have acetone. But if you don't have access to a variety of flammable organic solvents (a la trailer in the country which has a nasty tendency to blow up), the next best thing is nail polish remover. Which if you don't have a female presence in your life, you'd have to buy it at the store which would be awkward since why would a guy need nail polish remover. 'Dude, I swear it's for that residue left on the windshield after you remove those stickers, and not for the black nail polish I use when I'm feeling noir-ish'.

No problem since I'm at home, and Mama's medicine cabinet is stock full of random stuff, including a bottle of nail polish remover probably older than me. Which was a deep violet color, which I wondered was intentional or a product of degradation. But it's not as if solvents expire (and those drugs that have an '09 expiration date are probably still good, but I can't legally recommend you take it, so use your common sense there).

The sticker came off easy enough, and the tape trick took off most of the fresh gunk left behind. But last year, Dad wasn't as OCD about removing the residue, so that was still left on there. After the tape failed, I soaked some napkins with the sweet smelling solvent. *Wipe...

*sigh, [Fine Needle Aspiration..**]

It just pushed the muck around, and it now had brown specks since I used a brown napkin (those ones you get at fast food restaurants).

I've made a huge mistake.

After calming down a bit, I realized some of the glue was now on the napkin. So after another intensive 5 minutes, the rest of it came off the glass. And I stickered the new vehicle registration in place very analytically with the next 5 minutes.

I still can't diagnose myself with OCD since I only spent 35min doing something a sane person would do in 5. Only 30 more minutes of craziness to reach the 1hr daily cutoff.
--

The great thing about road trips to and from my workplace are that I get to see the local fauna and flora, the fauna mostly being the cattle which would end up as steaks across Texas. And the flora from March to May is the state flower, the Texas bluebonnet.


(It resembles those hooded old-fashioned headwear worn by women in the past and they're blue, hence bluebonnet)

And if you permit me this loss of a man-card, bluebonnets are simply magnificent! Maybe it was all the brainwashing in 6th grade Texas Social Studies when they taught us about all the state symbols, like the state bird and tree which I think are the roadrunner and magnolia, respectively***. But the only thing I remembered from all that nonsense (anything that doesn't exist in and of itself and requires documented history is too much information for me. With science, all that was discovered and will be discovered is already present [or omni-present], whereas history could be altered if someone were to wipe out history books and alter human memories) is the bluebonnet, because I think they were the coolest thing when I was growing up.

But they're weeds, and you would hate for them to be in your yard, and you'd mow the heck out of them and litter pesticides that will run off into the Houston Ship Channel. But when they're in the median between two unnatural concrete/asphalt monstrosities criss-crossing this great state of Texas, they're damn beautiful.

And you (and by you, I mean me) just want to stop by the side of the 70mph interstate like some idiot to take a Zyrtec and roll around in those damn weeds, except you're a single guy, and that'd be really weird. And you're in a conservative part of Texas, and they don't take kindly to men who'd make real that awful perversion (in their minds) of Brokeback Montain.

But if you had a girl, that'd be totally cool. You'd just have to nudge and manipulate her, and then say stuff like, 'Really, you want to stop by the side of the road to take a picture for your Facebook profile? Seriously?' when you're absolutely giddy beyond words.

I'm only half joking. But there were quite a few couples last year when I was driving to and from Dallas who stopped in a field of bluebonnets to take pictures. I did want to stop, but it was like Frost's Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening: no reason to stop and many miles to go, both literally and figuratively.
--

*I remember because my dad used a chisel to remove it, which I thought was the coolest thing in the world. I was 9.
**F'n A
***wrong and wrong, supposedly it's the mockingbird and pecan according to Google

ETA < 1week

to the anxious,

This feeling never gets comfortable, the anticipation before the start of a new day, a new chapter, a new phase, a new unwarranted melodramatic noun. There's a reason why most rollercoasters make you clang clang clang up a steep incline before they drop you precipitously down to your possible, though however unlikely, death. That feeling of dread, both frightening and pleasurable, is what we humans crave in this age of minimal threat of mortal danger (at least in developed nations).

This is the third time in less than 2 years, and the nervous churning in the pit of my stomach is still as strong as that week before I started my first job. Like the first two jobs, I'll probably do fine. There's nothing to be scared of. It's not like I'm going to the African savannas to battle ferocious beasts or even handle biological hazards in a lab. Sure I can kill someone with a misfill, but the human body is a very resilient thing (and it's not me who is at risk). So why the anxiety?
--

I recently watched a Nat. Geographic special entitled 'Stress: Portrait of a Killer' on Netflix. Some of the cool things mentioned were that humans still experience the same fight-or-flight response in modern society as we did in prehistoric times. The problem is that we don't or can't turn off this response. The result is that this sustained stress damages our health and shortens our lifespans. There are plenty of confounding variables, but I do buy into their whole conclusion that stress kills.

Though we're taught by popular culture, comedies, and horror flicks that we should never ask the question, 'What's the worst that could happen?', it is my primary mode of stress relief. If a situation were to descend into a Murphy's Law marathon, what really is the worst that could happen? Death?

'What to do if you find yourself stuck with no hope of rescue: Consider yourself lucky that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far, which given your present circumstances seems more likely, consider yourself lucky that it won't be troubling you much longer.' - Douglas Adams

Is it that modern & prehistoric humans need to respond to a proportional level of stress lest we become incapable of running when something nasty decides we look mighty tasty? Perhaps it's like Steve Carrell's character's question in the '40-Year Old Virgin': Is it true that if you don't use it, you lose it?
--

Whatever the truth (or best thought out theory) may be, I can only lessen the stress I feel through my slew of Jedi mind tricks. Though I know everything will probably end up better than okay, I consciously and subconsciously keep that little bit of anxiety ready to respond if need be.

And if psychobabble isn't enough, there's always chemical means in the form of a half bottle of MacAllan 18-yr and nearly full bottle of Glenfiddich 12-yr. Maybe it's not coincidence that once man discovered agriculture (and thereby decreased their need for hunting-gathering), they discovered fermentation.

The Point of Diminishing Returns (PoDR)

to Freakonomics subscribers:

I've been meaning to write this post for a long while now, and I've actually had a couple longish discussions with friends about this concept of diminishing returns. It is my absolute favorite concept I learned from high school economics, and I find it to be the most practical to daily life. Sure, supply and demand gets all the fanfare and has a two line graph showing the point of intersection where suppliers and demand-ers should meet for sheer nirvana and such, but it doesn't really do much for people who aren't in the business of supplying or demanding. Well, a whole bunch of us are in the business of demanding lots of things, but it doesn't correlate as nicely or as quickly as those textbook graphs. Examples: the cost of the original PS3 or the current iPhone--it takes a while for supply & demand to take over to find the magic $299 and $199 price points, respectively.

But diminishing returns, now that you see everyday. You see it in my blog (I posted a lot, got fed up with it, and stopped, and now I'm doing it again). You see it in reality TV (Survivor comes out, then Idol, but after the 25th season of Idol, you just stop caring). Wikipedia-ly stated, 'In economics, diminishing returns (also called diminishing marginal returns) refers to how the marginal production of a factor of production starts to progressively decrease as the factor is increased.' Simply stated, after a certain point, the more you put in, the less you get out.

Ex. At a fast food joint, the more labor you hire, the more burgers you can push out. Let's say you originally had 4 employees working who churn out 80 burgers an hr which is 20/person/hr. You hire another person, and now you can do 100/hr (given that you have the demand for it). You hire another person, but now you can only get an extra 15/hr.

What happened? Well, there's not enough grill space anymore. Eventually if you keep hiring more workers, you get to the point where people just get in the way, and you actually lose production for each additional unit of labor. To maximize efficiency, you'd want to add inputs until you get to the point of diminishing [marginal] returns, that is the point where the next unit would start to have less production value (the 15 burgers/hr person). To maximize total production, you'd want to add inputs until the total production starts to turn south (where the next person hired would contribute nothing or take away from the total production).

Of course there's a whole bunch of factors in determining how much inputs you should use. But it's all very academic and boring, and doesn't have a popular iPhone app for it, so who cares?

I promise, it's really useful in figuring out why you and people around you do things! Maybe..
--

My idea of diminishing returns doesn't concern inputs and outputs. It deals with the net gain/pleasure per additional unit of stuff.

Mama told me this about my favorite dish when I was a kid: 'Eat one day, you desire for more. Eat two days straight, you grow tired'*. Turns out to be very true. I'm so glad I live in Houston where there's such a diverse and vibrant culture of obesity which means there are diverse and vibrant restaurants. The point of diminishing returns (PoDR) depends on how much you like the food, but everyone has a point. Incidentally, my PoDR for Tex-Mex is significantly higher than for Viet food probably due to Mama's psycho-babble.

And now for a visual:


Ex. The smartphone craze:
Blue phase: first couple hours after getting the phone activated and recovery from sticker shock. 'What's the big deal with a touch screen phone? Texting while driving is even harder now that I have to peck at those virtual keys! And it can't even make calls without a special cover on it!'
Green phase: 'OMG, there's an app for that? So friggin awesome!'
Yellow phase: 'o...m...g..., there's...an...app...for...that...haven't slept in days...eyes are fried by super AMOLED or whatever screen...'
Orange phase: 'cell phone bill is over $300, but my life had been incomplete before the advent of fruit ninja and his comrade apps which mimic bodily functions.'
Red phase: 'I have terminal brain cancer and crippling arthritis of the thumbs. If I had to pick one to be cured, it would have to be the arthritis so I can live out my last moments on this earth yelling sweet nothings to my smartphone because of its poor call quality.'
--

Okay, seriously now. I did not think there was a point of diminishing returns for money, but I have sadly reached that point. Let me explain before you break out the world's tiniest violin. My hourly rate working in a small town a couple hours outside of Houston was outrageous. And the work was pretty chill, and there was ample opportunity for extra hours (not time and a half, but with extra pay on top of a ridiculous rate). And so I worked 23 12-hr shifts straight. Not once, but twice.

I figured it was just money sitting on the table, and I might as well pick it up while I still have the stamina to work all those hours. But when I paid off the debt that had any interest, the desire to work all those hours faded. Nothing had changed much except I had no reason to make money anymore. That extra dollar had diminished in value to me, especially since the gov't took a hefty chunk before I even saw it.

If I had a family or kids or a car or house, then things would have been different. I would have remained in the green phase of the DR curve since I had a reason to work. So when that job ended and I was offered a relief job, I decided to take a few months off since I was well into the yellow phase and rapidly approaching the orange.
--

It was at this point that I embarked on the longish green phase of the PS3/Netflix DR curve. I finished the 80ish episodes of the Battlestar Galactica series (a really great drama, and not just for nerds/sci fi folks) and started on the first season of the X-Files before I again reached the PoDR. This was also after I spent 129 hours to get the Platinum Trophy in Final Fantasy XIII (totally worth it!).

So after a couple of months of not working much (I put in a couple of shifts here and there), my work DR curve has finally been reset, and I am ready to start working regularly again. And I'm glad to say I haven't suffered much vision loss or thumb muscle hypertrophy from the PS3/Netflix addiction.
--

I can't think of anything that doesn't in some way follow my loose interpretation of diminishing returns. Drug addicts who reach a point of tolerance (yellow) consume more and more to get the same high (orange), ultimately resulting in their death (red). But for most things, when a person or thing gets to that yellow or orange phase, they back off until that thing or activity feels good (or tolerable) again. One just has to figure where that point is before they surpass it and have a hard time getting back to the green phase. Or one can find ways to shift the curve by finding reasons to continue an activity, such as making money to pay for kids' tuition.

Even studying for classes which rapidly reaches the PoDR, you can shift the DR curve by thinking about the reasons for your current state of torture. Like the cash you'll make when you graduate, or the lives you'll affect, or that general feeling of satisfaction of accomplishing something really big.

But sometimes, regardless of how good you determine your point(s) of diminishing returns, you just need a break. So take that break. The world and its problems will still be there tomorrow. And you'll be in a better mindset to take on those challenges.

I apologize for the sappy ending. It really isn't like me to be all inspirational and non-sarcastic/satirical.
--

*It's much more poetic/sparse in Vietnamese: an mot ngay, them, an hai ngay, chan. Literal: Eat one day, hunger; Eat two days, tired.

forever, forever, ever, forever, ever? Forever never...

to snail mail mailers:

Do you even exist anymore? With the advent of email, Twitter, Facebook, and their ilk, who actually sits down to type a letter to be printed out, enveloped, and stamped? let alone actually hand-write some epistle?

The only things I can think of that warrant envelopes and stamps are holiday cards, bills from companies which don't accept online payments (stuck in the dark ages much?), and job-related stuff. For me, the only thing for which I use an envelope and stamp is the latter, and for this career trade of pharmacy, it's usually for thank you letters after interviews and letters of acceptances.*

And thank goodness for the Forever Stamp, since I only use one of these things like once every 4 months (if that often). I think I paid $8.40 for a 'book' of 20 stamps, which comes out to $0.42 a piece. For you non-letter writers, the forever stamp is good forever as the name implies. It doesn't have the value printed on there, so it's good for any normal letter you send. I think I still see a few stamps with the value printed on there, which would suck for those people since they'd have to buy 1-cent, 2-cent and 3-cent stamps for when the US Post Office inevitably increases postage rates.



And all those extra stamps look tacky on the envelope. And they don't have the 'USA...FIRST-CLASS...FOREVER' printed on it. A little arrogant subliminal message**, I suppose, but it does make me feel all subconsciously warm and fuzzy about this land of milk and honey (and processed meat and China-made goods).

When the forever stamp first came out, I thought about stockpiling them since the price of the stamp will probably vastly outstrip inflation. But I realized it'll be like SPAM and Twinkies in a bomb shelter: they'll still be there when you're long dead and gone, and you won't ever get the chance to use them all up. (and if you do use them all, there's something really wrong happening).

So out of 20, I still have 15 stamps left, which will probably last me a whole 7-10 years, if people don't bum some off me. I will, of course, charge a nickel-surcharge fee on top of whatever USPS currently charges. I will promise to pay an extra $0.02 in taxes on that nickel, because by that time, my marginal tax bracket will definitely be in the 40% range, and it won't be because I'm making significantly more (though I'm all for social programs, I secretly delight when Republicans win so I can get tax breaks...and I like the right to bear arms even though I don't have a gun). I'm going to get a sizeable refund this year, but the gov't still took 2/3rds of my dough after accounting for all the FICA and other taxes.

Oh, and I'm writing a letter of acceptance. So I should be on an more even keel now :).

--
title from lyrics from Outkast's 'Ms. Jackson'
*Since it's a licensed profession, there are generally fewer applicants so pharmacists generally don't mass-mail inquiry letters. There are exceptions like residencies and such.
**That the USA will be FIRST-CLASS FOREVER