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goobster  ·  1720 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: July 3, 2019

Work

So, last week I talked to the head honchos at my company and told them my job was stupid, and it wasn't the way our company should be doing business, and that they were not getting as much value out of me as they could, and they should move me to a different position in the company and eliminate my role.

I told them a couple of different thoughts I had about how I could provide more value, and they thought it was interesting. (I told Hubski about it in the Pubski last week.)

Within a day, the honchos came back to me and said, "Fucking great thinking there, mate. You are right. Let's not wait to make those changes: let's do it now. You have your new job starting Monday."

So on Monday I sat down with my new boss and we created a job for me. That is AMAZING. And has a FUTURE. And gets me working on a TEAM again, rather than a lone(ly) wolf.

Oh. And everybody on this team gets paid a LOT more. So this new job I just gave myself? I also got myself a pretty significant raise, as well. (Exact numbers will come next week, but will include bonuses and profit sharing.)

So I've got that. And that's nice. =)

Fireworks

Tomorrow my family continues the tradition begun before I was born, of shooting fireworks professionally on the 4th of July. Yep. We get paid to shoot off $30k of someone else's fireworks, and are licensed by the State to do so. Weird, huh?

We still have all of our fingers and toes, and most of our hearing, and we have been shooting this city's show now for 30 years.

We have gotten GOOD at this. But, everybody is older. So nowadays, it's about 30 people sitting around in the shade eating, while about 5 of us use a tractor and shovels and hammers and nails and hand tools, doing heavy manual labor for about 7 hours to get everything set up. Then we work in close proximity (this is a hand-fired show: no electronics) with high-powered explosives while completely cracked-out and exhausted from the day's labors. And then the 5 of us spend two hours in the middle of the goddamn night tearing everything down and packing it up, while the other 30 people mysteriously disappear into the night without lifting a finger to help.

We collapse into bed in our RVs around 2:AM to try and get a little rest, then get up about 7:AM to finish cleaning up the site in the daylight. Around noon we go to brunch, gulp down enough food and coffee to get us home safely after a 3-hour drive (or so), and then collapse into bed and don't move for about 3 days.

And we go through all this work for about 20 minutes of actual fireworks. Oh yes... shooting fireworks professionally is all glamour and fun. (Not.)

But it is a requirement when you are in my family.

Have a safe 4th.