Operation Achieve Anything: Day Two-Hundred-Twenty-Eight, Dateline 8-16-2018
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“Don’t agonize, organize.”
Good morning crickets. Welcome to day number two-hundred-twenty-eight of Operation Achieve Anything. Though I know it's not the case, it really does feel like the world is working against me at times, but not through big-picture problems, instead, the planet seems to be driving me crazy with tiny things that stack up and make me feel like I'm losing my mind. To make things worse, my mind isn't all that stable in the first place which is the "gift from God" that nobody likes to talk about.
To add to the fun, most of these issues are also things that everyone deals with without seeing them as real issues, making their sanity make me feel twice as insane. Again, these are simple things like the instability of the internet where I have to reset my router multiple times a day. These crashes always seem to happen at the most inopportune times like in the middle of work and not late a night when I'm goofing around on YouTube.
To add to the fun of my internet outages, my chairs hydraulic lift work with a glitch where it seems to always sink at just the right time to ignite the anger that I'm trying to hold in. I think, especially in the case of this happening when the internet goes out, that when I turn to see in my other computer's internet still work, my large size causes the chair to shift enough to hit the internal lowering mechanism.
These to issues combined get me yelling to the sky about how we could live in a time of such advanced technology yet we still have to deal with the shotty work from companies trying to maximize their profit by skimping when it comes to their actual product, especial for the public sector. I've never worked at a company where they've had to reset their modem every day and have the speed changes every hour on the hour. As for the chair, it's nice but feels like it's build to be replaced within the next couple years to keep up with the wastefulness of this time.
It's not just the technology though, I often find that I get just as frustrated by corporate shortcuts whenever I reach out for a humans help. Just yesterday I received an email from a help desk that led to nowhere at all. I had joked on the Twitter about how I loved two pieces of software that I used but just wished that they could work together. Note that in the joke I noted that I was aware it was a problem that they were working on since I'd already researched the issue.
I got a reply from one of the companies right away saying to DM them and they'd help me resolve the problem. Since they reached out to me, I figured maybe they finally had a fix so I did as requested and sent the DM with a detailed list of my issues. Next thing you know I got an email from the company confirming a technical support ticket. It was at this point I know the person was just chiming in to publicly make it look like they were helping.
Not get me wrong, I love the approach of reaching out to complainers but considering this was an issue that I stated I knew the answer to, I would have preferred to just be told, "Sorry for the inconvenience but this is an issue that we're working on." Yeah, I'd know that they were full of shit consider that this has been an issue that I've had for close to three years by now.
To be fair, the problem I'm complaining about isn't really an issue at all, it's more of a feature that the company can't easily offer because it involves the blending to the two companies involved's software, which is why I would have preferred that quick note. Instead, the company got my hopes up. So, when I got an automated response that suggested every single workaround, that I clearly noted wouldn't work in my initial letter, as a possible solution, my views on the companies support turned on a dime since it now felt like they were wasting my time and energy.
It didn't help that this is how every interaction with my day job goes. I ask one question, noting that I fully understand the common issue, only to get the common answer and then shut down the conversation. Since this company in question (not my job) is small, I figured I'd send a playful complaint as feedback, letting them know that suggesting solutions that I've already address makes me feel unheard and less inclined to talk as highly about their product as I have in the past.
I took time and effort to make this constructive only to get another automated response. I'm so sick of the automation in this society that claims to care about each human as an individual whole now, even in our personal lives, we all treat each other like cogs that can be replaced at any moment. Again, piece by piece these issues aren't a big deal, but having them hit all at once along with many other similar tiny issues that I didn't address, is what makes me want to escape this world and go hide in the woods for a while.
All of this actually leads into yesterday's assignment where I was start to start planning on the action to actually start a new goal to get past the point of just harvesting goal ideas. Last night, I discovered the new show Castaways, which is a very interesting reality show that has a bit of a cinematic vibe as it showed twelve strangers who were stranded in various areas of a chain of islands and are then tasked to survive until the rescue team arrives.
These people all start out alone, and we learn that they all are there because they have problems connecting with others. When then see some instantly start to seek out others right away, while others settled in to either enjoy or lament their alone time. Though I would feel extremely uncomfortable on camera, this was the first time I watched a reality show and felt, this is where I need to be.
So, to fulfill yesterday's task and put a plan into motion, I reached out to the show via Twitter to ask for information on how to audition for next year. Granted this was a tiny first step but it is a step and this goal is now officially in motion which was the point of yesterdays task, so I'm going to consider it a success.
As for the task for today, this was yet another case where the lesson was more encouraging than task-based, focused on how you can daydream all that you want but will never get anywhere without putting a plan into motion. The lesson then ended with a loose suggestion to shit or get off the pot.
I'm not quite sure to handle this task, considering I've been actively giving my all toward my goal for close to a quarter of a century. I've never had an issue putting in the work, I've always just struggled at getting others involved, which just isn't easy for a self-hating introvert. We'll see what I come up with when I check in tomorrow. Until then, it's now time for me to wrap this thing up as usual by saying, good day and good luck to you and all of your projects.
Talk to you soon.
Sincerely,
The Wicker Breaker
P.S. Below are links to my novel, which I plan to promote as part of Operation Achieve Anything, as well as a link to where you can buy the book that is providing the structure to this project in case you would like to purchase it in order to play along.
