My part time job, So long Steve, Human Signs

Last night I spent the better part of 3 hours doing prep work for the race that is being held this evening.  After entering the remaining paper entries I had to do some additional configuration in the timing software since this is an oddball race.  Instead of being based on individuals this race is based on teams.  Businesses bring their team to the event and then the top 3 finishers from each business accounts for that teams “time”.  It’s kind of fun but it also brings with it a unique set of challenges.

This race typically has a lot of participants that are not regular runners.  Because they are not runners that means they will not already be in our database.  Not being in our database means that there is much more data entry time involved with paper entries.  Thankfully this year we incorporated the option of online registration which helped some but even so we already have put in about 200 pieces of paper into the race.

Having non-runners at the race also means they aren’t familiar with the pre-race process.  For sure there will be a lot of people that will either have the wrong bib number or timing chip which leads to scoring errors on the back end.  These people also don’t necessarily understand that we need the timing chip back after the race.  Last year we didn’t get a bunch of chips back.

And of course this is the only race we do all year that is during the evening, on a weekday no less.  I have to cut out of work a couple hours early, not that I am complaining about that.

If I ever added up the total amount of hours Ali and I spend doing race/club related work I would probably shoot myself.  Sometimes it really equates to a part time job with an extremely low hourly wage. Hell I am not even thinking about the time and expense for things like the trip I made last week specifically to pick up paper entries.  This involved over an hour of drive time and the associated gas to travel 45 miles in the van, probably $10.

So last night I saw the news of Steve Jobs death flash across Facebook like wildfire.  It seemed pretty much everyone was posting about it along with their own little words of remembrance.  I didn’t feel like being a me too guy so I just commented on Homey’s post about it.

From what I know about Jobs, he was borderline maniacal to work for.  His dedication to his vision was so intense that it took special individuals to be able to weather his storm.  Noone however can argue with the end results of his obsessive pursuit of ultimate technology.

For years and years I steered away from anything and everything Apple, categorizing people that were Apple lovers as attention seekers or those that worked in a narrow market of graphic design/production.  I felt similarly when the first Iphone came out, more lemmings just drinking the Apple juice.

Well when I finally succumbed to the Apple fever and got my first Iphone 3G a few years back I understood.  Yea everyone and their mother was getting an Iphone but it wasn’t just to be a me too person, it was because the device was fantastic.  Tablet type devices had been around for a decade or more but Apple finally did it in a way that even the complete novice could understand. It was nothing short of brilliant.

Equally brilliant was their app store that made it insanely easy to get apps/music/movies/podcasts onto your phone without ever having to connect the phone to a PC.  Its is/was simply a great product.

Now who knows how much direct responsibility Jobs had in the vision of these products, I have no idea. Regardless, he excelled at promoting them at getting people excited about technology.  People fed off his energy and passion for what he was pitching.  If you don’t think that matters, watch Apple’s new guy pitching the 4S, what a difference.

Well Steve is now gone but his legacy will go on for decades.  Thanks bud.

Ironically, the day Steve Jobs died is the day my Iphone 4 did as well, sort of.  It didn’t die but every app and podcast that was on it was wiped out when I migrated my pc at work which is my main Itunes store.  At first glance I didn’t think it was that big of a deal, I can always download the apps again since Itunes knows I bought them.  What I didn’t think about was any local data/configuration for these apps is now toast.

That means anything that needs logon info needs to be reconfigured.  Even more troubling is any and all games I had on the phone that had my progress saved are now back to ground zero.  Well that f’ing sucks.  Oh well, it’s my bad in the end.  I am using the fopaw as an opportunity to clean house on the device, at least 50% of the apps I have on there have no reason to be at this point.

Yesterday after work I saw one of the more and more prevalent signs of our shitty job situation, a human sign.  Once things really started going in the shitter a half decade or so ago I started seeing more and more of these flesh and blood sign posts showing up.

I guess using a person as a sign holder allows businesses to get around local regulations that would prevent them from posting conventional signage on a street corner.  I suppose paying some poor dude $50 -$75 day to stand there holding a hunk of cardboard makes economic sense, I imagine they think they get some sort of business from it.  Personally I can’t say I ever frequented a business because I saw someone holding a sign.

Well anyway, this particular human sign was working as hard as I have ever seen a guy work.  He was basically dancing with the sign non-stop.  I was at a busy intersection for quite awhile and this guy never stopped.  As I passed the older, thin, black gentleman with a gray beard I saw his shirt was drenched with sweat.  I thought to myself “Damn, now that is a good human sign”

I have seen many poor human signs, the ones that just hold the sign in front of them while leaning on a pole or sitting in a chair.  I guess like any other profession, sign holding has people that are good and bad at their jobs.  You have to give the guy credit, at least he is out there earning some money instead of expecting others to earn it for him.

This malady I have been in this week is in a weird holding pattern.  My symptoms are neither worsening or getting any better.  Instead I feel like that guy in an arm wrestling match that gets bad start and is forced to just hold his arm at a negative angle, not giving any more ground but not making any up either.  I need to wrap the thumb.  I skipped the gym the all week but I am going back today, even if my routine is senior citizen-like.