From: lydick@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Speaker-to-Minerals)
Subject: Re: Books Database
Reply-To: lydick@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU
Organization: HST Wide Field/Planetary Camera
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 09:38:49 GMT

In article <BuHJM7.L38@well.sf.ca.us>, dasher@well.sf.ca.us (D Anton Sherwood) writes:
>In article <1992Sep12.164431.12391@cco.caltech.edu> lydick@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU writes:
>>
>>Me, I've found a simple solution to the problem.  One of which I suspect Kitten
>>would approve:  When the number of books I own gets to around 300 or so, I make
>>a trip to one or more local libraries (the SF goes to the Caltech science
>>fiction club library; everything else goes to the Pasadena public library),
>>present them with LOTS of books, and let some librarian worry about cataloging
>>them (or selling them in order to raise money to buy other books, as the case
>>may be).
>
>When I decided that getting paid for having fun just wasn't in my plausible
>tree of career paths,

StM gets a really strange look on his face.  It's a combination of pity,
helplessness, and (you guessed it) confusion.  "My condolences.  I *REALLY*
can't empathize with anybody who's *NOT* getting paid to have fun.  There're a
couple of reasons for that.  In the long run, I've always been good enough at
doing things I enjoy that I could find someone to pay me to do them.  I guess
that, in some ways, that means that I'm the *OTHER* polymath in alt.callahans
(btw, my favorite method of passing tests is ``solution by knowing the
answer.''  I'm serious about this.  So far, every time I've found something
interesting enough that I'd want to work at it full time, I've also found
someone who was willing to pay me to do it full time.  Now, the pay isn't
always industry-competitive.  For example, I've been told by a number of people
who know about the computer industry that, were I to be working for a private
company rather than this rather obscure college with a contract from a minor
government agency, I'd be making twice what I do now.  But somehow, for the
most part, I've ended up working for reasonable people.  The following is a
direct quote from my boss on the day that he hired me:
	"If you're not having fun, *I'M* doing something wrong."
I've had exactly one boss who didn't have that attitude.  He fired me for being
a diabetic (well, in all fairness, neither he nor I realized that was the
problem at the time.  He *REALLY* fired me because, after spending 72
consecutive hours fixing problems caused by someone else Harvey had hired, I
had a tendency to take 72 hours off.  Now, Caltech has this policy that says
that if an employee misses 3 consecutive days of work without calling in, it's
cause for dismissal.  I, being used to having sane supervisors, thought that
this rule wouldn't be invoked when I'd put in two weeks' work in the preceding
four days.
	I do, however, take quite a bit of pleasure from the fact that the
systems I managed under Harvey actually fared WORSE under my replacement than
they would have under no system manager at all.  Harvey eventually came to me
with a request that I train my replacement.  I magnanimously agreed (hell, I'm
a professional, and I just couldn't stand to see those poor bairns suffering
under my replacement's incompetence).  BTW, my current physician has expressed
the opinion that I'm a workaholic.  I didn't have the heart to make the only
truly honest response possible to her conjecture:  "Hard-core."

I took most of my neep-neep books to a PenSFA party
>and announced they were up for grabs.
>That was in Spring '87.  I call it my Great Renunciation.
>
>A year or two ago I sorted my books into three piles:  Shelves, Boxes and
>Moe's (the big bookstore in Berkeley).  I think the trip to Moe's brought me
>about $150 in store credit.
>
>They've grown back.  And all my books are now in boxes in my new apartment.
>When I move in (I can't stop sleeping here until I deliver the cat to a new
>home -- which I'm not willing to do until I can take her to the vet for a
>shot and a flea-bath), I solemnly resolve to Sort The Stuff again.
>
>This time I think I'll catalog them (so I'll know how many I have) before
>getting rid of any.
>
>And I'll probably have a garage sale, as well as using the two sinks
>mentioned above.
>
>Anton
>-- 
>Anton Sherwood *\\* dasher@well.sf.ca.us *\\* +1 415 664 2229
>Libertarian candidate for California Assembly, 12th district
>Opinions mine, but available for lease at easy terms.
Newsgroups: alt.callahans