23 June 1998

Today seems short. Had a good interview today, maybe a job will come of it. I like them. They seem to like me. Decent pay, good benefits. Here’s to hoping, should hear from them again to-morrow.
After that I had some… bizarre job calls. Atlanta has one of the largest (if not THE largest) IT job markets in the nation, yet people keep calling, talking about jobs out of state, and even with my resume on 4 different job boards and talking to a dozen or more placement agencies, I can’t seem to get very many people to hear me out around here. Though I must say, if someone from Florida, say the Tampa/Clearwater area, were to call with a job offer, I wouldn’t turn them down. 🙂
Anyhow, now to today’s tale… about 2 1/2 weeks ago, on a Friday night, my watchband broke. No big deal. It’s happened before. The following Monday, I had an interview. I didn’t feel like getting a new watchband, so I searched my room and found an old watch I hadn’t worn in awhile. It looked better for interview purposes anyway, it’s gold with a brown band as opposed to the other which was a black plastic sports watch. So, I put it on and notice the battery is dead. I head to the store on my way to the interview and get a new one. So today, 2 weeks later, I’m walking into the building where I have my interview today and this guys asks me what time it is… simple enough, I look at my watch and then kind of give him this puzzled look as I say, “I don’t know.” It seems that my watch had devoured the battery, because it was dead again. I even fiddled with it to see if maybe it just wasn’t contacting fully in the watch. But while I was sitting, waiting for the interview, and during the whole process (I was interviewed by 6 people, and only 6 because the 7th guy was on an important call) I kept thinking about the watch, trying to figure out where and when it had gone dead. After a while of thought, it occurred to me that the last time I had looked at my watch was when I had put the battery in and set the time and made sure it was running, which means I looked at it again maybe twice in the next 20 minutes to see if the hands were still moving. In 2 weeks I hadn’t looked at my watch, not once. Even when I put it on and take it off, I don’t look at it, not the time anyway. I always just grab it off the dresser and put it on, or unband it and toss it on the dresser. It even occurred to me that 4 days ago, on Friday the 19th, I had asked someone else what the time was at the movie theater, when I myself was wearing a watch. It just seems odd to me… because I know that I used to look at my watch all the time… back when I was working. I don’t mean to say that in 2 weeks I hadn’t looked at a clock… no… I have my alarm clock so I know when to leave the house to get where I’m headed by the time I’m supposed to be there, and I’ve checked the time on the TV so I know when to change the channel to catch my favorite shows, all while I’m wearing a watch. In any event, all this just kept me thinking all day… about time… and at about 1pm today, just as I was reaching home (with a new watch battery in pocket) it finally dawned on my what had changed to make me not use my watch. A subtle difference in my life… I no longer wanted out. Whenever I use a clock today, or ask what time it is, is because I have a time to be somewhere or I’m waiting for something to begin… 6 months ago, while I was working at my last job, I looked at my watch all the time because I wanted to know when I could leave. I was counting down to ends instead of beginnings… Needless to say, I am much happier these days than I was 6 months ago. I guess the lesson here is, if you are counting the minutes to get “out” as opposed to the minutes to get “in”, then maybe it’s time the situation changed.
Well, that was long… I’m sure it’ll happen again…
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Today’s Song: Girlfriend by Matthew Sweet… just before getting to my interview today this song came on the radio… good tune… great vibe… brought me up to the level of energy I needed for the interview.
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Today’s Movie: Nick of Time. While my head was spinning with time today, I pulled this movie out of my archives and watched it again. Pretty good film. I like the idea of a movie filmed in “real-time”. And Christopher Walken is always a plus.

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