june 19 tcs
A recruiter called me about a job the other day. We had a nice chat, but when we got to the money part he offered me an hourly rate that that was actually lower than the rate I was getting ten years ago. I said as much on the call. I didn't say it like, "hey buddy, fuck this job." I said it to mean, "the future sure isn't all it was cracked up to be, huh. " For what it's worth, he was kind of chagrinned himself.
I think my biggest problems with the present related to that it used to be the future. At some point in my life, I was looking forward to the time it is now. To the age I am now. Like anyone else, I had ideas of what the future would be like, but of course I couldn't know, and so, as guys like me are wont to do, I spent a lot of time thinking about what the future of me would be. Would I get married? Would I have kids? Would I own a home? Would I invent something? Would I publish a book? Would I live in Canada? Would I evade the FBI long enough to kiss Geena Davis and then drive into the Grand Canyon?
I think the best part about getting older is that you get more and more of yourself back after years and years of giving pieces of your truest self away to fit in, to get ahead, to be explicable. I used to worry so much about whether or not people got me, or would get me. I'm not some weird acquired taste, I just had low self-esteem. For over half of my life, I lived as though the point of my life was to serve and be approved of by other, better people. And, like, that's almost kind of how I was raised to a degree. When I got sent away to a fancy oarding school in 1994, it was so that I could "rub shoulders with the leaders of tomorrow," according to my dad.
I was a kind, smart kid who was supposed to skip three grades. I was working on university-level math stuff when I was like 13. I was a good musician and played a few instruments. I was a very good athlete and played several sports. I didn't smoke (I eventually did), drink (same), or do drugs (no comment), and I never got in trouble with the law (which isn't to say I didn't do dirt, just that I didn't get caught), yet despite this, I was told by the guy who was supposed to be my biggest supporter that while I couldn't be a leader of tomorrow, I could definitely carry his books to class.
I thought about those words a lot for over twenty years. About what they felt like. About what they meant. I suppose he could have been making a point on how POCs should always remember we exist in a rigged system and should aware of the invisible rules of that system but I'mma keep it a buck: sharing a complicated truth in order to help his kids better understand the world wasn't really his thing.
So yeah, anyway, in the year 2026 I was offered a rate that paid less per hour than what I was getting paid per hour in 2017, when I was living in a city (Montreal) that was markedly less expensive than Toronto and working on a project (Canada 150) that was so big I still can't believe they trusted me with it.
It is a statement about this timeline that despite this, I was excited to get the call. I like UX work and I've missed doing it a lot lately and so maybe his job opportunity, remuneration aside, is a sign that I should go back to that world.
The cosmic ballet goes on, but so doest the beat.
🌲 gonna
🌼 go
🌱 touch
🌳 grass pillow
🌷 now
Be good to yourself.
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