What Do You Think?

[dudelovenext]

I'm just curious...not withstanding the large amounts of blackmail material out there on me...
[Poll #1200748]

Comments

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[elsmd.livejournal.com]

No. Politics requires pretty thick skin. I don't know you well enough to say for sure, but I don't get the impression that you have that.

Re: ...

[fearless-son.livejournal.com]

He survived more than seven years in customer service. That should say something about the thickness of his skin.

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[elsmd.livejournal.com]

I don't know the nature of the customer service business enough to get whether you're referring to backstage strife or angry calls. Handling callers who are angry because you can't do anything when they spill coffee on your Wii is one thing.

Managing through manipulative bastards and cutthroat bitches, who have access to things that could prod at you on a personal level, would be a totally different story.

Re: ...

[dudelovenext.livejournal.com]

Heh, yeah, I would need to learn to just let personal stuff roll off my back. It's a total guess, but I would think that many politicians are blackmailed into things. I don't think I have anything come up that I'd be that ashamed of. I'd expect stuff to come out about my sex life or my relationship with Jack Daniels.

Stu's been good about getting my skin thicker about my alcohol consumption. :)

Re: ...

[dudelovenext.livejournal.com]

Well, I'd definitely have the skills in talking to people, I think.

Re: ...

[dudelovenext.livejournal.com]

Sometimes it depends, but I've been trying to be better about...well, thickening my skin.

And maybe I don't quite have thick enough skin. But, I think it's something I can learn.

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[elsmd.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's something that can be learned, yeah. I think to a degree, it's sort of something you're just born with. Nowadays in particular, though, I bet it's tougher to be in politics without going insane. The public is generally apathetic about real issues, and if not they tend to live in some stupid fantasy world.

There are other things that I think would hold you back a little. I'm not sure how comfortable you are with public speaking, but if you aren't it becomes a major setback. And then as far as legislation goes, bills tend to be written in verbose "law language", which is about as enjoyable a read as the dictionary. That's the reason most of the branches of government are led by lawyers.

Re: ...

[dudelovenext.livejournal.com]

Heh, yeah, that's true. If I thought customer service was bad... :)

Now watch that quote be used about me in the future. Eh. ^_^

I've done public speaking before, though I'm not sure I have a lot of finesse about it. I would probably join a Toastmasters club to practice on the public speaking.

Not exciting reading, yeah...

[miss-pants.livejournal.com]

Hey Stephen! OT, but I just wanted to see how the Microsoft gig is treating you. We've been thinking that maybe Mattt should look into getting a temp job there in the fall, as some steady income to supplement his editing projects. Sometimes the work gets slow & then we go into panic mode so it would be nice if we had something to depend on in addition to whatever projects come his way.

I'm not sure where to begin though! What temp agency do you use? Also, do you know if their testing dept tends to have a lot of temps, like Nintendo? Ideally it would be nice if there was some sort of video editing dept that he could get in with, but I don't know how realistic that is. he's got a couple years worth of testing experience through Nintendo though too, so that would probably be another good option. I suppose he could always get back in through Nintendo, but I hear Microsoft pays more for that too, so it would probably be preferable if he can get in there instead . .

[dudelovenext.livejournal.com]

How dare you go off-topic!

Nah. :)

Well, I would recommend Volt (http://jobs.volt.com/). I go through them, though I haven't had experience with any of the other temp agencies. They treat you pretty well. All MS jobs on the Volt website are labeled being with "the big Redmond software giant". :)

It might depend on the department, so it would depend. With his experience, he might be able to find something.

I would be wary of testing. The testers are underpaid and not treated very nicely. Whitney was a tester for a while, so if you want some horror stories I could hook you up with her.

It really depends on the department. I'm treated extremely nicely in my department. Results vary, though. I think he'll be okay if he's on the Redmond or Issaquah campuses.