Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Aesthetics and Problem Solving


I sometimes get obsessed with some really foolish and trivial thing that I am doing, and get totally carried away, spending hours, and sometimes days, obsessing over it. Does this happen to everyone? I usually have these bouts when I try aesthetics for some web designing. Or when I am working with Movie Maker... or photoshop... or html... or a web designer. It was actually ok to do this in engineering college when I didnt have much to do (yes you CAN pass with top marks and some glowing reccommendations even when you do nothing through 4 years of college). But now its a bit ridiculous, considering I have a hectic work life and a demanding social life.

But to be honest its fun. It gives a sense of creation, a sense that I am still good at some stupid applications and at html. It also lets me flatter myself that I have a sense of aesthetics.

The reason for me saying this is because I spent the last 2 hours redesigning the blog webpage. I currently own 2 dormant websites which I designed from scratch using HTML. This webpage however is a template which has been downloaded and modified. The time was spent to convert the fonts to pictures, lay it on the template and merge it. I only have MS Paint and HTML to help me. I am too honest to install a hacked version of Photoshop and too stingy to buy an authentic version. Though there was a time when I used to be obsessed about Photoshop. The same time when I used to be sure that I will grow up to be a graphic designer. Then I changed that to a media expert, then to short movie director and finally settled for being a corporate moron.

Spring is in the offing, its a battle between the flowers and the snow Gods. The flowers peep out and the snow Gods send their wrath and there is heavy snowfall. And a day will pass and the flowers will peep out again. And the snow Gods will send in the snow throwers again. Its an interesting struggle, and even though you know who will eventually win, its nice to watch how long the struggle will go on. Needless to say, I am on the side of the flowers.

Today was another bad day, work wise. I would hate for this blog to be a record of a number of bad days I have in a week, but I wont run away from it. I realize that with age and experience one stops getting affected by difficult situations at work. Ever noticed how excited and tensed the new intern becomes when there is an escalation, and how cool and relaxed the senior manager is? It has its up side and down side. I feel that till I get excited and tensed about a tough business situation, I will always be able to respond to it sharply. When I get relaxed about tough situations and have the "been-there-done-that" laid-back attitude, I will run the risk of losing control, and letting the competition overtake me. However you cannot help slowly getting settled down about difficult situations when you face it again and again. And that is why it is important to shift roles when you see that happening. Luckily for me, I still get tensed when a difficult situation crops up. The day I dont, I will feel my work is less challenging. And I will know that the time has come to move on. Different people have different drivers to choose the job they do. For some it is money, for some the prestige, for some the number of good looking girls at work. For me it is the type of work and whether it gives me a high.

I like problems because I am a problem solver. And if there are no problems then I will be out of employment. Everyone finds something they are really good at, and I have discovered that I am good at problem solving. Damn. So I will always end up being in problematic situation. Give me a calm, organized environment where things work like clockwork and I will wilter and die. Give me a nasty escalated messed up environment and I shall rise and flourish and in an efficient manner calm down the situation and make it into calm, organized environment. I love being a hero. So in a way, my work is to lessen my work opportunities. Its the same logic as saying that if there was no crime in Supermans world, then Superman and Spiderman would be out of a job. But luckily for Superman, the world will always have crime and luckily for me, businesses will never run short of messed up situations.

It takes some time to understand what gives you a kick, and then it takes a lot of time to come to terms with it. One day I shall come to terms with just how screwed up I am. Till then let me crib about the problems at work and about my bad days. And let me give really screwed up justifications and convince myself that bad days are actually good for me. :)

Quote of the day:
"I'm a simple man, Hobbes."
"You?? Yesterday you wanted a nuclear powered car that could turn into a jet with laser-guided heat-seeking missiles!"
"I'm a simple man with complex tastes."´
- Calvin and Hobbes

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