It's a blocked call and I should know better but I answer it.
There's been a few the past few days and I've not been around to answer them, out getting groceries or hitting the thrift shops looking for treasures. But I get this one, I'm curious, if it's sales I can end it quickly enough.
It's the restaurant where I used to work. They do the blocked call thing because no one who's ever worked there, works there still, ever answers the phone when they ring. They know better. It's G and he chats for a minute - then asks if I'm interested in going back to work.
Now the fact is I've been working on my resume, polishing it, code scraps and portfolio, grueling cover letters, grueling only because to write a good cover letter might take an hour or two, writing an excellent one takes substantially longer. And so it's been open now on the computer for some 24 hours waiting for me to plug in the exact right phrase, the precise inflection - intonation - that will make it PERFECT.
It's that way with everything. TO make something good takes only 50% of the time, to make it perfect takes the other 50%. To make something lousy takes 75% of your time but it will sell really quick when you get it to Ikea. There's a bigger market for crap than there is for quality, regardless of the price.
Now I'm not keen, not keen at all to go back to the restaurant and I tell him, but I'm putting out resumes and I'm not sure of my prospects in the world of IT. So I'm stuck and he's asking the hard questions - "Can I.... come back to work...just theoretically....." and I have to answer yes. It's time. But hopefully not on the soul destroying schedule I had before, something a little more - well, varied, something that allows for a life outside the restaurant.
That's all he wanted to know. We'll talk next time I come in for coffee. And the circus resumes....