No Man's Land

I’ve now been working at the weekly review for more than six weeks, and I’ve got to say, the learning curve over that period has been incredible.

In a way, it saddens me to say that there had to be a learning curve at all, since the quality of the entire paper rests squarely on my shoulders. But at the same time, it’s been a straight up-hill since the day I started, and I don’t think the skills I’ve polished will tarnish any time soon.

That said, I wish I could link to an example or two, but the paper doesn’t have a website at all. Which is a problem. There have been 2,885,000 searches on Google alone for our newspaper, and when there’s nothing to turn up in the search, people are going to be frustrated.

And it doesn’t stop there. When I was doing the travel feature for the paper, and a few other times with enterprise shots, I’ve gotten pictures of people who don’t live in the area, and would like to see their photo in the printed paper but aren’t around when it comes out.

Between these two things, I feel there’s enough demand for a website to make it a profitable venture – lost profits being the only reason my publisher won’t allow me to make a news website for the paper.

But hopefully this will change. I’ll keep arguing my case until he at least gives it a shot, and when that happens, I’ll be sure to let you know.

Enjoy.
-Raggy

In the last month, Greenpeace has released two reports that have – to say the least – peaked my interest.

The first, titled ‘Green Jobs: It’s Time to Build Alberta’s Future’ and co-written by the Sierra Club Prairie chapter and the Alberta Federation of Labour, is built on the concept that the best way to solve the economic crisis is to invest stimulus money into sustainable, environmentally friendly industries.

It was the conjunction with the Alberta Federation of Labour that originally caught my eye. The fact that the federation representing Alberta’s work force – including 30 unions, both public and private – is on board with this idea gives the concept definite credibility.

The report, based on modest calculations, promises from 34,500 to 42,000 full-time jobs lasting two years. Based only on efficiency upgrade, transit and high-speed rail numbers noted within the report, the conclusion states, short-term job creation for this program would be about 69,000 to 84,000 jobs including direct, indirect, and induced employment.

By investing in such industries as transit, clean energy and building efficiency, jobs of all kinds would be created, covering white- and blue-collar, and everything contained therein – that’s before including spin-off employment.

“Alberta needs to create jobs,” writes David Thompson, an independent environmentalist who has worked for the government, private and non-profit sectors, in the report. “It also needs to have a cleaner environment. It can do both. Other jurisdictions are doing so, and if Alberta doesn’t jump out front and take a leadership role, it risks falling behind and losing a one-time opportunity.

“The policy measures needed are straightforward, and the investments are very affordable. Certainly, they will create far more jobs than we are getting by throwing money at the oil and gas sector.”

Weeks later, Greenpeace issued the second report titled ‘Energy [R]evolution: A Sustainable Canada Energy Outlook,’ which was co-authored by the European Renewable Energy Council.

The Energy [R]evolution refers to a proposed shift in energy policies at a federal level, and serves as a strong conceptual backing to the provincial report.

“As a federation of 10 provinces and three territories, Canada’s energy policy is constitutionally fractured,” the report states. “While the Government of Canada ostensibly aims to achieve a balance between economic growth, competitiveness and environmental responsibility, it is clear that environmental priorities have taken a back seat to perceived economic benefits.”

The authors go on to provide two potential scenarios, one as a business-as-usual reference and the other as an ideal scenario. Based only on proven ecological and economical technologies – and without abandoning anything currently in use, such as coal or nuclear power plants, before their time – they say Canada could get more than 80 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020.

After all, renewable energy sources (wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, etc.) supply enough energy to potentially satisfy current global energy demand 3078 times over. Using technology readily available today, the report says, renewable energies could fill Canada’s current energy demand almost six times over.

These two reports strike a very strong and welcome chord compared to the off-key tune our provincial and federal governments have been singing as an environmental policy.

-Raggy

I guess it’s been a while since I’ve written anything on here for all of you that I like to think read my blog, so I figure now’s a better time than never to give you all an update.

I’ve been working for the last month as the editor of a weekly paper in Viking, AB: The Weekly Review.

A newspaper without a newspaper website.

It’s been good, other than the fact that a good portion of my education and experience in web design is going unused. The paper covers five towns, so my beat up old car is getting a good 450 extra kilometres every week. I don’t know how much longer the poor thing is going to make it.

I find myself wanting to get a new car – become a self-fulfilling prophesy if you’re going by that column I wrote a couple of months ago for the Endeavour.

But it’s all good. This is really a nice part of the province.

And how about that steady income, hey? That’s definitely going to take some getting used to.

But enough of the small talk. I’ve got to get back to work.

I’ll try to get back into the swing of posting on here at least once a week. I don’t want this thing to get back to the state it was in back in July and August of 2007.

And if you have something to discuss, like always, feel free to let me know.

raggy@enterjester.com

Take it easy, eh.

-Raggy

It’s nearing the end of the semester, and all of us in our last year are getting prepared to start the job hunt all over again.

After talking to a few of my peers, I’ve realized there’s a bit of a consensus of opinion when it comes to looking for a job: It’s crap. Scary, unpleasant, daunting, filthy crap.

If you think back to my first column in October, you may remember when I told you it’s not all about marks in college. It’s about having fun.

This is the time of year that people often start to regret listening to messages like that. The time of year when copious amounts of students from the same classes start to apply to the same jobs, and where those of us who had fun in college may get our resumes left on the floor by chubby executives and tight-assed managers, forgotten, only to see our squarest of classmates fill our dream jobs.

But don’t worry. The last two to four years have not been a waste. I stand by the position I took in October: The stories you’ve accumulated in college will stay with you through the grave. And though the ones who wasted evenings studying get the better jobs – and may excel in those jobs – their bosses will forever rue the day they hired a boring peon.

And while you’ve been enjoying these, the most alcohol-heavy of your years, you really have learned a lot. I dare say you’ve learned more than the squares. Not only have you learned how to be an engineer, massage therapist or cop; you’ve learned how to be a fun person as well. You’ve learned not to take your professional relationships too seriously, and you’ve learned to deal with vast amounts of potentially awkward situations. That will help you in life more than any amount of grades with plus-signs attached.

Think of it this way: Your dream job is probably crap as well. It always looks good from the outside, but I dare you to visit the square that got the job a year or two from now. You’ll see what I mean. It’s probably a dry, boring, “cozy” or “secure” place where you waste several hours a day doing “work,” following orders from “bosses” who have no room for humour.

Picture now the alternative. You’re sitting in the pub getting drunk with a stranger, only to find later that he runs a business with a few of his rum-buddies, doing exactly what you just finished your education for. And he’s looking to expand his operations.

He invites you to stop in for an interview the next day, which of course you do. You’re both hung over. And it’s fun.

And every day thereafter is fun, because you work with people who also had fun in college. And that’s what it’s really about: The people. Nobody really wants the cozy pipe-dream jobs once they’re in them. If you can get on with people that will make every day exciting, funny or weird, you’ll have a lot more fun.

But if you really do want the job you think you want, don’t start questioning yourself now. Fear is like nail-polish remover to employers – it smells terrible and the fumes burn their eyes. The trick to getting the job even if you weren’t at the top of the class is just to hand out your resumes, go for your interviews and be who you are without trying to act like a stiff. People want to have fun at work, and if you can prove you’ll do the job and make it memorable and/or enjoyable, you’ll do just fine.

Since the automobile industry bought up and shut down trams and transit cars en masse in the 30s and 40s as part of one of the largest corporate conspiracies of the time, cars have become more and more ingrained in our daily lives.

And because of that, cars have come pretty far since the release of the Model T. You can get cars these days that will beep if you cross the centre line, give you maps and directions from point A to point B, keep a flat speed and keep your coffee warm. You can almost drive them in your sleep (not that I suggest anyone try that).

But as college students, not many of us have those kinds of fancy, high tech, or “good” cars. We have cars; in this day and age, and in many industries, you simply need one. But ours are special.

Some people buy old cars for a couple hundred bucks and drive them until they’ve absolutely ground off the thing’s last legs.

I’m the kind of guy who buys cars from those people.

Our beloved beaters, our old rust-bags handed down through our families, or whatever cheap junk we could afford that wouldn’t take away too much from our grocery funds at the time; they all have an impact on our lives and the way we live them.

With these old, unreliable rust-bags comes the rust-bag culture. The culture many of us college students live in. The sort of culture where it’s not uncommon to think to yourself, ‘well, Ted’s an hour and a half late. Must be car problems again,’ or, ‘uh oh, my car started smoking. I’m a really bad influence.’

The symbiotic relationship I share with each of the four to six cars I go through in any given year teeters between love and hate. That goes without saying. But I know I don’t need to identify myself by what I drive, and I definitely don’t fall victim to thinking I’m going to be buying social status in Lexus form. If it gets from here to there nine out of 10 times, great.

What it boils down to is, a car is a car, and we can see it for what it is. But that perception bleeds into other aspects of our life, too. That sense of ‘it is what it is; like us, it does its job most of the time.’ It’s not good, it’s not bad. It just is.

It sounds weird, but to drive a car that probably wasn’t even very reliable for the first five owners does a lot to remove those labels from your mind. For many people, if their shiny BMW won’t start in the morning, their day is labelled ‘bad’ right off the go. A flat tire is catastrophic for any given soccer mum. For us, it’s just another day. It’s not a good or bad event, but something to just get past and move on.

But the sad part is that when we graduate, get out in the working world and start being able to afford cars that work, many of us will lose that light-hearted view of life and punctuality.

So if you’re reading this on the side of the road waiting for your car to cool down, know that you and me are in the same boat. And it just might sink.