Skip to main content

Being Unproductive

I not being very productive at the moment. Other than my hair growth to a length that has not been since the early '90s. I have nothing to show. My Python learning is, well non-existent. If I was to go for an interview and they were to ask me to even do a simple piece of code. I would have an extensional breakdown as I did in my maths O grade exam when I was in high school. I have always had a rather fractious relationship with numbers and maths. I could never wrap my head around even the simplest of equations. The result was, as you can imagine, not doing at well in maths class.


In those days, classes for those who were not good at maths/arithmetic were terrible. Full of kids with learning difficulties. Hooligans who were waiting to be 16 so they could escape the school. Most of the teachers in turn were either one drink away from being alcoholics. Worse still indifferent to our mental suffering. Not being able to do long division in our teenage heads was not their concern. I did not help myself by thinking, "why to bother this is never going to go in my head" and so did very little studying. When it came to the exam at the end of the year I found myself sitting in the exam room, surrounded by the eager clever kids. I looked at the exam paper and my mental capabilities,  dissolved. I could feel my brain leaking out through my ears. At that moment I discovered the true meaning of breaking out into a "Cold Sweat".


The exam paper turned in some strange alien language. It all looked gibberish. I tried a few of the easier questions even then I began to doubt what answers I had written down and went back to re-do them. I did not finish all the questions and my answer sheet that cave people would have scoffed at. It was the worst hour and half of my then young life. 

During the summer holidays, the exam results came, my humiliation was complete. I was doing a summer job at the local paper mill that my dad worked at.  I had my mother read out the results over the phone in his office. Almost all my results were failures. My mother read out all the results but I did not hear anything about Maths or Arithmetic. My mother told me "They are not there". It meant that my grade was so bad they had not even bothered putting on paper! It traumatised me and I do not think I have recovered from that day. To this day I still have a fear of any type of mathematical equations. Yes, this does sound irrational. It is though one reason that I am such a poor student and being so unproductive. 


I have finished The Diary Of the Bookseller. Very funny book. It did make me want to work in the bookshop. I am now reading Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. High tech AI Sci Fi very much in the mold of I M Banks. Not a bad thing!

Stay Safe and Stay Cool.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Feedback.

Yes, indeed I am still very much unemployed. I have had a couple of video interviews that have sadly been unsuccessful. One of the interviews I did was with someone I used to work with so there was no hiding place in that one. There were two pieces of telling feedback from them. The first was that they thought that maybe the learning curve in the job might be too much for me. They thought I was too "Product based" and they were "Project-based" which I absolutely understand but I think I could easily transition to that kind of work process but they obviously  did not feel that. I should cotton on to that in the interview but did not at the time. The second piece of feedback was actually quite interesting and did make me sit up to think. They thought I was too negative about my previous employer and my experience there; which as I have already documented was not exactly a happy one. This has got me thinking about how do you go about talking about previous employment e...

Day 19 of 2022: Feeling a Bit Useless

Imposter Syndrome kicking in It might be mid-week blues or me having an off day, but today I felt like I was not good enough for my job. The old confidence took a but of dunt when I lost my job a couple of years back. I am not sure I have worked that through the how's and whys of what happened. That might be for another day, I am kicking that particular can down the road. Today I felt as if was not contributing enough, I am trying to feel my around and a complicated Software Package. It is a bit like being in a dark room. I am also blindfolded and there is a voice yelling "Why haven't you found it yet-get a move on". One crumb of comfort is that I am in this situation with other people who are in the same predicament. We keep bumping into each other and saying "Have you found the door yet", "Nope" and off we bumble. When I lost the job, I did contemplate "I am cut out to be Tester?" Today I found myself contemplating that question again....

Day 25 of 2022 : Behind the Walled Garden of Delights

In Your Garden of Delights.. The other day I noticed a story about Disney clawing back a lot of their content is on Netflix. It would appear the days of shared content across platforms is diminishing. The streaming providers want to keep you in their walled garden for as much as possible. If you are a serious tv watcher you are now going to have to subscribe to at least three if not four providers. All that to watch your fave film or TV show. My arithmetic is not that great but it would be safe to say that would be not shy of well over £350 a year. Ouch. We have Prime and Netflix and we do watch them a lot. I had Prime when it was Love Film and £4.99 was a good price. When Amazon came along and waved their wonga at Love Film I continued to only pay £4.99 for years and years. It was down the contract that Amazon had to fulfil. I have since upgraded to a Prime user so now fork out £7.99. My wife decided to pay for Netflix, as she wanted to watch a certain show for a bit. I have to be hon...