If you’re reading this on LowGenius.Net, I’m sure you can see there have been lots of changes.  (Hint:  To see what it used to look like, click here.)  I’ve fixed the google ads and added a new version of the Amazon search box.  Obviously, I’ve got a new background graphic.  Equally obviously, I’ve got a ton of issues remaining to get this thing really looking sharp.  Among these:

• changing existing solid-color backgrounds to semi-transparent graphics
• eliminating or fixing curved box corners so they have proper transparency in the “clear” area where the corners are cut out to make the radius on the boxes
• Drastically overhauling my category/tag hierarchy.  This will unfortunately involve a post-by-post quick review of everything here to consolidate categories and makes tags more meaningful
• Adding a Google Custom Search Engine for site/web search functionality (this may actually already be done, but I have to check the code and make sure its all set to go before trying to test it in the new layout)

And so on and so forth.

Also, I want to clarify some things about my post yesterday.  I dig my job, I really do.  I’ve got some of the best customers anyone could ask for, the company is full of and run by real decent people, and the lease rate is far and away the best deal in town.  Unfortunately even at its best driving taxi in this area is an unreliable source of income…and right now is not “best” by any measure in this area of the world. 

Even in a strong economy, Taxi-driving is plagued by the same kind of uninformed mentality that makes everyone think they’re web designers just because they can use a Wordpress template; when times get tough and you need work, getting a license is easy and any company will rent you a car.  Consequently, right now everyone and their brother is trying to drive a cab.  There are roughly 45 taxis on the road on any given weekend night in Kalamazoo; of those 45 taxis, maybe 10 have drivers in them who know what the hell they’re doing, will do their best to charge a fair price, and aren’t sketchy or creepers or something.  Last I knew, there were at least two drivers on the road here with criminal sexual conduct convictions involving minors (neither of them employed by any of the companies I’ve worked for).  Half the drivers in this town couldn’t find the center of town with a TomTom and a dispatcher guiding them by phone.

This is a pretty similar landscape to the land of “web designers,” where for the vast majority incompetence would be a dramatic improvement.

But you know…I’m a writer.  Well, I write anyway.  And when one writes, one tends to try to write thins that are witty or entertaining, and sometimes facts get pushed aside for the sake of the punchline.  So I want to make clear, in part because I worry that I’ve hurt some feelings unintentionally:  I like the company I work for; I like my job; I like the people I work with; I like my customers.  If I could make a decent living at this without working a hundred hours a day, I’d probably be a cab driver the rest of my life.  Unfortunately, the money’s just not there right now.  That’s not the fault of the people I rent my cab from.  At its best, driving a taxi is unreliable income, and things are simply not at their best right now.

It’s also worth noting that my personal money management skills suck.  I can manage YOUR money just fine, but if I have MY money in my pocket, it’s gonna get spent.  I could easily burn through $50K right now just paying a couple of old bills off and getting myself positioned to do what I want to do – create and help other people create and do what I can to bring some life back to this town – before I actually wasted money.  I’m in a bad spot, I’ve been in a bad spot for a while, and that’s not the fault of the people I’m working for today – if there’s fault to be assigned it’s as much mine as anyone’s.

The problem is I don’t have enough spare time left in my life to waste anymore.  If I didn’t have to worry about time passing by and paying my bills, I’d cheerfully work for this company for free just because I dig the work, the company, and the people.

Unfortunately, I do have those worries, and consequently I’ve got to work on finding a way to get my feet underneath me in a reliable enough manner that I can feel confident signing a lease on an apartment or agreeing to a one-year service contract with the local tube connection.  I’ve got a dream, you see.  A dream that maybe my town, which in so many ways right now resembles me at my lowest points, can find some respect for itself and the talent we breed around here, and in the process build the place back up so none of us have to go through what we’re going through now, ever again.  When I pull it off – and I will - my current employer is one of hundreds of businesses locally that will get rich as a result.

I focus on big stuff.  This means, unfortunately, that the small stuff tends to get delegated.  Taking care of myself is small stuff – I’m not that important.  Taking care of my town and the people in it, pushing hard to make the incredible wealth of artistic talent we have here the kind of trademark that it should be…that’s the big stuff.  My problem is I’m an idiot – I’ll end up starving myself to death trying to make sure someone else eats, which renders my contribution rather questionable.  I can’t be any good to anyone else if I can’t take care of myself…and right now I can’t take care of myself.  I’m relying on the generosity and affluence of college students for crying out loud.

So yeah.  It’s not personal.  Sure, the company I work for has problems, and so does every other company in the world.  The problems my company has aren’t nearly as bad as most other companies; sure there’s a few typical rookie mistakes here and there, but everyone’s got those problems.

It’s not that the company sucks, it’s that the business sucks, and right now it sucks far worse than normal.  Meantime, again…I need to get a steady, reliable income under my butt.