Monthly Archives: March 2026

The real world

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Greetings, readers. The big story for most folks here in the real world has been the weather. This year has to be one of the more disruptive winters – heavy rain, bothersome snow and high winds along with hot temperatures in the deep south and west. Toss in a few unexpected tornadoes and destructive thunderstorms.

The planet also took several extra turns at blowing tree leaves about, causing several extra trips to keep the grounds civil looking.

Know what? It was his real world that mariner had to contend with – not the world provided by TV, computers and smartphones. It felt good to have his own real world. He acknowledges the horrid strife across the planet caused by bullet wars, greed and inadequate resources but dealing with his own winter was a hands-on experience for him living in the Midwest. He could touch this personal world; he had to involve himself physically in his world with extra chores and repairs. There was a sense of freedom going one-on-one with his own real planet.

A good effect was his community stepping up to help neighbors clearing driveways and lawns (both snow and leaves).

As smart computers continue to encroach on our personal worlds, he fears that the ‘real’ world will be only what the computers say it is. Mark Zuckerberg’s dream of everyone living on line in a physical sense is identical to mariner’s oft-quoted Matrix film.

Humans must be able to engage in their own real world. It may be highly convenient to let a little gadget clean your floors or cut your lawns but you’ve given away a part of your own real world to robots. Is that good?

Ancient Mariner

I know you . . .

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Mariner’s wife has a computer with access to several sites where stored photographs are kept – thousands upon thousands of photographs. She has arranged for this collection to be her screensaver; each photograph fills the screen for about five seconds or so. Many times mariner has watched dozens of photographs flash by representing the entire life experience of his family.

One pattern has emerged: If mariner ever met them, he knows every single face in that library. With absolute certainty he recognizes every single face. What’s their name? Dunno. When did you know them? Dunno. How do they fit into family history? Dunno. But with absolute assurance, he recognizes every face.

Is this another subconscious skill possessed by Homos? Perhaps by many species! Sheep seem to know each other; it must be the face. There was an episode on TV some time ago where a grown lion recognized his befriended keeper from years ago when the lion was young. From 50 feet away ran up to keeper, stood on his hind feet and gave the keeper hugs and kisses. 50 feet away – was it a visual recognition?

One time mariner was standing in an elevator when a woman entered and immediately said “Hi” and asked him how his life was doing. He recognized her face immediately but it took a minute to remember he knew her in middle school, about 20 years ago.

Mariner suggests the reader should test themselves to validate this pattern of memory combined with ignorance.

Ancient Mariner

 

Working for a living 28 – 43

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Mariner signed on with the Federal department of Medicaid. (Job 28) He was the manager of the contract support center, which provided coding support to about 12 state contracts. It occupied a five-story building in Texas. 18 months later, he was transferred to the headquarters in Washington, D.C. (Job 29). His job was to visit contract sites to evaluate operations. While in Washington, he was offered a consultant project manager position for a bank in Iowa. The bank was upgrading its computer system. It offered a pleasant salary so he took it. (Job 30)

Once connected with the computer services agent, the next twenty years constituted winning contract offers from the Agent’s clients. This job situation could be called ‘one job, many locations’. Mariner considers them individual job applications because he had to be accepted by each client. Mariner’s career track finally has a name: ‘independent consultant for managing computer conversions’.

He lived this career track for 20 years, participating in about 20 contracts – the shortest one was 2 hours, the longest was three years. (Job 31-41 jobs?) Near the end, he stepped out of the traveling consultant job and signed on with John Deere Finance (Job 42)  to manage a merger of two departments. His last job (Job 43) was a one-day job advising a small consulting firm how to shape their bid for a large tech department.

Shortly after, Mariner sold his farm to live in a quiet, rural, crime-free town. All things considered, he skate-boarded through one of the better eras in American work.

Ancient Mariner

Working for a living 19-27

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At this stage mariner’s job history is in a holding pattern. He continued to get Federal Dept. of Corrections contracts; he had another half dozen (Jobs 19-25) which  encompassed beach parties in Georgia, racial discrimination against his team in Alabama and designing a jail in New Mexico. In between he took classes in computer science.

Eventually, he was hired by a large insurance firm as supervisor of a team of coders (Job 26). If mariner ever had a standard career job.this was it. How does that song go, working 9 to5 . .  until a few years later when a new CEO took over and gutted the COBOL coder teams.

It turns out there was special job fair in town. He was selected to help set up an administrative information process for Taiwan’s first home-built fighter jet (Job 27).

So, readers, Have you ever worked out-of-US before? What stresses were put on family life? Have you ever worked on the road like a long haul truck driver? What changed in your ego, being separated from the home tribe?

Ancient Mariner

Working for a living 16 -18

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Mariner was a parole officer for about a year when the Department of Corrections ran an in house ad for a new position. Mariner got the job! (Job 16) The job was as the coordinator to implement new data systems that met new Federal guidelines. The job reported to the Systems Manager who reported to the Secretary for Corrections and Probation.

The popular acronym was CJIS (Criminal Justice Information System). Mariner’s job was to visit every prison, jail, police department and judgeship (who were resistant to baring their trial records) for the purpose of teaching the new data relationships, advise computer technicians and arrange a coordinated relationship with the state project. He had a team of two systems experts, a coordinator and an attorney.

This job lasted four years until a new Republican became Governor and mariner was let go.

Fortunately he had made friends with a few managers at the Federal operation. Slowly, mariner began getting contracts to teach project management to States who requested this service. (Job 17 and 18) This is the moment when mariner became an independent consultant and the job numbers start to climb rapidly.

So readers, do you remember when you felt really happy and fortunate when you were given a break in the work world? What was the name of the person who gave you the break? How did you celebrate your new break?

Ancient Mariner