Should everyone work?

Couldn't come up with any picture ideas on this, so here's
a picture of frog.

From Black's Law Dictionary page 471 (5th ed. 1979) on work: "A person in the service of another under any contract of hire, express or implied, oral or written, where the employer has the power or right to control and direct the employee in the material details of how the work is to be performed." I don't know why that sounds fucked up to me, but it does. Here in Finland we have very good social security and people actually get paid for doing nothing. In that case your only "job" is to fill up papers and take them to different bureaucratic organizations we have here. People get paid for doing nothing and still they complain. I suppose you can call me a commie or socialist or whatever but I think the system is good. I think poor people should be helped by the rich, and if it's not voluntary then it should be involuntary (paying taxes). So, here in Finland we pay crazy taxes - some people pay over 50% of their salaries as taxes. For that we get free health care and social services.

Okay, so why should I work? I don't enjoy it and I'm not giving anything to the community. I guess I could ask this question from all the people who really don't like working - why should you? Of course I understand that some other people pay for my living, but isn't that better situation than me working and taking job from someone who actually enjoys work? There are always rotten eggs and parasites but for some reason government doesn't want to admit it. Every election year members of parliament are talking about 100% employment rate and how they're going to achieve it. Well here's a wake up call for you - you're not. Because of people like me.

I wrote about this stuff back in 2008 and got a comment from a person who supports the Zeitgeist Movement. He asked my opinion on the movement and I never answered, so I answer now: I think it's communism with a little twist (technology). It's utopia and therefore it's never going to happen. Humans are brutal, self-centered assholes and most of them will never share money or other commodities with other people. Of course it would be nice if we could live without borders and work together towards a better world, but that's not going to happen. There's my answer, hope it satisfies you.

Coffee keeps us going

Mmm... drugs....

A large percentage of Finnish (and others, but let's narrow the scope) start their day by ingesting some sort of coffee beverage. As we all know, caffeine is a moderate stimulant. If coffee was invented today, it would probably be regulated and only available with prescription. Coffee is the fuel for the common white collar worker. It's a social drug, just like nicotine. But it also has positive effects on your health. These are my favorite effects of coffeine (I drink tea, but it contains coffeine too):

Laxative effects - I challenge you to stay away from toilet after three cups of coffee or 5 cups of tea in the morning. If you wanna go hardcore mode, smoke few cigs too.

Coffeine is a mild diuretic - More piss -> more toilet visits -> less work!

Caffeine causes sleep disturbances - Paper at school due tomorrow? Need to finish that report at work ASAP? Drink 12 cups of coffee and you're good to go.

Two cups of coffee reduce significantly post-gym muscle pain - Caffeine consumed one-hour before going to the gym induces a 48 % decrease in pain; those who drink caffeine before the near-maximum force test have 26 % drop in soreness. Useful for all you P90X people!

And the best for the last:

Caffeine gets women in the mood for sex, especially in moderate amounts and when the women are not heavy drinkers. The chemical is also known to increase excitability in men.

Nobody cares about the negative effects, right? Anyway, here are some.

Stereotypes at work

Besserwisser: "This Dostojevski is like, soooo
interesting"

During my working years I've noticed some stereotypes at work place. This is probably an universal phenomenon but here are some stereotypes I've seen in Finland:

Besserwisser from the graphics department - These always go with the latest fashion trends (I think it's hipster now...). At lunch break they discuss about jumpcut scenes of French avant-garde movies, why Mac is better than PC (well, it isn't so fuck you), shittiness of new progrock/freejazz album or opening of a new trendy cafe. About 80% of these are women, 10% gays and rest of them are - well, technically - men.

Middle aged engineers - At lunch break these guys discuss about building a new terrace, changing diapers, buying a new SUV, how fucking hot new Miss Finland looks and that trip to Lapland next summer with the wife and kids. Young people usually laugh at the engineers only to realize that in 5 years they are in similar situation. The society WILL convert you.

Middle aged women from the helpdesk - At lunch break they discuss about price of groceries, sex scandals of Prime Minister (this was happening already back in 2008, he decided to quit and take a better paying job. Still screwing with younger chicks, tho), Dancing with the Stars, brutality of school massacres, things they did with husband last weekend (sometimes gets a bit too intense and intimate!) and as a bonus - news from the tabloids. Sometimes it seems like these women live off the tabloids and misery of other people.

All the above groups will burn eternally in hell. Some other groups include:

Nerds - Well, I guess you all know these guys. Usually nerd don't speak to other people. If they do however, it's in code ("dedicated server linux ip address hosts iä iä cthulhu fhtagn!").

Interns - They don't speak and are not spoken to. You know the drill.

Short post for today

Sorry, not going to make long post today. I've had some serious insomnia issues for a week now, my head is a wee bit fucked up at the moment and I can't really think straight. This must be devastating news to all my 2 readers out there. I promise to write as soon as I feel better and can get some proper sleep.

Your job in one sentence

Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert) asked people to describe their jobs with one sentence. These are some of the answers he got:

My job is...
... mostly looking out of a window (pilot)
... to run away and call the cops (guard/watchman)
... to make sure that stupid people stay in the gene pool (lifeguard)
... to cut and paste stuff from the Internet (student at the university)
... speak while people sleep (lecturer at the university)
... to surf the webs all day long (this one's mine!)

So i guess other people have boring jobs too. How would you describe your job (or life situation in case you're unemployed) with one sentence?

Studying is hard work