I Don’t Want to Be a Traitor to My Generation or Anything, But…

It’s always a little disheartening when two hours into a sixteen hour work day, you overhear someone (no one you know, but still, some lady) saying that your generation has no work ethic. It’s always a little hard not to get up and tell this lady that I probably work harder than she does, and for about a quarter of the money, but whatever, bygones.

A few weeks ago, I saw a book that’s coming out soon that was all about how managers can speak to their twenty-something employees and get them motivated. What really stuck out was the cover, which featured a man’s arm clothed in a business suit shaking hands with a full-sleeve tattooed arm. It’s not as though this is a new concept. I mean, managers in the sixties and seventies had to deal with their twenty-something employees that looked entirely different than the work force had ever looked before. And now, it seems to be the same.

Now, this complaint that young people aren’t motivated to work isn’t a new one…it seems like every generation is at first painted out to be lazy and unwilling to work. I can’t speak for what came before me, but I must say, that from my perspective the problem isn’t with my generation. We’re willing and eager to work and work hard. The problem is motivation. In every job I have had since college, including being a Production Assistant on movie sets, I am met with shock and awe at how fast things get done. For the most part, I’ve worked for people around my age who are better, more devoted workers than I am and yet still, we’re all shocked at how much we accomplish each day.

We accomplish because we are motivated, because we can see or are told the effect we have when we work hard. On the other hand, I’ve also had employers that give me one task and have nothing else when I finish that task. I think this is where the notion that we have no work ethic comes in. Now, it’s easy to look like you’re working. I get a task, I finish it, I ask for another one. If there’s not another one then yeah, I’m going to go online because it’s better than just sitting at my desk looking bored. I’m not lucky enough to have the boredom problem anymore, but when I did, it was more excruciating than having way too much to do. And it wears at your motivation.

If you know that your work is going to take three hours, and you have to be at work for eight hours, why would you feel pressed to get it done quickly? Why work hard when there’s nothing waiting for you on the other side?

Peace, Love, and Rash Generalizations,
Julia

Pet Peeve

With the release of Watchmen one of my biggest all time pet peeves has been hit upon again and again.

I absolutely cannot stand it when people see a movie and say, “Oh, the book was better.”

Hello, of course the book was better, it’s a book. Books are a more complete story telling medium than movies because if you were going to put the entire twelve chapters of Watchmen into a movie it would be like six hours long and then no one would see it. Seriously, how annoyingly pompous is it to just say, oh, the book was better? I mean I guess people say this because they have not a single original thought in their head because really that line negates all duty to actually discuss anything on an intellectual level. I just find it endlessly annoying.

On a tangential line, I also have a theory that if you are able, you should not read a book before you see a movie. If you see a movie first, you will be able to appreciate both the movie and the book, but if you read the book first, you will almost never be able to appreciate the movie. This ruined One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest for me…I read the book first and hate the movie (which I know is a good movie).

Just a little issue I had to get off my chest.

Peace, Love, and Bullshit,
Julia

P.S. Loved Watchmen…those fanboys that hated it are crazy.

He Made Me a Mix Tape

So it seems like ’90s nostalgia is coming to fruition. Flannel is back in stores (and not just army surplus stores), I’m singlehandedly trying to spark a Dickies jacket revival, Doc Martens are coming back in style, Nirvana seems to be on the radio more and more, and with the advent of TV on DVD a new generation of people is able to catch up on their My So-Called Life, Dawson’s Creek and Original 90210 (let’s talk about how 90s shows are being remade left and right…look for Melrose Place the remake coming soon to a TV near you).

There’s one serious void in this 90s comeback (not counting Winona Ryder and Arsenio Hall) and that would be the mix tape. That great piece of cultural nostalgia that I fear is lost forever. Sure, we can make mix CDs and you all know I’ve made my fair share for various reasons, but I miss the mix tape. As an avid maker and receiver of mix tapes, I miss them dearly. The really great ones take time and thought and precision. You can’t just throw any old song on there, just like on a mix CD you can’t hit shuffle on your iTunes and burn the CD from that. One must think about flow, about meaning when going from one song to another. There’s always a hidden message in Mixes. It could be declaring love, it could be saying, ‘Wow you have awful taste in music. Please take this and run with it.’ It could be saying I’m sorry you broke up with your boy/girlfriend, I’m sorry you’re fighting with your mom/dad, I’m sorry we fought.

And the way a mix tape says all these important things: song choice and flow. You can’t very well through two slow depressing songs together and top it with a slow depressing song. You can’t begin with the song that makes your whole point, you must end with it, leave them with a little something to remember you by.

Sure, you might be saying, ‘But Julia, you can do all this on a CD mix.’ Well, my dear friends, you would be right. You can do all this on a CD mix, but what mix tapes had that CDs never had was time, love. I can create a playlist (however painstaking) and put in a CD, hit burn and walk away. But when you used to have to record from CD to tape (or, as I’ve been told by one older and wiser, from Vinyl to tape, which is not what the majority of my mix tapes came from because I’m just barely too young) there was an element of time. You had to listen to the whole song be recorded onto the tape. You had to stop the tape recording and the cd playing at exactly the right time. It wasn’t just a set it and forget it kind of deal, there was real mental work involved. You really had to know your songs, to know when they ended, which songs were just going to blend into the next, and if you fucked it up, you’d have to re-record the whole thing.

Plus, there’s no better feeling in the world (seriously better than sex, drugs, and love) than someone giving you the perfect mix tape because really what is the perfect mix tape but a combination of the best sex, the best drugs and the best love. Someone sat on the floor of a room and listened to that shit. Thought about what you’d like and what you might be into if they just opened your mind to it. Someone took that time and made you a mix tape to give you a clue.

Peace, Love, and Mix Tapes,
Julia