Work

Its so different from school. Duh, but I just had to write about it at some point. I got the job I wanted. I got lucky coming out of school. In retrospect, school was a joke—getting your bills paid to learn??? That IS funny.

I interviewed for two different positions at the same firm. Apparently they liked me so much that they had a little debate over me for a while. They settled on what sounded like the impossible—splitting me up. Unfortunately, I’ve had to go through double the training for both positions as if I were holding each of them down alone.

Its funny that in one part of my job—its mostly females—and for the other—its mostly males. I guess I’m bi in more ways than one. I essentially bridge two parts of market research. The touchy feely side that deals with more of the qualitative shit and the quant shit stuff.

The fuzzy stuff was cool. The techy stuff has been amazing. During my first week I had to give a presentation to an audience of three PhD’s. Hearing them speak makes science fiction jargon sound retarded. They use calc-based statistics and when they talk, I truly get an understanding of the term “think-tank”.

I was a little overwhelmed as I sort of got hired for a position that usually requires added education or experience. Thus far, I’ve learned that:

1—any and nearly all information is out there in the world. You just have to look for it. There is research on every topic. It is just usually never seen or published for everyone’s eyes. If you extend this principle beyond the private sphere, the whole situation gets rather daunting.

2—selling is beyond a science or an art. The information out there can be used for anything and everything. With the right analysis, you can pinpoint where a group of people are and where they will be in the future. You can profile them extraordinarily well and tailor stuff accordingly. Its mind boggling.

On the upside, this information can largely be used for upstanding purposes. In fact, with proper institutional incentives—it can make public stuff work a thousand times better. It is sort of a conundrum then why at times such a transfer of information does not occur.