journal features

tripped up

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Tokyo, 2006.04.20

Once again, my naïve nature has caught up with me.

I went to my interview with EDS, and they presented an offer that was way off the terms we discussed. The pay they were proposing was a 25% discount over the terms we'd agreed upon back in the Autumn. Factoring in the cost of living differential with Toronto, it's actually a substantial pay cut over what I'm earning now.

For the life of me, I can't understand why they would do this after I went through all of the effort of getting back to this country. Maybe because they can! I've been commenting in this journal about needing stability but by gum this ain't it. I'm not without sources of information on doing business in this country, and they've told me that I'd been given a "Japanese yes" before; a convenient answer that resolved an uncomfortable situation when I'd gone in to negotiate earlier. Not sure how I made them uncomfortable when they'd outnumbered me four to one, but maybe there's something to it.

I'm now looking at my options. Happily, I might seriously have one real alternative.

rand()m quote

If I had my life to live over, I'd try to make more mistakes next time. I would relax, I would limber up, I would be crazier than I've been on this trip. I know very few things I'd take seriously any more. I'd certainly be less hygenic... I would take more chances, I would take more trips, I would scale more mountains, I would swim more rivers, and I would watch more sunsets. I would eat more ice cream and fewer beans. I would have more actual troubles and fewer imaginary ones. Oh, I've had my moments, and if I had to do it all over again, I'd have many more of them, in fact I'd try not to have anything else, just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of my day. If I had it to do all over again, I'd travel lighter, much lighter than I have. I would start barefoot earlier in the spring, and I'd stay that way later in the fall. And I would ride more merry-go-rounds, and catch more gold rings, and greet more people and pick more flowers and dance more often. If I had it to do all over again - but you see, I don't.

—Jorge Luis Borges