Perfectly Petersen

The Enneagram Personality Profile

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I’m a 5. You are probably wondering what a 5 is, so I’ll just come out and say it: I’m going to change the world… someday. What I see in the descriptions for being a 5 is that I am progressing up the ladder of “personality health” and will eventually be able to manage my strengths and subdue my weaknesses to become who I know I can be.

Liz Strauss pointed the way to this test with guest blogger Mark McGuinness this week. Mark stopped by to read the comments and saw my comment. He was another amazing person who was inspired by my guest post last December, titled “I Want to Make a Difference, Too.” I’m both shocked and humbled by such positive feedback on my writing.

He is something like the tenth person since that post that has commented about my writing style and the thoughts behind it. YOU people are the reason I am finding my way with what I desire to do to make a difference. I will get my BS in English and hone those skills like a finely crafted sword.

One of these days, my idea or knowledge will come to me, and I will be able to communicate it to the world.

Ready for USF; Is USF Ready for Me?

My wife has Wednesdays off, so I asked her if she would be willing to go pick up my textbook for my class that starts on the 5th. She met me at work to take me to lunch on her way over and we had an interesting “interview” on what school supplies I wanted, too.

“I don’t know,” was my typical guy answer. I hadn’t really thought of it yet, which is very standard practice for me. Thursday would arrive and I’d realize that I needed to go to the campus bookstore on my way to class or something. It happened every semester before. I remember buying scantrons for my community college exam one night 5 minutes before the bookstore closed on my first exam night. That’s Jesse for you.

Here is one of the reasons why I love my wife so much ->
I was sitting at work wondering if she was finally going to be able to find me a school bag that didn’t look like a purse. It is also ridiculous to lug around a backpack for one stinking book. Backpacks are soooo 1997. She found a perfect YAK PAK commuter bag that is just big enough for one or two textbooks, a notepad, and a folder. I slung it over my shoulder and it felt snug around my back for those long campus walks that USF has. I looked at the tag and saw that it is touted as a Booklyn, NY bag. That was enough for me. She knew that, too, of course. What makes it even better is this particular model seems to be a special college edition available only to college campus Barnes & Noble stores, because it’s not on the company site or the B&N site. Cool.

What I did not expect was a great school shirt. It reminded me of the time in Gilmore Girls when Rory visited Yale and changed her mind to not go to Harvard and her mom bought all that Yale stuff. I am pretty pumped, as you can tell.

I have decided to take Tony D. Clark’s advice to get a notepad for my pocket for jotting down things that pop into my crazy head before they vanish forever, never to be thought of again. What I haven’t decided on is which Moleskine is better: Moleskine Reporter Pad or Moleskine Small Pad. Once I have that figured out, I’m all set.

Don’t Mess With Marines… Even Really Old Ones

Let this be a lesson to all of you young criminals out there. If you see an old guy withdrawing cash from an ATM and then follow him to a convenience store in an attempt to take that money out of his front pocket, ask him how long they served in the Corp before you make your move.

Jesse Rae (man, I can’t believe he’s got my first name), 27, is facing a 15-year sentence if convicted for doing just such a thing. The problem is that he chose Marine veteran, Golden Glove boxer, and an ex-iron worker as his elderly target. Bill Barnes, 72, landed at least 6 solid punches on Jesse and created quite a mess of blood before a store employee saved Jesse’s life. Good for Bill.

The best line of the whole story is what he said about doing it again if it happened again, “I wouldn’t want my wife to give me hell for lettin’ that guy get my money.” He’s even got a tough wife. Good for Bill.

Read the whole story on Yahoo! News.

Lion Whisperer: Kevin Richardson

Some people are insane. Some people know what they are doing. This guy brings back memories of Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin. He can even hold a baby hyena without fear of attack from its mother. Some people have all the fun!

According to this amazing news story, Kevin Richardson is 32 and has been doing this for years. I suspect that this kind of behavior usually ends in tragedy, like the bear lover Timothy Treadwell.

Check out the full story at Daily Mail.

UPDATE: Since writing this post, I have learned that he is also the producer of the film White Lion - Home… is a Journey. It is a story about Letsatsi, a [tag]white lion[/tag], and his stuggle to adulthood against all odds.

Monster Table of Contents - How to Take Control

I finally got the workload that I want/need/crave today. We have a certain document requirement that I specialize in here. It’s usually around 600 pages long and comes to me in 9 to 15 pieces. It’s basically a monster table with cross-references and headings and simple headers/footers. The trick is that when it’s all done, they need  a [tag]table of contents[/tag] made up for it and then to split it into the sections again.

Making a table of contents from [tag]separate files[/tag] can be daunting for a rookie, but here are easy steps to get you on your way, and it doesn’t matter if the heading styles for the sections are different. It’s all good. Have fun.

For this tutorial, I’m assuming you know how to make a TOC. First, you need to determine how deep you want your TOC to go. In this case, our engineers usually need it to go 8 levels deep to uncover the meat of the document. Such depth creates a 40 page TOC when all the pieces get put together. More »

Hypothetical Question #1: When Is Business Casual TOO Casual?

Many workplaces are adopting a business casual dress code as a perk and to make the work environment more comfortable for the employees. After all, if you’re not interfacing with a customer, why should you wear a shirt and tie or a jacket to sit in your cubicle all day and write code or answer the phone?

Here is the situation: Your company is short-handed and has been on a hiring blitz. After interviewing a dozen potentials, your boss hires someone who is coming in today. This person comes in with a 3-day beard around his full goat-tee, a plain blue t-shirt (not listed as unallowable), and slacks that have the inseam hanging down somewhere just above his knees. You hope he just moved from out of state and has been living out of his suitcase in a hotel and can’t find his Norelco. The next day, it’s more of the same sloppy, but piece-allowable clothes. As the days go on, it becomes clear that he shaves once per week and does not own a single collared shirt, not even a polo.

What do you do when you lose professionalism at the office? Most corporate dress codes are very specific about “what not to wear,” but what is often missing is a standard of how to wear it, or what things should be avoided by certain people. Here is a for-example that I found that attempts to describe what is inappropriate in the “spirit of business casual:”

In all circumstances, business casual wear means clean, neat and professional clothing. It is never appropriate to wear stained, frayed, wrinkled or revealing clothing to the workplace.

Your new co-worker isn’t breaking any dress code rules, but he is a slob, in the very essence of the term. Yet he is allowed to get away with it because he is abiding by the company policy. What do you do?

What Do You Do When You Have an Itch?

According to Wikipedia:
An itch (Latin: pruritus) is an uncomfortable sensation felt on an area of skin that causes a person or animal to desire to scratch that area.

I come from a long line of jacks of all trades. I’d make your head spin if I told you all of the things the men in my family can do without hiring out for outside help. I definitely inherited both that ability and the urge to continuously try new skills.

Unlike my dad and grandfather before me, my employment history has not been as stable as theirs. My dad worked for the same metal container manufacturer for 25 years and my grandpa co-owned a John Deere dealership for a good three decades. They always do their own work around the house and my dad went back to school to get an electrical engineering degree and moved up into the ranks of management when we moved to Florida.

My itch is different. I have this incredibly strong drive to “be all I can be.” When my counselor asked me if I can be happy to be the best in my position or my company or even my field, the answer was “no.” That would still be wasting 80% of my brain. Nothing drives me crazier (unless I am dead tired) than sitting around idling. Even if I am playing a computer game, I am exploring or experiencing something new. I have an unquenchable urge to improve myself. Something inside me says that if I keep at it, I will be perfect… some day.

Ridiculous, I know, but that thought is still in there.

I get to the point in everything that I do where I determine that I have either gone as far as I can go with my abilities or that what I’m doing did not keep my itch away. I don’t think there is anything out there to satiate my thirst to do new things.

Do you have an itch? What is it?