My Other Job

I came across Lionbridge by accident. They'd sent me a couple job listings that were more suited to Dude and another friend of ours so I forwarded them along and forgot about 'em. A couple months after I'd last heard from them another friend of ours asked for a reference for a job at their brick-and-mortar presence here, which prompted me to check 'em out and see what they were all about.

Their website also offered various 'work-at-home' positions, which is a necessity for me as it also allows me to tend to little Dude, who's home-schooled, and works with my naturally somewhat erratic sleep schedule, not to mention my ability to literally sleep through the entire two hours of an alarm clock blaring right next to my head if I get tired enough.

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Thank God for my husband who's willing and able to wake me when I need to be up for something, even if he doesn't need to be, but there's no way it'd be right to ask him to do that for me every single day. He's not my mother, who actually did have to do that pretty much every single day with me, and I mean had to; I wouldn't start my homework 'til seven when I was watchin' TV - if I didn't have homework I read while I watched TV; I also read while I walked my dog - because earlier than that it was light out and there were things to be done, like walkin' the dog, and then I wouldn't get done 'til like four-thirty in the morning (which she didn't know was the case) so of course when six-thirty rolled around and the alarm clock went off I was effed for wakin' up. :)

But even if I'm not that tired there are certain times of the day and night (and month) when if I'm asleep I'm very soundly asleep - that period from six-thirty to nine-thirty, ten, ten-thirty, morning and evening, depending upon the time of year, which doesn't help with most jobs since it's just when one usually has to get up - and very difficult to wake. I suppose it might be termed 'biorhythms', and that's a sensible name for the phenomena, or 'Circadian rhythms' if this were a few years ago. Or this, a natural cycle largely made impossible by most modern work schedules, but that could change if we can embrace telecommuting for whatever jobs can be done that way to the degree the people doing those jobs and the people for whom they're being done find is effective.

So I looked around Lionbridge's site and I liked what they do. They've been around a while working with companies I respect, reviews about them were generally good in the business world, and I was always sayin', "If I find a job that works, I'll take it." I'm not a salesperson so it couldn't involve marketing, and this didn't. It did involve a lot of time on computers, good search skills, a knowledge of my area, an understanding of prevailing mindsets in my locality, and a bachelor's degree. I'm lacking that last, only have a couple years of college and a trade certificate in parapsychology, but figured it was worth a shot, couldn't hurt.

I didn't qualify for the first position I applied for, so I sent an email asking if there might be an alternative position, received no reply, and I thought that was the end of that. I find it rarely (read, never, but I never say never as we all know that's just unwise) serves me well to get pushy with people, although there are those who use pushiness to great positive effect; I am not one of them so I intended to take that as my sign about this job and let it be for the moment.

A few days later I got an acceptance email from the manager that had sent my rejection letter in which the salutation indicated it was meant for someone named 'Jade'. I sent it back with an upbeat reply that I wasn't its intended recipient and took the opportunity to say, "But while I have you, my question was actually whether there was another position for which I might be better qualified?" She replied in the affirmative, gave me a link, and I applied for the Search Quality Assessor position, which had the same qualifications but is slightly more restricted in the scope of what it addresses.

I put in the application, and after a hiring and testing process of about six weeks I got to start doing what I do, which... is proprietary so I'll refer you to the title I was given, which has I think since been altered but I don't know to what; something along the same lines in meaning, I'd expect. Will it suffice to say that I enjoy what I do, and that that's because I feel like I play a pretty direct (but not singular) role in making the Internet a better place? It's one of our greatest tools in making the world a better place.

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One of my friends reposted this today on Facebook about Amway's John Church saying not to train your [people] with knowledge, but to train them for action. I disagree. If your people have knowledge, are they not more ready for action? What if the action for which they're trained takes a turn into action for which they haven't prepared? If they have knowledge, they can adapt and therefore stand a greater chance of surviving and thriving.

I came across a post from 2004 last month when I was updating old links here at Blogger - or marking them as defunct or whatever; I have a long way to go on that project - that says 'google.com', nothing more. At the time Google wasn't well-known, but their principles stood for everything that will make the Internet the tool it has the potential to be. ... Man, did we wish we had some cash to invest when they went public. Oo-whee that woulda been nice. :D

But the point is Google invests in knowledge, and in making it available far and wide with the consent of its owners. While information shouldn't have owners in the sense of being able to decide who gets to see it and why, creative content has owners by default. Information is objective, it is what it is if it's correct - there is no ambiguity - and if it's not then it's misinformation, while creative content cannot exist without its creator and its worth is entirely subjective.

Given the scale of the projects, Google, Facebook, and any of the big information-sharing/social-networking mediums have to make changes concerning how to allow and disallow content and serve their respective communities in the best, most responsible known way and still serve the individuals of which those communities are made up, which they realize are their core, in a measured, appropriate way that requires patience on everyone's part, but I think they do try and I get to be a part of that, not just in search, but in things like voice transcription and digital translation and whatever else I'm qualified to do that's involved in this position.

I think what I started this to say, and I hope it's not outside the purview of what I can say, is that it comes across as very Big Brother in one light... hm... Okay, for instance, I recently saw a public complaint that their new algorithm gives precedence to pages that are 'mainstream', medical pages in this instance. Hm, how do I say this...

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We in our household use medicine sparingly. We use dentists, because the secret to the human version of the alligator stem cell has not yet been discovered, I had a mole removed last year that turned out to be 'severely atypical' and that was only found because I went in for what turned out to be a (according to the surgeon, good-sized) dermatofibrosarcoma on the front of my shoulder, which I also had removed, and when I had an ectopic pregnancy many years ago - for which, interestingly, I went to the doctor every week for five weeks straight, had all the tests he could think to do done, and it was still missed - the surgeon who dealt with the ruptured tube stitched it up very nicely.

The surgeon who did my shoulder last year seemed offended that Dr. Tan used staples to close my abdomen and thus probably left more of a scar than I had to have, but he'd already put in 481 stitches to make sure everything worked inside and that was the important part to me. In any case, surgery has always seemed to me like a direct and appropriate measure when it's able and necessary to address a problem that nothing else has been or is likely to be able to. Beyond that are the pills and potions that are almost certain to do about as much harm as good, the difference being that one kind of damage may be less invasive or immediate than another.

The human body is capable of great self-healing when the appropriate medical support is given. I usually avoid medications and things that affect the body chemistry beyond the effects of what's available in the natural world, but I do use albuterol on the rare occasion that asthma becomes an issue, which is less and less frequent (knock on Grandma's antique desk) as I get older and live up here longer. I have a friend who makes (and knows how to use) herbal tinctures, oils, and extracts, and those tend to do the job when anything does get through our immune defenses.

I'm not against antibiotics when necessary, as with Dude, Jr.'s ear infection two summers ago. It was the second he'd ever had - he was seven - and the first, two years before, had come and gone with home remedies, no problem. This one did not, and there came a time when it was necessary to go get his body some help. I'm down with that. When I had a tooth pulled, however, I avoided the very strong antibiotics prescribed prophylactically for that based on a perusal of the drug insert and the likelihood that if I swished salt water in my mouth sufficiently often but not too often it would very likely keep the wound clean enough to heal without infection. For me in that instance, it did indeed.

I think there's great merit to medical research. I'd like to see Tony get a fully-functional pancreas grown from his own stem cells. (That video is from three years ago, the other on Ali's channel there is six, and he continues to do well. Still, his life would be easier with that one little organ.) And that may very well become possible in his lifetime, which is awesome, and which is because this generation of scientists has the knowledge of the previous generations upon which to build.

They also have the fresh perspective any new generation brings to the issues and the will and desire to push boundaries where need be. Because everything is public now, they're also learning how to do so in a civilized and forthright, upright manner. We see how we look when we're evil and we don't like it, so most of us, being human and, I believe, inclined to want to do our best or, and this is where things often go awry, be the best (an often less-productive motive), change it. We choose to do well, given time, experience, and guidance.

Google can't be selective. It can't offer only perspectives from one side, or only a few where many are available. It has to be inclusive, but it also has to be reliable. Now that you may understand that I choose to address my health at the core through nutrition and physical activity, using herbal supplements (mostly fresh garlic pressed into any chicken-flavored soup although I prefer ramen for this as it most effectively, for whatever reason with my chemistry, delivers the garlic through my system) to stave off onslaughts of bacteria or other pathogens that my body needs a little help with, and then use medicine when it serves a purpose and does more good than harm, you might think that I'd prefer 'alternative' sources of information and products.

I do not. I prefer that my medical information come from the CDC, or some panel of esteemed doctors and other medical professionals, or somewhere that is so much in the public eye and held by the public to such a high standard (often criticized even if they reach it), that it has undeniable credibility. Shady backroom deals? I don't know, I'm not in the backroom.

What I do know is that if their science was easy to discredit it would be discredited by many worthy and unworthy opponents, and it's rare that it actually can be, especially conclusively. What the CDC can and does do is present the information in such a way as to sort of 'direct the eye' to the points they prefer be considered pertinent by the reader, and of course they do that at the behest of whatever government is in charge, but the antidote for that is understanding the motives of a given administration to the best of our ability and considering that we did elect them. Maybe we do get that right from time to time and they really are trying to do what we ask, but we can't see everything that has to take place for that to happen. With the government machinery as bloated and steampunkian as it is, I'd expect making any significant change to be an onerous process.

If 'alternative' facts don't have some foundation in some widely-accepted science (which may or may not be medical science, depending upon the proofs involved) I have to be skeptical, too. Not non-believing or unwilling to change my perspective, just patient. Until they do have those foundations, even if I believe an alternative theory to be true based upon the science as I understand it, I can only say it makes sense to me. I can't say, "Well, this widely-accepted-as-reliable source with research funding and rigorous standards says it's so."

Sometimes they don't say what they mean to say. Take these statistics on polio:

Approximately 72% of persons infected with polio will have no symptoms. About 24% of infected persons have minor symptoms, such as fever, fatigue, nausea, headache, flu-like symptoms, stiffness in the neck and back, and pain in the limbs, which often resolve completely. Fewer than 1% of polio cases result in permanent paralysis of the limbs (usually the legs). Of those paralyzed, 5-10% die when the paralysis strikes the respiratory muscles. The death rate increases with increasing age.

It's good I looked this up in fact. Not long ago this said 95% (or I read/remembered it that way). Still, 72% is pretty good odds that a healthy person will get the virus, become immune to polio (perhaps including the related, worse strain currently making itself felt in California), and never know it happened.

Polio has been effectively 'eliminated' (not, but has been rendered ineffective in so many bodies as to find it difficult to find reservoirs in which to take hold and multiply in the population), and here comes this. Of the children diagnosed, all have lost function in one or more limbs that is unlikely to ever be restored. 100% is a much higher percentage than the 1% of paralyzed patients the CDC associates with polio. And they're all children.

Healthy children who contract polio especially between the ages of four and seven are the least likely group to experience that level of severity. The fact that the death rate increases and the disease manifests more severely with age means that the other fact that vaccines require boosters through adulthood because the immunity conferred by vaccines wears off leaves adults who don't get boosters at greater risk of lasting damage or death if they do contract polio as opposed to having the lifetime immunity offered by getting it as a child less vulnerable to its ill effects.

But I have no problem with people who prefer vaccines, or who prefer to use medicine and medical treatment more freely. I think whatever treatment anyone chooses for their various illness- or disease-related conditions should be provided at the highest possible standard, seeing to it that standard is met being the government's assigned involvement in the issue.

I use computer and communications technology like those folks use medicine, though we're behind the times at our house now with no cell phone access at home and big old desktops we have to sit in front of to use, I mean... dinosaur age, I tell ya, but we embrace new, established technologies at our earliest possible ability to do so. We're not generally on the very cuttingest edge, although we might be if we were more well-to-do but even then we'd probably tend to wait for a stable version before we put too much into it. Medically my tastes run more toward, body/immune system first, nature's remedies second, and medical technology last. And I think I should be allowed to do that, as everyone else should be allowed to address their health as they see fit.

The Internet makes that more possible than it's ever been, and Google, whether ya like 'em or not (we do, we use lots of their products, and appreciate them, too), plays a big part in that. I hope, as long as they continue to adhere to principles I can get behind, they continue to play a big part. And I hope to get to continue to play my little part in their big part along the way. It's in everyone's best interests that they remain what can be considered by mainstream society a (not 'the') credible source, while at the same time bringing to the picture the highest quality results from alternative parts of the spectrum as well, in every area, medicine just being one example. That's what I feel like I get to have a tiny little part in doing, and why I'm so glad the universe works the way it does and brought me this position.

And of course it doesn't hurt to get paid and to feel like I'm contributing in a concrete way to our household's financial well-being. It was my tax savings, once we knew we didn't need them, that were sitting there in the bank and saved our asses when the drive belt went on our good ol' '05 Sooby-Roo a couple months ago (that, and USAA's awesome roadside assistance service).

Now, I guess I better get back to this job I'm so happy to have or I won't be a part of that part of Internet-related things much longer. :D Take care of yourselves. See ya again soonly. (Well, daily at 1AM here at Blogger or the MOA website with the EotD, but I mean, me, just to chat *I*'ll see ya again soonly. :) )

Love y'owl,
~Peace :)