Scrubbing Data

It took me about a week and a half to finally get an old music site I used to scrub my data from their servers. They had been bought out by CBS, had changed most of their site format, and had made it impossible to edit or remove anything you had at one time added - including music, imagery, or text. Unfortunately, of two hits on google for my real name, this site's wiki was one of them - and it was not necessarily text I'd want a potential employer reading or using against me later. So, after numerous emails and some complaining on social media, I finally got the attention of someone who took care of it. There was a whole album of music free for download, too - not that I really care or anything - but the idea that I couldn't scrub that data myself was pretty annoying. So many new social media sites have a similar setup, though - they write into their TOS agreements that they, one way or another, own some exclusive rights to whatever it is you add, and that they do in fact have the choice to keep data or even use it for revenue - even if you don't want them to. Soundcloud has very similar disclaimers, but there's really nowhere else to store music anymore. Not that I've written anything worth showing to the world in a couple years, anyway.

Today was the last day my application at United was active. Now, to be fair, I had given up on thinking I would get a call after about the first two weeks - because it's very uncommon for a business to wait that long - but somewhere at the back of my mind, I figured that there was still some chance. I guess not.

I did not reapply today. I'm not sure I will - even though I'd probably have a better chance given how many they hired last month (and interviewed in April.) The truth is, I really was never happy there. I probably would never be happy there - even if it kept my finances in great shape. There were times where I was ambivalent, more or less, but never really happy. I could say the same about any other job I ever had. I'm not even convinced that there is a job I *can* be happy with - I get bored easily, I'm not sure any jobs that I'm qualified for would be any different, and I'm definitely not prone to favors from management, so expecting to move into something more meaningful is pointless.

Side note: I think the environment down there was quite abusive, and I think I had to abandon a large part of my real self just to fit in and get by without too much trouble. Thinking back to my mindset before I started there - what was driving me - the passion I had for some things - there's not much of that left now. I feel like I had to acclimate to an environment that was harsh, unforgiving and at times, dangerous, and lost a great deal of my self because of that. Not sure I can actually get that back - not sure I'd even want to - but I certainly feel kinda hollow anymore. There's a real lack of passion and goals within me - I don't really feel like anything is driving me anymore - and I'm really not sure that's necessarily a good thing. Then again, what are goals in a world like this - this is not some ideal reality where things always work out, and where doing the right thing is always rewarded.