The God I STILL Know...

By now, I'm sure that it is not news that Research In Motion, the company I work at, is in the process of laying off 2,000 people. If anyone following my blog posts read how God was leading me over to RIM, and how he stepped in and made things happen in ways that I never could have imagined (you'll find it at The God I Know), the situation would almost make one wonder if God just dropped me off at RIM and drove off to leave me on my own to fend for myself.

Well, guess what... God is not only here, but God has went before me. He has, and still is, preparing me for whatever is to come. How do I know this? Well, how else could one explain being assigned to read Isaiah 55 the day before the press release?

Verses 8-9 read:
8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. 9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

God has bigger plans. He is in control and I gotta leave it all up to Him. Basically, what He said to me through scripture was, "I know what you will be going through next week, and I want you to know that I am still here and I am in charge. You had the faith for Me to lead you to RIM, so you should have no less faith that I will lead you through this and will walk with you"

Does it mean that I will still be working at RIM? Only God knows!
Does it mean that I may be laid off? Only God knows!

Am I afraid? I'd be lying if I said no. Am I going to worry about it? Not this time... God has shown me that He's here. God is leading the way. I refuse to let worry consume me, like I did 20 years ago when I worked for Apple and found myself in the same situation. All worry did was make me sick to my stomach and couldn't function at work for the week that it was happening. When it was all over, I was still at Apple, but I was functionally useless.

So, what I am going to do tomorrow, when I go to work?

I'm going to go to my desk and give it one of the best days I have. I am going to write code with no less passion than when I first started. After all, I still love what I do, and I love where I do it, and nothing in the past few weeks has diminished this. Even more so, I am going to be encouraging and supportive to my fellow team mates. I will do what I must to keep our team functional and productive, because we have a fantastic team. If our team gets affected, I will do what I can to help our team heal quickly so that we can move forward even greater than before. And, most of all, I will praise God for walking with me through this and allowing me to work in what I still believe is one of the best places to work. I will praise God for being with me every step of the way. Even if I can't talk about it at work, I can still demonstrate it. And, as always, I will be grateful to God.

And if the unfortunate does happen and I get laid off, I will still set an example, even if I will be sad. I will be sure to thank them for giving me the opportunity, however short it may have been. Most of all, I will still praise God and know that He is still going before me, just like He did last Sunday, and have faith that He has a larger plan than I could ever imagine. Most of all, I will be grateful to God because this is still the furthest I have ever gone within RIM than ever before, and that is a huge accomplishment!

Musical borders on the Internet... STILL!!

I'm developing a real disdain for the music industry these days. To put it this way, I have been looking for two albums in Canada. However, they are not available without paying really questionable amounts to get them into Canada. However, if I just happen to live in the USA, I can download them off the iTunes store, Amazon, and even the online christian stores.

Isn't this supposed to be the age of the Internet? Perhaps, there was a business model of whether or not it was feasible to ship physical product around the world. However, in this case, we are talking about an inventory that does not deplete, costs very little to store and absolutely nothing to mass produce. So, why the heck am I restricted from getting these albums in Canada? It makes no business sense? And then the music industry complains of a download problem. If there is a problem, the music industry created it! They've attached borders to the Internet and prevented the willing customers from purchasing items from their favorite artists. And all in the name of what? There can't be money involved, because I am not even allowed to spend it.

It leads me to serious dilemmas here. I could download it from a torrent, but that would be a total wrong move. Gotta love that one: stealing Christian music to praise our king of kings and lord of lords. I could pay the outrageous prices as an "import" which is stupid because I live 90 minutes away from the border. I am not going to move down to the USA for the sake of two albums. I don't even know how questionable it is to get a friend in the USA to buy and download them them for me and I reimburse them for it. I suppose it's better than stealing it an I am still paying for it.

If anyone in the music industry is reading this, which I really doubt they are, break down the borders and let the rest of the world experience the joy of music. There are no more fences in the industry. There's a new inventory model... it's called no inventory. Embrace it and allow us to purchase what we want where we want. I'm sure it will solve a bunch of these problems that you've created. And, your artists will build a more global fanbase. Isn't that what they would like in the first place?

-- Posted from iCandy that doesn't bear fruit!