Yesterday my nephew, who works at a leading competitor for my current workplace, called me with an offer for a similar position where he works. It was for a little over twenty-five percent more than I make these days.

Without even thinking much about it, I turned the offer down.

Looking back, I just realized how right that decision was, on so many levels. Along with the many new hires with whom I work today, we helped open our current store. It would be painful to transfer to another location within the same company at this point. From unloading trucks through to stocking shelves and setting up our “office,” we were all in it. We took lunches together, went out after work together, shared lewd jokes and even got into petty fights with each other.

For many among us, we have made friends out of the people we see everyday at work. How many people can say that about the places they work? For many of us, we enter into a pre-existing work environment: new fish in an already populated pond. We enter into an evironment where everybody has already gone through what we are about to go through. There is already a pecking order that we have to get used to. Opening a new location takes that uncertainty away. It brings with it all the excitement of starting your own business, only, with less worries—at the same time fewer rewards—but the experience is nevertheless similar.

When I got that call that started with “hey, are you happy where you work now,” I knew the answer was a firm yes. I am part of something here. And while we all know that in retail, it’s never really for long, this is one ride i’m taking for a while.

One of the things I don’t do when I get home from a day of work is sit down in front of my computer, click through my links list, and read what people have been writing lately. It isn’t that I am uninterested in their writings of late, but I have realized how uninterested I am of the “outside world” of late.

Working in a high–customer-volume environment has quenched my thirst for human contact. I doubt it would quite tip it over the edge for a long time coming, but I figure, if I follow my long-term plan of being plant geneticist working in a lab with very few people, I’m taking the best years of my youth and just having a blast and enjoying all the people. When I am sick of people, I’ll probably hit the books again and go back to school for my Ph.D. I am in no hurry.

As for other blogs and news in general: my constant exposure to all the people all over me actually make me want to relax and enjoy the solitude that I have once I am home. The news I used to read and enjoy, banal or serious as the stories may be, is merely an intruder into my private space. If my computer screen is a window to the outside world, these days I keep the outside world where it belongs: out there.

I have been writing in longhand nightly for weeks now, ever since I picked up my moleskines. I can no longer sleep without unloading my thoughts on a nightly basis.

Tomorrow I am buying a set of pencils and I will try to learn to draw yet again. I realize that artistically my lack of drawing skill has become my biggest challenge in the rest of my design work.

And for the long term, I am working on a photo book featuring my best work.

With all these things to do, who cares about the news?