u/terryjones1998

The title. I’ve been at my job for over two years now and I’ve found myself continually having 0 motivation to do anything because my manager refuses to give me deadlines. He pretty much just says “you figure that out”. He’s a great guy and super nice and all, and I know to a lot of people this sounds like a dream, but I don’t wanna do a lick of work and find it incredibly difficult to motivate myself without any deadlines set. Even if it’s not a strict deadline, something as simple as “hey, not required, but I’d prefer this done by XXX day if you can” would help me out a ton. I’ve asked him in the past to do that but he basically refuses because he actually loves accounting and is super self-motivated. I think he just wants me to become him. I get what he’s trying to do because eventually if I climbed the chain of command I’d probably need to know how to set my own deadlines, but damn he won’t give me anything. It’s like pulling teeth.

Anyways, I’ve tried to adapt to his mindset and it’s just so difficult, so I’m currently job searching in the hopes of finding a work environment that better suits my style. Does anyone have advice for sticking things out in the meantime, assuming I may not get an offer for a while? How do you guys deal with this, if you can at all? It kind of makes me feel guilty in a way that I don’t feel like doing anything without an external motivator.

I know it’s not a new opinion or anything, but I’m back on a Star Wars kick recently and I’m making my way chronologically through all the films, and just got through all the prequels again.

Upon rewatch, The Phantom Menace actually stuck with me the most. The story is a lot more straightforward than I remember, the pacing is pretty solid, and I tend to like most of the characters or am at least indifferent at the worst. Qui-Gon is one of my favorite, if not my absolute favorite Jedi in all of the prequels. I just love everything about his character and whenever he’s on screen. Jar Jar is slightly annoying at times, but I mostly see him as a lever to advance the plot on Naboo rather than a total nuisance.

One of the other interesting things about this film upon rewatch is that there are lots of layers that aren’t directly explained but can be inferred or interpreted, particularly with Palpatine and how much he knew, what his goals were at the time, the nature of his relationships to the other characters in the film, and how it impacted the political and societal structure of the republic leading into the next two films, not to mention how it relates to Anakin. I love that because it allows me to conjure up different theories and I feel like I’m solving a bit of a mystery along the way.

Speaking of Anakin, even though I understand the film’s title is a reference to Palpatine, this film is really all about Anakin at its core. While a lot of people complain about Jake Lloyd’s acting, I didn’t find much of an issue with it at all and I actually found myself pretty compelled by his emotional journey throughout the film. Is it done perfectly? Of course not, but it’s still way more compelling and better executed than Anakin’s character in Episodes II and III. When I rewatched II and III, there were just so many more issues with how Anakin’s character was written into the story that it was quite distracting and took away from the overall quality of those films. It doesn’t even have as much to do with Hayden Christensen’s acting, which I know is a complaint for a lot of people, I truly think it has more to do with George not writing his character properly.

Now, where TPM lacks IMO is mostly through some of the scenes simply not being that engaging, particularly after Anakin returns from Tatooine. Also, there’s not as many “highs” and dopamine-rush type scenes as you’d typically expect in a Star Wars movie, save for the pod race and final duel with Maul. This is especially evident when you compare it to a movie like Revenge of the Sith, that had some of the best highs in all of Star Wars.

But overall, I’ve come to appreciate TPM a lot more on rewatch compared to Episodes II and III, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it surpasses RotS in my prequel rankings sometime soon.

What do you all think?