vali petcu

I don’t know about you, but i get longer and longer emails. People just love to fucking write and write and write. No sense about my time at all. I am writing a long email, look at me! I am using a lot of fucking words just to express a simple thing.

I developed a new policy. If your email is more than 2 paragraphs long, i am deleting it. Sorry, i didn’t get that, maybe the spam monster eat it. Care to tell me about it over the phone? No? Oh, the phone you are paying, but the internet and my time are free? Well, too bad. I wish i care more. But i don’t. I rather sleep.

In Romania, we are used to people shouting as hard as they can about their success. They do this, they do that, they just opened a new interactive agency, they’ve just rolled a new amazing campaign…

Most of it is PR bullshit.

And the people who do stuff do not brag about it too much. Just a few lines in a blog post. Or a short minute at a beer. I don’t like to step into the light and talk too much about how i did this and that. I like to do. Those who want to know, they know. Those who care about the Romanian blogosphere know who i am and what i (can) do. The rest are just bystanders.

After the interview with the president, some weird things happen. One of them was in the shape of a black Ford (B-93-ceva), who followed me after I left the building. The other was that, 20 minutes I entered the building, someone posted on my blog saying i was seen entering. Someone from Amsterdam, judging by the IP. The third were the death threats.

And now, my phone number got to be public, since i get calls from various journalists. I am not answering any unknown numbers. I am not giving out any interviews. I am the blogger, not the celebrity.

He granted me a 30-minute interview (in Romanian). He is not that much into social media, but he won the 2004 elections being very cool and loose, as opposed to an uptight Adrian Năstase, his opponent.

I am not the first blogger to interview him, but i am the first that got to him by being just a blogger. He was tired (it was his last campaign interview) and had a cold. But a man with “the weight of the world on his shoulders”.

Let’s say your combined fortune ranks in about 2 billion Euros. You have several businesses that are doing ok. You are 59 years old and made all this fortune in Romania, a second world country.

What would you do? Slow down? Enjoy life? Retire?  I asked this question on my primary blog (in Romanian) and 90% responded they will want 2 more billions.

This is not a rich man problem. Thousands and millions of young people work too much for money they spend working some more.

- What did you do with this week check?
- I bought a news suit to wear to work!
- Great!

There is a time to work and a time to enjoy life. If we can master both, we would be some happy mammals.