Saturday, August 30, 2003
Huzzah!
Today, thanks to my friend Nate, CR and I were able to go to the Renniassance Festival. Nate picked me up this morning just before Christine left for West Virginia to be with her sister Debbie, and celebrate her grand niece Kaitlin's birthday. Nate took us to his house, and we waited for his long time friend Brian and Brian's youngest sister, Tudy (I am not sure how to spell her name, so I'll chose the formal spelling). When they finally arrive, Nate, his wife Jen, Brian, Tudy, CR, and I packed into a van and drove to Crownsville, Maryland on the Renn Fest's opening day.
It was very hot and humid, but it was better than some had predicted, which was pouring rain and muddy. We ended up leaving way before the storms came. We stayed about three hours, which was enough for me. By the end, my body was exhausted from the heat and moving around. Luckily, I had just gotten some gel inserts for my shoes, so my feet didn't hurt so much and my legs and back weren't giving me the usual problems they present.
I saw MANY friends. I saw Larry Sands, of Sandcrafters, but he didn't look so good, so I didn't bug him. Bomber's right, his health is really declining fast. There I met Debbie Bushman, who was my roomate for a year and a half while I lived in the FanTek house from 87-88 we chatted for a while. I also saw Casey Severn, acting as usual, so we didn't get to talk. I wanted to see Ralph, but at the booth where he and his wife used to run only had his ex-wife and assistants. His ex-wife was pretty mad I asked for Ralph (aka Sasquatch), and told me he was moving out "as we spoke" and angrily slammed stuff on the counter. Oooo-kay. Didn't they get divorced like a few years ago? I also so Lori and her hubby at Bee Folks, and they have totally rennovated their store and it looks very nice. They now have power, with a fridge, fan, and even a futon to sleep on upstairs. I also so a ghost from the past, Darryl Kummerow and his boyfriend Frank.
Other than food, I didn't buy anything. I had a knave sandwich (my favorite), a watermelon slice, and a snowcone. Or and Gatorade and water. I didn't see anything I really wanted to buy because everything fell into three categories: have it, don't want it, or it costs too much. There were some newer merchants, including one great swordmaker who made high-quality wooden practice swords. These aren't the $8.00 wood swords they give kids, they were hand-lathed, wood-inlaid, hand polished pieces.They were pricey, though, but for handmade, that's not surprising.
I was exhausted when I got back, so I slept for a few hours, and now I'm wide awake! I am using a Slackware-Live CD on a laptop, running KWord to spellcheck (which doesn't work), watching Ray Ramano on SNL.
And missing Christine. I mean, I love Widget and all, but he's a poor substitute.
Posted by Punkie @ 11:49 PM EST [Link]
Some thoughts on online communities
Over the past few days, I have gotten some IMs or in-person comments from friends about the whole "Sara A" thing, and gotten a few interesting things to say about it. Some of them were pretty funny.
One of the funnier comments joked I had been, "Voted off the island," referring to the show "Survivor." I am not sure if that's true, since no one else asked me to leave, and I have no quarrel with any of them. Sara and I came to a "let's just end this here" type of thing where I asked her if she thought I should leave, and she said I should probably leave. True, only one person from the board has sent me anything, which is viewable in the comments section, even though I don't really know who its from. I feel sad, but probably this is because most people want to "keep their hands out of the crazy" and not get involved. That probably wise on their end. I respect that, because I might have done the same.
Then there was some pathetic comment from someone from the BBS-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named; so called so it won't show up in a search engine, and the sysop gets all whiny that I am saying bad things about him. Check the link this person left. I was kind of hoping they'd grown out of this by now, but no. Sadly, they are still at it. I visited the board the other day, and saw that it was still pretty much the same people, saying the same thing, like diner regulars. Makes for a dry BBS, but it keeps them happy.
I don't want to compare these two events, because they were totally different. Sara A wanted to think I was saying bad things about her and her board, so she saw them in my blog entries. But after we agreed we should stay away from each other, I don't think I'll ever hear from her again. She didn't seem vindictive or mean, just a bit... scary. The BBS-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named was totally different. These people were vindictive, hateful, catty people who really wanted to screw me up. They sent letters pretending to be other people, either to me or my friends. I exposed them, got some in trouble, and it just kept escalating until the sysop said, "ENOUGH!" Sara A. will probably forget about me in a few weeks, and probably so will the rest of the board. While that's sad, it's far more acceptable than worrying about if they are going to e-mail bomb me or my pals or something. I know they are pretty mature, and I wish all of them the best (including Sara) in their future endeavors.
I had four friends, Dawn, Velvet, Rogue, and Panku, all tell me, "I have stopped posting to boards, stopped participating in chats, and stopped with the online social life because of such events." Rogue called her experiences "soul-sucking," and Velvet had her issue with the sysop-turned-stalker about ten years ago. Panku had that issue where she ended up getting a lawyer to sue a university because of libel and defamation (ex-college friend-turned-professor who used school resources to launch a very brutal and racially-motivated smear campaign). Dawn just hates the cattiness, but she was burned on the fetish circuit a few years back, too. Other friends just leaned a sympathetic ear, and reassured me I don't suck, and I'm not the crazy one. For my friends, I am grateful. I have helped them a lot with their problems, and so they were there for me. They beat an online community hands down. Matt W. thinks I make them up, and probably thinks I am making them up right now, which makes me feel a little safer in an odd way, because I know I have support and security he shall never know.
I am on other boards and e-mail lists, of course. I love them, I really do, but most of them are not sounding boards for my ongoing general human studies. Most other boards are all technical, computer, sci-fi, or anime related. Like on Sara's board, I could ask advice for myself or a friend of mine who had a complicated problem, and get some answers I thought were fairly insightful, and them pass them along. If I posted a question about "Why do so many people divorce?" on SCIFI-DL, for instance, I'd probably dig up painful memories and possibly inadvertently start a flame war out of the fuel of insecure childhoods. I don't think there's ANY place ask such a question on Ars Technica. Sara's board was the ONLY board I thought I could do this, so the loss of that board is pretty significant to my ongoing learning process.
I did see some turbulence on that board, and while flame wars outside the Politics Forum were rare, when they started a "members only" area, I saw some issues about "Who's Popular?" spring up, which alarmed me somewhat. I also saw signs of sysop burnout. But they were all minor, and I thought they would pass. I have seen such things come and go on many boards and e-mail lists still thriving. Now I guess I won't know until years from now.
I have always wanted to write some sort of "Laws and Syndromes of Online Communities," but I feared doing so would expose some people who have probably gotten over their problems nowadays and don't want to be reminded of the total asshats they were when they were 21. The "Pedestal Syndrome," and "The BBS Life Cycle," are all drawn from personal observations.
Because of all this, I doubt I will ever get involved in any "online community" again. After Sara A and The BBS-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named, I just don't want to go through the ups and downs of flakiness, flame wars, and eventual mind games that result from these types of places. I have enough real-time friends to last me for the rest of my life, plenty of parties and conventions to attend, and even more new friends to find. Sure, I'll still get some of that nonsense from them, but I have found the people are much more cordial in person than they are behind the dark screen of their monitor.
Posted by Punkie @ 12:23 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, August 28, 2003
Convention Pre-reg woes: the latecomers
When I ran preregistration for Katsucon, we had a bulk rate for anime clubs, college universities, and so on. Now, out of the 20 or so clubs, most were prompt and followed directions. Some got a little confused. And a few were a pain in the ass because they always sent in checks late, post-dated, gave you only nicknames of people instead of their real ones ("I think Bob-Chan and his sister are coming. Oh, and Gozer said he'd try and make it..."), or kept making changes to their roster. There were a few repeat offenders over the years, and while I won't name them, I will name one group that, while I was not really fed up with them, they kept adding people at the last minute, right under the cutoff date. It was a college called IUP, Indiana University at Pennsylvania (I think). Now those people are decent guys, and tried really hard to be nice. But one day, they added another three people, yet again, under the wire. So I was in a goofy mood (if people who got funny mail from me when I did pre-reg, I apologize), and I sent them this reply:
| Your request was reviewed by some very bored Kabuki Ninjas. Being who they are, they have hatched an evil plan. Technically, we should say "no." I mean, it's the rules, right? The Ninja who said this was then taken to the men's room at our complex and given a massive swirly. After all, HE was the one who made the sepukku badges for Katsucon 4. He deserved it anyway, what does he know from rules? Although, it's hard to give someone a swirly when they are wearing a skin-tight head mask. It made us even more frustrated and therefore, more insidious. So we decided a qualified "Yes," only under these conditions : 1 - You tell no other club
We are not kidding. That will be worth the $30 we lose on the deal, plus the hassle that was given to us for the delay, you for having to deal with the deal, and the guy who has to take out time to cut an IUP check. We figure if they are true anime fans, they will not hesitate, and may in fact also ask, "Can we also wear costumes?" Bonus points will be given for creativity, as long as it's PG-13 or lower in rating. Ball's in your court. :-D Grig "Punkie" Larson |
He got the check cut in time... I would have said "no" if his club wasn't bringing so many people as it was. But... Rats! I was kind of hoping he'd agree. That would have been cool.
Often, I would write very silly things when we made a mistake, or took too long to reply to someone. Here's another one I sent to some poor soul who sent a spreadsheet in the wrong format, and then sent this gushing apology, hoping that he "didn't mess things up too horribly":
| You have no idea how this really messed things up. We tried to change it, but the machinery started to tangle, gears flew everywhere, and two of the pre-reg Ninjas had to go the hospital. Then, the floor supports supporting the printing press gave way, crashing through the floor support joists, crushing 90% of the merchandise of a Woolworth's occupying the first floor. The water and gas lines ruptured, and the fireworks factory next door had a poorly sealed vault of magnesium phosphate. The damage was catastrophic. Two whole city blocks had to be evactuated. |
I'm a riot.
Okay, I may not be funny, but I want to leave you with some semi-funny links:
- When I leave positive feedback on Ebay, I try to be original or helpful, but this guy... wow.
- Take the "Love Hina" intro song, add some Online Peter Pan, mix with James Bond, random anime, and too much time on your hands... and wala!
Posted by Punkie @ 09:58 AM EST [Link]
Random layoff story - ice cream
My previous entry reminded me of a company I used to work for that had this odd habit of trying to soften the blow of bad meetings by serving a sundae cart. You would show up to a meeting with bad news, and there'd be a catered setup with 2-3 flavors of ice cream, toppings, and so on. After a few of these, it became quite disconcerting. The big one was the meeting where they said, "We've found a cheaper way to do what we do by moving your whole department to Jacksonville! So you can either quit, move to Florida, or stay and get laid off." That's not really how they said it, but their version took two hours with slides and stuff. After that, it was like ice cream = doom. You'd hear this for years with that company:
Phil: We had a meeting at the Hilton today.
Bill: Did... did they serve ice cream?
Phil: No, thank god. It was good news.
This caused a lot of confusion for new employees.
Posted by Punkie @ 12:44 AM EST [Link]
Wednesday, August 27, 2003
Work Weirdness - Sending data over jungle vine to big rock idol next to cave
Yesterday, I was like in some dreamlike state. First, the issue with Sara A, then work weirdness, then... well... let's talk about work, shall we?
The most surreal thing I have had to do recently is to port a VB.NET program to an HP3000. This may not mean a lot to non-techhie people out there, but it boils down to this: imagine having to design a computer out of coconut and bamboo. VB.NET is currently one of the most advanced popular programming language out there below C (at least, in my company). The HP3000 was invented in the 1970s. It's old. It's clunky.
Now before I start hearing people scream and balk at this ("Punkie, you have a Compaq Personal III!"), I will admit that the HP3000 is quite a machine, like the DC-3 is quite an airplane. Sure, there are a lot more modern, sleek, and efficient machines out there, but nothing has the old world charm of an old, reliable piece of hardware. I admit (not to my coworkers, they'd kill me) that the HP3000 is an impressive tribute to lasting fortitude. I have a soft spot of antique hardware.
But not when I have to rely on it for my job. My boss ordered this behemoth, which the day he bought it, HP announced they were giving it EOL ("End of Life"). The joke around the office was my boss finally bought the last one. HP only continued to support it as far as they did because so many government offices still use it (they never upgrade anything). That's why my boss got one. His previous job was in the Navy, where he learned every nook and cranny of how this fridge-sized juggernaut of 1980s computing power worked. He's very good at it. There's even a user group devoted to it. But the learning curve, for outdated technology, is steep and uphill in the wrong direction. Sun Tzu would have slaughtered my boss over this choice. I like my boss, and don't want to see him slaughtered.
What he wants me to do SOUNDS simple. Compose a byte data stream with a 6-byte header in VB.NET, and send it to a listening port on his end to send data back and forth between the HP3000 and several hundred WindowsXP machines. This would be easier if I knew VB.NET. I know VB6, but that's history. I know Perl, but the machine we are running this on won't have Perl. So this job has been surreal. Reminds me of the old, old computer courses I took in the 1970s, 80s, and even early 90s, when I had to work with Pascal and the FanTek BBS, which ran NiteLine BBS (developed by Paul Swanson), which ran in ALICE Pascal. Double byte headers. Enough to put anyone to sleep.
Work after the layoffs have tossed everything up into the air. It used to be my boss, a guy named MG, and then he was under someone named GM. GM got promoted and left our division. Then the new guy, JS, reorganized the whole group, which is another word for "layoffs." He put a new guy, MM in charge of another new guy, MF. MF replaced MG, and is now my boss's new boss. Now, before I sound bitter, I like JS. But now I am further removed from him by one layer of new management. I liked who he replaced, GM, because she was a hard core, non-nonsense, take charge kind of person. But JS is nice, too. He's a bit more jovial and informal. We had lunch the other day, and talked about our operations in Europe. He really had a good idea about where he wants our team to go. He seems to have his wits about him, and I am confident with him in charge for now.
JS had a big meeting yesterday. I can't stand meetings because they are usually boring and have nothing directly to do with what I am doing. Years ago, my company used to give out freebies and food to big meetings, but that disappeared when things got lean. This meeting, not only did we get a nice breakfast, but there was a free polo shirt with our new company logo on it, and we were supposed to get a book. Now, in the past, our company was like all those other corporate "buy anything that sounds remotely motivational" whores. If there was some sort of best selling management, employee, or customer book... they'd pawn it off on us. The last book was terrible and very tacky, and kind of ended that nonsense. It was called, "Who Moved My Cheese?" and it was a 120-page hardcover booklet that... well, let me save you $10.00 by giving you the message it was trying to convey: "Things change, get used to it, change or you will die. Now keep moving." During all the layoffs, it was considered unusually harsh and a poor demotivational piece at a very inappropriate time. JS was the first to give us all freebie books since that time, and soon, I will own another copy of, get this, "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten," by Robert Fulghum. He picked it because we were merging two departments together, and his recent survey of everyone's jobs showed the biggest complaint was how unfriendly people had seem to become. He didn't shovel out BS, either. Remember my previous entry about how a company I used to work for paid some clown $50,000 to come up with a doughy mission statement? He also mentioned that he was not going to pay $75,000 for such a stupid idea, and gave us a concise mission statement in plain English that basically said, "Stay the course, work smarter." Then there was 2 hours of awards where my team got mentioned. Yay!
Of course, there's always a bitter person in the crowd. Some people are at their happiest when they predict everything will go to hell before you predicted it. Now, I am a worrier. I have said that before. But sometimes even I roll my eyes when someone takes every little statement and turns it into some evil conspiracy. "He's patronizing us by giving us this book," said one guy. "Treating us like kids. That's a tone of things to come." Okay. If you say so. "The fruit tray was never restocked," says another. "They hate vegetarians. I'd better look for another job while I still can." Man, whatever. I mean, if JS said, "In one year, you'll all be replaced by guys from Snuzbaristan, because even a trained monkey can do what you do. Hah!" then yeah, I'd be worried. But give the guy a chance!
Posted by Punkie @ 10:43 PM EST [Link]
Tuesday, August 26, 2003
Self-fulfilling Prophesies
"Oh, oh, oh!" shouted the Queen, shaking her hand about as if she
wanted to shake it off. "My finger's bleeding! Oh, oh, oh, oh!"
Her screams were so exactly like the whistle of a steam-engine,
that Alice had to hold both her hands over her ears.
"What IS the matter?" she said, as soon as there was a chance of
making herself heard. "Have you pricked your finger?"
"I haven't pricked it YET," the Queen said, "but I soon shall--
oh, oh, oh!"
"When do you expect to do it?' Alice asked, feeling very much
inclined to laugh.
"When I fasten my shawl again," the poor Queen groaned out:
"the brooch will come undone directly. Oh, oh!" As she said the
words the brooch flew open, and the Queen clutched wildly at it,
and tried to clasp it again.
"Take care!" cried Alice. "You're holding it all crooked!" And she
caught at the brooch; but it was too late: the pin had slipped,
and the Queen had pricked her finger.
- from Chapter 5 of "Through the Looking Glass (And what Alice Found There)" by Lewis Carroll
I have met people like the White Queen from time to time. People who become so obsessed about how things will end that their obsession eventually becomes the end, as they predicted. Like people who assume every relationship will end up badly, that they drive any potential mates away.
And so I lost a friend today. Her name is Sara A. (not you, Sara T., my Scorpion Sista!, or any other Sara/h I know). Sara A. is actually close to her real name (I guess, that's her online name), and I only use it here because I want her to know, this time, I certainly AM talking about her. I feel bad about losing a friend, it doesn't happen often, but Sara feels I have been constantly talking bad about her behind her back. I had reassured her that I wasn't saying anything bad about her, or trying to backstab her, and I certainly wasn't writing in my blog about her, but when I was discussing things about Keith R., or someone's Everquest Guild (Brad, I am still looking in your direction), or just some random conversation with a friend who did not give me permission to use their name ... she thinks I am talking about her. And then claims I got the facts wrong.
Imagine this scenario:
Bill: Hey! Did you hear about my brother Jack? He was catching a fish, and fell right out of the boat! How funny!
Punk: I have no idea what you are talking about, I have NEVER fallen out of a boat fishing.
Bill: I wasn't talking about you, I was talking about Jack.
Punk:: But you really meant me. I don't think it's "funny" at all. Stop spreading lies about me!
Bill: Dude. Punk. I was talking about my brother Jack! Not PUNK!
Punk: Prove it. Get this "Jack" on the phone, and prove he's your brother!
Bill: Ah, no. That would be stupid.
Punk: See, that proves you are a liar.
Bill: No, it proves you are a paranoid freak.
Punk: There is no "Jack." I know because I have fished many times, and never once have I fallen in the water.
Bill: Wow. Time to adjust your Lithium, man.
... or here's another scenario (one of my favorite jokes):
This guy is taking a personality test in the psychiatrist's office. The doctor shows him an inkblot and tells him to say what it reminds him of. The man says, "sex." The doctor takes notes of this, and shows him another. Again, the guy says, "sex." After about a dozen of these, the doctor says, "It's obvious you have some sort of sexual fixation issue." The man says, "Me?? You're the one with all those dirty pictures!"
I could not reassure her enough. It's not that I don't like her, it's just that ... well, I can't constantly be defending myself and worrying about what I post she's going to flip out and claim I am somehow talking about her. She's only shown me proof once (in my blog), and that wasn't about her, but that dumb anime Matrix e-mail arguement that will haunt me forever. I asked her for proof again, but added that I wasn't sure I wanted to be part of this game anymore, and if this was how it was always going to be, maybe we shouldn't interact anymore. She asked me to leave.
At least it ended amicably. And so, Sara A., coming full circle, I am now, truly and totally, posting about you. How... oddly ironic. This is so weird, it's like a dream.
Note to Sara A's friends. Do not, and I repeat, DO NOT feel, in any way, that you have to choose sides over this. If you like Sara, continue to like her as always. Sara and I have agreed we don't get along, and that happens sometimes. It does not mean she's a bad person. We just had a massive rift of poor communication that I saw as spiraling out of control, and we had to end it before it hurt us even more. I'll miss her, and if any friends decide they don't like me anymore over this, I'll miss you, too. You're all a bunch of sophisticated and witty people, and as one wise friend of hers said, "Sometimes, people don't always get along in the sandbox."
But one last thing. Matt W.? You're an ass. I have been holding back on that for a while. I know what you have been saying in the chat rooms, and you have a right to your opinion, but man, if you keep dissing and bullying people like that, you're going to have NO friends left. Ask Steve and Lisa or the rest of the Fandango crowd to elaborate over a pint.
Whew! I feel better. No wait... no I don't. But at least I can stop worrying.
Posted by Punkie @ 02:29 PM EST [Link]
Monday, August 25, 2003
Play the Game
It's funny sometimes, how structure tries to follow art. If you were asked to "rank the effectiveness" of all 20th century authors, could you do it? Could you "prove" that J.D. Salinger was "better" than F. Scott Fitzgerald in a qualitative survey? How would it be measured? Quantity of books sold? Number of pages? How about number of books published as a ratio of articles and reviews they wrote on other authors?
I'd say it would be silly and pointless.
But you don't have to give them raises, now, do you? Corporations do, and while a lot of work is easily measured by quantity and quality in a factory environment, it gets difficult when you don't actually have hard core physical proof of what you do in white collar work. But all companies try, anyway, with buzzwords and funny titles like "Team Quality Analysis" and "Core Quotient Marks." But most people know it's all bullpoop anyway, as evidence how many of the processes change names and angles of attack. It all boils down to politics: who plays nice. All those acronyms and fancy words are so vague and subjective that they are more than often just an excuse to physically prove why you need to fire someone. These employee surveys and goals are easily manipulated to get down to what's really the case:
Is this employee likeable?
When I managed retail, I saw this first hand and even had to dish it out. Twice I had to fire someone because my boss simply didn't like them, and this was accomplished with forms in triplicate talking about employee goals, directions, and other meaningless words. In retail, hardly anyone is thinking about it as a career. They are doing the job because they need the money. One district manager put it thusly, "I can come into any store, and no matter how clean and straight-laced the other manager might be, I can find something that will justify getting them fired." You can't fire a guy because he's "irritating," but you can fire him because he didn't send in a fax cover letter for his TPS forms.
Of course this isn't fair. But what can you do? Well, "play the game," of course. Decide for yourself whether staying with the company and putting up with their Happy Wappy Mission Statement Du' jour is worth it. In my case, it is. But the stuff they try and sell us is VERY hard not to laugh at. A former company I worked for paid a guy, and independent contractor, $50,000 (yes, fifty THOUSAND dollars) to come up with a winning mission statement. What we got back was almost indecipherable to anyone below a college reading level, and so vague that those who did have that reading level would instantly recognize its vague statement. Even though we were forced to recite it from memory at the next sales meeting, I still don't recall it. It was something like, "Our due process of unforetold consumer enhancement shall here forth be rationalized to the most optimum efficiency of the marketing paradigm..." or something. Boiled down, it said, "We'll sell a lot of stuff to customers who want our stuff and, oh yeah, treat them nice." I said this at the sales meeting after-hours party, and it got the biggest laugh. "So THAT'S what we paid a guy fifty grand for? Man, I wondered what all those words meant." My district manager later told me that was not in "the team spirit interest to decipher the mission statement." You mean no one is allowed to know what it means? Keep in mind, I didn't disagree with what it said, only the choice of words, and the fact this guy got paid 250% of my annual salary to come up with it. "This is an official warning," she said.
"Play the game."
Back to the present. I got this warning today at work, although not from an official source. I watched my new department director treat programmers like children. "I am talking now," he said. "So turn off your cell phone, pagers, and close your laptops." And a shout out to his homeys in the crowd. All who looked like clones of him. He then went on about the new buzzword for employee reviews, which has changed twice since our last reviews. Let's say it's called, "The Compass of Totem Quality." Now you have to fill out online forms and go to a training class just to decipher how to get a review. Managers have to go to a three-day class to teach them how to do a review. And it will change again next year. They pay companies to "buy their system" for employee analysis, but it all boils down to whether you are liked or not. I even see asinine things, like the head of our training admitting she doesn't know what we do, or what any of the classes we want to take mean... but in the end, it never really matters.
I am past bitter, even past being numb. I understand the problems the companies face when they have so many middle managers and rule with employee-by-number, and I view such office politics are a random array of events that may or may not affect you. Like the weather to a sea captain. Some days it is stormy. Some days are sunny. You can bitch and suffer all you want, but it won't change a damn thing; you still have to steer your ship through it. Some storms you will remember, like when the storm pays some clown $50,000 to leave you with a doughy paragraph. Most you will forget. In the years ahead, you will look back and see the long-term patterns, and adjust how you sail through such storms in the future. Keep the sails intact, the rudder straight, and even if your ship ends up on the rocks, you'll live.
Play the game. You may not win, but you will at least learn how to take losing.
Play the game. Stop bitching. No one ever guaranteed anything would be fair.
Play the game. If you say life's unfair, what's your basis of comparison?
Play the game. If you beat them at their own rules, you have won.
Play the game.
Play the game...
Posted by Punkie @ 05:17 PM EST [Link]
Sunday, August 24, 2003
Memory Lane Has a Lot of Bumps and Turns
Yesterday was like some kind of funky dreamland of my past. No, I mean more than usual.
It started off with my friend Neal. I have known him since fourth grade, yatta yatta yatta, and then he moved to Texas, and we sent cassette tapes to each other for six years, then he was the best man at my wedding, then he got married, had kids... well, it had been almost 9-10 years since I saw him last (although we still communicate via phone and e-mail). I finally got to meet his wife Amanda! We went to the local Bob Evans, and then Neal spent some time afterwards at my house, and we talked and talked and talked... he's still the same cool guy. He talked a lot about my past, from his point of view, and this was surreal because... well, honestly, he's the only one I know who goes that far back. He knew my oddness and sense of humor. I found out I am probably responsible for his poor math education, because I wouldn't leave him alone in class! Hee! It was a great visit.
Then Christine wanted to take me out to this new Japanese Steak House nearby. It was a great place, let me tell you, but... our waitress? Looked like a dead friend of mine.
Many, many years ago, I knew this girl named Copper. Copper was a girl who lived near me, and was a fun Korean-American version of Cyndi Lauper. She got her nickname because she tried to dye her hair blond, and it came out copper-colored, but she liked that better, and stuck with it. Copper, along with our friends, had our good times together. I had a massive crush on her, but she was way out of my league. She was fun, vibrant, active, witty, hysterical... and also took too many drugs. Hey, it was the 80s. She also had one other bad habit: hitchhiking. She ran away from home a lot because she hated her parents at the time. She also kept going out with abusive boyfriends, which, I, with the crush on her, found very upsetting. Obviously there is a long story here, but I am not prepared to type it all down yet. Anyway, one day she vanished after some dumbass boyfriend #400 left her, and she was gone for several weeks. A lot of us thought she ran away again, but this time, she didn't take a lot of her stuff she usually did; she didn't pack. Long story short, they found her dead on the side of Gladys Spoon Melman Highway (near Baltimore). She had been brutally assaulted and murdered. It hurt a lot of us pretty deeply.
I still think about her from time to time. Of course, it's different when almost 20 years has gone by, and then suddenly: there she is! What a terrible shock to my system. It left me in a semi-quasi dreamlike state the rest of the day. Of course, no, it was not Copper. Copper did not fake her own death, unless she faked her own death and somehow did not age in 20 years, and then had a job as a Steakhouse waitress in 2003. The girl looked SO much like Copper, I could not keep eye contact with her because the memories kept flooding back. The girl even had copper hair, which was the real clincher. I felt bad I kept spacing out, so I left her a good tip.
I hope to God I never see anyone who looks like my mother.
Posted by Punkie @ 01:02 PM EST [Link]
Thursday, August 21, 2003
The Weirdest Coincidence Ever
Sometimes things just fall into your lap, and you don't know why. Once in while, I have this long story that I end up typing over and over again, and I am sick of it. So I'm putting them in my blog as I think of them. There was no reason to post this today, other than I was talking about it with someone the other day and thought, "Okay, I better write this one down..."
"What are the odds?" I asked myself at the time. It was the summer of 1996.
I was working for a technical help call center, working in the beta development area. One day, we got in a new batch of recruits. Our company had a policy that all new employees had to spend 90 days on the phone with customers so they knew about our customers and what they were like. One of the new recruits said to me, "I'm baaaaack..." like the girl from Poltergheist. Sometimes the new techies were odd, but hey, I am not normal, either. But brushing this off as a techie trying to be cute wasn't the reaction he was looking for.
"Remember me?" he asked. I indicated I saw him in the hallways during his training. "No, no... I'll let you think about it for a while. My name is Mike Meteor."
Okay, Mike Meteor was NOT his name, but he had a name like that. It was alliterate, and sounded like a hero from a 1950s sci-fi serial. He had a name that spoke of some sort of celebrity personality. It sounded familiar, like if someone said, "Hi, my name is Stu Barrymore," or "Jen Halflek." But I didn't recall a Mike Meteor. He told me he'd give me a few days to remember. Then I promptly forgot about him.
A few days later, when I didn't chat with him or something, he spent his break in my pod, and finally reminded me where I should have heard from him (after a few bad guesses, including, "On the radio? You were a Deejay? I know, a rave emcee?"). "No," he said, "I interviewed with you. You never hired me. How come?" I didn't know what he was talking about. "You know, at Cargo Furniture." I had been a manager at Cargo for the previous three years before this tech job, but I didn't remember a Mike Meteor. I gave the usual, "Oh, don't feel bad, I interviewed a lot of people..." which kind of pissed him off, and set the mood for our future working relationship.
Mike Meteor. Mike Meteor. Mike Meteor ... that's a name that should jump out. Maybe he interviewed with someone else? Now, when I was a manager at Cargo, I had a notebook that I kept. It was a plain spiral notebook, with day-to-day notes, kind of like a journal, a message board for my other employees, a calendar of events, and a place to jot down thoughts and stuff. A poor man's day planner. When the new manager took over (I stayed on as a part-timer to help the new manager ease into his job), he threw it away, and I fetched it out of the trash and took it home for memories and humor value later in life. I looked for that notebook when I got home, and found it among the other stuff I just store and forget about. I looked for Mike Meteor.
I found him. An applicant in April of the previous year. He was listed as my 10:00am interview, and for the notes, I had circled his name, put a line through it, and wrote NO NO NO all over it. Now I remembered.
[Flashback...]
Mike had come in, dressed real nice and everything. He was energetic, and seemed to be a good prospect. He was recommended by a manager of another store. We went through employees so fast at that company because the hours and pay sucked, so all managers were looking for one another, and sending applicants around the chain. Mike interviewed well, and the only thing slightly unusual was he asked we not contact his current place of employment (I think it was Office Depot) because he was involved in a litigation with them. Okaaay ... sure. Maybe he said that because he just didn't want them to know he was quitting. No, he finally said, he got injured on the job, showing the large scar on his face. He then unfolded a terrible scene of employee abuse and a strict disregard for safety by management. He was suing under OSHA standards, but can't really discuss the case because it was in court. But he left other references.
I always check references. The following paragraph illustrates one of the many times this saved my ass.
I forgot the real names of the companies, so I am making them up. I called all of them in reverse order (going back in time). Office Depot was out, so I called CompuWareHouse. They said a very odd thing when I asked about his employment. He had gotten injured on the job after a shelf fell down on him (or something like that), and only worked with them for three months. Then I called Carpet Bulk, and they told me that he was unfortunately injured in a forklift accident on his 93rd day, and was a bit surprised he could still walk. I called Reclaimed Office Furniture Land and the manager said he was not allowed to discuss the lawsuit, it was settled out of court. Guess how long he was there? Yup. 90 days. I bet you can guess what the employer before that had to say? That guy was amazed he was still alive, and then a bit pissed. Yes, only there for three months.
So... I dropped that resume and application like a hot potato. But Mike kept "following up," and became a bit pushy as to why he didn't have the job yet. I told him I was afraid he'd get hurt. He became belligerent and told me it was illegal to discriminate based on injury. My District Manager told me, "Do this, get a note from his doctor that he is able to work. We can request that. He'll never get it because he'll lose his court case." I cheerfully said that to Mike when he called back. Mike angrily said he'd be happy to, and I never heard from him again.
[\flashback]
So now this clown was working for my company. Jesus. I didn't know what to say. I stewed on this information for months, wondering whether my company checked references, and if on day 91, he'd claim an injury. Mike was just a butthead. And Mike ... was now on day 80. Finally, I confided in my boss. Mike was not very friendly, and people were becoming irritated with him, and my boss asked me what I thought of him. That's when I closed the door and spilled the beans. My boss thought what I said was very interesting. A week later, my boss and his boss wanted to have a conference with me. I retold the whole story. I asked, "Did you check? Did you check his past?" They did. That week. And apparently, he had several more places of work beneath his belt, and actually lied about working there for over 90 days. The conference became a jam session of HR hiring policies, references, and horror stories of management. But we all agreed, what a coincidence!
Sure enough, Mike started to complain that the lights over his pod gave him headaches, that the keyboard was straining his wrists, that his chair hurt his back, and is it just him, or does the AC smell funny? It was like he was planting the seeds for a future claim. Then he started to do dangerous stuff, like stand on office chairs (with casters) to unscrew light bulbs over his pod. Our boss said if he did that again, he'd be fired.
On day 94 or something, Mike showed to work with a lawyer. My company was totally prepared, and brought their own lawyers. There was a meeting that my boss later told me about. My company, in response to his claims, said he'd get (for free), an ergonomic keyboard, wrist braces for his carpal tunnel, a special chair for his back, dimmed lighting in a special pod, a screen for monitor eye strain, and insisted on checkups with a neutral party physician every two weeks to check up on his health. The lawyer apparently did not see that angle coming. Mike was forced to accept. Before the meeting ended, though, the company said, "Your past references were most helpful in the direction this discussion has taken. Keep in mind our employee health is of primary concern. But because of our discussions, those companies may be contacting you about their concerns of your current health as well."
Mike never peeped again. He was laid off the very next round of layoffs.
There is an end note to this, however. Our company had annual stockholder meetings with an open mike session. We went to one right after we were told our whole department was being outsourced to cheaper places in Arizona, and we had to find other jobs or be laid off in three months. For some reason, no one every responded to our requests to transfer, and many believed that our department had been blacklisted for some reason. Mike, in some strange form of "what the hell" bravery, asked the owner of our company, if front of 3000 employees, live via satellite, if this was true: why were we being blacklisted? Half the audience in the arena cheered. This apparently was a BIG problem. The owner said he was not aware of any blacklisting, and would look into it. The next day, a mandate of "all internal job transfer requests shall be answered within 48 hours, and a proof of interview will be mandatory." Because of that, I got to stay with the company.
Mike didn't. He stayed until the very end, and was one of the few people left who didn't get a job elsewhere. But I bet he already had his sights on some other company who had an OSHA sign in plain view...
Posted by Punkie @ 10:48 AM EST [Link]
Wednesday, August 20, 2003
Ride the Roller Coaster of Life
I think it was a movie with Steve Martin, "Parenthood," where his senile old grandmother said that life was like a roller coaster. She said when her husband took her to a fair when they were very young, she had a choice of riding the merry-go-round or the roller coaster. She said riding the merry-go-round was boring you just went round and round and that was it. The roller coaster was thrilling with ups and downs and twists and turns. Sometimes you were scared to death, but you knew you were getting the ride of your life; you knew you had experienced quite a ride. Those on the merry-go-round felt safe, but never felt challenged. So she chose the roller coaster.
I had no choice, but I'd never be satisfied with the merry-go-round, either.
In the last few weeks, I failed my Red Hat exam, I have been worried about work layoffs, and things where my wife works have been horrible (one of their important managers just died). I didn't know what to do or where to turn. So I had lunch with my friend Nate, and we discussed things. He made me feel a lot better.
Then when we got back from lunch, I found out it's official... layoffs! Like the grim reaper. I still have my job, which is important for me, but I feel bad because it's like when half your village gets the plague, you're like "Why was I spared?" In one sense, I am terribly relieved because this had been hanging over my head for almost a month. In another sense I feel, again, like I almost got hit by a sniper and it's not a matter of "if," but a matter of "when."
I watched people go. I didn't see much, but you know that scene in Charlton Heston's "The Ten Commandments" where the red gaseous plague kills off the first born sons? Where everyone is huddled in the house, breaking bread, listening to the wailing outside? There was no wailing or drama this time, and surprsingly very little guard activity, which was good, but there were a lot of the usual, "Did you hear? Art So-and-so got laid off. He's been with the company for ten years! He was a high level muckety-muck, and I never thought I'd see the day where he would be let go. Never!" and some "Joe Whosi-whatsis got laid off... boy, that was long overdue..." I saw a lot of cardboard boxes moving back and forth. For about an hour, I had no idea if I had a job or not, as one by one, people got called. Then I got the call from my boss's boss, who is no longer my boss's boss, telling me that I still had a job, to keep doing what I have been doing, it was a pleasure working with me, but I have a new boss's boss, a new director, we're merging several departments into yours, and I am sorry your boss wasn't here to tell you this, he's out sick. Oh, and he then told me not to tell anyone anything because not everyone has been told of the changes. What my boss's boss didn't know was in my office, at that very moment, was one of my contacts.
Then came the returned e-mail from our reports. I hate that. We lost a TON of people in Europe, apparently. I got a hasty mail from someone who said, "Oh, wait, that account was an automated reciever, and the guy who owned it was laid off. Hold on while I get you a new e-mail address and box to send it to. Whoops!"
I won't know the total damage for a few days. Tomorrow, I'll be in a meeting with our new chiefs. I heard good things about the new boss's boss (he supports training). He's apparently part of the "old guard" of people, who favor long-term employees... like me! :)
Posted by Punkie @ 04:41 PM EST [Link]
Sunday, August 17, 2003
Other stuff I did this weekend...
I went to BJ's. Stop laughing! You immature blog readers. BJ's is one of those huge warehouse stores where you can save a lot of money - providing you want to buy a lot of something at one time. Well, that's not entirely true, because I have bought major appliances for a fraction of the cost elsewhere. And often, I need stuff in bulk like pens (I keep losing them), candy (I am a pig), and frozen lunches. Sometimes, it's weird going through there, because it's bare cement with metal shelving. You have to look out for the forklifts driving about, too. I got a huge box of Reese's new BIG Peanut Butter Cups. I am so ashamed... I have 40 to a box now...
I also got smacked in the groin by a small little girl! I was shopping at a normal grocery store (the local Giant Food store behind my house) on Sunday (today), looking for ingredients to finish a huge stew we have been cooking all day. While looking for a veggie scrubber, some 4 or 5 year old girl was running about in front of me, red-faced, screaming, having a tantrum over some such thing. I have a kid, I have been there. So I didn't try and look disapprovingly at the mom, who was doing the "I am NOT giving into you" ignoring phase, which was upsetting the girl even more. Finally, the girl apparently crossed some line, and the mother said, "Get out of that man's way, please," and the girl... she was young, folks... the girl just swung and hit me square in the balls with her fist. I guess out of protest. Now, if she had hit me anywhere else, her weak little swing wouldn't have caused more than a flinch, but it was the combination of the shock of the attack and the sudden pain that forced me to double over, and then my back went "pang!" It must have looked as if she had hit me with a softball bat, and my reaction was actually much greater than the actual pain. The mother was stunned and horrified! She grabbed her daughter's arm and yanked her aside, and helped me bend back up. I told her the fist didn't hurt, but my back had been bothering me. She gushed and gushed apologies after apologies, and asked if I wanted to get the store manager or something. I feared this would get out of hand quickly, and said, "No, luckily she's very young, and didn't hit hard. I just didn't expect it, that's all." I lied. My balls did hurt, but not as bad as they have been hurt from various accidents or bullies in the past. I told her I didn't bear any ill will towards her and her daughter, and then I am a parent, and have seen worse. The women was just too shocked and stunned to do anything but repeat how sorry she was, and at least this forced the girl to hide behind the cart and stay quiet. Luckily, no one else was there, and I quickly made my exit. My nuts were a little sore for about an hour, but I have had worse (a few years ago, while stretching to get something in my lab at work, I smacked them on the corner edge of a desk... ho, ow!).
Also, I did a lot of work work. See, we test all these programs, and we had three sets of testing machines that suddenly started getting unexpected popups, which we feared would halt the process and lead to a weekend's worth of a results ruined during a critical time. So I had to connect via a work VPN, which is dicey at best, especially with that MS Blaster worm running around the network. My firewall got hit a lot on port 135, which made checking machines and test results even harder. Plus, I had to study a lot on databases, mostly refresher courses, because I have a week do come up with a home-made ODBC connection engine that can report testing results real-time instead of daily reports like we have been doing. Oy yoy yoy...
My best friend from way back, Neal called, and he's coming to town next weekend! Neal and I met in 4th grade, but then after 6th, that bastard moved to El Paso, Texas. Then he moved around to Houston, went to college in Austin, and then inexplicably moved to Ohio. During the ages of 12 - 19, we sent cassette tapes back and forth. He's the oldest friend I have, and was the best man at my wedding. He's a linguistics expert who also knows a lot about ballroom dancing. No, he's not gay! He's married with two adorable kids now. He's not bringing the kids. This sucks, because I wanted to give them a lot of chocolate and Mountain Dew, shake them up, and give them back! Ha ha! That will teach him to move to Texas!
See you in a week, Neal!
Posted by Punkie @ 08:54 PM EST [Link]
Pantry raid! Wooo!
I spent most of today rummaging through two pantries.
We have two small pantries for our kitchen. One is a really thin space with a narrow door, The other is about twice as big, and around the corner from the kitchen, just a little ways down the hall. Our kitchen does not have enough cabinet space to store all the food and cookware for a normal kitchen. The pantry around the corner was supposed to be used for things lesser used than stuff stored in the kitchen for obvious labor-saving reasons, but over time, stuff just accumulated in both pantries, started to fall down, and was a terrible mess. So today, I totally gutted, sorted, and restored everything.
One of the biggest piles of mess were those plastic bags you get at the grocery store or supermarket. I use them for all sorts of things. Mostly they get used for trash bags for small messes, small wastepaper baskets, cat box liners, or if I am collecting stuff scattered all over the house to be carried into one area. I hate to just throw them out if they come in useful, but I seem to collect slightly more than I use, and after three years, they were everywhere, man. When I was done, I had enough to cram a 13 gallon trash bag hard-packed full. I should really recycle them (the food store has a recycling area just for those bags).
Next were tons of spices. Many times, when we couldn't find a spice, we just bought more. Many times the reason we couldn't find a spice was it had fallen down somewhere, or was put away in the wrong area. I threw away the older spices (some we got when Mom died in 1998, and she could have had them since the 1960s... no really!), and combined spices that looked the same age into the older bottle (so I knew, at max, which was the oldest later on).
I also cleaned up a lot of stuff that had burst open and leaked. We have an ant problem, but we can keep them away from our pantries by liberally scattering whole cloves everywhere. Most of what leaked was rice, flour, and things that come in envelope packets (Ranch dressing mix, rice side dishes, gravy mix, etc.). I wiped or vacuumed up quite a lot.
Next, I noticed that at one point, some cat used one of the pantries to pee in, taking advantage of the pantry door that people keep forgetting to close. Luckily, the cat peed on some carpet scraps the previous owners left behind, so I tossed those out and used the space to store a lot of "graveyard appliances" so there was no room to pee in.
Ah, yes, "the appliance graveyard." I stole that term from Bill Cosby, who said he buys a lot of kitchen gadgets he only uses a few times, then never uses them again. Christine was a QUEEN of such items, until I teased her so much, she pretty much stopped buying these things. What do we have? A 1970s style toaster oven, used, but we have no counter space for this behemoth. One sandwich maker, which used to be used a lot until my friends Sean and Louann bought us a better model for a housewarming gift (which we do use enough to make it a "priority appliance," that is, one that's easy to get to when needed). We have a 1970s hot air popcorn popper which we don't use anymore because we buy microwave popcorn bags these days. A set of mini-bundt-cake (like cupcake-sized bundt) pans. A cookie press (my fault). A "blooming onion" maker. Many broiler pans. A spring mold set with various disks to leave shaped impressions in your cheese cake or whatever. An large ice cream maker that does not fit a normal-sized kitchen freezer (it fits our deep freezer, but we only use that occasionally, and keep it off the rest of the time). An ice cube shaver to make slushies and such, which was being used, but no one ever cleaned it, and it started to be a mildew hazard, and so I hid it. An incomplete "as seen on TV" microwave cookery set and matching "browner." A Tupperware traveling cake case. From the makers of "The Crockpot," a Crockpot potpourri cooker (this was a gift). One of those "apple peelers" that works via a crank and a suction cup. The suction cup never kept the suction, and so the peeler can't be used unless one person holds it while the other cranks it. There were a lot of plastic Jell-O molds, too, shaped for various seasons.
We had a beautiful heavy glass cake stand that was a housewarming gift, but sadly, it apparently broke at some point, and I had to throw it away. Much sadness. The crystal punch bowl set was okay, though. Whew!
There was a lot of trash, including decaying Halloween candy (yecch!), a box of saltwater taffy that had gone moldy, spilled coffee and tea, various empty boxes and wrappers, and a few items in cans and jars where they looked ready to explode. I gently wrapped a lot of those in several layers of the supermarket plastic bags before I threw them away in one big bag, and then put the whole bag of them out on the deck, just in case they did blow up before trash day. Two of them were cans of condensed milk! I bet that will stiiiink!
Now everything is neat and reorganized, and there is so much extra space! But, in three years, I will probably be doing this alll over again.
Posted by Punkie @ 07:32 PM EST [Link]
Friday, August 15, 2003
Dear Unknown Benefactor:
Hi. I got the clock. Thank you, that was so sweet! Now... who are you?
For the rest of you, I got a package today addressed to "Greg Larson." This is odd, since I am usually known by "Grig" or "Punkie" among my friends, and those that call me "Greg" probably don't know that I am a fan of the Wil Wheaton Blog. It's a clock with my favorite Wil cartoon on the face called, "Klingon Convention Trauma." It was done by his friend Ben. It's basically a four panel cartoon that goes:
Trekkie dressed as Klingon: [angrily] I hate you, Wesley!
Wil Wheaton: [cheerfully] I'm not Wesley, I am Wil Wheaton.
Trekkie dressed as Klingon: [sadly] Oh...
Wil Wheaton: [cheerfully] Come here, you big weirdo! [hugs Klingon guy, both smiling, with heart above their heads]
That sums up a lot about fandom for me.
But who sent it? I wasn't feeling very good today, and my previous rant showed (a friend of mine is being picked on by his so-called "pals"), and after talking down someone from doing something REALLY stupid, I felt drained. Then I kept getting sent to dumb meetings. But the clock cheered me up! I don't have a place for a clock except the laundry room, so I hung it there, I hope you don't mind.
Three years ago, an unknown benefactor also sent me a Bigens ball to replace the one we had that popped. That one had a note that said something like, "Sorry your life sucks right now, I hope this will, in some small way, cheer you up." I think I did eventually discover who sent that, but I have now forgotten.This gift had no note on the invoice, and had no card. The invoice only said it was a gift, already paid, and only one clock was ordered and shipped.
Sean? Albedo? Jason? Neal? Brad? Anyone?
Well, thanks! I am very happy with it! :-D
Posted by Punkie @ 04:56 PM EST [Link]
Approval against the pack
There's a guy I used to work with named Keith R.
Keith was a nice person, but he had issues. Keith was a rather strong voice where others didn't always want to hear. It was usually about harmless stuff, like Star Trek, Babylon 5, and how much he loved Macintosh computers, often at a loud volume a few decibels above polite. Keith did good project work, but he was very awkward, and never really fit in. Now, personally, I kind of liked him. I saw his "flaws" more as "quirks" and they didn't bother me. No one is perfect, and whereas some people would gleefully talk badly about him behind his back, I didn't participate in such discussions because I thought they were unfair, catty, and I don't care for gossip very much as it is. But some people just had issues with Keith's very existence. A subliminal, "Keith ... you are not wanted" was chanted in people's subconscious, and I began to grow angry, because no one had a good reason to outright HATE Keith, but they did. It was spooky, like something from "The Village of the Damned." And Keith, somewhere deep inside, KNEW this rejection was going on. And the more it happened, the more wild and unpredictable he got. One day, during a smoking break, we went outside and he nearly cried that he didn't know why people hated him. Then he tried to say, "Screw them!" That didn't work for more than a few seconds, and then he started going off on how his older brother (who also worked with us, and whom Keith lived with) was treating him, and he felt like he didn't have a friend in the world. I couldn't say, "I have no idea why people hate you, maybe it's the Star Trek, who knows??" so I said, "Well, I like you. You're great with Macs, and that's rare in this office." That didn't comfort Keith, because he was intelligent, and knew I was holding something back. Keith's behavior began to spiral out of control, because he felt cut off and insecure in his environment. Later, he was laid off. I hope he's okay, wherever he is.
I have seen this before. I was a victim of it growing up (along with countless other school kids in the universe), and I have been at the receiving end from time to time since then, but it's been lot less common for me among adults. But I still see it in fandom. And online. And at work, which is the worst of all, IMHO. I have seen some awkward moments when a person enter a room, and everyone goes quiet, even though we weren't talking about the person who just entered. It's like a collective, "Oh, s/he's here now..." This pisses me off, because I want to say, "What are we, a clique? Come on, we're all weird and misfit in SOME way, don't hate this guy because he's socially awkward! He's got a heart of gold, and with some coaching, he could be less annoying." But they don't care. It's easier to hate, especially in groups.
Who knows how it starts. Maybe one guy with an agenda against you turns others against you. Maybe something you said in a meeting was taken wrong. Maybe you were in favor for a while, people got jealous, and thus became eager to "put you in your place." That last one I have seen in fandom a LOT. People love to make you the top dog almost as much as they'll love to tear you down. It's like you're perfect until you're caught picking your nose and then you're a "shattered illusion which must be exposed!" People say, "Well, no one's perfect," but people usually don't actually take this to heart. I have always felt that some people hated because they felt it defined them; like what tribe they were from: us or [shudder] ...them!
There are some of you out there, and most of you already know it. Whether it's at work, or some IRC channel, a web board, an e-mail list, or even among your own relatives. You know ... something's wrong. And in your subconscious throes to gain approval, you end up looking more desperate, and driving them even further away. And no one wants to help. You feel cut off. And alone.
Screw them. They suck. They are cowards. And there is nothing you can do but find better friends, because you can't change them and they aren't really worth the trouble. As long as you are kind, try and help others, and know in your heart you are a good person, you are on the right path. Leave them. Don't even tell them, because they won't care and will probably be glad when you are gone. If you make a scene, they will further humiliate you. I have NEVER seen someone make a dramatic exit that made impressed anyone, EVEN if you are totally, 100% right! (exception: movies). I know. I have been there, after the angry employee left and said, "You are all sheep, I tell you, SHEEP!" No one went, "Wow, he's right, we ARE sheep! Oh my God!" They just made some half-witted comments and snickers, and at least a whistle and "What's with THAT guy?" It will be hard to do; it will be hard to quietly exit. You want to hurt them back. You may not even be sure that people really WERE against you, but if you feel that way, there's a reason. Even if it's all in your head, it won't end good anyway, you'll second guess every motive, and life's too short to play mind games anyway.
Someone once told me, "Nothing in life prevents you from getting up and leaving for good but your own mind." That's why I don't understand murder. I mean, what a losing deal. Even if your beloved sleeps with your best friend, and takes all your money, leaving you penniless and poor, don't fall for the self-pitying lie, "I have nothing to live for," and then go murdering people. The only "justifiable cause" I have ever seen for murder is if you are in a fight where one has to die for the other to live, like a gunfight or struggling to disarm someone who attacked your family with a knife. So when yo have been cheated, and lost it all... just get up from the table, thank everyone for a nice time, and walk the hell away. Walk until you feel like stopping. Then start over. Life always gives you another chance.
Humans are social animals. We need approval. And that's never been guaranteed. But take it from me, there are people out there for you. You can only change yourself, you can't change others. And if you can't convince them you are worth their time, don't waste time of either side. Keep walking.
Keep walking, because if anything, the scenery is pretty cool, and will keep you company on your journey.
Posted by Punkie @ 01:52 PM EST [Link]
Your freedom
In Germany they first came for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me -- and by that time no one was left to speak up. -- Pastor Martin Niemoller
Think about that....
... when they detain "suspected terrorists" via mititary tribunal.
... when they want to tap into your private life via "The Patriot Act."
... when they want to scan your personal computers for "illegal stuff."
... every time the violate the Constitution
Posted by Punkie @ 09:55 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, August 14, 2003
Storytime - Vince's General Store
I used to work for a tech support company on the night shift (3pm - midnight). Our building was in an industrial park, and not much was open past 5pm, much less when we got off at midnight. Some of us would drive down to TGI Friday's, but we didn't have a whole lot of money, so that wasn't often. So what to do when you got hungry?
Well, the building had a deli ... that closed at 4pm. It also had vending machines, one that served snacks (okay, but it ran out quickly of the good stuff), food you could cook (called "The Wheel of Death" because many things were overpriced and past expiration dates), and sodas. Some people brought their own snacks, but sometimes you just wanted some snacks, and the vending machine options just didn't cut it.
I don't know how this started, by a man by the name of Vince Brown started bringing in bulk food from some warehouse. Vince was a systems analyst. He was a real nice guy, although he did have a sort of 12-year-old "I am invincible" attitude that got him in trouble from time to time. But Vince was appreciated more than for his work and humor. His bulk food he brought in, he sold at cost. First is was just sodas. A soda from the machine was about 85 cents a can, and he was selling them for 23 cents. Then he started bringing in Cup-o-Noodles. Then candy bars. Vince's pod was used by servers, so the lockable "employee space" was unused. He found the keys, and started storing food in there. He even had a menu, and if you were really special, you were on his mailing list.
I am out of Reece's Cups, but I got a box of Twix. I will sell them for 22 cents each. I still have some Sunny Delights, but due to demand and supply, I will have to limit people to one a night. They are still 80 cents each, but they are 20oz bottles!
Then there would follow the current price list, plus any price changes, like, "I got a new box of Oreo packets cheaper, so they are going for 22 cents each down from 27 cents. I am still out of Hawaiian Punch, and the bananas are still green."
Supervisors let him get away with this because he never sold anything for profit, and the night supervisors also used his services. This went on for about a year when I worked there. Then came the evil accountants.
There was a particular pair of evil accountants we'll call "the Stupors." Jane Stupor and Dick Stupor were a grouchy husband and wife team of people who felt that somewhere, someone was having a good time, and thus, should be stopped at all cost. They were squatty toad-like people with permanent frowns and bandy legs who decorated their pods with trailer-trash goodies. Our tech calling queue was a set of pods on one side of the huge office space, and the accountant pods (some of which was the billing queue, where the Stupors worked) were on the other side. We were separated by a main hallway of sorts, which was nothing more than a gap of pods wider than the other gaps. Accounting usually went home at 5pm, and the queue closed at 8pm. The tech queues stayed open until midnight, and after 8pm, it was just us, being goofy techs. Sometimes, people would stay late and use the office LAN to play Quake and Warcraft. Ahhh ... those were the days. The supervisors and the main desk were also pretty cool, and let us take smoking breaks, snack breaks, or just "that call was so stressful, I need to walk it off" breaks. A lot of chatting occurred outside the building, in the break room, and even near pod where no calls were taking place. Then, for some reason, the Stupors started staying late hours. They started complaining about the noise. Formally complaining.
The upper management, or the "Day Men," were people we might see from time to time during meetings between 3 and 5, but it was rare. The Day Men (sometimes called Sun Zombies) sometimes would pass silly memos commenting that people should do this or that, but didn't often interact with us directly. Well, the Stupors put up such a fuss about how unprofessional we were, and how they couldn't do work, that the Day Men started to pass rules that we were not allowed to chat, hang out outside, and certainly not play games, during or past office hours. Sometimes we'd abide, and then things would slide, but then the Stupors would complain again.
Some thought the Stupors were really complaining because their son worked with us, and we were possibly a "bad influence" on him. Their son was kind of a dweeb, with bad hygiene and strong opinions that rubbed people the wrong way. I don't hold anything against him, because he was one of the people speculating, and later proved, his parents were the ones causing the problems. Later, he moved out of his parent's house, got a really good job somewhere with a friend of mine as his boss, and my friend later told me he was a really good employee, had wizened up, and was actually turning out to be a pretty cool guy. So kudos to him!
Vince's store was one of the "travesties" the Stupors often complained about, with lies that Vince was attracting vermin. Vince would close for a little while ... then open up again secretly, and then it wouldn't be a secret anymore until the Stupors made a fuss. We complained that Vince sold things at cost, usually had things we wanted (he even took requests, if possible), and was good for morale. "No food service!" was handed down, and so we starved.
This went on for a while, and then there were huge layoffs as they outsourced the call center techs to Arizona. Vince got laid off, along with the entire Stupor family. The son got a job right away, but I dunno about Dick and Jane.
There are times, now, when I am at a vending machine paying $1.25 for a can of soda, that I wish Vince was still here. Then I think about the time he challenged a previous middleweight boxer in our queue to some rounds, and was beaten severely to the mat. Oh well. Here's to you, Vince!
Posted by Punkie @ 04:14 PM EST [Link]
Wednesday, August 13, 2003
Trying to get better... if it weren't for those meddling kids!
Man.
I was getting better, see, but then this "MSBlast" worm hit at work, and our Internal Computing Department cheerfully let it run free about the network. Thus several machines went bye-bye, notably the Windows XP test machines. Then some stoner tried to "fix" the problem, and this created a cascading domino effect of catastrophes which meant I had to dial into work from home (no minor feat in itself), and help my boss fix everything. That was last night, and I slept until 2pm today.
I am feeling better now, but I still have a stuffy head, and a clogged right ear.
To add to this, there are these kids in our neighborhood who don't have anything better to do than ring our doorbell and ask to use our basketball hoop. I don't know why I still have that damn thing other than I can't get rid of it. I don't want this pair of kids to be in my front driveway, anyway. Last thing I need on the front of my house is dirty brown circles. Already they have knocked loose some siding in the front. Apparently the previous owners let kids run around their yards willy-nilly, as evidenced by older kids who go to the concealed edges of my side yards, smoke, drink, and leave trash. Some try and cut through our backyard to the shopping center and leave our gate open. Twice our dogs have escaped when we didn't check the gate. Luckily, it's lockable.
But two kids among them all are the worst. Let's call them "A" and "J." I don't know how they do it, but every time I had let those two play with my son, within minutes, they were up to no good. The first time it was tossing rocks and tomatoes (from our own tomato plant) at cars passing in the shopping center alley behind our house. The second (and last) time was when J invited (without my knowledge) his 4-6 brothers and sisters to run all over my rec room, unsupervised (J was the oldest of them at age 10, and he has like 3-4 older siblings back at home), and started chasing my dog Ahfu with sticks and trying to beat him. That was about three years ago. He is so banned.
"A" is not a bad kid, really, but he's a pathological liar with some really bad home situation. His mom is always yelling and screaming, his dad apparently is abusive (I have not witnessed this, but was informed by the previous owner), and there's some drama between his older sister and his mom that culminated in beatings and fights on the front lawn. They aren't typical "white trash," either. They have a nice house and expensive cars, so the problem is all psychological. Too bad they live across the street.
A and J are a pair, so you can't have one without the other. They wait until they think we have left for work, and harass my son to let them in and use the basketball hoop, pool table, and computers. They give him a LOT of pressure, as I witnessed today. A is very much the "Eddie Haskell" type, always nice to my face, but tries to be all badass behind my back. A obviously knows how to pressure polite people. He reminds me of sales people who try every edge to get you to eventually give in. He twists logic, turns questions around, tries to obfuscate motives, make you indecisive, and probably could sell used cars very well. He's also a self-proclaimed hacker, and claims to know all about Linux and stuff. J, on the other hand, doesn't say much, but doesn't seem too bright. The kid is probably 14 now, and still doesn't know not to swat at bees. I suspect in his family of about 8 kids, not a whole lot of individual attention is given.
I told them to go away, and a few hours later, they ring the doorbell again. "Oh," says A, "I didn't know you meant go away later, I thought you meant just then!" I tell them to go away and not come back. They come back. "Oh," says A, "I didn't know you were still here. Don't you work on Wednesdays?"
Red flag.
Well, it seems they are outside again, trying to convince my son through the bedroom window to come out side of a minute. Talk about timing.
Posted by Punkie @ 04:32 PM EST [Link]
Tuesday, August 12, 2003
Stubby dose
How can I have a cold, right in the middle of summer? My nose won't stop running, I am achey... ugh. Unfair.
Posted by Punkie @ 01:50 PM EST [Link]
Monday, August 11, 2003
Weekend wrapup: Springfield Mall
This weekend, I went back to an old familiar haunt: Springfield Mall.
It's funny, I have always looked at Springfield Mall as my "home mall" even though I grew up near Tyson's Corner. Tysons changed so much, I can't even recognize it anymore. When I was a kid, and went there, it was like most malls in the area, dark with pebbly walls. Sometime in the late 1980s, like most of McLean, it decided to go upscale, and hasn't looked back. Springfield, while it's changed a lot, hasn't changed a lot of its character.
My first taste of the mall was in the 1980s, when our local Sci-fi club usually picked that mall for movies. We had closer movies theaters, sure, but for some reason we usually went to Springfield Cinemas. I recall thinking Springfield Mall was more spacey, like the mall in Fast Times at Ridgemount High and Valley Girl. There were a lot more ... uh, non-upper class people there, which suited us just fine. Some of the stores were also pretty weird. I recall one we used to go to, "Hong Kong Imports," which sold a lot of ... more "heady" things, like roach clips, bongs, and had a book of tee-shirt iron-ons from the 1970s. The walls were covered with the HUGE (like 4" x 6") posters of your favorite rock bands, and behind them were swirly psychedelic patterns. That store lasted until like 1999, when they were finally closed down in the mall's attempt to purge all the "undesirables" in an uprising of "mallitics" (mall + politics) during the 1990s.
Fast forward a few years. When I lived at the FanTek house, we lived nearest that mall, and watched them change the mall from a dark, 1980s neon spacey-look to something a bit more sterile. I watched Tysons go through the same fate the few times I visited it, and I felt kind of bad about this because the mall lost a lot of its original character. But a lot of the stores stayed the same, which was good.
One place was "Pizza Delight." What a place. They were fairly large, and their food was so cheap, teens hung out there all the time. I mean, a pizza that could serve six people was like $3.98. For a WHOLE PIZZA! A large drink was like 50 cents. Even back then, that was mega-cheap. The pizza was okay, but the $3.98 price tag made it a lot more palpable. A lot of people wondered how they stayed in business. How indeed ... more on them later.
My first job in a mall was Chesapeake Knife and Tool in what was then the "new wing," which patrons who frequent the mall call it the "Food Court" now. It replaced a long abandoned department anchor store called "Corvettes" or something. I worked at CK&T for two years before being moved to Crystal City ("the penalty box"), and then being laid off. The next job I had was working at "The Gamekeeper" one Christmas, and then in 1993, I was back full time as the manager of Cargo Furniture in a fairly dead wing of the mall (which is still dead).
During these times, I got wind of the "Mallitics" that run within malls. Big malls like Springfield run almost like a little community. You get to know the managers and store politics of the people next to you, plus mall management. I have always had the gift where people dump their problems on me, so I learned a lot of juicy stuff about how the mall was being run. The corporation that owned that mall were classic corporate suits who cared little about people and more about money. I mean, it was like out of a teen movie. Two big events that happened in the decade I worked there was the opening of the Macy's wing, the recession of the 1990s, and the purging of all "undesirables," which were stores that did not fit Springfield Mall's "new image."
See, when Springfield Mall opened in 1975, it was almost vacant. The mall management made a huge deal with local merchants, giving them cheap 30 year contracts just to get them in the door. In the 1990s, they started to renege on a LOT of those contracts, and a lot of the more... "individual" stores, usually mom-and-pop outfits, were driven out in place of corporate clones. The last fighters were Young Fair (a children's clothing store), Hong Kong Imports, Luci's (a gift figurine place), and the Tobacco Barn (which were slapped hard when the mall went all no-smoking). Last I saw, Tobacco Barn and Luci's were the last there. Why the purge? Well, part of it was said to be started in 1990... at started with Pizza Delight.
Now how about Pizza Delight? That place was always packed. In fact, they opened a "Pizza Delight Junior" upstairs, which always seemed to be filled with angry-looking Greek men hanging around the meat shaver. They paid rent. They played nice. The chefs even had their knives sharpened at CK&T. I mean, you'd really never suspect anything was odd, except they food was always so cheap ... slightly bland, but cheap.
One day, on my way from Gloria Jean's Coffee Beanery to work, I passed by Pizza Delight Junior, and saw something very odd. The place was closed, dark, and yellow police tape covered the gate. A notice from the sheriff stated that this was evidence in a Federal crime investigation. Huh. I went to work, and would have forgotten about it until a mall official stopped by and stated that we were not allowed to talk to the press about Pizza Delight and Pizza Delight Junior. WTF? Both of them? Now, of course, everyone was talking about it. People speculated that the health department got them. Then the local paper gave us a shocking answer: They were closed in a massive sting operation that went from New York to Miami. Pizza Delight was a HUGE money laundering port for some Eastern Coast mafia. That's how they could afford to stay in business! Brilliant. See, you sell food for below cost, people flock to your restaurant, and then when it shows you were passing tons of money through there, it won't look as suspicious, right? Damn.
That signaled the end of cool places in the mall. Over the years, the mall has taken quite a beating. Anchor stores just started going bankrupt. Montgomery Ward, which was a staple in our area for so long, went belly up. Macys went bankrupt (but recovered). Whole chains died in the 1990s, and at one point, I'd say 30% of the mall space went unoccupied.
When I worked at Cargo, a store across the hall was some sort of Toy and Hobby shop. Apparently, there was some issue where the owners were husband and wife, and were fighting constantly. Then they had a ton of financial difficulties and they started to drink heavily. The mall had enough, and forced them to close. I recall, by the end, the owners fired all the workers and outright abandoned the place. The mall had to step in and liquidate their stock to recoup some cost. The owners showed up one day, and it was a debacle that brought the police in to mediate.
In 1996, I ended my retail career. Malls seem to be doing better now. I see less dead space, and part of what may have helped that is the expansion of people in this area due to tech and defense jobs. I mean, the real estate situation is insane! They keep building housing and they keep filling up! Some friends of mine looking for a simple 1-bedroom apartment had to be put on a "waiting list." My local strip mall (literally behind my house) is usually packed, and parking is hard to find during the peak days. I heard in the 1990s, it almost went under as well.
So as I strolled through some memories on Saturday, pointing out what this store "used to be," I felt kind of old. What was Pizza Delight is now part of a second food court next to a huge Art Supply Warehouse (which used to be Sam Goody's). What was my Cargo store is now a tee-shirt shop. CK&T is still there. Jerry's Subs in the food court used to be run by a guy named Dave (who never could get good help), and now seems to be run by some Hispanic owner (who also seems to be short on help). The Sunglass Hut that my wife used to run is now a Japanese fast food place.
Posted by Punkie @ 11:02 AM EST [Link]
Friday, August 8, 2003
No coffee for a week
I have gone over a week with no coffee. This is not a bad thing, because I have been trying to cut down on the caffeine and calories (with cream and sugar) that my normal cup of java has. Caffeine doesn't work as well if you take it all the time, and after cramming caffeine down my gullet during Red Hat Hell Week, I wanted to pull back. I am happy to say it hasn't been too hard. I haven't been cranky or dead to the world.
Today is one of those days when I can get nothing done, though, and the thought of drinking coffee has crossed my mind. I have been having HORRIBLE sleeping problems for weeks now. Most of it seems to be stomach related. I am not sure what the problem is, but I wake up and my heart is beating like crazy, like I just ran forty flights of stairs. And I have incredible gas. I don't recall having a nightmare or anything else that might cause this, but I can't get back to sleep because it feels like I am having a heart attack and I can't breathe. The only sure for this is to walk around for a few hours, burp a lot, and then I feel better, and go back to sleep. My sleep pattern has been go to bed at 11, wake up around 1, walk around or browse the web until 3 or 4, then wake up for work at around 6. Yeah, about 3 hours of sleep a night some nights. No over-the-counter medicine can seem to to cure this, either. Pepto, Pepcid AC, Gas-X... nothing. I guess I should go to the doctor, but I am so sick of going to the doctor. He's a nice guy and all, but even with small co-pays, it's like $15 a visit, then maybe $15 for meds. But thankfully, the last two nights, I actually slept through the night. And been more tired when I got up! How unfair is that?
Posted by Punkie @ 11:32 AM EST [Link]
Thursday, August 7, 2003
No Otakon for me, boo hoo...
I wanted to go, because all my pals are there. Even my boss is going!
But money is tight. The last years I could afford it somewhat because Katsucon footed some of the bill (memberships/room), but Katsucon has to save money this year, so when I priced it all out, yikes! For me and my son to go, it would have cost me travel, hotel, food (IN Baltimore!), memberships, and who knows what else ... plus, I know I'd end up helping at the Katsucon table (even if they didn't ask, I mean, I can't leave them there and go out dallying at another convention), which is in the vendor's room, and then I'd buy crap I don't need on top of everything else. About the same amount it would have taken me to go to New York. Oh well. [sigh...]
This aggravatingly prevents me from going to Tad and Craig's Excellent Party as well. Dammit! And that's right down the street!
In other news, work layoff rumors have subsided when some paranoia was quelled by several meetings today. I learned that they wanted me to schedule some meetings after the 15th, a huge hardware order was approved, and a new interdepartmental process was started. Plus, they added more projects on our list. Still, it could be that THEY don't know we're being laid off. I recall in a former job, I had open projects with people who just vanished. I would have set up call center queues, bought leased lines, and had a 30-agent rotational setup for a new customer support situation ... only to find out the guy who ran the project was laid off, and no one picked up the project. The company spent a ton of money in new hires, phone lines, and programming ... for nothing. They did that more than once, too.
I hope I am not on cell E15...
Posted by Punkie @ 06:55 PM EST [Link]
Wednesday, August 6, 2003
Ch-Ch-Changes...
Well, one change is I have decided (for now) to deal with the tech-heavy/fluffy-journal split in my writing to have the fluff here, and my tech journal on Slashdot. I have already reflected this in my menubar up top.
But, more news. Layoffs. At work. Soon. I have this "No Doom Zone" poster on my door to prevent people from coming in and discussing things I cannot control, like layoffs and upper management changes. But that never stops people via IM, e-mail, or stopping me in the hall. Latest rumor is that it's sooner than normal (layoffs usually occur September-ish and January-ish), in fact one particularly bitter and paranoid person has given me the "doom date" as August 15th. He's also telling people from 5-25% layoffs at first, then 50% later. Later would probably be the January sweep.
Honestly, the only way they could trim down our department is to outsource it. That *is* possible (not advisable, but possible nonetheless). After all, we test networks in the United States, so we can't really feasibly send this whole department to India. They could decide not to test networks anymore, which would be VERY dumb, but I have seen dumber. I was once laid off because of my position on a spreadsheet (cell E15, I think it was). This company also decided that everything could be run by part-time employees (to avoid having to give insurance, which was legal back then), turning everything into a franchise, and that decision nearly killed the company. They (the company's owners) finally rendered this guy useless by giving him an executive vice presidential position, and he's still there to this day.
A few years ago, we merged with another big company. This big company has a history of bad decisions, and the primary reason they were so ready for a buyout is that despite the good economy of the time, they were losing money in the billions. But now their management has become our management with some smooth moves, and they are doing the same thing ... all over again. Like before, to buy something, I needed my boss's approval. Now, just to buy a $30 book, I need no less than 7 signatures. Seven! My boss, his boss, the boss about him, and then some vice-bosses with no real job description but fancy vague titles like "IT Infrastructure Vice Manager of Operations." We have a LOT of "dotted line" bosses in upper management. Of course, since a lot of these upper management types don't actually do any work, I can never get anything approved. We used to have a blank check when it came to hardware. "Dialer broke? Get it fixed." Now it's "Dialer broke? Define dialer. What's broke? Can we reassign other dialers to compensate? No? Okay, seven people need to approve this new 'hard drive?' Is that what it's called?" Then the order disappears into a fog, like the Mary Celeste, never to be seen again.
I once had to spell "router" to an on-call tech.
Anyway, I hate the speculation and waiting. Work slows to a crawl. People get nervous, and I can't focus on what I need to do because everyone's talking, speculating, worrying ... and you know me and worrying! I start taking toys home, trying to adapt to a "one box" rule from days of old: "Never have more on your desk that you can carry away in one box... when you get laid off, you are not allowed back for a second trip."
On the plus side, the techs are the last they get rid of. Most people that get the ax are marketing and production. Producers have such liquid jobs, often, they don't have anything on their desks because they come and go so fast. Unless you can PROVE that what you produce is vital, you are expendable. Marketing is all smoke and mirrors anyway; Madison Avenue has known that its inception. So add more smoke, take away more mirrors. No one will see the difference. Next is customer service. That's so unfair. Unfair for the CSRs and the customer. But customer service is considered by many to be the most expensive with the least amount of provable value under production and marketing. Last is the opportunistic layoffs. This gives the opportunity for people to be laid off under a blanket that conceals what is probably the real reason: they cost too much or just "don't fit in." Boss likes muscular young men that remind him of football players? Bye-bye, fat nerdy girl. So long dude with the overbite. Sorry. Nothing personal. "You were just cut for cost-cutting measures." Then discretely hire frat buddy.
I have often wondered, "Okay, if I was laid off right now, how would I cope?" Badly. No, I guess it depends on two factors: one, severance, and two, how quickly I got another job that paid the same or better. Part of my problem is that from March 1991 - March 1993, I was unemployed for two years (almost to the date). I fear going back to that. My inability to get a job cost us more than just money, we lost nearly everything. We got evicted and we had to live in the projects until 1996. We couldn't even afford to declare bankruptcy because we didn't have enough money for attorney fees. I starved to my family could eat, bill collectors called daily (when my phone wasn't cut off), and I spent most of the day depressed out of my mind. So you can see why I fear unemployment. The last guy I knew who got unemployed did get a two-month severance package from this company, so that would buy me some time. I could cut off my phone (do only cell phones), cable (unlike Reston, we do get TV channels here), and some other "la-dee-da" items. I think I'd stave a little smarter this time around; I got too fat eating all those noodles, tuna, day-old bread, and Kool-aid (I am NEVER going to drink that stuff again if I can help it).
I'd approach employment in two ways. First, the "regular job" I would be trying to get to replace what I did. I'd do another "Job Journal," which is a notebook that records who you called, what they said, and keeps tabs on who to follow up with. I found it a great source of comfort at times, especially when I got a job, and could count that I had applied to some 400 jobs in 2 years (which was impressive), 100 which got interviews in person, had 6 positive leads, and finally one got me the job. I also learned that newspapers are useless for jobs, really. I never got a good job that way, I always got them because I knew someone who knew someone. I have a SLEW of positive references, both from friends and former employers. I know I'd get one from here in a snap. Second, I'd jump-start my writing career. After all, what to do between interviews? And when you think about it, it was only BECAUSE I was unemployed all those years ago that I was able to write and get a book published. And when I got sick of writing for the moment? I'd learn a new computer skill, thanks to the wonder of the Internet.
But lastly, I hope I don't flip out. I flip out easily. I think it's because, growing up, there was never any stability, and predicting "the worst" was all I had to judge how long I would fall at any given moment. This made me a pessimist, constant worrier, and gives me a weird panic threshold. I flip out far earlier than most, but when things REALLY get bad, and we're talking being in an airplane in a nose dive or attacked by a tiger, here, I am remarkably calm.
Hell, I hope I don't flip out now!
Posted by Punkie @ 02:58 PM EST [Link]
A Toast to the Determined Resolve of Apathy! Here's to the Class of 1987!
Reunion canceled ... again.
Some of you may remember this entry, in which I explained that our high school reunion has been canceled twice due to lack of interest. Then Sandra Carerra, a student from the class of 1987, said, "We're going to have it anyway, dammit!" I admired her resolve. I decided to go. Now I get this letter:
Everyone,
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but since we did not meet our minimum head count for the reunion, Cari and I decided to cancel it. We needed at least a minimum of 80 for food and as of today, we have only received commitments from a total of 14 people...
[Cari's her husband]
That's how it started, and the letter seemed hint she was a little hurt by this response, or lack thereof, because she ended with "Hopefully someone else can step in and plan our 20th reunion......It's open for anyone as Cari and I will be stepping down." I was really hoping she'd pull this off. Over the years I have boiled down why we never have reunions:
- We were a transitory area. People came in and out with political tides. Only 40% of our graduating class started out as freshmen in our school. Many don't feel anything special to our high school, as it was one of many schools they came and left over the years. McLean is where they happened to be when they were graduating; it could have as easily been somewhere else.
- After graduation, people followed this tradition, and now live all over the US and world. Most won't fly in for a reunion.
- McLean had pretty poor school spirit to begin with. At least with our class. It seemed most people I knew viewed high school as an obstacle in their life between being a kid and being in college. Our principal was insane. Our staff was a mixture of burned out old teachers and young teachers about to burn out. I'd say only 20% or less of the teachers we had were still there five years later. Those that tried to return to say "Hi," we met with metal detectors and suspicious looks (from personal experience). McLean High is a place, a shell, with no memories but those in your head. No living fossils to see, no dead ones left behind.
I think this makes the class of 1987 pretty unique. Okay, most of the classes of the 1980s. Hmmm... I heard the 1990s were pretty bad, too (our friend Anya is class of 1995). Okay ... maybe the school might give good education, but sucks in the spirit department.
Maybe we can have a "Veterans of the Soulless" conference?
Apparently, some other ex-student, Dan Prieto, said he'd have a brunch at his house, because 14 people can certainly fit in a house. Hell, I'd invite them if I knew we needed a place. That's so funny. I can't image how our class of 344 kids got down to 14. Hee! I am going to try and go. What if it's just Dan and me?
"So... Dan, we have nothing in common but McLean High School..." Hey, it happened with Jen Dingel!
Posted by Punkie @ 10:12 AM EST [Link]
Tuesday, August 5, 2003
The IOC: The Worst Job I Ever Loved...
This is looong... sorry, it's an entry I had saved to my hard drive, and only just completed it when I couldn't sleep this morning. Enjoy...
I used to work at the IOC desk for a very large international network company. No, not the International Olympic Committee, but we did get that joke a lot. Our stood for International Operations Center, and it was manned 24/7 by five people. Let me repeat that, because it bears repeating. It was 24/7, manned by five people. This meant almost no overlap. Four phone lines. Several million customers. Oh yeah. Bring it on!
How I got the job
I got the job via my friend Sean, who was working for the company's technical department. I was currently working for a company where I was their 24/7 on call programmer for 13 call centers. I was supposedly 1 of 5, but then two quit, and the other two were pretty lazy. Then I got so good at my job, even if I wasn't on call, I'd get paged anyway because, as one help desk put it, "We can page Blah blah, but he may not respond, or certainly won't respond for hours, and if he does respond, it takes him a long time to fix it. We page you, you respond within minutes, and fix it pretty quickly. If my job is on the line, I will find you." My success was killing me. Did I mention I was making less than $30,000/year at this job? And got an awful review with a 3% raise? Yeah. I saw the writing on the wall, there. So I sent out my resumes. Sean used to work this desk, and said the pay was great, and while the hours sucked, I'd learn a lot. Oh yeah. I did.
Funny. I went from a middle-layer job as a call center programmer, and got a job as a bottom-feeding catfish-sucking lowlife as an International Support Guy, and got a 25% pay hike. Plus, the opening was the hell shift, so that was an additional 12% differential. Plus all the overtime you could want. I made a ton of money.
The hours
The hours sucked. How do you man a 24/7 desk with only 5 people? Let's see, 24 x 7 = 168 and divide that by 5 and get 33.6 hours per person. That left little overlap. How we did this was two people did three 12-hour shifts (with four hours left over for overlap and meetings) and two people did four 10 hour shifts. I had the hell 12-hour shift, Thursday through Saturday, midnight to noon. The other person would be mirroring me, doing the other 12 hours. The rest were Sunday - Wednesday.
Let me tell you something. People who hear you do three 12 hour shifts a week often comment, "Wow, you only work 3 days a week? Lucky!" Ah... no. It sucks. Sucks like the harsh vacuum of space in the movie, "Outland." The 18 months I worked that desk, I ruined my circadian rhythm, got an ulcer, and lost a lot of my social life. Our lead, a wise OKC Cowboy by the name of Robby, confessed to me he got addicted to Nyquil because it was the only way for him to sleep anymore!
Part of that was due to the "all the overtime you could eat." Let me explain something. If you got sick, or take a vacation, or are otherwise absent? Someone got overtime. And a lot of it. It wasn't always me, but I jumped at the chance often because of all the money it meant. Sometimes I didn't have a choice, like if my mirror got sick. This happened a lot with two employees, and what happened is I'd do my 12 hour shift, she'd call in sick, I'd do her 12 hour shift, and then... my 12 hour shift again! Wheeeeeee! The longest I did in a row was 40 hours, but usually I didn't have to do more than 30 - 35 hours before someone else would sub for me so I could get sleep. Our boss, Dennis, was a great guy and didn't want this to happen, although sometimes he couldn't prevent it. The record was by the senior lead Robby, who did a 53-hour shift during a snowstorm when no one could get in or out of the data center. He did sleep. At the desk, along with half the rest of the stranded people in the NOC.
Overtime was 2.5 x hourly pay. There were weeks I did 80 - 90 hours. That's a hell of a lot of overtime. I made a ton of money. It literally launched me into a new tax bracket for two years until I got "promoted" to a salary position.
The Work
Our desk was smack in the middle of the NOC, Network Operations Center, of the whole company. From our position, we could see and yell at most of the other groups. If you have seen NASA's Mission Control in Houston, ours looked a lot like that (but smaller, and less ties). The IOC desk was 80% dead boredom and 20% sheer panic during my shift. I worked when Europe (UK, Germany, France, Sweden, Spain, Ireland, and The Netherlands) was getting up and starting business, while the Pacific Rim (Hong Kong, Australia, Japan, and New Zealand) was going into the peak call period of the evening. Add to that all the US issues.
When it was boring, it was boring. Usually midnight to 2:00am was dead. So dead, half our NOC was asleep, literally. I had moments where I'd shake and wake some poor soul as they slept in their chair. Some people walked around a lot to stay awake, myself included. Our shift didn't see the sun much, only when we left (the NOC was in an underground bunker with no link to the outside world), and then we went to sleep. We drank a lot of coffee. A lot of Mountain Dew.
My problems started around 2:00 - 3:00am when Europe was coming to their offices, about 5-7 hours ahead of the US (depending on country). That kept me busy until 10:00am, when most of Europe went home for the day. The Pacific Rim was about 11 hours ahead, and the peak user shift for them started about the same time. Our Pac Rim people were all in Japan, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and all over Australia. Problems tended to start at about 6:00am, and ran until 10:00am. And I was alone. On a desk with four phone lines, four computer monitors with two IM names, and managing several mailboxes and a ticketing system. My biggest problem was (no, not the French) the US. I had several major problems with US people that I break down into several categories. Note, these are problems I had with other companies, notably UUNet/MCI/Worldcom, although AT&T and Sprint certainly weren't perfect, either.
1. Ignorance. Not just technical ignorance, but ignorance of how time zones worked, where countries were, and just general US-centric pigheadedness. More than once, I had this kind of conversation:
Punk: Hey, mail's down in the UK. No one can resolve their US mail servers.
Tech: Why are people in their office at 4am?
Punk: It's 10:00am there.
Tech: So, don't they sleep at night?
Punk: The sun is up there. It's 10:00am there. They have been open, without mail, for two hours.
Tech: The sun can't be up, it's dark outside. They are lying to you.
Punk: [sigh] Just fix the mail servers.
Tech: When does their office open?
Punk: Two hours ago.
Tech: They go to work when it's this dark? Woah, Yookay people are WEIRD!
I once had a two hour call where all the US to Australia links went down. I traced the problem to Sydney, where I knew UUNet had four main channels connected to AR Routers. The snobby tech tried to convince me, patronizingly, that there was "No Sidnee in Australia." This became a conference call, where the head of our Australian division screamed at this kid that Sydney was, indeed, a major city in Australia. The tech had "helpfully" assumed we meant "Sydney, New York," even though to this day, I have never heard of a Sydney, Sidney, or even Sidnee in New York. Finally, the Australian guy asked, "Well, what do you see in Australia?" The tech sighed, and said, "We show a Vienna, a Salzburg..." "That's AUSTRIA!" I screamed. The tech's next dumb reply still rings in my ears, "You mean there's a difference? I thought it was a different regional spelling..." Sure enough, when typed in correctly, UUNet had, surprise, several main lines in Sydney, Australia.
2. Liars. I was stunned, shocked, and amazed how many techs lied to my face. It all boiled down to "it's not us, it's you" until I proved it was them. You'd think they'd learn, but they never did. I went over so many people's heads, some techs had my sneaker prints on their scalp. I have had people try and convince me that they had never heard of us (our company was a HUGE worldwide Internet provider, with a brand name logo plastered everywhere), refuse to give help because I didn't have a proper merchant ID, or the most common: "I'll get back to you." I suspect almost everyone who said they'd get back to me never did. I just got used to saying, "I am calling back in 15 minutes." Of course, then I'd get another tech, and would have to explain the WHOLE THING all over again... the general consensus at the desk was that, "I'll get back to you," meant, "I don't want to do look this up, and I hope you will forget about this as quickly as I surely will." The only way you could EVER hold anyone accountable was to get a ticket number. In fact, our own ticketing system would not allow you to save an incident without one. Some techs tried to hang up on you before you got a ticket number, or they'd even boldly make up a number.
3. Incompetence. Holy crap, some of the techs that answered the phones were just plain dumb. I was told that the people who worked night shifts at UUNet ("after the buyout") were simply warm bodies, usually college students, just to provide contract agreement. I have no idea if this was actually true, but it seemed that way. I used to imagine some of these techs, staring stupidly at a porn site, getting drool on their keyboard. One NOC in Michigan had a bunch of people who, and I kid you not, were addicted to fishing shows. They had cable on in their NOC to "entertain" the techs. What's even worse? They had a webcam that showed that many people weren't at their desks. After we used webcam images (complete with timestamps) to show no one was answering their hotlines, the webcam changed to the same picture, 24 x 7. Trouble was, the pictures were taken during the day, and they had windows. Gee, it sure is sunny at 4am for you guys, and I have been staring at the same tech by the phone, with the same jacket, and the same hat, for weeks now. Then the cam went down.
4. Just plain apathy. Hey, maybe everyone from Dusseldorf to Munich had no Internet connections, but they can wait until Monday, right? Again, I had to escalate until someone DID care. Maybe 100,000 people in Australia suddenly had no phone service, but hey, who talks to Australians anyway, huh? Some even brushed it off as, "Those wacky Japanese," or "those damn Frogs can sip their wine and wait until we fix this." I got two people fired when I reported those comments. Let me tell you, when the head of your French operation is an angry lesbian with more technical savvy than most people I have ever met, don't you DARE call her "one of those wine-sipping Frogs."
One girl named Carmen always answered the phone in a Columbus-based company (that rhymed with "Slompuserve") with, "HelloMyNameIsCarmenCanIHelpYou..." in one long, slow, monotone, Russian-accented voice filled with so much apathy and disgust, it nearly sucked the soul out of you simply by hearing it. After one long, drawn-out incident where she was caught in all for of these sins I have mentioned, I wrote a long letter to my boss, calling her a "apathetic sea-cow, munching bitter watercress, and making us all pay for her bad life decisions. If someone doesn't fire her, they need to get her a boyfriend who would stoop to having sex with her, just to cheer her the heck up. can someone at least give her a hug?" Sadly, I had yet to learn my boss had no qualms about screening tactful comments, and forwarded my whole letter to the head of Carmen's company. Did they fire her? No. But for weeks, she answered the phone with an enforced perkiness that hinted of a possible electrified cattle-prod in her chair. Ever force a Goth to smile? Yeah, it was as creepy as Wednesday's smile in the movie, "The Addams Family Values." Then, finally, she was taken off our account with that company.
The people
We had a slew of odd people. When I came on, I was replacing a guy who used to actually sleep at the desk. I was told he was a Rastafarian who smelled funny, and the only person ever to be fired from that desk, usually because he wouldn't answer the phone or any IMs. There was Robby, whom I have mentioned, and a hard-working girl named Lisa. We also had a Melissa (who left to teach in Lithuania, I think), a Leigh (who got promoted), a John (who got promoted, then laid off, but made so much money during the Tech stock boom, he just went and bought a huge house in cash), a Suzi (laid off after the merger), Sean (promoted), and an Angela (who only got the job because she used to be the HEAD of the whole NOC, and left for maternity leave, and when she returned, she had been promised a position back there... which meant we were just a stepping stone until an opening gave her the old job back).
The end...
I got promoted to test International phone systems and work with Sean after working the desk for about a year and a half. By that point, my body could take no more. I had accumulated enough wealth to pay off all my remaining debts from my unemployed period of 1991-1993, plus invest the rest in the Tech stock boom (which I also cashed out before it all fell, and is why I am able to have such a fine house now). I gained a wealth of friends from all over the globe, some of whom I am still friends with. But by now I had gained another 20 pounds, had a really painful ulcer, got addicted to caffeine, and to this day, cannot sleep normally.
The desk lasted a little while longer, but our company had a merger, and they decided to "Think Globally," and merger the IOC with the US Domestic, and thus, International was fairly screwed. Robby, Suzi, and John got laid off, Lisa got pregnant and quit, and Sean and I were separated into different departments.
There's still a sense of pride as to who we were. We responded to every call, worked hard in the trenches, and formed strong support bonds with each other. We dealt with the most inane things from all over the globe. Some were as common as a router gone bad, others were more exotic like volcanos (broke microwave transmissions in the Philippines), spies (you'd be stunned what people find attached to the Trans-Atlantic cable), and even sharks (underwater cables are apparently yummy to certain sea life). We laughed hearty and bawdy jokes with the Aussies, bowed respectfully and exchanged giggles with the Japanese, dealt with the French and Germans on their own terms (you have to), and engaged in polite laughs with the British. We all bonded at that tech level, anyway.
Geeks are geeks, no matter where you are from.
Posted by Punkie @ 03:40 AM EST [Link]
Monday, August 4, 2003
Other news - Rogue moves out
This is really about our friend Rogue, but as many of you know, she was living with us for the last month or so. She lost her husband, her job, and a place to live all in the same day. She moved out yesterday, and I was actually a little sad.
I have had roommates before. When I was on my own at 18, I lived with Bruce and Cheryl (and Liska and Debbie) at the FanTek house for about a year and a half, which, in retrospect, was pretty fun and cool. Then I lived with Tim and Anita, who were kind of nuts, but Tim was the semi-Bohemian manager of a book store I worked at. I have forgiven all their craziness because, well, they were in their early 20s, and that was over 14 years ago.
When Christine and I got married, we took in one roommate who was so awful, he ran up 1-900 sex line bills, ate all our food, and left cigarette butts in our toilet tanks and all over the front of our apartment complex. I think he also stole from where he worked, because the only reason we got rid of him was that he fled suddenly, and didn't even collect his last paycheck. Well, he married a friend of ours, and after many turmultuous years of cheating and so on, finally settled down, and they seem happy, so we've forgiven him as well.
But I didn't want to have another roommate ever again. Having that guest room dowstairs has caused a lot of people to hint they'd like to stay there... and pay rent. Well, we said "no" to those people. But when Rogue literally had nowhere to go, we let her stay. She was a very good roommate. It was like she was never there. Brain, an ex-boyfriend and good friend of hers who had lived with her off and on for many years, said that he noticed the same thing. Rogue moves around a LOT, and is almost never at home at night. In fact, out of the month or so she lived with us, she was there less than half the time. Most weekends she was away all weekend. She was either in New York, Pennsylvania, or California.
Her plans kept changing.
- Try and patch up relationship with husband, who left her for someone else
- That didn't work, so she filed for divorce, decided to become a voodoo priestess, and move to California.
- She became a voodoo priestess, but her car died, and so she couldn't go anywhere, but then got a job in DC, so she moved in with a former roomate and good friend, Chief.
So she left, and the guest room was back to "normal" again, and as she hugged us goodbye and gave us lots of thanks, I felt a little sad. But it's not like she's going away for good, she's still local. It's just... well, a bit lonely now. She was a comfortable presence for our family. She's really a good person.
Posted by Punkie @ 03:26 PM EST [Link]
Saturday, August 2, 2003
The C+ Wall
Years ago, when I was about 11, I marvelled at the fact that it was so hard to get good grades in school. I used to chalk it up to the crappy home life I had, the fact I didn't do homework very much, and that I tended to ace through a lot of tests. Total GPA of high school? A mere 2.5, which is like a C+.
This was to follow as an adult, however. Driving test? 80%, a C+. My test to pass the technical requirements for my first tech support job? 80%. I failed the CCNA, and now the RHCE, but among the breakdown of my tests scores was 80% in the multiple choice quiz. I am not talking about about 80%, 80.00% on the nose. This should have stunned me, because that part was so easy. I mean, Jesus, I *knew* this stuff. It was like taking a test on identifying 20 common barnyard animals. But I knew some of my past, when my dyslexia didn't really read the question. I read one thing when it was asking another. For this test, I took it, and then went back and rechecked my answers, scrutinizing even the simplest of questions. Only a few of them were iffy, so I figured the worst I could get was 90% (based on how many questions the test had). But I still got 80%... Dammit! And they never tell you which ones you got wrong, either, because they don't want you giving out test questions.
Ever since I hit some 80% barrier in my adult life, I have often noticed that my life is also 80%. I mean, I don't really excel at anything. I do "a little better than average" on almost everything. This pisses me off, because I want to do something really well for a change. I often get frustrated when even the best plans, the best attempts fall far short of great achievement. Just a little better than average, like constantly getting the "Honorable mention" award at the science fair.
I am not in despair over not passing the exam, that's what you are thinking. I am bummed and depressed, yes, even frustrated and a little angry, but not wallowing in self-pity. I am sure most did not pass, judging from how people were reacting during the exam. A few didn't show in the morning at all (Ray being one of them, which ticked of my boss). In the beginning, you had to complete 4 basic exercises, and if you didn't pass them, you failed right then and there (although you could continue to take the test for experience purposes). Two people failed that. I think one was a little unfair in a general sense (i.e., not the fault of Red Hat), because she didn't speak English so well. I am sure it was VERY hard for her to go through the lessons. As the test got harder and harder (it's a lab "real world simulated" test with progressing difficulty), I heard the signs of frustration like a vocal grimace ("Just.. just... GNRRR! What the hell?"), as well as people sighing loudly, repeated system beeps of incorrect entries, and tapping commands HARD on the keyboards ("Tap tap tappity tappa tappa tap tap TAP TAP... TAP! [beep!] TAP TAP! [beep!] TAP TAP... TAP! GNRHH! [sigh]"). No one finished early. No people left for good during the lunch break, although our teacher said it's usually pretty common.
No, I am not in despair for two good reasons. One, I learned more about stuff I never would have before. I really did. I mean, my company paid for this, so I spent a week out of my office to really learn some kick-ass stuff. Not just Red Hat specific, but Linux in general. I think the pressure of the exam forced me to learn more than I would have ... ever! So that was good. Two, I got to know my boss a little more. He's a nice guy, and old school computer type who is one of the few people I can talk to who was there and a computer geek during the 1970s. I can mention stuff about punch cards, paper tape, herkle, wumpus, core memory, and the funny little cryptic commands we all had to learn to deal with the hardware back then. A majority of geeks I know are recent; they were either born in the 70s and even 80s, or during that era, didn't pay a scrap of attention to the computer world. Even though they might have owned a Commodore 64, they didn't do anything but play games on it. I am from a generation of mainframes, dumb terminals, and old 8-bit systems for personal computers. I recall a time when grocery stores priced everything by hand, and when the first grocery store in our area got UPC scanners, how half of the goods didn't even have UPC codes yet. So does my boss, and he used to TEACH this stuff back then. He's taught at George Mason University and worked with computers for the Navy. So I got to know him a little better, which was good.
So I guess I could say, I didn't get a 80%, I really got a 64.5%, and that's a D-, which isn't failing per se... and when you couple that with the other bonuses from the experience, I guess it's okay.
Still wish I'd passed...
Posted by Punkie @ 10:26 PM EST [Link]
It's official... I failed.
Dear Gregory M. Larson:
The results of your RHCE Certification Exam are reported below. The RHCE Certification Exam allows candidates to qualify for the Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) and Red Hat Certified Technician (RHCT) certificates. Please note that the RHCE designation is understood to both include and supersede the RHCT designation.
[ ... blah blah blah... NDA stuff, scores broken down ... ]
RHCE overall requirement: average of 80 for Sections I, II, and III
Your average: 64.50%
RHCT Certification: NO PASS
RHCE Certification: NO PASS
Man, I didn't even get the RHCT. That's the equivalent of Don Pardo saying, "That’s right, Punk ...you lost! And let me tell you what you didn’t win: a twenty volume set of the Encyclopedia International, a case of Turtle Wax, and a year’s supply of Rice-a-Roni, the San Fransisco treat. But that’s not all. You also made yourself look like a jerk in front of millions of people. You brought shame and disgrace to your family name for generations to come. You don’t get to back tomorrow. You don’t even get a lousy copy of our home game. You’re a complete loser!"*
Puh...
* Stolen from lyrics of Weird Al's spoof "I Lost on Jeopardy"
Posted by Punkie @ 02:18 PM EST [Link]
