Random School/Work-Venting Post

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FML!

My work found yet another way for f***ing me over. See, last week I had my yearly performance review, and scored a 3.5% raise (highest allowed). Well, that raise only applies to the next two weeks. Because once I move to maintenance officially, I will only be making the amount indicated in my acceptance letter. So when everything is said and done, I will only be getting an $0.08 raise going into a career path that has a minimum requirement of an AA/AAS degree.

Those a**holes timed this perfectly...

There might be a faint glimmer of hope of making some real money down the road. Our fab is slowly transitioning to a 8" wafer fab (yeah, we're only 10 years late). Anyway, that means there are going to be a lot of new tools coming in, a lot of old tools going out, and a lot of tools will be upgraded to accommodate 8" wafers. BFD, right? Pretty much…except for the fact that they're going to need to add at least 5 new maintenance techs to each shift to support all that activity over the next 2-3 years. So what I'm hoping to do is transfer back to a night shift once the green light is given to hire more techs; which would give me an instant 15% raise. Also, if I get transferred to 1st shift, I'd have every Friday and every other Saturday night off!

Here's to hope!

 

Agh, the show we are building opens on Thursday, so I have to stop doing all my schoolwork to finish it... but i have the first part of a huge project due on Thursday too. This week is going to suck balls.

 

They swamped me today, which means I will be really busy till the end of the week, which is actually quite all right with me. As long as I take my breaks when I need them I can handle that. And luckily I eventually got that painstaking (and utterly boring) job done. As the joke goes, boredom kills slowly ... and now on the the more cerebral work ...

 

Some people just cannot learn that it is wise to actually zip stuff like 15.000 to 20.000 xml files (in sizes between 2KB and 3000KB) into archives before up- or downloading them to or from our FTP server. It becomes then all the more silly when they complain about hours of down- or upload time, and (predictable) connection time-out after some three hours or so, at 35 - 45% progress. Surprise!

But no, hilariously, it's the stupid server's and the IT department's fault

Even funnier bit, for saying that such an upload takes me a couple minutes I have been accuse of ... lying (bragging I would accept). Even when I explain why that is merely correct, they don't believe me and most certainly, they won't start zipping their data. Well, suit yourselves, folks ... WYSIWYG people

I considered bringing a box of matches to work the next days, just to be able to make a presentation that just because an archive looks like 'just one thing', that doesn't mean that it cannot include many smaller things. But then, I recognised I'd rather not do that. Better I bite my tongue, smile and leave when the point comes up again. Some things are just not worth it.

 

Argh, one of our two main actors needs emergency face surgery and has to drop out... now we have to find another one pronto

 

My tutor has emailed me to say the admin team seems to think I'm supposed to be retaking the whole year and not just specific modules.

Means if I pass the modules I'm taking I will still have failed as my marks from completing last year won't count.

Add to the fact the psycho ***** who threatened me a couple of weeks ago is now trying to make Kev lose his job and today has been awful.

 

I just got off the phone with my boss. He personally recommended me as an excellent choice for a promotion. Not assistant... at least not yet. I'm still under a shock, but truth be told, this is FREAKING SWEEEEEEEET!

 

I made a couple of mistakes at work that, in the absolute worse case scenario, would have been dramatic. I admited my mistakes to my bosses and I was yelled at but I took it as a man and in the end, I was absolved of most of the mistakes. I am still learning the ropes on the job, and I can't be expected to run everything smoothly as someone who has been doing that for 20 years...

On the other hand, the director whom I work with is really annoyed with me right now and last night, after there was an aftershock of one of my mistakes, he wrote an angry e-mail to me and put everybody in CC. WTF!

Fortunalty, I got a bit of a revenged when the manager responded to his e-mail, with the same people in CC, chewing out the director for his e-mail and his attitude towards me...

 

Tri - Which is the higher up, the Manager or the Director? In most cases, the Director is on top and the ultimate decision maker when your future advancement is involved. Sucks that your Director is the type to do such things, but there are many with authority that feel they need to show it off to others. They're all a bunch of Puffed-Up A-holes! Good luck dude!

 

In line, the producer is on top, the production manager next. It's for a tv series in which there were a few different directors depending on the episode, so he's definatly not my boss in any shape or form. He also edits the episodes he directs and as the assistant editor, I have to prepare everything he needs and coordinate the editing process, but I don't take orders from him, my immediate superior is the manager.

So that's why I was glad the manager responded to his e-mail. And many other employees had problems in the past with him, so they don't necessarily take his word for it... which is good!

On the other hand, I took a part-time contract in my free time, but the amount of work is largely superior to what I first thought and most of it is due yesterday, if you get my drift. I'm having a lot of difficulty reaching my deadlines (in fact, I don't have much to show for my efforts). I tried to e-mail and call the producer of that contract to take some workload off me. Hope she won't be mad that she has to find someone to fill in for that. But it's not much better if I'm too busy to get it done... I have tried to call her a couple times today to talk to her about it, but she doesn't answer...

 

Movie Director, sorry, I should of known that. I was thinking at the standard workplace, not when it comes to your line of work. My bad. And good for you!

 

Winter really sucks when you work in a seafood restaurant. I've just had 3 days off. When I go to work tonight I'll be lucky to stay on the line for 2 hours before the boss sends me home. Right now I'm wishing I didn't ask for that promotion outta the dish pit, I'd probably be getting more hours... More hours mean more money... More money means more games...
Damn I can't wait for summer, I'll get more hours than I can shake a stick at...

 

Dish pits suck big time man, nobody can blame you for getting out of one. I work in one too, but it's my second job and I can handle 15-20 hours a week of it without going bonkers.

As for my other job I mostly wash dishes but I also do a lot of other things for the joint including all their freight and help with all their prep work. It's kind of a Mexican grill, but not really...

And I'm likely going to get fired. My phone died so my alarm didn't go off and I missed my shift. Waiting for him to get back to me, but looking for another job already.

---------- Added 3 hours, 27 minutes and 57 seconds later... ----------

Yep. Fired. Only highlight was my boss asking me why I didn't answer when he called me...
"Same reason the alarm didn't go off. The phone was dead."

 

Urgh, got a philosophy essay to write on metaphysics and we've been given a reasonable amount of suggested reading. Unfortunately, that's the good news. Turns out that none of those books were in the library's short loan section, so when someone takes one out, they don't have to return it for at least a month. Funnily enough, the essay deadline is in much less than a month, which leaves me with the problem of finding and reading a whole load more books in order to find something vaguely appropriate. Not impressed with the whole situation right now. At all.

 

The phrase, "Anything that can go wrong with a film shoot, will," is completely true. The costume shop person is no longer available to give us costumes by the time we have our shoot, so we now have to purchase them... so much for no-budget films. And we still don't have all of our actors - one of the two main ones dropped out because of emergency facial reconstructive surgery. Oops. We are (hopefully) auditioning 4 more today, but who knows who will actually show up...

 

When are you gonna learn, Saber. Triactus + green screen = voilà for missing main....

Chicken, the same thing happened to me this morning. My dad's old alarm clock didn't ring and my cellphone alarm didn't either. wtf?? Good thing I'm at my parent's house. My dad woke me 15 mins before I usually leave for work.

 

My dad was a savior when I had to wake up at 5:30 every morning to go out to work back when I lived at home. Of course, he was my ride too and made me 10 minutes late every day, so it was all fair.

I was pretty down about it yesterday since every place I've worked they've loved my effort and most enjoy my sense of humor. However, my manager at this job didn't do any work at all hardly, and did not enjoy my humor. Plus, he didn't like how I commented on his facebook use while he was supposed to be working It looks better though, because I found out I can get my health insurance through my parents again (that job provided benefits) and I was looking for another job anyway.

Hopefully just a couple weeks before I get back on track. In the mean time I should be able to pick up a few hours at my other job. I hope.

My roommate loved that my reaction to being fired was:
"I know it's a terrible idea, but I just want to get drunk and gamble right now."

I didn't.

 

Whiskey at work makes the day better.

 

Here is the (500) Days of Summer project we did... it is okay... we didn't realize when the final project was due, so it was rushed at the end and we didn't get a chance to add in the voiceover, do the ADR, or find sufficient background noise. Which actually works to increase the awkward tension.


Hope you enjoy!

EDIT: Video is up in my thread in the Sensorium instead of here: http://www.sorcerers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=50886

 

Oh, I remember the evenings at my old job, when we were forced to work up to 14 hours on some days - keeping the 'production process' working (doing the planning and preparing data for tomorrow's work by the call centre). The reason was that the boss had spontaneously decided to fire the guy who did that production critical job for daring to point out that the data would only last for so long, calling into question the company philosophy of unlimited growth (the company is bankrupt now) - and we had to take over and learn on the fly. Learning on the fly took some time because our predecessor, gone as he was, couldn't fill us in any more. The old boss then complained that with so many hours we were just being too expensive. At that time we usually finished the work day that had started at 7 am with a decent single malt at 9 pm in the evening. It lifted our spirits, and was a gesture of defiance and as such a major morale boost.

We found out our predecessor was right, which didn't endear us with the boss and his henchmen, and soonishly should lead me to a new job.

The old company also had Friday meetings for all organisational staff side where it was expected from us to drink (the cheapest Lidl) proseco to celebrate this weeks successes (more often than not Orwellian fictions). My then superior was an awesome lady (great boss), and she deviously kept her team's glasses full. Evil stuff, but after a glass it started to go down better. We're speaking of half-pints. Once the meetings were over that were funny Friday afternoons.

The only really positive thing to say about the company is in retrospect that tyrannical moron bosses glue together staff. I had some great colleagues there. And I haven't encountered as dark and cynical a gallows humour ever since. Which is probably a good thing.

Had a looong day today as well, without whiskey though, and I am quite tired.

I've earned my beer now