Teh Journal!

1 year ago today..

2009-06-18T15:05:36Z

June 18th of last year, I was embarking on my second trip across the country for an event. Not only was it the second trip across the country, it was the second trip I had been on period. The first being to Vegas a month or so before. So, today last year, I was hopping a plane to fly to LA. If I remember correctly, I had a connecting flight in Chicago, but, neither here nor there I suppose. It was a scary thing.. the first trip I had been with 5 other people, and with this trip there were only 3 of us. The one benefit, as I remember, was that the other 2 people were already there and had taken care of most of the initial work. It was my job, once I got there, to help with presentation setup and then to work the actual presentations when the time came.

The problem, as I remember it, was that I had never actually RUN a presentation before. The first event that I went on, my "training event" as they liked to call it, was mostly automated. All we had to do was copy a presentation over to a computer and the presenter started it. It ran itself. We weren't even in the room with them when it was happening. This event.. was quite different. I got a chance to actually see what running a large conference (the nuts and bolts, not really the planning) was all about. I got to see the sound guys do their thing, the video guys do their thing, and I got to finally see how to do MY thing. It was.. hectic, it was frightening, it was completely amazing. The first show that I actually "ran" was.. insane. The actual event coordinator hadn't worked out a system yet for the presenter to key slide changes, so I was pretty much watching for hand/eye signals to alternate slides. All in all, that went off without a hitch. If I remember right, I did.. at least 3 more of those that day. It was a crazy experience, as the two other people that were there with me couldn't really help at all.. one had to man a registration booth we'd set up, and the other was running shows on the opposite end of the hall.

The entire trip/experience was something else.. the amount of overtime I pulled in that week, with travel and everything included, was immense. And it certainly wouldn't be the last time I ended up with lots of overtime due to traveling and running shows. Though, in the end, it wasn't meant to continue much past 6 months of starting here. That show was one of the biggest that I was a part of, aside from the one that I helped with in Chicago.. that one doesn't necessarily count, though, because I wasn't running anything.. none of us that were in Chicago actually were, it was all run from a data center here in Youngstown, we were there to relay and facilitate mostly.

So, June 18th of this year.. I'm sitting at my desk, looking at spreadsheets and trying to test a software product that seems to get worse with each new build we get. I'm sitting at my desk, doing four times more work than I'm being compensated for. I'm letting the stress of trying to fix a broken system tear my up inside, and it's not a happy thing. I remember a year ago.. so excited about these trips, about the chance to do something new and see things I'd not seen before. That was fun. This is not.

Ah well.. leaving a position for new things (whether by choice or necessity) is something that happens. I'm making the best of what I have to do here now.. and I just keep hoping, most likely too optimistically, that it will all work out for the best if I just keep working at it. I guess we'll see.

A jumbled mess of thoughts and yarn..

2009-03-10T17:35:02Z

Sooooooo many things to say, sooooooo many ways to say each and every one of them. So many ways I'm probly not going to say any of them, at least, to people who don't already know.

It's not that I'm trying to be cryptic. That's more just a byproduct then anything. No.. this is more of an entry to remind myself that there ARE so many things to say, and that there ARE so many ways to say each and every one of those things. It's a problem I have sometimes, the ability to sort out the scrambled mess in my brain. Even now I sit here, realizing I still don't fully understand a lot of the things that I'm thinking or feeling. I don't know that I ever will.

I will say this. I don't extremely dislike where I am working right now. I don't even extremely dislike the job that I'm doing. But the manner in which it's currently working, and the way in which things around me are happening.. I'm certainly not happy with it. There's nothing I can do about it, and that bothers me a lot too. It's not exactly easy to find job alternatives right now.. hell, it wasn't easy a few years ago when I tried and that was before everything started falling apart. I know, I should be happy that I still have a job. I am, on a certain level. It's certainly better then not having any income. Is it enough, though? That's got to be the one thing that bothered me more than anything else during our last company meeting. We were told that our profit sharing was a thing of the past, most likely to never return, all the while being told that the company is now doing fine and just needs to make the bottom line look better by keeping more money from us. I can't remember the exact things that were said, or the exact points that were touched, but myself and a few others came out of there with a fairly clear message. "Be happy you all still have jobs. By the way, we need you all to work even harder to keep those jobs, doing the work of 2-3 others in the process because we fired them. By the by, no pay increase for that. Yea.".

That part is just me bitching to bitch, really. There have been good things, too. Both at work and out of work. Maybe some day I'll have the guts and the presence of mind to actually write about it. The more I think about some of the things that have happened recently, the harder it is to write about any of it. I give up for now.

[Edit] An addendum, however. I am an idiot. I really, really am.

49

2009-01-16T14:30:00Z

Deathcharger's Reins

That is all.

Also..

2009-01-14T21:56:28Z

Sad news.

Also, to prove that I should be declared insane

2009-01-14T21:29:54Z

In a further quest to alienate those that I love, I am still attempting to slowly gather all the mounts that I can realisitically acquire in game. These include the Baron's mount, which will drop for me any day now, the 2 ZG mounts, and the 5 skyguard mounts. I'm very close to the skyguard rep, I'll have that soon. I've got the Gnome mounts in the bag (funny!) as soon as the patch rolls around. I got the white chocobo last week, to which I'm still extremely happy about. I may persue the 5 PvP mounts, but damn, that's a LOT of BG marks. The blue protodragon has eluded me thusfar, as Skadi is a bitch. The timelost proto drake is most likely not to be, as I'm seriously not going to fly around stormpeaks all the time looking for it. I've got an egg in my bank that may or may not hatch into a green protodrake, most likely it'll be a tickbird or useless yolk. I has the red drake from Wyrmrest, and I has the bronze drake from NEWSTRAT. There is, however, another mount that I had been.. and still am.. hesitant to go after, because I REALLY hate stupid quest related rep grinds.

Proof, though, that I should be declared insane, even with the increased rep gains.

Blah..

2009-01-14T20:52:15Z

Life continues.. post layoff of 20+% of the company, things are still trudging along. We're still dealing with the same issues as before, would be my guess, but now with a smaller staff. I can't argue with some of the choices, honestly I was susprised that some of these people were working here for as long as they did. Some of the others, though, it's kind of sad to see it all coming down to numbers.

I like this place. As mind numbing and tedious as it can be sometimes, it's generally full of good people working for a decent product/service that can be a genuine benefit to the people it's marketed towards. I sincerely hope that the COO wasn't just bullshitting when he told us all that they had finished doing what needed to be done, and that we shouldn't worry about the rest of our jobs for the forseeable future. If this place falls through, if something happens, I truely believe that I would be up the proverbial creek without the proverbial paddle.

I'm generally tired lately, as I usually am towards the beginning of a new year. Seems to also be a trend around the beginning of the year, I get pretty depressive and angsty. About pretty much everything, too.. so.. I can't really narrow down and say it's one thing over another. I find myself getting very, very angry at things that I shouldn't let bother me to begin with. I take personal insult at things that aren't really even directed at me. It's a very rattling thing, to have yourself so.. on guard all the time, jumping at shadows, against the wall as it were. It's rattling, and it's very very draining. I don't like it, but I'm honestly not sure that there's anything I can do about it, short of waiting it out and doing my best to not let it impact every facet of my life.. anymore then it already has, anyway.

Regardless of that, I'm still angsty about yesterday and probly will be for a while, this time of year aside. Maybe it's my problem, maybe it's not, I don't really know. I'm trying to hardest to not put anymore thought into it then I already have today. It's sad that I'm 29 years old and still using the word "angsty" to describe myself, but it seems to be the best qualifier I can come up with at times like these.

New friends are good, enjoying time with old friends and new friends is happy. Sunshine on a cloudy day, as it were. Of course, it's not cloudy here so much as snowy. Drifty. Coldy. Yea.

Gah..

2009-01-07T20:37:43Z

I knew it was coming, as I was more or less warned to expect bad things before I left work Monday night. Fortunately for my sanity, I was also told Monday night that I personally didn't have to worry. This came as little comfort, though, as around 10am today they started calling people into conference rooms and letting them know that their services would no longer be required.

Now.. some of you will see this and say.. "So what? 31 people doesn't seem so bad". Well.. it is bad. As the article said, they'd hired around 50 new people last year.. bringing the total employed by the company to a little under 200. When you let go 31 people out of a base of less then 200, well, it hits a lot harder. Especially when some of those people are in the same department that you were in only a short time ago. I've been sitting here at my desk all day, doing my QA thing, but kind of stunned in the back of my mind. Granted.. it's not like the company is going under. They didn't let these people go becuase they're in the hole or anything, they let them go because they didn't make as much last year as they thought they would. So, the company will definitely still be here tomorrow.. but it does start to bring a shadow of doubt on everything. Living where I do, my choice in employers is pretty damn small.. if something dire were to happen, there aren't many places left to flee to that I haven't tried already.

Yes, I still have my job. But the worry is there, the fear is there, and the lingering doubts in the back of my mind still won't keep themselves quiet.

I'm also fairly certain I'm not going to be seeing any kind of raise anytime soon, even though I'm doing easily five times the amount of work I was as a CS at the same pay rate. Saving the company money is great, ensuring employment is great, but work to pay ratio is also kind of important.

Halloween fun

2008-10-31T13:05:50Z

So, today is obviously Halloween. Bunch of people at work dressed up.. some pretty elaborately, like the guy behind me dressed up as the Hulk. Good times.

I, on the other hand, am rather lazy and broke, so I mostly pretended to dress up.

Maybe next year I'll go as Tirion Fordring as a counterbalance.

Save the psychopath, save the world?

2008-10-28T13:10:36Z

So, I was watching Heroes last night whilst playing WoW.. cause I'm pretty leet like that.. and I have to say.. I'm very, very confused.

I'm not confused as far as the plot.. I understand exactly what's going on, and could probly guess with reasonable certainty how this season is going to play out. That's what gets me, though. The first season of the show, I'll admit, I didn't watch until the second season had already started. But when I watched it, I was enamored.. stunning characters, vividly drawn and detailed. The universe in which these people lived and struggled wasn't so far removed from our own.. it wasn't anything special, but it was real.. and that was cool. The plot.. sometimes it seemed like it was there, sometimes it seemed like it wasn't.. but then BAM, something hit you from left field and left you kind of wondering exactly what they'd do next.

Well, that was season 1. Season 2 was just.. well, it wasn't that. Season 3 had me going for the first couple of episodes, it really, really did. But then.. everything became just a little too predictable. A little too anti-climactic. A little too blech-y. It's still fun enough to watch, but it doesn't have me glued to the TV the way the first season did. I still KINDA care about what's happening to the characters, but.. not as much as when I wasn't sure if they were going to live or not. There was a moment in last night's episode where I was a little worried, but that faded pretty fast and kind of put an exclamation point on what I'd already been feeling.

Will I still watch it? Yea. Hell, I was 3/4 watching My Own Worst Enemy and I don't even like Christian Slater.

It was good times while it lasted.. I guess I'm just kind of settling for a prime-time drama turned mid-day soap opera now.

...

2008-10-24T21:14:58Z

Riiiiiiiiiight..

Hmm..

2008-10-17T17:09:16Z

More "Trek" images..

I wasn't sure at first, and honestly I'm still not 100% sure, but it certainly does look promising. I'm more then happy to throw sparse memories of TOS out of my mind if this turns out to be decent, I just don't think I can take another "Nemesis" or "Insurrection".

Right then..

2008-10-16T19:33:05Z

So, I did not get the position in the new "Event Specialist" department. I'm not horribly broken up about it, as I said before I wasn't really expecting to in the first place. I'm a tad irritated at the reasoning.. from what the new manager of the department said, I'm a great candidate for the position and show great potential for the job, but they want me to get more experience in the company before they consider it. I would say that's all fine and good, but, if that was the conclusion they were going to come up with (which I've been told is the case since I met with the guy, everyone with less then a year of tenure pretty much had no shot at it) why the hell even bother letting me apply in the first place? I guess by some logic it makes more sense to take in only a couple people from our department and fill the other 8-10 positions with people from sales our outside the company. Why let people who have this down to a science try to branch out and do more with it?

I will laugh a satisfied laugh when the people from sales that they shoehorn into this start calling us for support on events because they can't make a receiver work, or because cards aren't responding.

At any rate, there's not much hope that I'll ever get into that department anyway, as of a couple days ago I've been working here for 6 months. In another 6 months, the department might not even exist anymore, or I might simply have gone somewhere else.. depending on how it all plays out, without events to go on.

There is, potentially, another possibility. There's an opening for someone in the technical writing department, the guys that write our manuals, help documents, and support information. This is something that my boss has actually suggested I look in to.. as he said, he "doesn't want to seem like he wants to kick me out of the department, but he doesn't want to see potential go to waste". I'm mildy interested.. but at the same time apprehensive of it. I LIKE writing.. I like communicating ideas and thoughts to people in that way. I just don't know how well what little writing skill I DO posess would transfer over to documents that people would actually be reading for information.

I'm going to investigate the position.. talk to my boss about it, see what happens. I don't even really know what it pays.. I know for job satisfaction that it shouldn't matter, but, it really does for me. I guess we'll see.

Right on..

2008-10-13T12:43:37Z

I feel like I was run over, thrown across the street, picked up, dusted off, then made to drive in to work for a 7-4 shift.

I'd say that product testing will be interesting today.. but.. it won't. I don't think I'll be able to spot a software bug to save anyone's life today.

Well..

2008-10-01T13:13:23Z

It may be a good decision.. it may well be a poor decision.. but, such is life.

I spoke with my department head today and put in my interest to join the "Event Specialist" team. They're going to hold interviews next week, I'll be on the list.

If worse comes to worse.. I can move back to Customer Service. If worse comes to worse.. I can find a new job. This.. opportunity was something that, after a lot of thought and some talking with Bran, I don't think that I could pass up. Granted, being interviewed != getting position, it's more then likely that I won't even get the job. But if I do.. and I could actually do well in the position.. it would be a radical change in both job experience, as well as income.

I'm nervous.. I'm worried.. but.. I'm also satisfied that no matter what happens with all of this, I took the first step. I didn't just sit back and watch the opportunity coast by.

Now, we play that waiting game.

---

---

---

This game stinks. Let's play Hungry Hungry Hippos.

Ugh..

2008-09-30T12:55:26Z

Well, yesterday wasn't going so bad at all. Work went by pretty quickly, got some other stuff taken care of that needed taken care of.. by the time 4:30 rolled around, I was feeling pretty good about the whole thing. Then, as will happen, my boss called a meeting at 4:50. 10 minutes before 8-5 is supposed to leave for the day. So, we waited in the meeting room.. and waited.. and waited.. and waited.. and at about 5:30 he FINALLY calls us into a different meeting room with his big announcement. Well, thanks to a joint effort by the president of the company and sales, they're forming a new division.. they're not sure what they're going to CALL it yet, but something to the effect of the "Rental Sales/Support Division".

What does that mean? Well, in the short term nothing. In the long term, it means that the entire rental scheme is changing.. it means that one of the big reasons I took this job, one of the most lucrative portions of my position, is essentially going away to another department. They claim that with the rental sales increasing, that we wouldn't be impacted too much.. that we'll still go on some rentals.. but I'm wagering that won't really happen. I'm betting that what DOES happen is that a division that starts with 10 people will grow to 20 in no time, and each of those 20 people will be handling all their own rentals, getting commission off of them, and then going on them.. eliminating the need for us to do any traveling. This then limits people in customer support to sitting at their desks for no more then 40 hours a week, with a base pay, with no bonuses to speak of for travel. This month alone, I've made damn near twice what I make in a normal month due to travel and bonuses. Granted, this isn't an all the time thing.. this month was a busy month. Other months I might only make $500 more then normal.. but that's still $500 that I could use, that we NEED as a household.

Now, my options are pretty much A, B, or C. A is to continue along with my current position. Hope that the rentals don't dry up completely.. hope that the ones that I do get are decent.. hope that my quarterly profit sharing checks are enough to get us along. The problem with option A is that it kinda sucks.. I don't believe that it will give me what I signed up for, a chance to make enough money to finally be ahead instead of behind. Then, there's option B. Option B is to persure the new department.. to put in a bid and see if I can actually become one of these people solely responsible for rentals.. this has it's drawbacks. This would mean that in addition to GOING to these rentals and doing the tech work, I'd be responsible for selling them as well. I'd essentially be sales and tech all in one. This didn't work out so well at CC. However, this IS a slightly different situation and does merit consideration. Another drawback would be the even more spurradic nature of travel. In any given month I could get gone 3 days, or I could be gone 2-3 weeks out of the month. There's absolutely no way of knowing without having everything setup months ahead of time, and that surely wouldn't happen until I was comfortable enough with the position. And, of course, that's all completely dependant on actually getting into the division. They hire internally first, always, but they're picking from ANYONE in the comapny who wants a crack at it, including sales. I sense that people in sales have a leg up on this. That, and they're posting it on Monster as well, so.. the odds of me, or anyone else in customer support, actually getting in to this division seem slim to me. I'm thinking that this meeting yesterday was nothing more then a pleasentry to tell us that things are changing and we'd better like it.

Option C.. option C is to once again start looking for a different job. Obviously, there's a myriad of problems with option C. The same problems that existed LAST time I was looking for another job and found this one. Problem one is that we live in the middle of technology nowhere. Problem two is finding an intro-ish job that pays more then what I'm making now. Problem three is finding somewhere that I can easily commute to from here, which just slim anyway. The problems just keep going and going, really. I LIKE where I'm working now.. I like the people, I like the atmosphere, I like the job that I do. But.. I just feel that with the way they're potentially CHANGING the job I do, it may simply not be what I want or can afford to do anymore.

It WOULD make for an interesting documentary..

2008-09-24T20:39:14Z

http://www.peta.org/mc/NewsItem.asp?id=11993

I.. well.. you know.. there.. yea.

List

2008-09-24T00:42:25Z

Azure Whelpling - http://warcraftpets.com/go.asp?pet=Azure_Whelpling

Dark Whelpling - http://warcraftpets.com/go.asp?pet=Dark_Whelpling

Emerald Whelpling - http://warcraftpets.com/go.asp?pet=Emerald_Whelpling

:)

Good times, good times..

2008-09-15T18:41:28Z

So, I'm in Phoenix.. I've been here since Saturday, after a nice 4 hours delay sitting in the Pittsburgh airport. It's nice here.. the weather is fairly constant, it's a nice dry heat, I've actually opened the little door thing in my room the last couple of nights to let the night air in. If I had wireless in my room, I'd be sitting out on the little patio/deck thing right outside my room with my laptop. Alas, though, I am tethered to a desk.

Everything has been going well so far.. I do hope it continues to do so. A couple more days here and I'm back home late Wednesday. Good times. :)

Well..

2008-08-29T13:15:30Z

I got pretty angsty yesterday.. I went in to work knowing full well that September was going to be a busy month, with 4 different events that I'm scheduled to assist with in various locations. Part of the job, part of why I TOOK the job. The thing is, the last of the 4 was set to be in Minneapolis, and I had to bargain my way back into the event after I had been cut from it. Well, I got cut from it AGAIN yesterday, meaning I don't get to go to Minneapolis at all now. I was angsty. It also meant I was down to 3 events instead of 4.. which was good, because it meant that I wasn't going to be gone as much, but it was also bad because it meant that I wasn't getting the bonus to go along with that trip.

So, I put the angst aside. I still had 3 trips to finish planning for, and being angsty about the loss of a chance to visit with MJ wasn't getting me anywhere. At that point, my boss came over and asked me for a word. He told me about an event that was set to occur 1 day before I was set to arrive in Chicago for an event. I was like.. umm.. that'll be rough. He said he knew, but he chose me to go out of 12 other people (the senior people in the office excluded, cause they couldn't go due to other commitments in other citys for a big event in Chicago, Burmingham, and LA) because he felt that having me there would ensure it was done right without any hiccups. He also said that it would be a first run of many for the presentation they were giving, so I was going to be the one to help "debut" it as it were. It was a big amount of trust to want to send me out there.. kind of made me feel a little better about accepting it, as well as getting shafted out of going to Minneaplois. This brought me right back to 4 events for the month, though slightly more condensed then they were before.

In short.. I'm not thrilled about not going to Minneapolis.. that's really not going to change. I understand, though, that it happens.. and I will get over it. In the here and now, September is still going to be a busy month.. this coming week especially. I took a screenshot of my schedule next week.. I like to call it "Hello overtime".

I know this job isn't an ideal solution.. I know that each time I leave, I leave my family behind for a short time. I leave my obnoxiously cute little son at home to terrorize everyone. I leave my wonderfully odd daughter at home to help soak some of that terrorizing up for her mother. And I leave my wife at home, to care for the two of them and make sure nothing burns down while I'm gone. I know it's hard on them.. Bran especially. But I always remember that they're the reason I'm doing this in the first place.. and that each time I leave, I know that I'll be coming back again, that I'll be coming back home to them without fail. Is it hard? Yes. Will it get easier? I don't know. Will I keep doing it? Yes.. as long or as much as it takes to make sure the people that I love are taken care of to the best of my abilities.

Happy Birthday Re!

2008-08-18T17:48:22Z

Happy birthday, nuchtchas!

Grrrrrrrr..

2008-08-14T19:42:54Z

And.. judging by the flood of new avatars with "!" and some random string of letters and numbers after their name on the beta forums, I would guess that another round of beta invites went out today.

My inbox, and spam folder for that matter, are once again left wanting.

I hate you, Steve.

And Blizzard.

Dot dot dot

2008-08-14T17:41:46Z

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

Like the guy with the evidence of the alien visitation. Got it.

Good times, Good times..

2008-08-14T14:23:26Z

After taking a day to take a deep breath and exhale, I am considering myself officially back from Wisconsin. Granted, I actually got back late Tuesday night, but, I don't think my brain really started working until this morning.

So, all in all, everything was very successful in Madison. It was actually the first of it's kind for the company, with remote responses being taken and then tabulated in a central location. The fact that we pulled it off without a hiccup is a favorable thing for future events of it's type, and also makes us look pretty good to the boss. There were a couple minor issues, but not with our execution, so, I call it a complete and flaming success. The people were very easy to work with, the entire place was buzzing with positive energy (the participants of the event had the day off with pay, so, they were happy) and I got to sit next to the cute show manager the whole time. Can't complain.

I think the biggest thing that got me about it was the flight lag. It was such a hassel to hop planes and have layovers for essentially 2 hours worth of flying, all said and done. Though, on the way back I WAS able to catch 2 earlier flights, getting me home 3 hours earlier then expected. I won't complain too much about that, really. In some ways, though, it was easier flying to LA or Vegas.. nice long flight, no 15 minute walks across terminals in Chicago. At the end of the day, though, I made it home without a problem and got to watch the guild stomp on Mag. That was happy times.

Got my license and registration renewed yesterday.. 5 days after the fact. No harm no foul.. I wasn't pulled over, and airport security didn't seem to actually care that my license was expired, so. Aidan was thrilled to see me yesterday morning. He came to the door of our room, as he does sometimes, cranky and whiney, mumbling.. I opened the door and he looked up all sad and teary, then he saw it was me and smiled, hopped up off of the floor and was like "Hi! You can be home now?". It was probly the most adorable thing I'd seen in ages, honestly.

I've accomplished all the paperwork and rigamaroll post-event this morning, so I'm pretty much just left with waiting for calls so I can assist customers. Good times, good times. Should be a good Kara run tonight, get to use my spanky new ZA shield.. Nightbane can suck it.

Rawr

2008-08-11T18:03:20Z

I am in Wisconsin. It's actually a lot prettier in Madison then I expected, which is a nice surprise. Aside from that, it's chaos. Hopefully it gets better.

...

2008-08-06T13:21:25Z

Yes, Blizzard, I hate your random list generator too. It obviously hates me.