I had a job interview. I aced the job interview! They liked me best, I had the best presentation, I had the best personality, I had the best fit, and they were sure I was capable. But they picked the other candidate because that candidate’s last job was almost an exact match to the job we were both interviewing for.
This happens…all the time. Well, the other thing that happens is I’m “overqualified”.
I just remember the day I took my current job and I had a severe bout of anxiety. “Is this really what I want to do? I want to be in print or publishing. Will this job hold me back? It’s not in line with that career path. It’s large format…but I need the money”
Well, lo and behold it turns out, yes, my current job IS the thing that is holding me back. I HAVE fucked my career up by taking this job, because it’s literally the only thing anybody points to when someone else gets picked. But I’m still pissed that these companies act like design is split up into all these little boxes and that large format people have no idea how to design for anything else, or vice versa. Bullshit. BULLSHIT. Especially when I have examples of postcards, mailers, brochures, etc right here showing that I can do it. A margin is a margin and white space is white space.
I’m just mad because I’m back at my shitty job fielding client calls from chucklefucks who think it’s super difficult to understand or explain “Let’s use grey instead of white” when the place I interviewed at had actual structure where salespeople talked to the clients and the designers were left to design.
Once laptop has arrived but not before (apparently, before we don’t know the ergonomics of the situation or something), order screen through another tool.
Laptop has only an HDMI.
Screen has VGA and two other things that nobody here recognized. According to Uncle Google, one is older than VGA and the other one is newer. It also has an USB but it can’t use it to connect to the laptop.
HDMI-to-VGA adapters for my team have been purchased and the invoice will be expensed. The other team in the same room had to do the same. Ordering the adapters would have meant another month of waiting for them.
We’re an IT company. Can we get purchasers who, dunnow, know anything about computer specs? Or, even better, who talk to each other? Or email each other, if they hate talking…
Today is the day our corporate IT group pushes updates to everyone’s computers.
Rant #1: the download and update process seems to have top priority, reducing everything to a crawl. Is it really that important that it can’t run as a background process?
Rant #2: once the updates have been installed and the computer needs to be restarted, a message pops up telling you that it will restart automatically or you can restart now. No way to cancel or postpone the restart. Doesn’t matter if you are in the middle of something, shutting down now! And then it takes 15-20 minutes for all the updates to complete and you can get back to work.
After the last major computer upgrade at work, it took corporate IT a month to get the AutoCAD license on my computer sorted out. >.< I use that program so often that I’ve fully customized the interface…and I was stuck using the trial version while IT “took care of things”. Now the little fan on my graphics card is practically worn out, and I’m sure the hard drive isn’t appreciating the frequent power outages we’ve been experiencing over the last week…I’m dreading the next round of hardware upgrades.
The builder and my boss and my territory manager from the casework company I want to use (Midmark - this stuff) finally had a conference call so my TM could explain - in small words - to the builder why his medical grade steel casework is better than the builder’s laminate. And everyone finally understands!! And they’re going ahead with the casework I want!! WHOOOHOOOOO!!!
I’m on a small team responsible for the maintenance and publication of data processing documentation for an entire global industry. It was first written over a decade ago so no changes to format or approach are now allowed. For example, a coworker commented once that it’s not symbolic logic, it’s English and full of connotations and assumptions so it’s very difficult to work on. I slept on it and then replied back to him: “We’re describing data processing. It SHOULD be symbolic logic, not prose!” “Ohh, they’ll never let us do that!” says he.
And he’s right, sadly.
It’s also written by committee. I was recently asked to add some examples to one of the sections. I did (spending two weeks writing them) and the reviewers shuddered and moaned and called a halt to the review meeting, telling me to just make a list of all possible permutations of the data elements in question. Send the list around to see if anyone has any to add and after that, then take another crack at writing them. So I drafted a list of all permutations I could think of and sent it around. And waited. And waited. (And reminded them a few times between waits.) Finally I asked point blank, “Um, WTH?” and was told to just go ahead and write all the examples in the list I made.
So I did (a few more weeks) and sent it out for review. No responses. We had a formal meeting yesterday to review it and it was immediately obvious that nobody had read my work. Even worse, we only got to example 2 before the debate started. I had written it completely wrong and clearly had no understanding of the processing. “Just use the existing examples as a model (implication: it’s not that hard, dummy)”.
I told them that I had started that way, weeks ago before the FIRST effing review meeting where they told me I’d done it all wrong. But I struggle because the wording of the existing examples make no sense to me. The person who originally wrote it made all kinds of leaps of logic and hidden assumptions that I as a new person just don’t pick up on. There was a comment to start very simple and just copy an old example and modify it, then I reminded them that I HAD done that the first review-go-round. There was a moment of silence and then shrugs. Then they got into debate again about the simplest way to describe the example scenarios. They can’t even agree amongst themselves. Finally, we agreed to have two of the experienced guys work with me on writing the examples and then re-submit it for yet a third review.
It was a horrible, brutal meeting that accomplished nothing. Today, two of the people who were participating in that meeting apologized to me. One said they sometimes behave badly. The other one said I was doing a good job, shouldn’t take it personally and that they get carried away. I appreciate that they didn’t have malicious intent, but I still think it’s intensely frustrating that they wasted so much of my time and effort because they got “carried away”.
One of the fluorescent bulbs in my half of the office – one directly over my desk, in fact – appears to be dying. It was flickering and pulsating so spastically this morning that I ended up wearing sunglasses to cut the glare. I’ve submitted the issue to the guy in charge of building maintenance…of course, the light panel directly in front of my supervisor’s office has been burned out for over a month, so things aren’t looking very hopeful.
Just take the bulb out. With a computer on every desk these days, I can’t figure out why most offices still insist on being lit like an operating room.
I don’t think anyone else at my work has a life outside of their job. I know some of the people here have children and I’m sure a few are married, but it can be 5:30 and I already told my carpool to leave me and people are about to start another chunck of a project.
If I say I need to go to catch the bus they’re like “So you can do that at home?” I’m not getting payed enough to work 50 hours during the week plus another 10 over the weekend! You might be, or may enjoy it, but I prefer my family over work.
I don’t find the blue light from monitors to be comfortable. I’m in a windowless office, so no natural light. I need a warm, bright-ish desk lamp to make my eyes and brain happy, in addition to two overhead fluorescent bulbs. If one of those fluorescents went out, I would feel like I was sitting in the dark. On top of that, I do have work with pen and paper at times, and a monitor is entirely insufficient light for that, as is just the fluorescents since in my office, the overheads cast a shadow from my hand exactly over where I’m writing. So I need the bright desk lamp for that. Someone working in a larger shared space might have less shadow casting if there are multiple overheads casting from different directions, and not need a desk lamp - unless an overhead goes out.
That would involve either standing on the desk or obtaining a ladder, neither of which is an option for me – desk standing would get me called out in the next safety meeting, and I can’t use a ladder because I haven’t been formally trained to use it (yes, really).
Although I’m thinking that I could get up there during lunch one day next week, remove the bulb, perch it in an unused corner, and claim ignorance when the bulb’s absence is noted.
One of my problems with authority is, if there is something which needs doing and the boss is supposed to do it and he isn’t doing it, I’ll go and do it. If he’s available I’ll inform him beforehand; if he’s not and it needs doing now he’ll be greeted with the report that it was done.
My coworkers do not have that problem. Some guy they evidently don’t know who it is ordered one of them to fix something which the boss hasn’t done yet (boss is on vacation); 48 hours later, the guy who got the order replied “that is boss’s to do”.
The guy giving the order is our grandboss. I’m wondering if I should bring popcorn.
