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more job blues, review blues and ruby on rails
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So for those of you who tuned in for my first job rant, wetting your pants in anticipation for part 2, well here it is:
First of my chest.
Today I was adding a selection of ‘rifle scope covers’ to our website and what a pain in the arse that was! There are hundreds of them and I kept associating the wrong sizes to the wrong product codes, though I suppose it must be patently obvious to any rifle freaks out there, that the smallest size of rifle scope cover is Size 2, followed by 3A then 1 then 3 then 5 then 7 then 9 then 9A then 10 and so on and so forth...what bright spark came up with that convention!?
Anyway, before that, 2 weeks ago tomorrow in fact, my boss gave me the ultimatum to create an advert for a newspaper, at 2:15 he casually told me the deadline was 4pm. The usual guy was on holiday so I had less than 2 hours to shift my ass from the comfort of my pc to the daunting mac on the next desk. Bear in mind I hadn’t touched a mac since the G4 came out, getting used to all the little differences was infuriating and trying to remember how to “right-click” with a mac…was the Apple key..or was it Alt…with the rest of the office (who all use macs) looking at me like I’m a moron because I didn’t know that mac’s now had 2 buttons! “You press the right mouse button like you do with a PC" sure, underneath the button-less mouse it did appear that there was 2 mouse buttons. When did that happen? (That was always one of my major mac gripes). Luckily there was a previous template that could be amended and so I got the ad away just in time, though I’m thinking that the deadline wasn’t really 4pm after all. Still, seeing my small ad in the following day’s newspaper did fill me with a certain sense of pride and I stared at it for a good 5 minutes on the train home. Sad.
I also just received my contract last week. So for those of you who thought they wanted rid of me – guess again! Why do they want me though? I’m still hardly doing any graphic design work, and don’t really have that much work to do…apart from when staff are on holiday of course!
So in the contract immediately I see they’ve got details incorrect, and I’ve just found out that I’m receiving the wrong rate of pay! After having a word with the store manager he told me I was indeed getting screwed and told me he would resolve the issue, but I get paid weekly and I’m still getting the same rate.
Moving on, I hadn’t really mentioned my colleagues before – they’re rather introverted and geeky. They look at you like you’re an alien if you say hello or good morning to them. They rarely leave their desks and lunch consists of pot noodles in front of the computers.
A typical day consists of “Remember Zantan 4000? It used to be after Xena on the Sci-fi channel.” “God, yeah, I gave up watching after the fourth series – that’s when it became just ridiculous”
The simpsons also gets quoted on a daily basis, don’t get me wrong I like the simpsons too, but my memory for quotes stretches as far as “d’oh,” “hidely-ho neighbour” and “ha-ha.” One of the guys claims to have memorised a full episode.
Some of the debates they have are quite funny though, like the time they debated whether or not Link from the Zelda computer games was right or left handed, they concluded that in the latest game on the Wii he has switched sides!
I don’t engage in conversation too often and when referring to me they rarely call me by name but instead say "he" and "him" while pointing in my general direction!
The IT manager is ok to get along with, but can be a bit arrogant at times. It comes with the job I guess. One day I inspired him to update a faulty part of the system, he passed on the idea to another member of staff saying “ I thought of an idea, well…unfortunately it's not mine, HE gave me the idea” while pointing again.
A faster PC was ordered for the office. I got it. He gave me a large widescreen monitor to replace the older one. Telling me the computer had DVI. “whats DVI?” To me it sounded like computer venereal disease, his reply “Have you lived under a rock for the last 10 years???” and only seconds later he hands me a USB cable saying “Here's the USB cable for your monitor”, “Huh, I need a usb cable?”
“No offence but have you ever used a computer in your life?!
Of course it was for the USB hub – though I did have a monitor with USB ports in my last job and no USB cable was required.
Other downsides to the job? There’s someone downstairs who keeps playing the same 4 songs from a certain local band in a row every day, sometimes twice in fact and on one occasion 3 times. It’s mental torture at best, even I couldn’t stand to listen to songs I loved that often, much less force them on other people.
There’s also some Rangers football supporters downstairs. Tina Turner’s “Simply the best” can be heard regularly at Ranger’s football matches and it has become something of an anthem here too – probably just to wind up the rival Celtic fans that happen to work alongside.
We also have an office porn hound who let me experience the joys of his “vibrating mobile phone clip” and who can forget the infamous “shooting gallery?”
Downstairs we have a poor guy who’s working away every morning when I arrive and still working away every night when I leave, apparently he works 12 hours per day just to make the same amount of money he made in his last 8 hours per day job!
Then we have the hairbrain idea guy. Who has had numerous plans to start up his own company, never mind about the company it’s his logo that interest’s me – an eagle carrying a giant sausage in its talons.
Anyway, on to the website. We finally got a quote back from the company my boss was in discussions with regarding re-designing the website.
They charge £75 per hour!!!
The final “estimate” falls just short of £20,000!!!
They plan on implementing a ruby on rails based CMS that they have so far only used on 1other site before – how they can justify that fee, I’m not sure.
So a question for the web geeks, before I rush in and agree to take the work from under their feet - how easy is ruby to learn?
Today I installed it and tomorrow I’ll go through the usual “hello world” routine.
This blog is almost at a conclusion, but 1 last thing before I go, at the end of April, the day after my birthday party (unfortunately the only suitable date I could get) I was horribly hung over and played a gig for the album launch of a 7” vinyl compilation in which I appeared alongside 11 other artists, with each track being at most 1 minute long! This was the first time I had ever been on vinyl but unfortunately, the vinyl wasn’t back from the pressing plant in time, d’oh, anyway, I’m not going to write about it again, basically it was a disaster and you can read about it here: link
As well as never appearing on vinyl before I had also never (to the best of my knowledge) been reviewed (for a live show), but guess what? I found out that my worst gig ever was reviewed at least twice:
link
and
link
Neither review mentioned the fact that I apologised to the audience, something I would’ve thought was worthy of mention. I mean it ain’t everyday you see that, is it? Anyway, neither are actually that bad – considering how mind and soul crushingly shit it was!
Till next time,
Adios.
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06/27/07
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mlbot
so... you are staying at this job just cuz its such great blog fodder, right?
06/27/07
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mlbot
... or do you secretly love the 50% discount you get on hunting and survivalist gear?
06/27/07
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Moriarty
well, as they say, just remember there is always someone worse off than you...
...like the poor guy working downstairs 12 hours a day.
I'm trying to imagine what company would require an eagle carrying a giant sausage in its talons for a logo. lol!
06/27/07
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daswesen
United Survivalist Hotdogs
06/27/07
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Unknownforce
alas mlbot, the discount on duck calls, pigeon shells and ferret finders is a little closer to 10% than 50.
I am actually tempted to buy a duck call for the next spcial brew gig - or how about the call of a dying rabbit instead?
06/27/07
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Hikikomori
last night from glasgow is the most horrid thing i have encountered.do not read it,the man is a parrasite.
what is dvi,my macbook has it for video out but i cant find it in any shops,actually the macboo kis mini dvi.
06/27/07
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Unknownforce
DVI as it turns out stands for Digital Visual Interface
It's just an alternative/replacement to VGA.
link
06/27/07
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jdg
can i get the crib notes versoin?
06/27/07
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astroid
dude its worth the read
06/27/07
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mlbot
cliff notes version for jdg:
UF got a crappy job at a sporting goods store so that he could get a discount on "Ferret Finders".
The rest is NSFW
06/28/07
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stringedthry
wow. a blog that was as thoroughly engaging and enjoyable to read as it was long. keep 'em coming.
i'd suggest looking for something new but keeping the current job until you have another offer on the table. pull an office space - work just hard enough to not get fired until you get out of there. it doesn't look like they'd appreciate you busting your ass anyway.
06/28/07
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Unknownforce
mlsnot said: "cliff notes version for jdg:
UF got a crappy job at a sporting goods store so that he could get a discount on "Ferret Finders".
The rest is NSFW"
LoLz! 
06/28/07
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crabster
Hey, sounds like it's looking up at least.
Am I a jerk for laughing/coughing up tea (sausage in talons, calling Dr. Freud!) while reading?
06/28/07
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bbwax
new equipment means they love you. just keep learning new shit and you'll be all right.
this is the funniest blog i've read in quite a while. you've got a sharp eye for human observation and a nice writing style. good stuff.
i think some of those office nerds have cloned themselves. i swear i've worked with them before. 95% of the conversation in my office is about tv shows. wtf? do people actually go outside anymore?
06/28/07
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bbwax
about ruby on rails... cbit and mixedtape both told me i should learn it. i think it's supposed to be easier to learn and better to work with than php. i've got to learn php first for my job though.
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