Last night I saw Skinny Puppy's last-ever show. It was emotional. They broke 4th wall during the 2nd encore. Did the "and on keyboards..." thing which, for industrial music, is the equivalent of Marcel Marceau going into a monolog. "In the words of Fakir Musafar, we are gentle people in a vicious world, and we have to take care of each other." They even posed for a group photo with a nearly-sold-out Paramount. It was something else. This morning I paid for Peacock so my family can watch Eurovision.
man, that show looked incredible. glad you were able to be a part of it.
It was really vital because the radio station took me from "I'm going to give you $5k a year in sponsorships" to "I'm gonna sell my DDJ400 and never speak your fucking names again" in the space of four hours on Friday. I wrote a long "what the fuck" email to someone I trust on Monday, got a "fuck off and die then" response and yesterday, called and had two half-hour conversations around "you can't make someone not suck by telling them they suck". Ultimately I must work at the pace of those people bent and broken enough to occupy the center of the Venn diagram of "government employees" "teachers" and "broadcasters." It is a witches' brew of Pareto-Principle underachievement and lethargy and holy fuck it bugs. But all that had been resolved to "we don't hate you we hate everybody" and "when you tell me three times I'm holding you up I will possibly think about not doing that at some point in the future" to the point where I was actually enjoying being a radio DJ again. Seeing fuckin' 2300 rivetheads together in a room was sumpin' else.
I've succesfully gone through the stages of grief around my current job and have moved on to active job hunting. The way my brain works, is that I am now legitimately spending every fleeting moment and thought on the problem of what I want my next step to be. Reaching out to friends / ex-colleagues / work acquaintances and thinking out loud helps a lot, but it also spurs more thinking and reflecting and pondering. Meanwhile, I've lost any and all motivation to work. I knew I need that inner motivation to work, but I didn't know I needed it this much. I now realise I've been lucky for always having had some kind of motivation for the past decade, so it is jarring to have absolutely none of it and to feel so adrift. Fortunately I really don't have a lot on my plate at work. I can just do a bit of quiet quitting and I doubt anybody will notice or care. Especially since my conversation with HR last week went like "yeah, you're one of our high performers, so we get it if you want to leave. We'd love to keep you ofc but it's best if you just take your time to figure things out".
wow. That was extraordinarily frank of HR. "We don't see this situation getting any better? And it's unlikely this organization will ever truly utilize your talents again." By way of comparison the last jobbyjob I had hired a consultant to follow me around for a week to figure out how to do my job cheaper. When they couldn't, they just decided to see what broke by firing me. It cost them $23m. I don't want to be a downer on this but if this person is telling you "things aren't likely to get better" they are probably planning their own exit, and their replacement will likely be utterly without loyalty. They'll look at what you cost, they'll look at what they need, and they'll recognize they can get a gold star for the quarter by remaindering your ass. So definitely figure things out, definitely give it the time it deserves, but also keep in the back of your mind the reality that your situation is not as stable as it appears.
It was unusually frank, and I did get a strong “I’m leaving too” vibe. I think our corporate overlords haven’t quite gotten that so many of us are thinking of leaving, so for me the most unstable part is that I have no idea what they’ll do once they do realize it. Although - the move to reorganize might be initiated by someone high up the chain deciding it was a mistake to acquire us, so perhaps they dgaf. There’s an all hands update on this early next week, so I’m very curious what the message will be then.
The minute an organization is big enough to start thinking quarter-to-quarter, they cease to be able to contemplate anything further than two quarters out. Your worry is not someone thinking about remaindering the company they acquired two years previously, your worry is some MBA with a hard-on knowing he's more likely to get an end-of-year bonus if he can juice the numbers. PlayNetwork didn't intend to lose $23m. They just lacked the planning horizon to go 'what happens when we lack the institutional expertise to support a system more complicated than a clock radio." Especially as their modus operandi was to let Sales promise the moon for functionality, give the systems away for nearly free and then book the recurrent monthly revenue out past the heat death of the universe. When there's only one guy on staff who can turn a $70 DVD player into an $1800 DVD player through judicious application of $190 relay modules and $30 thermostats, and when you have 2200 restaurants expecting $1800 DVD player performance, that sweet, sweet $100k/mo RMR goes away when you have to spend $6m fixing the systems your troglodytes spec'd. But the guys who decided to let me go didn't even bother to look up whether or not we'd sold Jack in the Box a $4500 AV system for $700, let alone investigate the shenanigans necessary to fake it, so out the door I went.
Help me out, everyone. Where do you go looking for employees in this day and age? I've recently started a small biotech firm, and I'm thinking of hiring a tech. I have the money, and don't have the time to do all the work on my own. But I can't use LinkedIn, because my firm is still kept secret from my "real" job. I was thinking of calling the local universities and just asking some profs I know if they have any recent grads with biology research experience looking for an entry level position? Reasonable? No bad ideas here.
Get an employer account on Indeed, browse resumes that match what you're looking for, and invite them to apply. Do not bother posting the position publicly. You will gain exactly nothing by letting looky-loos waste your time. Do not ask "some profs" because academia, universally, has a batshit insane understanding of the labor market. They will go "looks like people were paying $18 an hour for this position before the pandemic, are now paying $25 an hour, but I keep hearing people aren't happy so it should be $35, and my students are better than anyone else's so they're worth $45, so I'll tell them not to accept less than $50 an hour because they'll likely settle for $48 that way and think of me fondly." Any resume or recommendation you get from academia, therefore, will be mortally offended that you are offering them half what they're worth by proffering the going rate. "Academia" decided that my wife should give up $250/hr clinical appointments in order to teach $150k/yr grad students a 3-hour drive away for $14 an hour because since she hadn't published in two years she obviously wasn't worth that much. They were vociferously, vocally offended when she turned them down. Online hiring has become like online dating - of the 10% who feign interest, half of a percent are actually interested and they're really only doing it to reset their internal value meter. Over our last hiring cycle we looked at 250 resumes, invited 15 interviews, had 8 people show up, offered the job to 4 people, were accepted by 3, and ghosted by all three within days. Our total cost was over $6k. The only way you can accomplish anything is by doing your own headhunting (since all the hiring sites are full of companies scraping the listings, scraping LInkedIn, collating the data, sending out invites and charging a percentage). We have taken to throwing elbows at the local school and reminding the administration that their students probably want to be able to earn back some of the $300k in debt they're accruing by actually working for a living, and the reason they've gone from 200 applications to 13 applications to 30 applications in the space of three years is because we decided the industry couldn't function without new midwives and painstakingly explained to them that the fact that there weren't any was entirely their fault. We also now proctor exams so that we can see first-hand who is available because the students held out as exemplars of achievement by the school tend to be vainglorious attention whores who hashtag them a lot on social media. I cannot emphasize enough what an adversarial dumpster fire hiring has become, and whatever impression you have gotten of my contempt of the academic establishment is orders of magnitude less than I actually feel. I have deep and painful personal experience with three different local colleges in five utterly disconnected industries, all of which have departments either mid- or post-collapse because of the utter disregard of the necessity of industry applicability to their curriculum. I have stood before a provost and an industry advisory board, given them the rise and run of their entangled fuckitude, been scornfully disregarded and seen the provost fired and the program dissolved. Academia has many of the same problems as the Republican Party - they're entirely banking on the whims of a bunch of disinterested boomers and letting a generation bypass them entirely. A good friend has been sweating bullets for six months over the prospect of getting his daughter into the dental hygiene school at a wrong-side-of-the-mountains community college. She has a 4.0 from one of the best school districts in the state and is a nationally-ranked gymnast. The dental hygienist program now turns away 90% of applicants because it is one of the very few academic programs in the state with a reasonable pipeline to employment. All else is vainglorious bullshit. Meanwhile unemployment is at an all-time low. Employers have half-empty office buildings and their hiring pool is made up entirely of people who need to be convinced to apply for a job and then constantly kept happy lest they do it again. It's ultimately going to be great for the country but right now, employers are at "the beatings will continue until morale improves", the employees are at "take this job and shove it" and academia is at "why doesn't anyone want to spend $300k getting a job that pays $45k a year it must be because we aren't inspiring them enough."
Thanks. I'm glad I asked, because it never would have crossed my mind to check Indeed. I'm hopeful there's a med school hopeful out there who would view this job as a big time resume padder. Beats the shit out of academic research, because you actually have to care about the end product.
Yeah and I mean, don't advertise the position as temporary? But when you find anybody, don't play the "where do you see yourself in ten years" game. If what you have is a skilled but non-inspiring position, expect to hang onto them until they have greener pastures. We tell our prospective clients that we don't expect them to be with us forever, that we sincerely hope they'll leave with more skills and knowledge than they came with, that they'll give us at least a month's notice when they find something better and that they'll say nice things about us when they leave.
Flying home on Saturday! I’m counting the days now, miss my friends and lover and home and I’m running out of money. I’m hoping this trip will have a lasting impact on my resilience - the ability to persevere through discomfort. It’s not quite the same as waking up at 6am to bike 10h but applying for jobs is going to be an uncomfortable grind I’m gearing for. It’s good to be at the point where I’m tired of walking around exploring sights. Now I’m aching to work and be productive making things and projects.
I've been interviewing candidates for a position that's been vacant for a month. The person who left, reported to me, but she had been in the department since before I was born - so I let her do her thing, she'd forgotten more than I'd likely ever learn and she did stellar work. Lots of really good candidates. I have a very informal interview style, I want to see them, not the interview version of them. So we talk, let things happen organically. I learn about them, answer anything they want to know about the role. After about 40 minutes, we're done and they're excited to talk more. I discuss with the team, then make an offer the same week. Four people so far, all had offers, all have said "Sorry, that's actually a pay cut for me. Can we negotiate the salary?" Unfortunately, I already did. I negotiated with my bosses to put the offer at the top of the range, and it's still a paycut. I have no other method, nothing else to offer them. We just simply don't pay well enough. The plus side of having the salary ranges publicly available is that I get to be very honest when talking about it with my team. They know what I'm on, they know what they're on. They know what a promotion would entail and they know what they could get elsewhere. Honestly I'm surprised we're only down like 6 staff given there are many opportunities floating about at the moment. The most recent candidate moved here from Scotland, interviewed amazingly and when I made an offer, she asked for a week to see some other offers. Of course I was happy to wait. She got another offer, from my old boss no less. More money, same organization. She asked very politely if I could match that offer, as she'd like to work with me, but the other role is offering a fair bit more. I told her I couldn't and that she should take that role - it's a good one and she's a good fit and that's a really good boss. Ugh. It's all true. She went with it and I'm sure she's happy, but back to the drawing board for me. Anyway - my own interview in a fairly entry-level IT role is up tomorrow. Just desktop support/technician. They normally want people with a degree in the field, so I'm pleased they're interviewing me. I'm not entirely sure what kind of questions I'll get asked. When I interview, it's about behavioural things. Prioritizing, difficult conversations and situations. I've never interviewed for nor interviewed someone for a more hands-on, technical role. I'm confident it'll go well. I interview well, it's just a matter of whether or not I'm worth taking a punt on. I'm wondering if me applying for a role that is a noticeable step down in pay and responsibility would be seen as a negative to them. Maybe? Maybe not? Ah well. Oh shit my gaming pals almost completed a raid in Destiny 2 last night. I went in almost refusing to be involved because I was not in the mood for mechanics and people getting angry at each other, but it turned into just a barrel of laughs as we fumbled our way through everything. Got a couply hours of footage, gonna edit it down to highlight how we share one braincell when we get together. And we'll, hopefully, finish the damn thing this weekend.
The Lightfall expansion has many issues (narrative being a major one) but it is still a wonderful feeling shooter to enjoy with friends. If it weren't for the, presumably, terrible ping issues we'd encounter I'd invite you along for a blast. That and the expansions are hilariously expensive. It's dumb, but you can switch off the brain for a bit and watch numbers go up.
Yeah coordinating my life around a raid in NZ time is even dumber than it sounds. Appreciate the offer, though. I appear to not have Lightfall. I have Shadowkeep. I can't recall if I even made it through it. Black Armory pissed me off - you couldn't use your content unless you could find five friends who all had two hours to kill at the same time. That's when I realized that it is first and foremost a tryhard game and Bungie likes it that way.
Lawd - It's telling that I talked about ping, and didn't even think of the horrid time difference. 2pm Thursday right now, must be evening Wednesday for you? Somehow we made it work, I'm the only Kiwi so I work around their reasonable Aussie schedule, but most of them have kids, partners and.. Lives. So last night was a veritable miracle and I doubt we'll see it again, despite our plans. I hop in and out of the game, I can not play it for a year or two then the group has the urge like we do now. As you say, it's very try-hard and we're old, slow dudes now.
Once upon a time I was in the Old Man Clan. They had a discord and everything. Got to know some of the guys. Then I was unceremoniously kicked. I was offended. Then I used Bungie's API and some of the tools to look up the guys who were running that thing. Guy who booted me? Fifteen thousand hours into Destiny 2. Who knows how many into Destiny. It made everything okay - yeah, you're right. If your baseline is "our players put fifteen thousand hours into a video game" I will never be a contributing member ever ever ever. I have like 250 hours into No Man's Sky across three saves and that's a lot. I had this discussion with the guy who ran the local GameStop. I expected his eyes to bug out. "Nah, man, Destiny is unreal," he said. "People who play Destiny are a breed apart. It's all they do. There are games with intensive fandoms? And then there's Destiny." You know what I just beat? Immortals: Fenyx Rising. You know why? Because it's Skyward Sword without having to spend every fifth evening cooking potions. Your weapons don't break when you use them too much. There are three or four equally-valid play styles, there's a steady but limited power progression, there's an easy-to-fill skills tree and there's four kinds of puzzles that are easy-to-clever which can be explained in a single breath. So apparently I'm not the only truly casual gamer on the planet? But I wonder sometimes. I played like 150 hours of Surviving Mars: "Congratulations it's Sim City with the Andy Weir skin!" Based on that I tried Cities Skylines thinking Sim City was fun, surely Cities Skylines would be similar. Nope. You're LARPing as the damn zoning board.
That does make me feel better about my ~1000 hours into Battlefield V. There was a moment where my teammates and myself were recognized in a lobby and I went from "Heh nice" to "Ah fuck" in about three seconds, as I realized it meant we were the basement dwelling sweatlords. I probably took all my shame out on this poor dude just trying to take the point - https://streamable.com/ijmh91 switch to sidearm for max flex, slide-by, one shot, sorry m8 I'm feeling antsy and you happened to be nearby. Destiny though - you've reminded me of something. Last year, at work, I was a part of making a video documenting the work that goes on in our area. It was a fun side project my boss cooked up. Anyway, the guy brought in to do the video work had a nice jacket on. A jacket with a symbol that looked familiar. The Destiny raid symbol. Turns out he was in a clan that completed a global first raid and got the jacket as a prize (I suspect still cost a pretty penny), and I was keen to talk briefly about Destiny cause I casually enjoyed it. I said "I've finished one raid, with the baths? and the race? That was cool" and you could see the sneer barely hidden from his face. Oh. Oh that's the real Destiny player. Not me popping in once or twice a year to shoot stuff. The guys that breathe it. The guys that have the right weapon for every stage of a raid. Not me, who uses Riskrunner cause I like it and the idea of taking damage to deal more damage tickles me pink.
Yeah Bungie's local around here. So you see a lot of Destiny shirts and swag - I would say every other time I go to the grocery store, I see someone else wearing Destiny shit. Never the same people, never the same shirt twice. So on the one hand - they might be getting paid for it. On the other hand - there be a lot of XBox tryhards up here. Friend of mine's dad actually codes Destiny. So I can bitch and say "why is it that you have made this game unplayable for people who aren't doing it like a side hustle" and she'll say "preachin' to the choir, dude, I don't even log in anymore." They know? But it's like a casino. 80% of your revenue is from 20% of your peepz and the folx showing up with two fingers of scotch on a Thursday evening that bought the expansion 'cuz it was 80% off on the Playstation store? They ain't a profit center. Riskrunner tho. There's a way to stack stormcaller armor where that thing basically ends up with unlimited ammo. Or there was. They probably nerfed it. But yeah it was great you'd do one of those timed events or whatever and you'd load up riskrunner and you'd basically just firehose the shit out of everyone without ever letting up the trigger. I miss Sleeper Simulant.
climbing climbing climbing. climbing trip was AMAZING, learning how to make decisions that put myself first which included booking a separate flight a day earlier than the rest of that group. which paid off as I was able to reconnect with a friend down in Las Vegas that extra day. The original flight day, which everyone else planned on, ended up being delayed 6 hours so they basically lost a full day of climbing. meanwhile i'm supposed to be climbing mount rainier later this month, and i realized i'm really only it to please the rest of the group. i don't really want to climb that mountain on the route we're planning this year...not sure what to do, as dropping out i think will piss them off a bit and impact friendships...but i am really trying to be less of a people pleaser and to keep making decisions that prioritize me (and community). vaguely interested in a couple of girls. they’re both climbing, mountain biking, healthcare workers. so nothing new on that front past figuring out if I want to ask either of them out on a date and if that’s a good idea in the first place.
Sooooo sounds like this is a follow up to many pub skis ago, or DMs that you and I had…can’t remember which. How’s being in love feeling?
Been away for a while, and came by to check in, and see everyone else is looking for work/hiring, too! Passed my 7 year anniversary at the beginning of April, and I'm just kinda done with this company. The business is heading away from the GovEd market (which I work in: government and educational sales), and i don't have a lot of work to do on a daily basis, but the sales department is in denial about this movement of the company away from GovEd and keeps trying to put projects on my plate that we just simply are not the right answer for. It's frustrating, because as I try to write the sales proposal for them, they can't give me legitimate answers to the customers' questions. Me: "Ok, customer wants X, and we don't do that. So I checked "Does Not Comply" for that requirement." Salesperson: "NO! Answer yes! We have this (totally unrelated) feature!" Me: "So you want to sell them N to solve problem X? How is that going to work for them?" Salesperson: "Doesn't matter; Once we get in the room with the customer and start negotiations, we can address those 'edge cases' in person." Me: "You realize that the document I am building commits us to providing THIS feature X in the way THEY have defined it, right?" Salesperson: "But our product doesn't do that." Me: "Thatsmyfuckingpoint!" Anyway, am out looking for work, interviewing, and talking with my manager about when we should plan for my departure. I'm thinking mid-June, but my Mom and Sister are on my case about leaving my job without another one already lined up. And I see their point... why not just keep doing the minimal amount of work my job takes, rake in the $100k/yr, and just keep my mouth shut? Hm. They do have a point there... Turns out our local rugby team - the Seattle Seawolves - really need a weirdo like me right now to come in and help manage a couple of different projects in the office. That would be cool. I hope that works out. But not banking on it ... it's not like there is an open job req or anything ... just me and the boss chatting over beers and discussing life, the universe, and everything. But he's gonna see what he can do. It'd be nice to care about my work again.
Absolutely insane week in NYC and then Ann Arbor doing conferences and university meetings while trying to finish the annual report that is my actual job and the deadline for which has been pushed forward a week earlier than I expected (i.e. tomorrow). Stayed with the brother in law and his wife (which makes her my sister in law, I suppose) in Detroit last night. Great city. Now to Seattle.