Rant VIII: The Reckoning
- Thread starter Anonymous
- Start date
-
- Tags
- boat people
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/309485-nobody-tells-this-to-people-who-are-beginners-i-wish
Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.
Ira Glass
Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.
Ira Glass
Don't worry about trying to write a "finished" project or idea down. Just write the ideas. Just write. Don't worry about it being a full story, or even a short story, just start getting the ideas on paper, let the words flow and the basic idea start to bloom. Get the creation to start telling you what needs to happen next, not you trying to tell the creation where it needs to end up. Don't put limits on yourself of it having to be a certain length or completeness, let that imagination of yours RUN! WE all want to see where it goes.
A
Anonymous
Anonymous
I fucked up at work. I was put in an impossible situation and tried my best but it wasn't good enough. I have no idea what's going to happen now.
A
Anonymous
Anonymous
Followup to my work thing. I work at a university (anonymous so that it's harder for them to see, not to hide who I am from you all) and we were doing an email blast for new students to get $1000 "scholarships". Myself and my boss were tasked with doing the data lists and the first round went perfectly well. The second round came on a short week (3 day week) and there were 20 lists that had to be prepared. My boss was out that whole week so the thing fell to my shoulders. Well, I got them all done and sent to the people doing the letters, but ONE of the lists required manual intervention after being run to strip out students who were already enrolled. Because I was in a hurry AND I DIDN'T HAVE TO DO IT THE FIRST TIME, these students got sent anyway. I did not have time to QA any of the lists because they refused to extend the time frame. The emails themselves did not have any disclaimers about continuing students being ineligible so if they got them we had to honor it. So it was a clusterfuck from start to finish. So here I am, taking the full brunt. I'm not fired, but I will probably lose my bonus this year and am basically unpromotable and toxic. If I quit, I have to pay back all the tuition my daughter has had paid for by the university, which would be thousands of dollars.
So my choices are to keep my head down and hope that one mistake made in impossible circumstances doesn't completely fuck my 8 years at the university or find another job, start over, and make them chase me around for the tuition money. Of course, this completely fucks my daughter over because she'd have to quit the school or take out massive loans.
So yeah. I was put in an impossible situation at work, fucked it up, and now I'm a toxic waste dump. Fuck.
So my choices are to keep my head down and hope that one mistake made in impossible circumstances doesn't completely fuck my 8 years at the university or find another job, start over, and make them chase me around for the tuition money. Of course, this completely fucks my daughter over because she'd have to quit the school or take out massive loans.
So yeah. I was put in an impossible situation at work, fucked it up, and now I'm a toxic waste dump. Fuck.
A
Anonymous
Anonymous
Virtual Rcade is looking pretty fucking good right now if I can get the loan.
Does your university system have a pension? How longer do you need before you vest? You might want to tough it out if only for that.
A
Anonymous
Anonymous
I would have to check. I might already be vested.
I would encourage you to. GA's USG you vest at 10 years, for example. If you're close but not there yet, eating crow for a year or two in exchange for an extra income at retirement might be worth it.
I have several friends on Facebook with ties to command staff, so stuff that I say there might find it's way further up. I have so much that I want to say to calm friends down, that I can't say en masse to support them and shut down any closet haters that might be lurking. So I'll say it here.
"I was just following orders" is not an excuse. You can not legislate love (with one very Icarian exception). There are SO MANY of us who understand the difference between duty to the public and just following orders. Don't panic. Don't fear - we WILL NOT be coming for you.
It breaks my heart seeing so many of my friends living in unwarranted fear, despite the current changes in administration.
"I was just following orders" is not an excuse. You can not legislate love (with one very Icarian exception). There are SO MANY of us who understand the difference between duty to the public and just following orders. Don't panic. Don't fear - we WILL NOT be coming for you.
It breaks my heart seeing so many of my friends living in unwarranted fear, despite the current changes in administration.
I was thinking more of a Robert Ludlum novel...
I have an uncle who worked security for the inauguration(is a staunch social welfare democrat). He is also a Sgt looking at Lieutenant in the next couple years for the county sheriff's department. he feels similarly to you, he has told the family, we are not robots, and we will not obey an unlawful order, we want peace and order not a dystopian nightmare.
I would read both of these.
It sounds like you need to hide your daughters.
GasBandit
Staff member
Dave
Staff member
Last night's event was a disaster. It kills me to say that. I've been entertaining for nearly 30 years now, and this is the first time something of this magnitude has happened. We tried our best to work around the obstacles, but it just was not meant to be. And it just makes me a little sick and a lot mad. The client paid good money for a good show and we - through no fault of our own - were not able to deliver. So how does one recover from this?
So assessing the situation shows that the hall's sound/video system got overwhelmed and just quit. The main problem is it took them over an hour to get someone there to diagnose the issue and attempt to fix it. Meanwhile there were a bunch of very unhappy people - ourselves included - and the hall emptied.
What steps am I taking to make sure this never happens? Never again am I patching into someone else's system. Never ever. Not for sound. For the screens, yeah, but sound will never go anywhere but through my speakers. If mine go out and the client is unhappy, so be it. That would be my fault. But to have this whole thing happen because of someone else's gear? Not acceptable.
The most difficult part of all of this will be communicating to the client, which I am doing tomorrow. I have his number and I will use it to follow up on the email that I sent when I got home at 4 am this morning. I had to write that email. I wouldn't have been able to sleep had I not reached out & apologized, even if it wasn't our fault.
The bartender asked last night if any of our gear was damaged. I responded, "Nothing but my pride and credibility." Maybe that was a bit harsh, but at the time I meant it. We'll recover and go on to do many great shows filled with fun, but for now it stings that I wasn't able to deliver. But I'll keep telling myself: Assess, Fix, Communicate. Assess, Fix, Communicate...
- Assess the issue.
- Determine steps to make sure this never happens again.
- If you haven't already, communicate to the client.
So assessing the situation shows that the hall's sound/video system got overwhelmed and just quit. The main problem is it took them over an hour to get someone there to diagnose the issue and attempt to fix it. Meanwhile there were a bunch of very unhappy people - ourselves included - and the hall emptied.
What steps am I taking to make sure this never happens? Never again am I patching into someone else's system. Never ever. Not for sound. For the screens, yeah, but sound will never go anywhere but through my speakers. If mine go out and the client is unhappy, so be it. That would be my fault. But to have this whole thing happen because of someone else's gear? Not acceptable.
The most difficult part of all of this will be communicating to the client, which I am doing tomorrow. I have his number and I will use it to follow up on the email that I sent when I got home at 4 am this morning. I had to write that email. I wouldn't have been able to sleep had I not reached out & apologized, even if it wasn't our fault.
The bartender asked last night if any of our gear was damaged. I responded, "Nothing but my pride and credibility." Maybe that was a bit harsh, but at the time I meant it. We'll recover and go on to do many great shows filled with fun, but for now it stings that I wasn't able to deliver. But I'll keep telling myself: Assess, Fix, Communicate. Assess, Fix, Communicate...
Dave
Staff member
It's completely understood by all what happened, but the client still gave me his card and said, "Call me Monday." The hall is trying to shift blame to me saying that I never should have been patched into that system. Yeah, like I knew that when YOUR OWN GUY WAS HELPING ME SET IT UP!
And all night people were shouting at us and the bosses were telling us, "Stop. You need to try this!" which then caused MORE dead air and caused MORE people to leave. They made a bad situation worse (& more stressful)...but that part I'm saying here and nowhere else.
And all night people were shouting at us and the bosses were telling us, "Stop. You need to try this!" which then caused MORE dead air and caused MORE people to leave. They made a bad situation worse (& more stressful)...but that part I'm saying here and nowhere else.
I interviewed for a job last week. I likely got that job. The Governor instituted a hiring freeze until August. My boss did not get the paperwork in on time. I just lost $500 a month.
I did get the job. Fucking Republican tax cut politics.
Dave
Staff member
I guess I didn't need to get paid today. HR sent my paycheck to an account that has been closed for OVER FOUR FUCKING MONTHS! For some reason they fucked up my account and took off my direct deposit, replacing it with the one that was on my account previously. I have all my bills coming out automatically tonight and I have $4 in the account. If they don't fix this I'm going to fucking hurt someone.
IMO it should be ILLEGAL for them to retain the previous information. Minimum required should be all they have.
Do you have any documentation of this snafu? E-mails or similar? Printing those out (in letterhead paper if available) might help sway them to this being a direct deposit by another name.
This is why I have my bills drawn on the 5th of the month. In case of error, I have a few days to fix it. Or if the first is a Saturday or Sunday I won't see the money until Monday. ... and if that happens to be a bank holiday...