Saturday, December 23, 2006
P.S.
In the past few entries, it sounds like I've been saying that I've quit working at PC Tools altogether. I should clear things up and state officially that this is not the case. I'm just working weekends until next year, where I will start working 4 days a week at SF and three nights a week at PC Tools.
...
What? It's not like I sleep much these days anyway...
...
What? It's not like I sleep much these days anyway...
Botch are cool.
These guys could be considered the most obvious influence of Norma Jean. The band I mean, not the folk singer and probably not Marilyn Monroe.
I just came to the realisation that the lyrics to one of their songs, 'John Woo' go thusly:
Dear Sir or Madam,
I'm writing you on behalf of me and my fellow man
You see, we're so sick and tired
Of being rediscovered
Again
I'll take the fate of texas into my own hands
It's still dripping consistent constant
Good night sweet Susan
Oh, don't worry, I still drive by
It's sealed and signed goodbye
But I've recieved nothing from you
Any song that begins with the line 'Dear Sir or Madam' works for me.
I just came to the realisation that the lyrics to one of their songs, 'John Woo' go thusly:
Dear Sir or Madam,
I'm writing you on behalf of me and my fellow man
You see, we're so sick and tired
Of being rediscovered
Again
I'll take the fate of texas into my own hands
It's still dripping consistent constant
Good night sweet Susan
Oh, don't worry, I still drive by
It's sealed and signed goodbye
But I've recieved nothing from you
Any song that begins with the line 'Dear Sir or Madam' works for me.
Sunday, December 17, 2006
[Insert Blog Entry Name Here]
Yeah, I've had no internet connection at all in the past week, as I haven't been working at PC Tools for about that long. Here's something I threw together when I should have been working.
A friend at work sent me the following trailer for the new World of Warcraft expansion pack. Meanwhile, I told him I was too busy being surprised that there wasn't already one around.
He asked me what I thought of it. Having never played WOW, I didn't have much to say, so I said 'BORING!'.
I told him it was boring because it followed The Fantasy Game/Movie Trailer Formula™, which I will now outline:
1. Begin with a brooding voice-over. Do not reveal any information about who the character actually is or why he is brooding during said voice-over. It could be a mighty sorceror brooding over his imprisonment in a glass box (or something) for millenia, or it could just be a 40-year old software engineer who lives with his mother brooding about being sent to his room for saying 'Biatch' (in this case, it seems to be bit of both). This should be accompanied by minimal visual cues, usually constant fadeouts at regular intervals, often focusing on some glowing thing, like the briefcase out of Pulp Fiction, or say, Tim Webster's hair. Occasionally, there should be horses running around, which can be glimpsed through the constant fading. The music should be a muted orchestral number with a backing choir. Not a real backing choir. It has to be obvious to anyone with any taste that it's just a midi keyboard pretending to be people.
2. Once the speech has ended, display 'So-and-so presents', while stepping up the backing musical track a few notches.
3. [Insert Battle Sequence here]
4. The orchestra and choir build and build in volume and tempo until they get to a point where they seem to just pass out at once from hyperventilation (midi keyboards seem so short of breath...), then Broody-Voice speaks one more line to accentuate everything that's happened so far. This doesn't really help in the case of this trailer, as whatever the hell is going on makes so little sense (the battle sequence that was inserted up there was actually many battle sequences that didn't seem at all related).
5. [Insert Name of thing here]
(For anyone remotely familiar with blizzard games, you should actually check the trailer out, as one of the scenes involves one guy polymorphing another, which I found hilarious.)
A friend at work sent me the following trailer for the new World of Warcraft expansion pack. Meanwhile, I told him I was too busy being surprised that there wasn't already one around.
He asked me what I thought of it. Having never played WOW, I didn't have much to say, so I said 'BORING!'.
I told him it was boring because it followed The Fantasy Game/Movie Trailer Formula™, which I will now outline:
1. Begin with a brooding voice-over. Do not reveal any information about who the character actually is or why he is brooding during said voice-over. It could be a mighty sorceror brooding over his imprisonment in a glass box (or something) for millenia, or it could just be a 40-year old software engineer who lives with his mother brooding about being sent to his room for saying 'Biatch' (in this case, it seems to be bit of both). This should be accompanied by minimal visual cues, usually constant fadeouts at regular intervals, often focusing on some glowing thing, like the briefcase out of Pulp Fiction, or say, Tim Webster's hair. Occasionally, there should be horses running around, which can be glimpsed through the constant fading. The music should be a muted orchestral number with a backing choir. Not a real backing choir. It has to be obvious to anyone with any taste that it's just a midi keyboard pretending to be people.
2. Once the speech has ended, display 'So-and-so presents', while stepping up the backing musical track a few notches.
3. [Insert Battle Sequence here]
4. The orchestra and choir build and build in volume and tempo until they get to a point where they seem to just pass out at once from hyperventilation (midi keyboards seem so short of breath...), then Broody-Voice speaks one more line to accentuate everything that's happened so far. This doesn't really help in the case of this trailer, as whatever the hell is going on makes so little sense (the battle sequence that was inserted up there was actually many battle sequences that didn't seem at all related).
5. [Insert Name of thing here]
(For anyone remotely familiar with blizzard games, you should actually check the trailer out, as one of the scenes involves one guy polymorphing another, which I found hilarious.)
Saturday, December 02, 2006
'GET A HAIRCUT!'
I got a call yesterday, from SalesForce, where I had a job interview earlier in the week.
"Hi, this is Claudia from SalesForce, may I speak to Will please?"
"This be he"
"Hi, I'm calling in regards to the application you had with us for the bigpond role..."
"Uh-huh"
"...and were wondering if you were still interested in the position..."
Now, this is not the direction the conversation went when they called me up last time to tell me that I didn't get the job, so I said,
"...Uh-huh..."
"Look, the position begins on Monday (and she was calling me Friday at around 12pm), but there is a problem: We will need additional referees if that is at all possible. It's just that Greg is from too long ago, it's been a while since you've worked with him, and (in reference to Catherine, my other referee) we were really looking for work that you were actually paid for (my 'work' with her was as second AD on Ghost Death, which was voluntary...thought it'd look good to have some voluntary work on my resume, didn't I?). We were wondering if we could get the number of somebody you reported to for a more recent role, such as your work with Star Premium..."
"...Uh-huh..."
"Would you have a contact number of somebody that you reported to from either Star Premium or PC Tools?"
Damn. This meant I'd have to get Christian's number as soon as I could. I didn't want anyone at my current employer to know I was getting a second job at this stage, so that wan't an option. The reason Christian wasn't on my resume as a referee already was because I had asked him numerous times just before I'd left if I could use him as a referee, but he never responded, in typical Chris fashion. See, towards the end of my employment with Star Premium, I was never in the office as there was no courier work for over a month, so my main method of communication with him at this point was via text-message. He never answered his phone, see.
I told Claudia I'd have to call her back, as I didn't have Christian's (the state manager of Star Premium) number on me (I kept forgetting it), but assured her that I was absolutely sure I could get it before 5pm, contact him and ask him to say some good stuff about me.
And with that said, the great Chain Of Lies began.
So, after I hung up, I quickly sms'd Craig and Jeff to see if they still had Chris' number. I've lost track of how many times I've asked them each for it. This includes the time I was working there as a courier.
Craig was the first to reply (If I were giving out a prize, he'd have won it, but I didn't, so he hadn't) and so I called Chris. No answer.
OK, no problem. I had five-ish hours to get in touch with him. I'm sure he'd answer the phone before the day ended.
This happened while I was walking down to the Bass Player (I was looking at chorus/reverb pedals). I arrive there and muck around with a few pedals they have in stock for about half an hour, realise they're a bit too cheesy-sounding (the DigiTech chorus in particular seems to make the bass sound like a keyboard set to 'Piano Accordian' mode). I walk down the road to Billy Hyde music to see what they have around in the way of pedals, and to see if that guitar I liked the look/sound of - the LTD MH-1000 w/SD pickups - was still around - it wasn't.
I give Chris another call. No answer. I send him a text-message asking him to call me back as soon as he got the message, then I proceed into the CBD to look at CDs, then possibly buy them.
So, I walked into the city, looked at various CDs, then bought them. Actually, no CD stores seemed to have what I was after in stock. I ended up buying Redeemer, a new release by Norma Jean - didn't even know it had been released up until this point - Here's a song from it. Isn't that a cool mic? I believe I had Lucas hunting around eBay for me looking for one of those. Just kidding. I also purchased Music Has The Right To Children, a Boards Of Canada album, and Infinity, a Devin Townsend album. It was the naked canadian metal-freak on the cover that sold me.
SalesForce called me back shortly after 3pm. This time, it was Kylie, as Claudia had gone home or something. Chrisian still hadn't gotten back to me.
"Well, we won't be able to proceed with the application unless we have somebody to call. There was no response from the two contact numbers on your resume, so it is important that you find somebody else we can contact"
Cut to me panicking.
"OK, look, I'll try and get in touch with him, then I'll call you back, OK? How much time do I have, until about 5ish?"
"Well, not even that, I'd say 15 minutes..."
"...oh, marmalade. OK, I'll call you back in 5."
Cut to me calling up Chritian's phome. And panicking while I'm doing it.
After it seems like it was going on long enough to ring out at any moment, somebody answers the phone. They said something vague, like,
"...uh...hello?"
As though they weren't expecting somebody at the other end. Vaguely sounded like Christian, but I was too delirious from excitement to care if it was him or not.
"Hey, is that you Christian?"
"Uh, no, he's not with his phone...he left the office, I'm not sure where he is..."
"Damn. No idea when he'll be back, then?"
"No, I can take a message if you like"
I left a message.
Before I called back SF, I decided to give Mish The Supervisor a try. Guessed her number correctly, but got her voicemail. Said a swear (no, not while it was recording), then hung up.
Panicked for another minute.
Called back SF. Explained to them that I was not able to get into contact with Chris. Had a sudden thought: Suggested they call Craig, who, of course, was working at SF himself.
I explained while that he was not my superior, I did report to him, would that be acceptable? I'd continue to try calling Chris after I gave her Craig's number. She gave a response that seemed to imply that she was listening, but as I started reading out his number, she asked, "Is it OK if I put you on hold?"
I thought it odd, but said it was fine.
For a minute or three of sitting around on what I thought was 'Hold', Kylie reconnects and is surprised that I'm still there. Apparently she hung up...or something. I didn't get a chance to figure out exactly what happened. She mentioned that Craig wasn't answering his phone, so I again said I'd try calling Chris and Craig myself and would get back to her in a few minutes.
Sent a message to Craig explaining briefly what happened, then decided to call him. He answered. Said he'd answer his phone if he were called. I called Kylie back.
"Yeah, but he wasn't your manager, so he isn't an acceptable reference"
"...yeah, I know, but he's the only person there who I did report to who..."
"We'll need the manager of Star Premium"
OK...this lady was either deaf or had short-term memory loss and somehow still managed to make me feel like an idiot.
I told her I'd keep trying Chris until 5 (it was already well past the 15-minute mark) and she said she'd call me back to see what was happening.
After I hung up, I got a message from Craig, saying he'd spoken to Chris Koot (anybody who's reading this who's from Insight remember him? He's at SalesForce himself...) and that Chris would pull strings to get me in. Hot-damn. I'd hoped it'd be enough.
I got called back at 5.
"Hi, it's Kylie calling from SalesForce, how are you going?"
"Eh, rather bad. I haven't been able to contact anybody from SP still, so it looks like I'll have to sit this one out."
"Look, the interview went well, and you are certainly qualified for the position, so we can consider your application a success."
She paused for my reaction.
My reaction was a pause which rivalled hers for pausy-ness.
I then broke the pause and said "OK, cool."
I would have reacted with a little more emotion, but I was busy thinking about whether all this calling back-and-forth was actually necessary in the end. Kylie explained to me that I did have to 'Work my arse off' during the first three months of employment, due to the lack of contactable referees, but as long as I proved myself in those three months, I would be fine.
I'm not sure if that's where I should end my story, so I'm just going to end with a quote from Dune by Frank Herbert:
Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife — chopping off what's incomplete and saying: "Now it's complete because it's ended here."
BAM!
"Hi, this is Claudia from SalesForce, may I speak to Will please?"
"This be he"
"Hi, I'm calling in regards to the application you had with us for the bigpond role..."
"Uh-huh"
"...and were wondering if you were still interested in the position..."
Now, this is not the direction the conversation went when they called me up last time to tell me that I didn't get the job, so I said,
"...Uh-huh..."
"Look, the position begins on Monday (and she was calling me Friday at around 12pm), but there is a problem: We will need additional referees if that is at all possible. It's just that Greg is from too long ago, it's been a while since you've worked with him, and (in reference to Catherine, my other referee) we were really looking for work that you were actually paid for (my 'work' with her was as second AD on Ghost Death, which was voluntary...thought it'd look good to have some voluntary work on my resume, didn't I?). We were wondering if we could get the number of somebody you reported to for a more recent role, such as your work with Star Premium..."
"...Uh-huh..."
"Would you have a contact number of somebody that you reported to from either Star Premium or PC Tools?"
Damn. This meant I'd have to get Christian's number as soon as I could. I didn't want anyone at my current employer to know I was getting a second job at this stage, so that wan't an option. The reason Christian wasn't on my resume as a referee already was because I had asked him numerous times just before I'd left if I could use him as a referee, but he never responded, in typical Chris fashion. See, towards the end of my employment with Star Premium, I was never in the office as there was no courier work for over a month, so my main method of communication with him at this point was via text-message. He never answered his phone, see.
I told Claudia I'd have to call her back, as I didn't have Christian's (the state manager of Star Premium) number on me (I kept forgetting it), but assured her that I was absolutely sure I could get it before 5pm, contact him and ask him to say some good stuff about me.
And with that said, the great Chain Of Lies began.
So, after I hung up, I quickly sms'd Craig and Jeff to see if they still had Chris' number. I've lost track of how many times I've asked them each for it. This includes the time I was working there as a courier.
Craig was the first to reply (If I were giving out a prize, he'd have won it, but I didn't, so he hadn't) and so I called Chris. No answer.
OK, no problem. I had five-ish hours to get in touch with him. I'm sure he'd answer the phone before the day ended.
This happened while I was walking down to the Bass Player (I was looking at chorus/reverb pedals). I arrive there and muck around with a few pedals they have in stock for about half an hour, realise they're a bit too cheesy-sounding (the DigiTech chorus in particular seems to make the bass sound like a keyboard set to 'Piano Accordian' mode). I walk down the road to Billy Hyde music to see what they have around in the way of pedals, and to see if that guitar I liked the look/sound of - the LTD MH-1000 w/SD pickups - was still around - it wasn't.
I give Chris another call. No answer. I send him a text-message asking him to call me back as soon as he got the message, then I proceed into the CBD to look at CDs, then possibly buy them.
So, I walked into the city, looked at various CDs, then bought them. Actually, no CD stores seemed to have what I was after in stock. I ended up buying Redeemer, a new release by Norma Jean - didn't even know it had been released up until this point - Here's a song from it. Isn't that a cool mic? I believe I had Lucas hunting around eBay for me looking for one of those. Just kidding. I also purchased Music Has The Right To Children, a Boards Of Canada album, and Infinity, a Devin Townsend album. It was the naked canadian metal-freak on the cover that sold me.
SalesForce called me back shortly after 3pm. This time, it was Kylie, as Claudia had gone home or something. Chrisian still hadn't gotten back to me.
"Well, we won't be able to proceed with the application unless we have somebody to call. There was no response from the two contact numbers on your resume, so it is important that you find somebody else we can contact"
Cut to me panicking.
"OK, look, I'll try and get in touch with him, then I'll call you back, OK? How much time do I have, until about 5ish?"
"Well, not even that, I'd say 15 minutes..."
"...oh, marmalade. OK, I'll call you back in 5."
Cut to me calling up Chritian's phome. And panicking while I'm doing it.
After it seems like it was going on long enough to ring out at any moment, somebody answers the phone. They said something vague, like,
"...uh...hello?"
As though they weren't expecting somebody at the other end. Vaguely sounded like Christian, but I was too delirious from excitement to care if it was him or not.
"Hey, is that you Christian?"
"Uh, no, he's not with his phone...he left the office, I'm not sure where he is..."
"Damn. No idea when he'll be back, then?"
"No, I can take a message if you like"
I left a message.
Before I called back SF, I decided to give Mish The Supervisor a try. Guessed her number correctly, but got her voicemail. Said a swear (no, not while it was recording), then hung up.
Panicked for another minute.
Called back SF. Explained to them that I was not able to get into contact with Chris. Had a sudden thought: Suggested they call Craig, who, of course, was working at SF himself.
I explained while that he was not my superior, I did report to him, would that be acceptable? I'd continue to try calling Chris after I gave her Craig's number. She gave a response that seemed to imply that she was listening, but as I started reading out his number, she asked, "Is it OK if I put you on hold?"
I thought it odd, but said it was fine.
For a minute or three of sitting around on what I thought was 'Hold', Kylie reconnects and is surprised that I'm still there. Apparently she hung up...or something. I didn't get a chance to figure out exactly what happened. She mentioned that Craig wasn't answering his phone, so I again said I'd try calling Chris and Craig myself and would get back to her in a few minutes.
Sent a message to Craig explaining briefly what happened, then decided to call him. He answered. Said he'd answer his phone if he were called. I called Kylie back.
"Yeah, but he wasn't your manager, so he isn't an acceptable reference"
"...yeah, I know, but he's the only person there who I did report to who..."
"We'll need the manager of Star Premium"
OK...this lady was either deaf or had short-term memory loss and somehow still managed to make me feel like an idiot.
I told her I'd keep trying Chris until 5 (it was already well past the 15-minute mark) and she said she'd call me back to see what was happening.
After I hung up, I got a message from Craig, saying he'd spoken to Chris Koot (anybody who's reading this who's from Insight remember him? He's at SalesForce himself...) and that Chris would pull strings to get me in. Hot-damn. I'd hoped it'd be enough.
I got called back at 5.
"Hi, it's Kylie calling from SalesForce, how are you going?"
"Eh, rather bad. I haven't been able to contact anybody from SP still, so it looks like I'll have to sit this one out."
"Look, the interview went well, and you are certainly qualified for the position, so we can consider your application a success."
She paused for my reaction.
My reaction was a pause which rivalled hers for pausy-ness.
I then broke the pause and said "OK, cool."
I would have reacted with a little more emotion, but I was busy thinking about whether all this calling back-and-forth was actually necessary in the end. Kylie explained to me that I did have to 'Work my arse off' during the first three months of employment, due to the lack of contactable referees, but as long as I proved myself in those three months, I would be fine.
I'm not sure if that's where I should end my story, so I'm just going to end with a quote from Dune by Frank Herbert:
Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife — chopping off what's incomplete and saying: "Now it's complete because it's ended here."
BAM!
