Someone expressed surprise to me the other day about how many men seem to love Batman.
When we were very young, of course, it was all Superman, all the time. (Very young. Like, three.) Superman isn't so popular these days. I'm not sure what happened, but I suspect the tight tights and little red trunks started worrying the less-secure or more homophobic among our male population.
Or, of course, it could be a Batmania reaction to the relatively recent string of Batman, The Next Generation movies.
One of the things that offers intermittent amusement on Stargate: Atlantis, is the geeky love two characters share for the camp 60's Batman. I adored that show. It didn't take itself, or the "superhero" genre too seriously. When I was five, that was the kind of thing I liked in my entertainment. (And the amusement of BLAM! POW! OOF! fight scenes, of course. When you're two, those big cartoon graphics covering any hint of Actual Violence are a lot of fun.)
I've been largely ignoring the newer B:TNG movies, because they take themselves so very seriously. I want angsty depression, I can find it anywhere. I don't have to go to a movie theatre and plop down $10 or $15 for it.
But none of that is actually what I wanted to say.
What I was going to say and what I'm determined to say before I side-track myself again is that maybe guys find a superhero who's a little less super a little more accessible these days? I mean, a few sessions at the gym and a mansion full of expensive and electronic toys and any guy could pretend he was Batman, right?
Or it could be the anti-hero edge to B:TNG. The original Batman might have been swayed by a pretty face or a bulging bosom, but you knew he'd never be anything but Heroic. Today's Batman is very, very flawed.
Where did this whole anti-hero thing come from, anyhow? Seems to me, as I ponder my sketchy memories of the last 20 years, that anti-heroes started becoming big just about when politicians and actors and sports figures started falling off their pedestals with a tedious regularity.
Maybe no one believes in heroes any more? Maybe in today's world of terrorism, terror-mongering, and blatant lying by those in positions of power and responsibility, it's just no longer possible to believe in someone doing the right things in the right ways for the right reasons?
I'm pretty sure that wasn't where I was going, either.
Anyhow. I wrote that yesterday (Tuesday) but didn't get it posted. Today, in one of those rare moments of serendipity, I found this CNN story about this summer's superhero movies and how the characters are all somewhat less than traditionally "Hollywood Heroic."
For almost the first time since I started working 2 months ago? TGIF.
There's the possibility that the weekend will be full of fun and frolic. There's an antique show that the R.C. and I might go to tomorrow. Only $10 admission to spend hours coveting beautiful things we can't afford and would have no place to put if we could!
One of these days--not this weekend, but one of these days--I really want to go see the Inspiring Impressionism exhibit at the art museum. I'm a big fan of the Impressionists, so I think I'd really enjoy this show.
Not this weekend, though, not Sunday, because Sunday is my day of sloth (sometimes with a dab of housekeeping and this weekend with major amounts of laundry if I don't get started on it tonight), Then I have to allow for the usual time wasted spent doing free-lance work. For Buehler this time, printing some more labels.*
Closer to home, I'm happy to report that Gidget is back to her old self today. We're putting together, as she described it, a "world-class" marketing plan.
And yet, as I'm coming to understand is standard around here, one of the franchisees, the Argonuts, someone who--wait for it--had a great local internet marketing campaign and who decided he didn't like the people who managed it and so he cancelled it? Is complaining about how he doesn't have a good local internet marketing campaign because Gidget doesn't have "a plan" or something. Also, he's going to run his own local campaign, so there.
Also, he's mad because we won't spend 8 hours making him a report benchmarking his location against those of the other Argonuts. As if a thousand dollar a month location in San Francisco could be meaningfully compared to a $200 location in Kansas. Or as if a campaign that's been running for three years can sensibly be compared to a location that's only been open for a month.
Another Argonut is bitching about--well, I'm not sure what his problem is. He manages his own campaign because he's a control freak--so success or failure is all on his own head. And yet, he's calling two or three times a week to complain. (Now that I think about that, maybe I'll ask Gidget exactly what his problem is.)
So, you know, no matter how sock off-knocking the plan she comes up with is? There will be complaints.
Mostly I'm hoping we can just hang in there until May. May starts the busy season and with a little luck, these guys will find other things to do with their time.
Also, Vela told her that there's no real question of Jason firing her. He's just tired of hearing the Argonuts bitching all the time. (He could solve that by either not answering his phone, or by going to the five people responsible for daily management of the Nuts' problems and asking them whyinthehell they're not doing their jobs.)
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* So maybe 15 minutes, but still.
I cherish my weekends. After 10 months of, yes, worrying about getting a job but more importantly, having 24 hours a day to do whatever I wanted, I'm finding it very difficult to get to everything in only two days a week. It's not yet late enough in the year for my brain to accept that "after work" is yet still early enough in the day to go out and accomplish anything.
Posted by AnneZook at 04:46 PM | Comments (0)I like that. I enjoy alliteration and it amuses me that the two words don't like each other.
What?
Shaddup. The occasional linguistic improbability is good for your brain.
Also? No kisses were exchanged during the creation of this post.
So, what about today? Well, job-wise, it's been very quiet. Gidget works from home on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so it's rare for me to interact with anyone at the office on those days anyhow. Today I've been staying especially close to my desk, doing a boatload of research for her for her Next Level Plan. ('Cause there's some next level stuff going on here, and I'm down with that.* )
Also, I didn't come in until after 9:00, so I've been playing "dedicated employee, hard at work" since I sat down.
I met Buehler early this morning, to pass over some mailing labels I'd made for him, and we spent an hour chatting and getting caught up. I told him all about the Argonauts and he agrees with me that it sounds like Gidget has been picked to take the fall, so the current management can wipe the slate clean of last year's missteps, and move on.
He understands why I might not be that excited about saying here, if this scenario comes to pass.
And, naturally, he might have some more work for me in the future (he has always got some new scheme boiling), meaning in 203 months. If this place doesn't pan out, Buehler also knows someone who could probably put a lot of work in the way of someone with a Google AdWords Certification.
Sigh. Which is, of course, wonderful, except that I don't want to work free-lance. I like coming to an office every day, using up someone else's office supplies, drinking their coffee, and occasionally speaking to them.
Also, I played around with one of those retirement calculators yesterday and not only do I need a steady income, I need someone to take some of my money away from me every paycheck and put it into a retirement account for me. Preferably with a generous "matching funds" contribution.
50% would be good.
Twenty years ago, when I was estimating what I needed to retire? I didn't think to allow for Shrub's contribution to crashing the economy. I mean, I'd just seen what lunatic Republicans were capable of doing to the country, and in my innocence, I assumed that the majority of the population wouldn't make that voting mistake again.* *
After 8 years of pie-in-the-sky "economic" policies, I'm a full decade behind where I should be with my savings.* * *
Mostly, though, my brain has been occupied for the last hour with wondering, since I'm on salary, if I should feel obligated to work an extra hour this evening or not.
Tuesday it was 73 and sunny--a truly delicious day. Yesterday it was snow-and-blow and then blow-and-snow, and eventually just snow-and-snow. Today we were back to mostly sunny skies and it got up to 50 or so.
I don't know why we had a little weather intermission. Probably because I'm kind of short of work that needs doing at the moment.
_________________
* Will Smith. Men in Black
* * There's really no way to overestimate the stupidity of the majority of UsofA voters, is there?
* * * Don't get me started. $3.5 trillion those lunatics have added to the national debt.
Over 512,000,000,000 (5.12 billion) of it (so far) to kill people in Iraq, so we can steal their oil. Which is, I should mention, mostly on fire at the moment, so no one's getting it but there's the free bonus of massive air pollution, so it's all good if you're a crazy righwingnut.
From Colorado? 7.8 billion. Enough to build 42,000 affordable housing units, so people who don't have $3,500/month to spend on housing can still have a place to live. Or to build 940 new schools--or even put some serious money into the schools we already have.
Or to give 3 million children free health care for a year. But that would mean helping people, instead of slaughtering them, and the "pro-life" party doesn't really care about the living so much.
Seriously. Don't get me started.
Aacckk! And, let me add, aarrgghh!
No, it's not Talk Like A Pirate Day. My peaceful world just erupted into drama and trauma. Seems that yesterday's complacency jinxed my little world.
Gidget was scheduled for a 7:30a.m. meeting today. She came out of it about 10 minutes ago. In tears.
I've known Gidget for 10 years. I've known her aggravated and even angry, but I also know that 90% of the time she's upbeat, optimistic, and bubbly. We've worked with and for some seriously difficult people but I've never known any of them to get her down.
Seems that Jason, lead Pot Stirrer of our ChaosManagement team, has given her two weeks to present him with a plan that shows she's able to take our internet marketing "to the next level."
I'm not really sure what that means. Because this group sold off about 50% of their locations last year, they have, obviously, 50% fewer locations available now to bring in business.* In spite of that (and the recession) internet leads are up 7% - 9% from this time last year. In any sane company, this kind of increased lead generation (in such an unstable market) would be cause for praise.
I didn't try to probe for a ton of details, of course, but she said that Jason isn't unhappy with the business leads being generated (well, how could he be?) but he's not sure she's the person to take things "to the next level."**
Anyhow. Long story short sort of thing, naturally I told her I wasn't going to stay if they canned her. She thinks I should, because I need the job (and she doesn't?). At least until her current free-lance company decides if they're going to move ahead with their big expansion plans.
A huge chunk of my brain just keeps saying, "the problem isn't in the internet marketing department--it's in the management team, and no changes they make to my corner of the building are going to fix their problems."
__________________
* To illustrate in simple, round numbers:
Say the Argonauts had 120 locations last year. They sold 50, but Jason promised the Board of Directors that his "business development" team was going to bring on 35 new ones to replace the lost income.
They brought on 3.
The BoD is now, as you might anticipate, less than pleased with Jason.
Now consider that Gidget has been telling them since May of 2007 that she could not handle all the marketing needs of the company. She wanted them to hire her some help, someone to do the daily work, leaving her free for the strategic work. Instead, Jason and the ChaosManagement team decided to outsource work. They hired the Doodledorks, whose sales presentation must have been very impressive, and handed over the 50 biggest producing locations to them, to be managed by their automated software marketing management or whateverthehelltheycalledit program.
This was an abject failure--it cost a lot of money, never produced what it was promised it would produce, and annoyed the various location franchisees--which led to my hiring in February of this year. At this time, only 7 of the original locations are still with Doodledorks, with three threatening to jump ship at the end of this month. They and even the locations who left Doodledorks three or four months ago cannot stop bitching and complaining about what a bad decision it was.
So, not only is Jason under fire from the top for not producing what he promised, but a collective decision of the management team was a complete failure. He keeps hearing about it from various locations --while he's conveniently forgotten his own contribution to the decision. He frequently mentions that the "marketing department's decision" to hire Doodledorks was a major misstep.
Now that I've boiled it down for you, I can see it more clearly myself. She's been chosen to take the fall for all of the management team's mistakes last year.
____________
** My mind keeps fixating on that. What does it mean?
Posted by AnneZook at 10:16 AM | Comments (1)There's nothing in particular going on at the moment.
After a flurry of phone calls and emails from Her yesterday (what part of, "I'm at work" did She find it so hard to understand?*), I finished up the project last night and can now bill Bernie with a clear conscience.
Never. Again.
I would have finished Buehler's project last night if my brain hadn't gotten in the way when I was buying labels. I only bought half as many as I needed, so I'll pick up another package on the way home tonight.
Dum-dee-dum-dee-dum....
Seriously. I'm going to have to stop doing my job the quick and efficient way. It's only Tuesday, and I've already made so many changes to all of the accounts that I really shouldn't touch them again for 3-4 days. I have to let the dust settle to see what the latest round of Massive Changes has done to things.
And yet, you know, I have nothing else to do. I mean, I took the full hour for lunch today, hoping it would make the day go a little faster. But. Oh. My. God. How is it possible that it's only 3:30?
(Aacckk! She and Bernie just called me again! I'm not that bored.)
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* I know why She kept calling of course. She had Bernie at Her shoulder, pushing and shoving and cursing about how late the project was.
After I spent four hours working on the stupid program today, there was a software glitch. And then I remembered that this is why Bernie & She stopped using this software--itwas unstable and Bernie had ticked off the designer and so couldn't get tech support for it any more.
I built the evaluation they needed. It's not my fault I couldn't test or launch it.
I sent Bernie & Her an email, and then went ahead and called Bernie, figuring he would need the maximum amount of time to try and figure out an alternative. Strangely enough, he didn't even shout at me, not even when I told him I could not spend the next eight hours poised to jump in and help him work in any potential "fix" he might think of.
I know it's not my fault things didn't work and I know I don't know how to fix it all. So why do I feel vaguely guilty?
For those who care (those who don't are free to leave), She called back right after I'd posted that last entry. Bernie had just left the office and she wanted to give me, to echo Paul Harvey, The Rest Of the Story.
First, instead of an hour of work doing the part of the project She never learned to do, the way She and I had agreed half an hour before, She informed me that She was sending me 80% of the project to complete. It's not really in my nature to be confrontational--or even assertive--so I did not take instant and violent exception to Her commandeering 50% of my weekend. Not that I didn't think about it--but partly I was distracted by wondering what Her problem was.
She has, from what She said, Just. Had. It. With Bernie and the entire situation. She doesn't like technology, She has never been able to make peace with the programs She needed to use* for the job She was hired to do, and She's sick of the amount of work there is that needs to be done. And, from what she said, she and Bernie have been squabbling almost continuously for at least the last few months.
Bottom line? She was planning to tell Bernie this afternoon that She was going to start looking for other employment.
I am not available to train whoever Bernie finds to replace Her. Nor am I available to offer his clients support during whatever time he might find himself stuck without help. Someone tell him that, okay? Because there is No Way he himself is able to do 1/10 of the work that needs to be done around that place.
Part of me is worrying about Her, not that I know Her that well or really at all. As I've said before, the only reason She got the job was because She was the only person Bernie could find who would accept the position for the money he was offering. It isn't, not to be rude, but it isn't as though She has a mad set of skills that's going to have prospective employers clamoring to hire her. (I didn't say that to Her, of course.)
I dunno.
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* She had a few complaints about the short training program She was offered when She was hired. The way She remembers it, She was only offered about 2-1/2 days worth of training and it just wasn't enough.
Those of you who have been following our storyline for a while might remember my complaints about my inability to get Her attention during the week-long training session, or even during the hours over the next week when I either consulted over the phone or drove to the office to give additional help. Trust me, there were ample hours for Her to learn what She needed to know.
On the other hand, I'm sure you recall my frequent complaints about the amount of time She spent taking personal phone calls during training time, and Her disinclination to listen to my descriptions of the programs She would be using or to even sit down and do the sample exercises I provided for Her.
Things are much the same on the New Job front here at Argos.
Maybe it's time to fill you in on some of the cast of characters?
Our CEO, Jason, is about 20 years younger than you'd expect someone in that job to be and my personal opinion is that he's out of his depth. He's alternately quiet and withdrawn--not really a "people person"--and (from what I'm told) explosive in management meetings. How he made CEO of a company is anyone's guess.
There's a Shadow Board somewhere in the background. I'm not sure if they're impossible to please, or just disappointed that last year's incredibly optimistic expansion forecasts were missed by 60%.
This combination produces a level of chaos in the management team, we'll refer to them as the Puppis from now on, that has the company paddling in six directions at once.
Priorities shift constantly, last week's emergency gets lost in today's crisis, deadlines tend to fall on you in armloads, instead of being staggered to spread the workload, and quick fixes are the name of the day, never time to solve problems for the long-term because you're always so far behind that you have to grab whatever temporary solution can be completed most quickly, etc.
Gidget's boss Vela is, like the rest of the Puppis, young and well-intentioned, but presumably lacking experience in more stable corporate culture that would help her put a stop to the madness.
I don't think any of the Puppis have the experience they should have, nor do any of them seem to understand that the job of management is to manage things. They're all so busy having meetings and making "strategic decisions" that none of them ever gets any work done.
And each "management decision" inevitably gets lost in a riptide of proposed changes, so that no one knows from one week to the next precisely what our priorities actually are. I haven't met anyone who is focusing on the day-to-day operations with the kind of attention needed to make sure implementation is being carried through either well or completely.
Everyone's plotting the course, but no one's actually sailing the boat.
The rest of the Argonauts are still pretty much of a blur to me. I might have figured out the names of two or three people, but that's about it. (No, I'm not a "people person" either, but I'm smart enough not to spend my time in jobs that require that particular skill.) A few faces are starting to come clear in the fog, but none of them very quickly.
What about on the Old Job Front?
Well, She called today. They're having yet another emergency. She somehow managed to crash their new survey software, so they're back to using the old program, the one She never bothered to learn to use. Naturally, She won't be able to do the job they have due on Monday, and She wanted to know if I could give them some time this weekend to do it.
Never burn bridges. I keep repeating that to myself, over and over. I was reciting it like a mantra when I heard myself telling Her that yes, I'd take the time this weekend to do their coding for them. Sigh.
Still. Extra money is extra money, right?
I heard from Buehler today also. His work not only pays better, it's a lot easier, so I was happy to say yes when he asked if I could do some stuff for him.
/End Old Job Front
Sadly, I heard from DiamondGirl that her SO is very ill. I'm thinking of her frequently and sending good wishes.
Not a lot of plans for the weekend, aside from the aforementioned free-lance work.
It's supposed to be gorgeous on Sunday. I'd like to think of something spectacular to do, but at the moment my brain is empty.
I can live with the snow. So what if it's April? What's six or eight inches of wet, spring snow? We need the moisture. And I like scraping three inches of snow off my car before work in the morning. Ankle-deep in slush.
Even more, I like the adventure of waking up to a blinking alarm clock--signaling that not only do I need a fresh battery to support the "battery back-up" feature, but that I should allow myself no more than 2-1/2 seconds of panic and wondering what time it really is before I fly out of bed and scamper through my morning routine. Happily it turned out to be only about ten minutes after the alarm would have rung on a normal day, so not so much with the panic.
No, what's giving me pain this morning was yesterday's trip to the gas station.
$31.94!
And, let me add, ! and ! and !
I won't bore you all by my memories of the days when gasoline was skyrocketing toward $0.50/gallon and we all swore that if it ever hit $1.00, we'd stop driving (as if) but this is something entirely different.
I checked out taking public transportation to work. $3.50/day and about 40 minutes each way, including time to walk the distances where waiting for a bus would add 15-20 minutes to each leg of the trip.
My commute, in my car, even with the price of gas what it is today? Ten minutes each way and about 5 cents worth of gas.
I'm just saying. Public transportation is for the rich and idle in this town. (Or for people who live more than three miles from their offices....)
Meanwhile, the snow continues to fall and maybe it's time I gave the company a little of my time this morning.
I wrote an amazingly boring blog entry on Friday. One so boring that the minute I closed the file for a minute (to do a bit of Actual Work), I completely forgot about it. I spent over an hour writing it, too!* What a waste.
Mostly it was about what I was going to do over the weekend (get my laptop fixed, which turned out to be a 90-second event, and get together with friends on Sunday**). (This summary saved you 768 words at no extra charge.)
Also I talked about today, when I was supposed to be getting a performance review! (I've worked for a lot of companies who claimed they did 60-day new-hire reviews, but never for one that actually did them.) So far, all I've actually gotten is a lot of Gidget complaining that the PDF format of the online form means she has to write things out by hand--so primitive--and that most of the categories don't apply to me and, finally, that she's only halfway through and already tired of writing, "she's brilliant" on everything. Hee.
I was talking to the R.C. this weekend, about the boringness of my blog recently.
The thing is, you see, one needs drama in order to write an interesting post and, while I'm perfectly capable of injecting drama, or even melodrama, into the simplest of events, I do require some kind of event as a starting point. Sitting here staring at ad software all day doesn't offer much in that line.
I cooked yesterday, too. This week's lunches will consist of scalloped potatoes with ham. I'm calling it "hard carbs" because it's carbs and fat. (No matter what anyone tells you, ham is a fat, not a protein.) I'm glad the dish came out well because after it's gone I'm back to turkey, broiled chicken, and the occasional tunafish (ick) sandwich because I'm getting all fat again. I have to take 6 lbs back off and then another 9, just for fun.
Much, much later....
Okay, I started this three hours ago. I guess I was boring again.
The performance review didn't happen yet (Cindy says we'll go to lunch or something on Wednesday) but Cindy had the prepatory meeting with her boss. Turns out that Cindy was so PO'd at the (only) negative thing her boss could come up with about me (and that she was required to pass along) that she had to share it before she left today.
Seems that I was seen playing Solitaire on my lunch break one day and someone reported me, wondering if I had quite enough work to do. Apparently sitting at your desk at 12:15, eating and playing on the computer, doesn't say "lunch hour" to everyone in the world.
Sigh. I've been here for two months. I've barely spoken to anyone, beyond the occasional "good morning" or "have a nice evening." How could someone dislike me enough to try to get me into trouble?
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* It's not that I don't like the job any more. It's just that I've streamlined the procedures so severely that I find that by the end of the week I really need to keep my hands off of the accounts for a few days to let all of my changes settle and to find out if what I've done works. This means I'm at loose ends by Friday.
** We watched bad p0rn.
Well, okay, for p0rn it was considerably above average but the bar is so low in that arena that the difference is infinitesimal. (Also, I'm not sure my categorization of it as "above average" just because it made me laugh, whether or not it was intended to, is valid.)
And we watched, Becoming Jane, a highly fictionalized 'account' of Jane Austen's life.
Side by side, these two made for a very peculiar viewing experience.
We started with the p0rn, and I kept trying to find logical reasons why things were happening. By the time we got to Jane, I was in P0rnMode, no longer looking for a plot to analyze but waiting for this one very attractive actor to take his clothes off for us. (For the record? Eventually he did, frolicking nekkid in the sunshine with another guy.) (As I said--highly fictionalized.) (As is my description of that scene.)
Then I went home and the R.C. wanted to know if I wanted to watch the first part of Sense and Sensibility we'd taped off of Masterpiece Theater last week, but by that time, my brain was ready to explode and the injection of any more Austen into the uneasy mix might have tipped the balance.
And the pr0n gave me very strange dreams last night, but I think we're perilously close to TMI already.
It's almost a blizzard now, but earlier it was just a few random flakes, with a lot of rain.
It's spring, I tell you! Spring! Let the sunshine commence!
I haven't been keeping a good eye on y'all recently. I hope you've been behaving yourselves?
Quickly, before any of you implode from boredom, let me briefly mention that my back is completely fine, I have just a small cough left from the bronchitis*, a few paychecks have rolled in, and I'm starting to get a handle on how I'm going to pay down the debt from my recent bout of unemployment**.
And I had a little Amazon.com accident last week, so I'll have new books to read this weekend. (But it was a frugal accident. I chose the free "super saver" shipping instead of my normal two-day.)***
In the bad news department, the d-i-e-t is about to take over my life again, but it's necessary if I don't want my butt swelling to the size of Toledo. Sigh.
The new job....
Well, as the RC put it last night--maybe my job is a little boring and hers is a little demeaning, but at least we're not stressed. Neither of us dreads Monday morning any more.
And I've worked for less money. Maybe not in the last ten years (probably 15 if you adjust for inflation), but I've done it.
I wish I had tons of fun things to share with you. I wish I'd been spending my time in lively and interesting pursuits recently but between the bronchitis, the back, and the travel, I really just haven't.
I've done a ton of reading. A lot of DVD watching. A bit of worrying about my retirement funds as the markets play superball with my savings. A little moaning about the skyrocketing cost of living.
Some complaining about the relentless election coverage on the nightly news programs--devoid of actual content and numbingly repetitive. And carefully empty of anything "controversial" like extended coverage of any candidate saying anything of substance about their view of the future of this country. ****
Throw in some laundry and housecleaning, and you have my life.
Spring is coming, though. I can feel it. This morning's snow was liberally mixed with rain. Here and there, courageous bushes are beginning to flower. Various trees are haloed with green, the promise of leaves budding.
I'm sure that when the weather suddenly, well, springs into spring, I'm sure I'll be getting out, running about, and having lots and lots to blog.
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* The poor R.C. After nursing me through both of my illnesses, she came down with a cold of her own last week. (Not my fault--I haven't been contagious for a month.) She's better at self-nursing than I am, so I confined my "assistance" to making sure the living room stays warm and taking her Chinese food for dinner one night.
** I have a couple of potential free-lance jobs (Buehler and a client of Gidget's), so, more money there. If either of them come through, the checks are going straight to the credit card company.
*** What can I say? Between travel and sickness, I haven't been in a bookstore since Shopping Amnesty day. I was in withdrawal! (I said I wasn't going to run mad again, but I never said I wasn't going to buy any new books.)
**** Seriously. Don't get me started.