Weekend Update
Oct. 12th, 2003 01:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vaxjediWell, more about than just the weekend, but I think y'all will survive that. BTW, I talk a little bit about the movie Underworld in here. There might be minor spoilers.
So Thursday night I went to see Underground. It's one I'll probably pick up on DVD at some point. I liked Blade, for the techno-gothic feel of it if nothing else.
As for the whole White Wolf vs. Sony lawsuit over this movie... After seeing Underworld, I think White Wolf is gonna lose. The tones of the World of Darkness and the movie are similar, but that's really about it. Yeah sure, there are vampires in a war versus werewolves. But neither species have the mythological underpinnings of the World of Darkness - their back-story is almost more science fiction than urban fantasy. The history between the two species from the movie is very different from the World of Darkness, as is their metaphysical and biological make-up. The 'smoking gun' a lot of people talk about (use of the term 'abomination') seems really more like a throw away that's mentioned used twice in the movie by the same character.
It was a good fluffy movie tho. And I was one of three people in the theatre since it was a late showing.
And I got to sleep late, which lead to Friday. I was grumpy at work all day long. My illustrious counterpart called in sick (apparently he left early on Thursday while I was out for taking Miri to an appointment at the hospital). He seems to be out quite a lot the day after I am out. I think his health is failing, or he is succumbing to the stress, like a lot of teh days without someone to help him are just too much for him. I give him a lot of slack. But Friday morning I was bitching a lot.
I didn't feel like I got a lot done that day. Did a lot of administrative things that required carefully worded emails taht took a long time to write.
One of these things was a list of technicians who were we were having 'issues' with. There are several small areas where a few techs forget or refuse to record things properly. By itself, they aren't big deals - just those sort of sand in the shoe things. Every once in a while, our vendor will poke us about them and we'll try to clean up a little more than usual.
A few of the techs involved are constantly an issue in these areas. Some of them simply don't seem t get the idea that when I say "You need to do this" and have been saying so for the last 2 years, that they will be expected to "do this". Not like these are problems - it's just a few keystrokes difference in many cases. And almost everyone else there seem to handle this issues without a problem.
So my manager asks for a list of repeat offenders on one of the problems. Just a sort of "who should I prod to remind them from up high?" So I write the list and decide to include a few other lists of these other detail-y issues.
When I write the lists (5 of them), a single person's name shows up on all 5 lists. Plus, I'd had a confrontation with him over a call coaching I'd given him a week ago. He asked to have someone else review it since he felt it wasn't fair. I passed it by our Quality person (who does these things all day long) and she said she would have marked him on our score sheet in a different place. Her score came out to be lower than mine. So I figure, in the interests of giving the tech a higher score, I'll go with mine.
Here is where I pull my first bad - in the whirlwind taht can be my job, I forgot to email the tech explaining the issue.
Anyway, this same tech got one someone else's case because that person had been asked to look at old cases and find ones that had been closed by accident. The problem tech in question had a few. My collegue sent an email to the people who had these missed cases, asking them to clean them up and cc'd copies to myself and the other Seniors. He got a response from the tech saying pretty much taht teh erson should have cleaned up the cases himself instead of bothering the people who had miscoded them and saying that he thought my collegue was just trying to curry favor with the powers that be by copying them on the message.
So after hearing this exchange, with my one previously and ones others had mentioned, coupled with him showing up on all of the lists I'd just informally made, I decided to send an email to my manager about him (she'd left already). So I wrote an email that said that I didn't know how to address it, but the tech was having several issues, including an increased argumentative attitude and I was receiving more and more comments about it. I figured my manager would file it away, or go talk to the tech.
Now for the real error: I was thinking about the tech while I was writing the email, so apparenlty, I reflexively wrote his email address in the To: field, not my managers.
I don't realize this until I am just about to leave work and check my email a last time and see the techs responses to my email (which actually were surprisignly professional given he'd received an email that said he was a bad employee).
So I quickly emailed my manager to explain what happened and, in an impressive bit of cowardice, left work very quickly while making sure I didn't run into him.
Now on Monday, I have to deal with the fall out. I'm nervous. But I'm not apolegetic. I didn't want to slam the tech or make him feel attacked or incompetent. It was an email to my manager letting her know something I thought was important - that is part of my job. And my email was professional - I didnt say anything like 'this guy's a total jack off' or anything. And I think what I did say is an honest assessment. I'm sorry that my manager is going to have to catch flak for this from the tech, and I'm sorry that it will make working with the guy pretty much awkward for the rest of the time we are around each other.
On an aside, this is similar to something that happened on a previous contract, but with the roles reversed. I had a Senior who consistantly gave me bad call coachings and obviously felt I had major problems as a technician. I ended up having to sit next to him for a while. It wasn't pretty and I was very upset by it - I eventually went to my manager and complained. I was moved to work with another Senior and he had no problems with me.
I wonder if I am just seeing this from the other side now. I mean, I think my opinion about the situation is correct. But that other Senior from the previous contract felt the same about me. Now, I had people who have agreed with me about this technician and back then, I had people who felt I was just fine as a technician before (and the problem Senior was the only one who gave me bad coaching scores). So I'm a bit more confident.
But the parallels are disturbing. I'm sure this guy's wife is probably telling him he's fine and that she's cursing me as he vents to her about the abuse he has been taking at work from the people above him.
I dunno. It's just another thing that convinces me that there is simply no such thing as absolute truth in anything but the most basic situations.
I came home from work and relaxed with Eleri. The Mouse was gone until the next day, so we actually had a full 24hrs of peace. That's more and more rare lately. Anyway, I brought her flowers, because I wanted to give her something pretty. And she said she never gets flowers from people. She gave me a really nice footrub. And she got all dressed up only to have me get her all undressed again. ;)
Several hours later, we went out to dinner and then to the HP Lovecraft Film Festival. We watched our friend's film Dreamquest of Unknown Kadeth. Ir was simple animation (lots of camera movements, mostly), but was a major undertaking, as it was a feature length animated film of a novel that had never been done as a movie before.
I handed out some "Compassionate Nihilism - Cthulhu in 2004" campaign buttons that Eleri and I had whipped up earlier today and got a license plate frame that that says "Alumni - Miskatonic Univeristy" on it. Go Fighting Pods!
I was real tired and it was late and we went to go listen to some music by Land of the Blind, a band that does Lovecraft-inspired music.
Listening to Lovecraftian music while very tired after a bad day at work and being worn out in general constitues and unwise idea, by the way.
I think I was minorly tripping off of it. I had a weird panic reaction, like I felt myself lose grip on my self-control and sense of self and felt probably what was the closest thing ti panic I ever have. Luckly I identified it quickly and didn't freak out. But I spend about 10 mins while half asleep trying to analyze it and figure out while it felt so familiar, as if I felt it before. The closest thing I could liken it to was the feeling one must have if they were suddenly telepathically transfigured into a serial killer, but with just enough of your psyche left to realize what has happened and to be experiencing it as if you were actually doing it but were unable to stop yourself.
No, that isn't the familiar part of it, as that has never happened to me. But that's what my half-asleep mind could conceptualize it as.
Anyway, that feeling is still lingering in the back of my head, like a limb tingling that's no longer attached (no I don't know hwat that feels like either, really).
I don't know what I am going to do with that feeling.
After the LSD music episode, we got ice cream at a Denny's and stumbled into bed. Sleep was a very good thing. And since the Mouse wasn't around, we got to actually sleep and then sleep in. Very good stuff, that rest business.
We got up lazily and puttered. We got some rest, but the strain still showed a bit. We snipped at each other a little bit.
We're both very tired. Eleri isn't sleeping well and food in general isn't sitting with her properly. I am worn and my joints are beginning to ache (especially my knees, which I've had no problem with before). It's like we have aged a lot over the last year or so.
I had more evidence that I'm losing my people skills. I tagged along with Jenn and Ryan while they got new cell phones. I talked to Ryan about gaming a bit. I found it very hard to look him in the eyes or pay attention to what he was saying. That's happening more and more. It's like when I am talking to people, I just desperately want to not be talking to them. Or listen to them in some way where they aren't paying direct attention to me.
I've noticed I have been using lots of short sentences when talking to people and a lot of canned responses in conversation ("yeah, I can understand that","I know how that feels","well, ya know?","That seems to be how it goes", etc).
No wonder people don't talk to me very much anymnore. Not only do I give off vibes that I'm not comfortable, but I must seem very disinterested in what they have to say. The fact is I just don't know what to say.
I have the same problem when people talk to me and vent about things. I don't know what to say. I'm not sure how to comfort people without sounding contrite and just saying "Wow, I'm sorry" and "Yeah, that sucks." over and over again.
So this evening, I dropped Eleri off for a date. And I fed the Mouse and got her to bed. Then I jumped online and read post after post on RPG forums on the World of Darkness and their Time of Judgement end-of-the-world storyling. The White Wolf website has this 'news ticker' that has a different little news blurb or such about happenings in the WoD as the world looks like it's going to unravel.
It's amusing, though I have been so out of the loop on the WoD that I don't ctach most of the references. I found some very good discussion of them at RPGNet, as well as some very good synopses of the convoluted metaplots for the various lines of the WoD RPGs.
Another aside. There are a lot of people really upset with the WoD metaplot. I'm sorry, metaplots just don't bother me. I don't see them as the corrupting force of the RPG world that many people see them as.
Yes, you often do have to ignore parts of new suppliments if the metaplot conflicts with your campaign. People have been doing that with every RPG since the first published suppliments came out. I simply can't see how White Wolf's big end of the world marketing scheme is any different.
And they've been taking a beating because they have decided not to reprint most WoD books because they want to end the line. As far as I can tell, this is mostly because people need something to be bitchy about. Almost every gaming company out there has stopped printing some books. And some have even stopped printing entire lines of books. But when White Wolf does, it's an outrage and we have to not buy any more of their products despite not knowing what they will be about or how good they are. It doesn't make sense to me.
In some ways, I think I have become jaded. There just seem to be so many disgruntled people out there and a lot of them seem to want to be disgruntled - people seem to seek it out. They seem to want to be upset, disappointed and disenfranchised. They look for things to be mad at or to disapprove of.
And I think that I am jaded because I seem to be one of them.
I'm sorta lonely. I don't get out much, but I resist efforts to get out. And I'm avoiding people. I find myself avoiding social situations unless Eleri is there too. Generally then, I just follow her around while she talks to people. I have a few guy friends on line that seem genuinely interested in me romantically, but I find myself unable to talk to them, I'm not sure why. And I can't seem to attract any other relationships of either gender.
I dunno. That was a bit of wollying in self-pity, wasn't it? Maybe I am just getting tired.
I have other things on my mind - pains, fears, needs. But I'm not ready to talk about them yet. They seem like too much to give voice to right now.
I want to run a game. Not sure what or when. I'm not comfortable running it at our apartment, because we can never quite keep it in shape, the Mouse would be too distracting (I have trouble focusing on things when she is around) and there really is no place to sit in here. However, I want Eleri to play and if I play elsewhere, that means she'll probably have to watch Miri and miss out.
Maybe a multi-plotline game. On where I can run some people over here and some people over there and some on the net. I'd like to run my Background with No Name (with Nocturnes, Raptured, Sovreigns, Sidewalkers, Techgnostics, Sinnish, etc). I still would need a plot though.
That's always been my weakness in RPGs - I like backgrounds more than I like plots. And often, I like reading up on the game more than actually playing it.
I've been working on thgis post all night long. Time for me to sleep. I get to sleep in tomorrow too. There is hope in life ;)
So Thursday night I went to see Underground. It's one I'll probably pick up on DVD at some point. I liked Blade, for the techno-gothic feel of it if nothing else.
As for the whole White Wolf vs. Sony lawsuit over this movie... After seeing Underworld, I think White Wolf is gonna lose. The tones of the World of Darkness and the movie are similar, but that's really about it. Yeah sure, there are vampires in a war versus werewolves. But neither species have the mythological underpinnings of the World of Darkness - their back-story is almost more science fiction than urban fantasy. The history between the two species from the movie is very different from the World of Darkness, as is their metaphysical and biological make-up. The 'smoking gun' a lot of people talk about (use of the term 'abomination') seems really more like a throw away that's mentioned used twice in the movie by the same character.
It was a good fluffy movie tho. And I was one of three people in the theatre since it was a late showing.
And I got to sleep late, which lead to Friday. I was grumpy at work all day long. My illustrious counterpart called in sick (apparently he left early on Thursday while I was out for taking Miri to an appointment at the hospital). He seems to be out quite a lot the day after I am out. I think his health is failing, or he is succumbing to the stress, like a lot of teh days without someone to help him are just too much for him. I give him a lot of slack. But Friday morning I was bitching a lot.
I didn't feel like I got a lot done that day. Did a lot of administrative things that required carefully worded emails taht took a long time to write.
One of these things was a list of technicians who were we were having 'issues' with. There are several small areas where a few techs forget or refuse to record things properly. By itself, they aren't big deals - just those sort of sand in the shoe things. Every once in a while, our vendor will poke us about them and we'll try to clean up a little more than usual.
A few of the techs involved are constantly an issue in these areas. Some of them simply don't seem t get the idea that when I say "You need to do this" and have been saying so for the last 2 years, that they will be expected to "do this". Not like these are problems - it's just a few keystrokes difference in many cases. And almost everyone else there seem to handle this issues without a problem.
So my manager asks for a list of repeat offenders on one of the problems. Just a sort of "who should I prod to remind them from up high?" So I write the list and decide to include a few other lists of these other detail-y issues.
When I write the lists (5 of them), a single person's name shows up on all 5 lists. Plus, I'd had a confrontation with him over a call coaching I'd given him a week ago. He asked to have someone else review it since he felt it wasn't fair. I passed it by our Quality person (who does these things all day long) and she said she would have marked him on our score sheet in a different place. Her score came out to be lower than mine. So I figure, in the interests of giving the tech a higher score, I'll go with mine.
Here is where I pull my first bad - in the whirlwind taht can be my job, I forgot to email the tech explaining the issue.
Anyway, this same tech got one someone else's case because that person had been asked to look at old cases and find ones that had been closed by accident. The problem tech in question had a few. My collegue sent an email to the people who had these missed cases, asking them to clean them up and cc'd copies to myself and the other Seniors. He got a response from the tech saying pretty much taht teh erson should have cleaned up the cases himself instead of bothering the people who had miscoded them and saying that he thought my collegue was just trying to curry favor with the powers that be by copying them on the message.
So after hearing this exchange, with my one previously and ones others had mentioned, coupled with him showing up on all of the lists I'd just informally made, I decided to send an email to my manager about him (she'd left already). So I wrote an email that said that I didn't know how to address it, but the tech was having several issues, including an increased argumentative attitude and I was receiving more and more comments about it. I figured my manager would file it away, or go talk to the tech.
Now for the real error: I was thinking about the tech while I was writing the email, so apparenlty, I reflexively wrote his email address in the To: field, not my managers.
I don't realize this until I am just about to leave work and check my email a last time and see the techs responses to my email (which actually were surprisignly professional given he'd received an email that said he was a bad employee).
So I quickly emailed my manager to explain what happened and, in an impressive bit of cowardice, left work very quickly while making sure I didn't run into him.
Now on Monday, I have to deal with the fall out. I'm nervous. But I'm not apolegetic. I didn't want to slam the tech or make him feel attacked or incompetent. It was an email to my manager letting her know something I thought was important - that is part of my job. And my email was professional - I didnt say anything like 'this guy's a total jack off' or anything. And I think what I did say is an honest assessment. I'm sorry that my manager is going to have to catch flak for this from the tech, and I'm sorry that it will make working with the guy pretty much awkward for the rest of the time we are around each other.
On an aside, this is similar to something that happened on a previous contract, but with the roles reversed. I had a Senior who consistantly gave me bad call coachings and obviously felt I had major problems as a technician. I ended up having to sit next to him for a while. It wasn't pretty and I was very upset by it - I eventually went to my manager and complained. I was moved to work with another Senior and he had no problems with me.
I wonder if I am just seeing this from the other side now. I mean, I think my opinion about the situation is correct. But that other Senior from the previous contract felt the same about me. Now, I had people who have agreed with me about this technician and back then, I had people who felt I was just fine as a technician before (and the problem Senior was the only one who gave me bad coaching scores). So I'm a bit more confident.
But the parallels are disturbing. I'm sure this guy's wife is probably telling him he's fine and that she's cursing me as he vents to her about the abuse he has been taking at work from the people above him.
I dunno. It's just another thing that convinces me that there is simply no such thing as absolute truth in anything but the most basic situations.
I came home from work and relaxed with Eleri. The Mouse was gone until the next day, so we actually had a full 24hrs of peace. That's more and more rare lately. Anyway, I brought her flowers, because I wanted to give her something pretty. And she said she never gets flowers from people. She gave me a really nice footrub. And she got all dressed up only to have me get her all undressed again. ;)
Several hours later, we went out to dinner and then to the HP Lovecraft Film Festival. We watched our friend's film Dreamquest of Unknown Kadeth. Ir was simple animation (lots of camera movements, mostly), but was a major undertaking, as it was a feature length animated film of a novel that had never been done as a movie before.
I handed out some "Compassionate Nihilism - Cthulhu in 2004" campaign buttons that Eleri and I had whipped up earlier today and got a license plate frame that that says "Alumni - Miskatonic Univeristy" on it. Go Fighting Pods!
I was real tired and it was late and we went to go listen to some music by Land of the Blind, a band that does Lovecraft-inspired music.
Listening to Lovecraftian music while very tired after a bad day at work and being worn out in general constitues and unwise idea, by the way.
I think I was minorly tripping off of it. I had a weird panic reaction, like I felt myself lose grip on my self-control and sense of self and felt probably what was the closest thing ti panic I ever have. Luckly I identified it quickly and didn't freak out. But I spend about 10 mins while half asleep trying to analyze it and figure out while it felt so familiar, as if I felt it before. The closest thing I could liken it to was the feeling one must have if they were suddenly telepathically transfigured into a serial killer, but with just enough of your psyche left to realize what has happened and to be experiencing it as if you were actually doing it but were unable to stop yourself.
No, that isn't the familiar part of it, as that has never happened to me. But that's what my half-asleep mind could conceptualize it as.
Anyway, that feeling is still lingering in the back of my head, like a limb tingling that's no longer attached (no I don't know hwat that feels like either, really).
I don't know what I am going to do with that feeling.
After the LSD music episode, we got ice cream at a Denny's and stumbled into bed. Sleep was a very good thing. And since the Mouse wasn't around, we got to actually sleep and then sleep in. Very good stuff, that rest business.
We got up lazily and puttered. We got some rest, but the strain still showed a bit. We snipped at each other a little bit.
We're both very tired. Eleri isn't sleeping well and food in general isn't sitting with her properly. I am worn and my joints are beginning to ache (especially my knees, which I've had no problem with before). It's like we have aged a lot over the last year or so.
I had more evidence that I'm losing my people skills. I tagged along with Jenn and Ryan while they got new cell phones. I talked to Ryan about gaming a bit. I found it very hard to look him in the eyes or pay attention to what he was saying. That's happening more and more. It's like when I am talking to people, I just desperately want to not be talking to them. Or listen to them in some way where they aren't paying direct attention to me.
I've noticed I have been using lots of short sentences when talking to people and a lot of canned responses in conversation ("yeah, I can understand that","I know how that feels","well, ya know?","That seems to be how it goes", etc).
No wonder people don't talk to me very much anymnore. Not only do I give off vibes that I'm not comfortable, but I must seem very disinterested in what they have to say. The fact is I just don't know what to say.
I have the same problem when people talk to me and vent about things. I don't know what to say. I'm not sure how to comfort people without sounding contrite and just saying "Wow, I'm sorry" and "Yeah, that sucks." over and over again.
So this evening, I dropped Eleri off for a date. And I fed the Mouse and got her to bed. Then I jumped online and read post after post on RPG forums on the World of Darkness and their Time of Judgement end-of-the-world storyling. The White Wolf website has this 'news ticker' that has a different little news blurb or such about happenings in the WoD as the world looks like it's going to unravel.
It's amusing, though I have been so out of the loop on the WoD that I don't ctach most of the references. I found some very good discussion of them at RPGNet, as well as some very good synopses of the convoluted metaplots for the various lines of the WoD RPGs.
Another aside. There are a lot of people really upset with the WoD metaplot. I'm sorry, metaplots just don't bother me. I don't see them as the corrupting force of the RPG world that many people see them as.
Yes, you often do have to ignore parts of new suppliments if the metaplot conflicts with your campaign. People have been doing that with every RPG since the first published suppliments came out. I simply can't see how White Wolf's big end of the world marketing scheme is any different.
And they've been taking a beating because they have decided not to reprint most WoD books because they want to end the line. As far as I can tell, this is mostly because people need something to be bitchy about. Almost every gaming company out there has stopped printing some books. And some have even stopped printing entire lines of books. But when White Wolf does, it's an outrage and we have to not buy any more of their products despite not knowing what they will be about or how good they are. It doesn't make sense to me.
In some ways, I think I have become jaded. There just seem to be so many disgruntled people out there and a lot of them seem to want to be disgruntled - people seem to seek it out. They seem to want to be upset, disappointed and disenfranchised. They look for things to be mad at or to disapprove of.
And I think that I am jaded because I seem to be one of them.
I'm sorta lonely. I don't get out much, but I resist efforts to get out. And I'm avoiding people. I find myself avoiding social situations unless Eleri is there too. Generally then, I just follow her around while she talks to people. I have a few guy friends on line that seem genuinely interested in me romantically, but I find myself unable to talk to them, I'm not sure why. And I can't seem to attract any other relationships of either gender.
I dunno. That was a bit of wollying in self-pity, wasn't it? Maybe I am just getting tired.
I have other things on my mind - pains, fears, needs. But I'm not ready to talk about them yet. They seem like too much to give voice to right now.
I want to run a game. Not sure what or when. I'm not comfortable running it at our apartment, because we can never quite keep it in shape, the Mouse would be too distracting (I have trouble focusing on things when she is around) and there really is no place to sit in here. However, I want Eleri to play and if I play elsewhere, that means she'll probably have to watch Miri and miss out.
Maybe a multi-plotline game. On where I can run some people over here and some people over there and some on the net. I'd like to run my Background with No Name (with Nocturnes, Raptured, Sovreigns, Sidewalkers, Techgnostics, Sinnish, etc). I still would need a plot though.
That's always been my weakness in RPGs - I like backgrounds more than I like plots. And often, I like reading up on the game more than actually playing it.
I've been working on thgis post all night long. Time for me to sleep. I get to sleep in tomorrow too. There is hope in life ;)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-10-12 02:40 am (UTC)If possible, I'd love to get in on the online part of that rpg, if you do put it together.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-12 07:03 am (UTC)It sounds to me like you're desperately overextending yourself looking for something that is most likely only going to be found inside yourself.
Maybe you should consider cutting back on all your non-essential responsibilities or comittments and then reaching out of those only when you've got them under control.
Tell people "I'm sorry, I have to be just me-and-Eleri-and-Mousie-and-work right now, I can't handle more than that, but I'm still your friend and I still care about you..." Then don't do anything but those four things. Take time for yourself, stay home with Mousie while Eleri goes out, work a bit of overtime cleaning your desk and getting your e-mail dealt with... Once those things and relationships are in order, it'll be easier for you to adjust them to try to make room for other people, other things.
That's kind of where I've been the last few months, and it's helped a lot -- I don't feel nearly so overwhelmed and exhausted anymore.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-12 10:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-12 10:51 am (UTC)I can't give you useful advice on how to go about rejuvenating things in *your* relationship, because I don't know how you and Eleri relate to each other as a couple, but maybe you should look at aspects of your beginning relationship that have fallen by the wayside and try to bring them back...
I think that breaking out of the rut of "we've been together for so long that nothing's new" is the hardest part of maintaining a long-term relationship, but it's been one of the most rewarding "hard things" I've done in a really long time.
I wish you all the best of luck in it -- and I hope some of this helps.
this isn't really emlightened or anything....
Date: 2003-10-12 01:39 pm (UTC)Just a thought.
Re: this isn't really emlightened or anything....
Date: 2003-10-13 08:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-13 11:04 am (UTC)Wish i could pop over 'n take you out to dinner more often, we had our best chats then.
My best advice i can give you, 'n if ur not lookin' for advice do ignore:), is to be patient with urself.
kisses