So today I worked up the courage to talk to my overall boss about getting time to work the Fringe Festival.
I am glad I did. The guy is very approachable and very friendly. He is more then willing to try and help me out and get the time to work the Fringe Festival.
I am very glad that I spoke with him.
I will try and write more about things later.
Things are quiet (not really, but I'm feeling un-chatty today).
Reading: Micheal Palins diary, Les Miserables, and a couple other books.
Watching: BBC Tv series, Robin Hood
Sleeping lots.
Waiting for summer to really start.
Maybe more later.
I am struggling more and more every morning. I am thinking more and more seriously about abandoning almost ten years of training and jobs to get back into theatre full time. Should I do this, my income will drop away dramatically for a long time. While I dont think I should have TOO much trouble finding something to be doing, it wont pay much and I will have to do a lot of volunteer work to get myself known again.
What I wish would happen is that EDS allows me to work the Fringe this year. If they do that, and I can stay here, then I will put my face to the grind stone and try and get as many calls in as possible. I will get my name into the IA and get out on some calls.
Sigh. I need to try and do this when work is slow.
The sun is shining. The sky is a nice deep blue with only a couple clouds floating by and there is a nice light breeze.
AND I HAVE TO BE AT WORK!
Damn it. I have to work from 2 till 10:30pm today. Completely missing all the nice balacony sun that will be happening today. I sat out in the sun on Thursday after work and it was really nice. The sun was hot and there was very little breeze on our side of the building. I love sitting and reading in the sun in the later part of the afternoon. I usually spend those afternoons reading as much as I possibly can.
I'm really spending a lot of time thinking over this Fringe thing. I know that if I quit this job and go to back to working in the theatre, I wont be making much money and I will have to haul ass hard core to get work. I think so far, I have been out of the loop for about 7 years except for my time at the Fringe. With the help desk job, I have a guaranteed income and work. I can get promoted and will eventually have insurance and such.
Even if I say that I want to work at the help desk, it really upsets me that I cant work for the Fringe festival. The more that I think about not being able to work in Theatre, the more unhappy I get.
Maybe I'll think about this some more.
So I found out today that my chances of working the Fringe this year arent too good. The new job, as most places would be, isnt going to be as accomodating as other jobs have been in the past. This really isnt a surprise for me, but it is causing a lot of thought.
Before, I never really had to make a choice between doing what I wanted to and what I had to do. I had to work in other places to make money between theatre jobs and I wanted to work at the Fringe. The office job from hell let me work the Fringe, the Bay after that let me work the Fringe and when I worked for Mind, they let me work the Fringe as well.
I dont blame the new job for being unwilling to let me do it. They are huge and dont need me. There are hundreds of people willing to work here who are as qualified as I am. This is a place where I am only a face in the crowd right now and I have yet to make myself stand out.
I want to work here. I want to do this job. But I also want to work the Fringe. I want to do theatre work. This is definately time to make my choice.
Update: It looks like my vacation request to get the time off has been denied. Right off the bat.
Got a new job.
Start on Monday.
I'll say more later.
I may have a lead.
More later.
Last Monday at Mind Computers is going as I thought it might.
Crappy. Life sucks and then you work at mind.
On the up side. My grandfather has basically forced $6,000 into my hands to pay my debts.
I asked him last night if he was going to leave me alone about it if I said no, he said, of course not.
So I dont have much of a choice.
Sigh.
I quit last week.
Gave two weeks notice and I am painfully working them out.
This place is a thin shadow of what it was when I started. The only thing that remains is the crap.
Things havent really changed all much here.
Sorry for the lack of posts. I have been crazy busy with work for the last little while and its taking a long while to get a solid routine going.
I will try and write more in the future.
Got promoted.
Aint got the pay.
Craptastic.
Well, here it is the first day after the bomb was dropped on us yesterday. So far there doesnt appear to be a lot of panic yet, but who knows, that could change soon. People are still rotating in and out of holidays right now and I dont think it will really sink in until the last day that my boss is leaving.
I am looking for another job, but not too hard. I am reluctant to leave this place just yet, but dont want to be here when things get really crazy and to be honest, the thought of going through all the "new job hassle" stuff doesnt seem all that appealing to me.
I think perhaps this will be a good time to make changes in my life.
Well, it was fun but it looks like my time with Mind is going to be ending soon (not too soon, so dont worry to much). This morning my direct boss told me and another employee that he had given two weeks notice.
My boss was the best. He protected us from our crazy overlord owners and the goofy shit they tried to pull. He protected us from crazy customer. He made sure we could all do our jobs when things were going batshit around us.
I am now currently looking for another job.
Sigh.
I'm at work on a Sunday.
And its sunny out.
Sigh.
I was at work and for once, it wasnt so bad a thing. I think that perhaps by coming in at the same time and working a full day in less stressful conditions (I only spoke to those customers I wanted to) it made my Monday look a lot better. And I think that I was able to relax more on Sunday knowing that I was productive over the weekend and that work wasnt going to suck right off the bat on Monday morning.
Sunday was nice, the morning was cloudy and kinda cold, but then the sun came out and it got really nice out. I spent some time on the balcony just watching the river melt and the sun shine. It was nice. I also got a chance to play some computer games that I hadnt played in a long while as well.
Thats enough for now, perhaps I will get some links up later.
I spend a lot of time thinking about what I want from my job, either from my current employer or from my future employers.
What I really want is a place that pays me a realistic amount. Some place that lets me grow on a daily basis, not only in what I do but also in what I know. I am looking for a place that is sensible and growing. A place that treats employees properly and lets them know they are important.
The weather is warming up.
Last night Shauna and I were at the apartment of our friends who recently got hitched. It was nice to seem them and chat for a little while. I was commenting to Shauna that these friends are turning into our "couple friends", you know, that couple you only get together with to do couple things. She laughed and asked me if that was a problem, I said it wasnt but that I never expected that I would be doing things like "talking over tea with another couple".
I guess its all part of maturing.
We are short staffed by two people. We cant seem to get anyone to approve the hiring of new people and one tech is out sick today.
So its going to suck today.
And to top it all off, its sunny outside.
I hate winter.
I am so looking forward to winter being over.
I hate the dark, the cold, the lack of moisture in the air.
I just hate the cold.
Looks like we all dodged the bullet on it. Looks like my boss was able to get around the broken parts and the remaining bits will be put in a dark corner to be forgotten about.
We hope.
Participated in something today that I shouldnt have.
I was under the impression today that it was ok to do something. I was told it was ok, but unfortunately the person who said it was ok, wasn't serious.
I did the bad thing thinking it was ok and it wasnt and now I (with two other people) may get into a huge boat load of trouble.
Bad feelings in the pit of my stomach this afternoon.
Finally the end of the week is here and it looks like the coming Monday might actually be somewhat decent. The new guy in service is coming along much better then I think we could have hoped for and it seems to me that he will be an excellent addition to service.
Right now I am trying like mad to study for my Windows XP Professional certification. Work requested it out of me when they hired me more then a year ago, but I never found the time to study for and write the exam. Now, with work picking up and things getting more serious around service, my boss has been asking me about it.
Well, despite the fact that I am writing this, I am really busy and I have to put a stop to this for the moment.
Oh well.
The last week at work has not been fun. In fact I think I could go so far as to say that it was a piece of shit week. Our full time onsite technician is away on holidays and the secondary onsite tech had to take care of the extra work. To top it off, the last two weeks have been SUPER busy. I dont think we have had a solidly busy week like this in a long while.
On Thursday / Friday, everything came to a head and almost killed someone. The secondary onsite technician is not the best and in fact he has pissed off most of his coworkers including myself. In fact I could go so far as to say that he has pissed me off regularly since he joined ther service department. This kid, and I call him a kid even though he is 21, has time and time again dropped the ball and proved to myself and the other technician that he is unable to do his work. He has trouble understanding when someone is genuinely upset with him and this causes further trouble for him. On Friday I spoke with my boss and other coworker about this idiot. My boss listened to me and my coworker rant about this kid for 45 minutes and didnt really say anything, but the frown on his face got longer and longer and longer.
I can only hope that come Monday morning, this kid has either gotten a huge reprimand with the fear of being fired added on top or he has in fact been fired. Now this may sound mean and cold hearted but I can not get across here what this kid has done wrong. In here it's hard to get across the subtle but bad things he does on a moment to moment basis and some of the things he does wrong, only someone who works with computers and in retail would understand.
The only unfortunate thing of this whole debacle is that my boss' bosses are hindering him from trying to make things better in the service department. Its fairly sad to see the act of trying to save a few bucks per hour, drive at least 4 people crazy to the point of wanting to quit.
I will post again when I know whats happening with the wonder kid.
20 desktops waiting to be worked on
+
14 Laptops waiting to be worked on
+
Two technicians who are frustrated with how things are going
+
One Tech who no one likes
EQUALS?
Murder, death and mayhem.
Coming soon to a blog near you.