Fun dangit!

Posted on August 1, 2010 by Rich

I was listening to Mur Lafferty’s Lessons from a Geek Fu Master today and one of the chapters was talking about fun and having fun. There was talk about adults disparaging attitude toward games. I talked about something similar recently in my review of The Last Airbender. In that I talked about how M. Night had taken the fun out of Aang’s character in an attempt to make what was a kid’s cartoon into an adult story. The sense that it couldn’t be fun if it were for adults was the only reason I could think of that he’d take the fun out of the movie.

I was recently talking to my mom about reading Young Adult fiction. I’m a fan and I’m 40. She’s a fan and she’s 32. We both read it not because it’s the extent of Harry Potter our reading ability. We read it because we enjoy them. Young Adult fiction is often fun. is fun to read. The Percy Jackson books are fun to read. There are others. They’re fun. “Oh,” says the adult in the seat next to me, “what simple books, like candy for the brain! Such a fast read. I much prefer Hodgens McStuffystein’s book about the travails of the Indians along the Trail of Tears as told from the point of view of a louse. You really MUST read the 12 volume set! It will change your perception of…” What? Really? That’s what I want to do in my few minutes of time to read while eating my breakfast or before I go to bed after a long day at work? No! I want to have fun! I want an adventure! I want excitement! I want fun! I want laughter! I want pain and suffering that I KNOW will turn out OK!

I’m a fan of games. I have an xbox 360 and I like it a lot. I have a Nintendo DS handheld gaming unit and I like it as well. I play games for run. Nope. They’re not typically all that edifying. I don’t believe the skills transfer to real life either. The only exception to that is after years of playing Diablo back when usenet was usenet and fan-fic was cool (and less slashy). I made some great friends back then and have them to this day, and stay in touch and everything… met them in real life and all that. You’re wondering what skill I learned in that game that transferred to real life? I can bash a barrel with the best of them! All I have to do is SEE the confounded hoop ringed demons and I’ll start itching to bust them to pieces! (OK. I’m back now… sorry… a flashback to an inside joke took over my keyboard.)*

Where was I? I just got back from typing the footnote, you’ve GOT to read it, and follow the links to some of my early stuff. 1999… I’ve been online for a long time you youngsters. Show me some respect! :)

Fun. Mur’s podcast chapter was about games being fun and about fun being something we’re evidently supposed to grow out of at some point. I haven’t grown out of having fun yet. I get looks sometimes, and I have people think I’m younger than I am, and it’s not because I look younger, God knows I look every day of my 40 something years… but I hope I don’t act it yet. I hope that I’m responsible and get my bills paid on time (I do.) but I hope also that I remember not only how to have fun but that it’s OK to have fun. You see people having fun when they have their kids or grand kids with them… using the kids as an excuse to let go and have fun but we don’t have to do that as adults. We’re allowed to enjoy books, games, movies and life without having to make up an excuse for having had fun. Fun is the reason we do things. It’s not something we should be ashamed of or hide or try and make an excuse for it. If you haven’t had fun today fix that. Do something fun. Not just that you like, but something that makes you grin from ear to ear, giggle like a kid, and when you’re done look up at your adult self and say, “Let’s do it again!”

*Inside joke funny. I made up a pseudonym BKDaemon in 1999 (And the female version in July of 99) to post provocative posts about barrel bashing in alt.games.diablo. He, BKDaemon, even figured in some fan fics I wrote. The thing is… someone in real life took the name, probably by accident, surely not to rip me off, that’d be ridiculous, but someone else out there is using the name to write fan fic lol. A fan fic character I wrote is serving as a pseudonym!

(As an aside I think some of my writing constipation has been that I’ve been taking this thing too seriously and haven’t been having the fun with it that I should have. I don’t mean every post has to be a galumphing romp through the buttercup strewn wabe (two points if you put the reference in the comments), just that I can relax a little and post. No, they won’t be all home runs, and no they won’t all be literary masterpieces, but they’ll be better than silence… at least I hope they will be.)

Yours,
Rich G.

Print
Posted in Personal | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Why don’t more people want my job?

Posted on July 26, 2010 by Rich

I’m an area supervisor. That’s a kind of manager, middle management. I’m mostly the middleman between our corporate office and eleven of our stores in the field. I’m supposed to make sure the stores adhere to the company guidelines and that the customer’s experience in each store is similar enough to in all the other stores that we’re recognizable as a chain of stores. We don’t have the market saturation of Walgreens so we have to be careful to make sure we are consistent. Geographically I cover 4 states.  I’ve got 11 direct reports. In theory I should have 11 people that want my job. I don’t. I should. I really should though. It’s a good job. Heck. It’s a great job.

It bugs me that I don’t have people trying to take my job. I’ve wanted my boss’ job for years. Well, not now. I don’t want it any more, my boss’ job I mean. So. His job was recently on monster.com which was pretty alarming for him to say the least since he still holds the job. (Let’s just say things are a little weird on the job front… it’s one reason I’ve been sort of quiet on here.) Here’s the alarming thing about his job being on craigslist and monster.com… nobody from within the company is asking for it. He’s as high as they go and nobody wants it. That to me is a huge red flag that something’s weird. Why wouldn’t people want more responsibility, power, money, acclaim? Me? I know why I don’t want it, but that’s more a personal thing for me. I’ve been on the road traveling for work since 2000 and that’s 10 years of windshield time. I’m ready for less travel, not more.

Sure there are applicants from outside the company trying to get my job and his job… but if nobody from within the company wants it.  Who should be worried about that? His boss? The HR department? His direct reports? The CEO? Nobody? Maybe it’s fine that nobody wants to move up. Maybe that means everybody’s happy where they are and is in their perfect job at their perfect level of ability. That’s possible. It’s not something I’m thrilled about though. I wish more people wanted it. I wish more people wanted my job. I love my job. I’ve had it for a lot of years and even when it is so frustrating I go for a run and sweat out my frustration and stamp out the things that make me crazy by pounding the trails I still enjoy going to work. I still enjoy the challenge of it. I still enjoy making a difference for my employees and making sure they feel taken care of and that they’re proud to work for someone who cares about them and cares and notices the good that they do. I really like that part of my job. I love that I’ve got people who talk about their people using words like “pride” and “does her best” and “extra mile.” That’s totally different from what it was when I got here and employees were literally crying and packing their stuff up because they’d always been told the “new broom sweeps clean” and they’d been managed by fear and threats.

So, why don’t they want my job? Why doesn’t anybody want my boss’ job? 

Print
Posted in Management | Tagged | 5 Comments

Movie Review: The Last Airbender

Posted on July 4, 2010 by Rich

I’m going to assume you’ve seen the cartoon. There are four seasons of the cartoon on Nickelodeon: Water, Earth, Air, and Fire. The movie started with a text crawl very much like Star Wars. Then there was a the normal introduction where the silhouettes of people did the karate, tai-chi, kung-fu or whatever moves as the names of the element were spoken aloud. Just like the cartoons that happened. It really settled me in as a fan of the cartoon. It set the tone… it made me think, “Ah yes… it will be loyal to the cartoon!”

The movie wasn’t all four seasons of the cartoon from Nickelodeon. It was just the first season and it was about an hour and a half long. So obviously some story lines were cut out and some side stories were cut. The actors looked like themselves so that was good. The scar on Zuko, the Fire prince’s, face was barely noticeable. That’s the only quibble I could find in the actors. Their acting was… good enough. Aang had a pouty lip. I guess there were two things and they were physical attributes. Seriously, his lip was always pouty looking. He looked like he’d been punched in the bottom of the mouth or maybe stung by bees or something. OK, crap. There were three things. Uncle was skinny and serious and didn’t seem as funny as wise, funny uncle had in the cartoon. That brings me to my biggest difference in the movie vs. the cartoon.

You know how Aang is 12 and an airbender? You know how airbenders are supposed to be pranksters? Fun-loving people who appear to not take things terribly seriously? They’re fun, funny. Couple that with Aang being 12 years old and you have a recipe for funny cartoons. Hiding behind ppl as they look for you, playing jokes on people, hide & seek, that sort of thing. A big part of my enjoying the cartoon was enjoying the youthful enthusiasm of the airbender. There was a lot of laughter and joy. The joy of life and living. That made it fun to watch. It made the character likeable and someone you wanted to see turn out OK. Not just physically, but mentally. You don’t want to see his joy of life hurt. In the movie though. M. Night Shazamalamadan decided one of the things he needed to cut was all the funny, fun, jokes, or joy. There were exactly two scenes that MIGHT have been reminiscent of the sort of fun-loving antics of cartoon Aang that made the show fun to watch.

You know how Katara’s brother, Sokka, and how he’s there primarily for comic relief? Always hungry, tries to eat the Appa The Flying Bison and Momo, the bat-lemur. Falls a lot? Twice he did something funny, and both times it was to fall victim to Katara’s bad water bending. She got him wet once and froze him into a block of ice once. Also, Uncle was never funny. Never did any funny stories or witty things that had a point. Just sort of a physically fit, taller, very thin Yoda. All serious trainer uncle, no funny uncle that liked to drink tea.

The bending effects were only meh. They did LOTS of the movements and motions and then something would happen really quickly and be over with. The effects were cool but too short. They could have been longer, not necessarily more spectacular. The end fight where Aang finally did his thing using the ocean to fight of the entire fire nation army by himself. That was cool. It was also done in the avatar state, also cool, and with a minimum of jumping around and arm waving… which is as it should be. For him to knock back two guys he did like 15 seconds of tai-chi, maybe tai-kwon-do… I think water was Tai-chi… movements, swung his arms around, and did a no-hands somersault just as an example. Lots of build-up, for not enough pay off. If it’d taken that long to bend the elements they should have had their butts handed to them by any relatively quick fighter. They’d be knocked out before they bent anything. (Don’t get me started on how all the earth benders ever did was pull rocks out of the ground.)

I’d give it 7.5 out of 10 stars. I enjoyed it. I liked the actors. I liked the story. I wish it hadn’t been as dry. I wish it’d been funnier. At least some funny. He was tortured. He was sad. He was grief-ridden… he wouldn’t have been any fun to be around. I hope they make more. I hope Aang (whose name isn’t pronounced the same in the movie as in the cartoons for some reason) has lip reduction surgery. Maybe they could put some of his lip fat into Uncle so he’d be fatter. A skinny Uncle was distracting.

Print
Posted in Movie, Reviews | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

What’s up?

Posted on July 1, 2010 by Rich
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing. Just watching the river.”
“It’s pretty high right now.”
“Yeah. Biggest flood I can remember in a while at least.”
“Lotta water.”
“Yeah. A lot. You notice how many people come to watch it?”
“I did notice. It’s funny. Nobody comes to this park normally, but you add a bunch of water and people line up to watch it.”
“It’s nature. They’re looking for something outside themselves. Something uncontrolled. Something new. Something untamed. They’re looking at what drove the caveman back into the caves. And when they’re tired of looking at the elemental fury of it they’re happy because they know they can go back to their homes, shut the door, turn on the air conditioning, and ignore it. It reminds them that the world isn’t as safe as they are used to… that contrast makes their safety feel more secure.”
“You mean they come here to be afraid?”
“Just a little afraid. The safe kind of afraid of a Freddy Krueger movie… not the new one where they made him banal and normal, out of the headlines… the first Freddy… that one was scarier.”
“They come to be afraid?”
“Yeah. Awe and fear are really close. They come. The watch the river, they listen to the sound of it, the unstoppable roar of it. They see trees moved by it. They fear it. This is the river that ancient man created gods to. This sort of power requires worship. It requires our attention. It demands it.”
“And then they go home and forget it?”
“They don’t forget it. They never forget it… but they do hide from it. They can’t help but watch it… but that doesn’t mean they want to live it. It’s one thing to glimpse the greatness and awesomeness of nature… it’s OK in small doses, but too much is too humbling. We’re too self-important for that these days. It’s too much. Watch them. Nobody stays for more than 10 minutes or so.”
“Well it IS just water. It gets pretty boring.”
“No, not boring, intimidating.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Since sunrise.”
“It’s after lunch now!”
“I know. I just had a ham salad sandwich.”
“That stuff will kill you.”
“I don’t think so. Listen, I hope I don’t make you mad or anything, but do you mind just leaving me here alone for a while to watch? I’ll be over tonight. I just want to watch it a little longer.”
“What’re you looking for?”
“In the water?”
“Yeah.”
“Answers.”
“To what?”
“Everything.”
Print
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Management isn’t just manipulation! Honest.

Posted on June 12, 2010 by Rich

This is a complete violation of my blogging rules in regards to work. It’s neither distant from now in time, nor made up enough where the principles wouldn’t recognize themselves. I have two things going for me that make it a safe thing to do though. First, those involved don’t have or want the Internet and secondly, they don’t know my online persona so they probably won’t find this. Lastly, if they do… I don’t think they could take issue with what I’m going to say. SO! Disclaimer’s aside, and that’s not a way to grab the reader I know, but this was different enough that I felt I should.

The phone rings. It’s 730am. It’s a manager at the hospital with his expecting girlfriend. There are complications and the store opens in two hours. He can’t reach anybody what should he do? He doesn’t want to lose his job but can’t leave the hospital. I’m 8 hours away and wouldn’t get there before the next shift started anyway.

I send a broadcast text to the employees identifying myself in case they don’t have me in their phone books, identifying the problem, asking for help, and thanking them in advance. Then I sat and waited.

An hour goes past and an employee who used to be the assistant manager but who stepped down because his priorities weren’t in the right place (his words) got back to me by text. He could go in but he was supposed to work at five pm so it’d make it a double… a really long day. I thanked him. Left it up to him if he wanted to do the banking or not, not really his job, appreciate any help he can give in this time of trouble, etc. He did the banking, he volunteered to. I didn’t ask him to.

Fast-Forward to 2pm. Nobody’s gotten back to either of us about coming in to help him with the second shift. I thank him for caring enough to do the double, for having the consideration for his co-workers, the store, and the pride in his job to step up this way and help out.

He says he wished he’d had all those things when it counted when he was assistant manager. I pointed out that it still counted. He was helping out the store and I was aware of it and he’d done what no one else could or would do at a time when we needed him and that spoke volumes to his character and his caring. Again I expressed my appreciation.

I’ve thanked him three times at this point. 1) For volunteering to come in early 2) For volunteering to do the banking and 3) In advance for volunteering to stay and do a double… which he hadn’t actually volunteered to do yet. The thing is… after that talking up, that pep talk, that vote of confidence was there any expectation that he wouldn’t stay for a double shift? He stayed.

Now. I could have been a jerk. I could have just been saying those things to get what I want but that’s not the case and he and I worked together several times when he was assistant manager so he knows if I say those things I mean them. I knows that I’m not the type to blow smoke. My reputation as a manager who pays attention to good employees, recognizes good work, and good employees, that is what made yesterday possible. Had I been a jerk or been a bully, or been a flatterer who doesn’t back up the things they say, that store would not have been open. If I hadn’t earned his trust in the past I couldn’t have gotten those results yesterday.

We have to manage every day for the day when we need those employees to help us out. It’s why I think bully-management is the worst kind. There’s no way I could have made anybody come in for that shift. He had to make himself and he did. Not because I’m such a great guy. But because he is, and he knows I recognize that. I sincerely believe people want a chance to shine and be noticed shining.

I’m not taking credit for it being open. That was all due to the employee that came in 8 hours early and stayed all day, doing a 17 hour day for the store because all those things I said about him were true. He does care about the store and about his job. He does take pride in his work and in the store. He also wants that to be recognized. By recognizing good behavior we see more of it. We can, through encouraging, recognizing, and expecting outstanding behavior actually see outstanding behavior while managers who expect to see failures will see just that, at every turn.

The part where I feel like a heel for pushing the buttons that I knew would keep him there makes me feel like an ass though. The times when I do that… when I’m manipulative as a part of my job… I hate those. I feel bad for this time. He IS a good employee and everything I said is true, and I’ll help him return to assistant manager at some point in the future if he, as he said, “have done a lot of growing up since I had to step down.” I’m humbled by employees like that and wish I could do more for them monetarily than I can.

So, if you’re reading this, and you know this is you I’m talking about… When did you get Internet? What the heck?!? LoL Kidding. Thank you. Knowing you’re up there to help out is one of the ways I’m able to sleep at night.

Print
Posted in Employees, Management | Tagged , , , | Comments Off