inspired by the do what you love (http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=36080.75;topicseen) thread and one of my favorite books Gig: Americans talk about their jobs (http://www.amazon.com/Gig-Americans-Talk-About-Their/dp/0609807072)
Tell me what you do for a living. What do you like about it? What do you not like about it?
I am an industrial electrician at an OSB (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriented_strand_board) mill. I really like the troubleshooting and hands on element - I enjoy working with tools and solving problems. I do some PLC programming and that - believe it or not - allows for some creativity. It's really neat to see some equipment you installed come to life. I recently installed some equipment and wrote a program to monitor and control our peak electrical demand and it has been saving us $50k+ per year.
I have a lot of freedom in my daily schedule - as long as I get my work list done and answer calls, I am meeting my job requirements. So, when everything is running smoothly, I have a lot of free time. We have a decent machine shop here and I have been learning how to weld and do metal fabrication.
The cons are that most people in the mill are not educated beyond highschool and most conversations with coworkers all revolve around a)people that I don't know b)hunting and/or fishing.
Another con is that most places in the mill are very loud, dirty, and hot. Also, if it's 25 below outside and that level senor on top of the dry fuel silo fails (again :argh!:), I have to go up there and fix it. Luckily that doesn't happen too often. There are multitudes of ways to die a horrible death here, but jobs that cannot be done safely do not have to be done.
The key to survival at this place is to realize that if management wants your opinion, they will give it to you. If you can cope with that, then this is a great place to work.
I write articles about the Middle East, East China Sea and terrorism for a small but somewhat influential geopolitical forecasting group for money.
When they have money, that is. They have fairly reasonable expectations and give decent deadlines, but they're not what you'd call a reliable source of income.
I'm hoping to get a second stream of income by playing video games and putting the results up on Youtube. This is not easy, though if I can get around 500 views per video, I would be making enough money to cover my basics (rent), if I have done the sums right. It's a bit of a crapshoot though, as it's a saturated market, Youtube don't make it easy for you, I'm not popular enough for a partnership yet and I'm not playing brand new or top tier popularity games.
On the plus side, both these jobs allow me to work from home and mostly on schedules I like. I have all the necessary tools, so there are no costly overheads or similar.
I babysit buildings.
ATM I work in an organ and tissue donation facility.
They do tissue recovery onsite; when training newbies I have learned to warn them there are dead people in the building up front. Sometimes they won't stay because of this.
...Yes, there are stories of Weird Stuff.
One of them: I'm told there have been several people reporting the sound of high heels clacking around in the back hallway, behind the med suite-a sound not attached to any visible pair of high heels.
*Shrug* What do I know? I haven't heard them.
It's boring. The only really scary part is when management changes what they want me to do without telling me, leaving me to trip over a rule.
...Despite my fears of getting fired; I honestly think I could handle a less boring assignment; but I want more money to deal with less boring.
Umm I just push buttons on a cash register. So excite.
Quote from: Vladimir Poutine ⊂(◉‿◉)つ on January 26, 2014, 11:04:43 PM
Umm I just push buttons on a cash register. So excite.
No entertainment value from the customers? :sad:
Quote from: Random anger problem on January 26, 2014, 11:11:41 PM
Quote from: Vladimir Poutine ⊂(◉‿◉)つ on January 26, 2014, 11:04:43 PM
Umm I just push buttons on a cash register. So excite.
No entertainment value from the customers? :sad:
Eh they're fine. College students. Never jerks like real world customers.
I recently quit a job where I was a tech support supervisor for a leading computer company. I took calls that the front line techies couldn't handle and was a liaison between customers and the engineering team.
There was no end to the entertainment, and a lot of pleasure in troubleshooting complex software/hardware issues. But even after getting a raise, I wasn't making enough. Related: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/01/george-lucas-eric-schmidt-steve-jobs-go-jail.html
I work for a fortune 500 company making sure clients' servers work and configure new ones to spec. The way the company is going though, I don't know if it's going to survive the next 2 years intact. They hire and fire in bulk. Quality of employee is a crap shoot and therefore we have such retarded policies made to babysit everything we do. One request from a client requires so much paperwork before the work is ever done. I'd have to say there's almost a 3:1 documentation to work ratio. The accounts I am on are only seated in the US because it'd be illegal to have their data\employees overseas. There are some accounts have moved over that I question as to why they can be located overseas. It wouldn't worry me if the folks overseas were qualified, but they sometimes are right out of high school.
oh likes: Used to like troubleshooting, but now it's a pain. Used to like a lot of the people there, but most have moved on
dislikes: 9 levels of management, disconnect between people that create policy and the people that implement it, the fact that they don't grant significant raises unless you state you're going to leave, being on call... I could go on
Haven't found a new job yet, but I'm looking, along with everyone I know there, and I'll stab anyone that says "why don't you just quit," because fuck you I need money damnit.
I'm a student. On some theoretical level I'm also a beadmaker, but honestly I haven't made beads for six months and I don't give a fuck.
So I study stuff and think and try to come up with ideas that will make for interesting research, and I write essays and shit.
I charge people to watch me jack off to 4chan.
I work in the video game Doom. 5000 gallon tanks of acid, radiation, and live steam...and kilns running at 1500C. I am surrounded by crazy people. I am unsure why I am still alive. I run the maintenance department. I sit at my desk and dream of big-ass asteroids slamming into the Earth.
I work for The Man.
Yeah, That man right over there.
Is he watching?
Oh, me? What do I do?
I fucking FEED you filthy swine. And most of you goddamned ratfuck bastards can't even get that right. That single most (or second most, for some folks) basic biological drive. You fuckers do things in public that you would NEVER try at home. Say shit to your server that you would NEVER say to your wife.
Or maybe you would.
Maybe you're THAT kind of guy.
Either way I'd like to go back in time and slap the tits right off of your mom so you starve to death before you grow up to be one of those assholes who goes to a restaurant and then asks for something that's not even on the menu. Or sits there at the bar drinking one of our delicious Irish-style red ales and munching on some breaded and fried chicken wings and asks if we can make a gluten-free calzone. Or waits until after EVERYONE is finished with EVERYTHING to ask the server to split the bill into separate checks for a party of 12. Or makes a reservation on a busy night and shows up 20 minutes late. Or otherwise just generally does not know how to behave and/or how not to be a complete shitneck pain in everyone's balls when they go out to eat. And for fuck's sake don't be one of those cloaca-huffers who tries to treat the employees like they're your feudal serfs. News flash, asshole: there's at least a 50% chance I make more than you do, and the full-time servers all make more than I do. You're not special because you decided to spend $50 on food and beer just like about half of, oh, FUCKING EVERYONE does once a week or so. Whooptee fuck. Should I come to your house and tell you the fuck what next time I fly on a Boeing jet and my seat isn't all that comfortable? Fuck you. I hope you choke on that burger.
Quote from: Jet City Hustle on January 27, 2014, 05:30:58 AM
Oh, me? What do I do?
I fucking FEED you filthy swine. And most of you goddamned ratfuck bastards can't even get that right. That single most (or second most, for some folks) basic biological drive. You fuckers do things in public that you would NEVER try at home. Say shit to your server that you would NEVER say to your wife.
Or maybe you would.
Maybe you're THAT kind of guy.
Either way I'd like to go back in time and slap the tits right off of your mom so you starve to death before you grow up to be one of those assholes who goes to a restaurant and then asks for something that's not even on the menu. Or sits there at the bar drinking one of our delicious Irish-style red ales and munching on some breaded and fried chicken wings and asks if we can make a gluten-free calzone. Or waits until after EVERYONE is finished with EVERYTHING to ask the server to split the bill into separate checks for a party of 12. Or makes a reservation on a busy night and shows up 20 minutes late. Or otherwise just generally does not know how to behave and/or how not to be a complete shitneck pain in everyone's balls when they go out to eat. And for fuck's sake don't be one of those cloaca-huffers who tries to treat the employees like they're your feudal serfs. News flash, asshole: there's at least a 50% chance I make more than you do, and the full-time servers all make more than I do. You're not special because you decided to spend $50 on food and beer just like about half of, oh, FUCKING EVERYONE does once a week or so. Whooptee fuck. Should I come to your house and tell you the fuck what next time I fly on a Boeing jet and my seat isn't all that comfortable? Fuck you. I hope you choke on that burger.
:potd:
My business is PAIN and pressure. Some think it's about pleasure, and I am so happy to dissuade them from that position.
I own my own business, working out of a three room suite, renting out the other rooms to massage therapists and a meditation Reiki erson.
I spend my days unpleeling people so they can think about things beyond the vice that has "suddenly" grabbed a hold of their neck/shoulder/hips/wrists/lowback. It's slow, hard work that has actually gotten kind of dull. But I love the act of massage itself because it allows me to calm down and gain perspective. It's very zen-like.
I am trying to find other ways to work that are more active, interactive. Personal training for people who hate exercising, dog massage, yoga, something.
I don't work, you insensitive, careerist ass.
I make money at a massively beurocratic financial institution, in the life insurance new business department. Specifically, I handle a type of transatcion based around a single line of the IRS tax code. That also ties into SEC rules, and any state department of insurance regulations, of which each of the 50 states have their own special tweaks. Other than the paycheck, there is some opportunity to troubleshoot and find solutions to problems, which has a certain warm fuzzy when you get it right, but mostly I wait for the 8 hours to be over.
I work at music, both recording and playing, and this gives me endless amounts of joy. From thrashing the ever-loving shit out of a drum kit to zeroing in on a single wavelength, I can lose myself in the work. Don't get paid shit for it.
I'm a power broker in energy management.
I manage a distributed system similar to what rong described, but with most of our load coming from cold stores, quarries etc. We work closely with the supply board here and get revenue for shifting large loads /turning generators on as well as getting savings for customers via avoiding the costly periods of the day, ramping in cheap periods and shedding in expensive ones.
I mostly manage the software/distributed networks but have a little mix of hardware from time to time.
It's fun and more focussed than what I was working on a couple of years back when I was in research.
I sell things on the internet for a brick and mortar hobby game store. Specifically, I sell on Ebay, but we (my bosses and I) are trying to put together a store connected to their website, and I will run that as well when it is going. I sell and buy games, miniatures, and cards. I help keep the IRL store afloat, and that gives me immense personal satisfaction and gratification, being vital to something or else it'll fail. One of my bosses knows my worth and is grateful that I am there, working for them, keeping them from going under, which I feel good about. My other boss is extremely unprofessional in purposely hurtful ways, and makes it hard for me to deal with that one period, despite feeling loyal and devoted to boss 1.
When I don't have work that needs doing, I play games, or I build things for the games I play. I play and build better than I talk and write, now, which I suppose is a con. I have more contact with people of the fleshy-and-in-front-of-me variety but less interaction with people in general than before I started working there. I have a terror of continuing to make mistakes, and they always crop up in bunches at about the same time, don't they just. I dread disappointing boss 1, because I want just to do well and do things right and not be a fuck up all my life and he's giving me the opportunity to force my way into the professional world by making my own place in it, scraping and gouging a hole big enough I can fit in it and have something meaningful to do without working somewhere I'll be complete shit and be fired in a month because nerves and anxiety of failing paralyzed me, caused more mistakes, while working at too slow a pace, and here what I say matters and my opinion is worth something and being more than someone replaceable and nigh faceless, nameless, pointless is better than having a minimum wage paycheck.
A monitor ahead and another at ten o'clock, a mouse for each at eleven and one. Three pairs of speakers and a microphone – nine thirty and ten thirty, a television three paces away at five and a third monitor at eight. Four radio base stations are at nine.
The desk is a behemoth with motorized adjustable height, compartments to hide computers and battery backups, and a plethora of leg room. It's wide open on the bottom but for a small section that separates the underside from the rest of the room. That thin metal plate has a few hundred tiny, patterned holes in it but the holes are blocked by four sheets of 8 ½ x 11 glaring white standard office paper. The paper holds departmental seniority over me. There is no discernible reason for it to block the little holes, as the desk reopens six inches way. Why did anyone ever bother to block it off?
If I turn my head from the forward monitor to rest my eyes they fall upon another monitor. If I turn around they do the same, so sometimes I close my eyes. They sting intensely for a moment while my contacts shriek from the staring and from the light and from the air filled with dead skin and fecal matter. They rim themselves with red. I keep them closed, squeezed actually, not rested, squeezed like a child tries to block out a monster. Eyes aggressively shut to ward off danger.
They stay closed until I feel myself nodding forward or until one of the speakers blares, my head jolting upright and my eyes fluttering and my hands, my hand shockingly cold for a moment, and then nothing. My left arm fell forward in that brief sleep and it must have hit the monitor. One of the monitors. I pull at it against all that cold but it's stuck as though in thick, wet sand or mud. I move my fingers to wrest myself free but the slow cold just works its way between them, numbing as it spreads, and as I'm moving it the image on the screen shifts. Startled, I jump back. It's enough to free my arm, just a little.
The desktop on the forward monitor is a department badge. It budges, just a little. I tug again and the badge rips apart. My arm is free down to my wrist but the parts that were inside the monitor are covered with a thin, silvery, translucent residue. The hand is on the screen.
I can touch the shattered badge but there is no feeling so I find it hard to judge when I've made contact with one of the pieces or how hard I'm gripping. In a few minutes I've nudged them into some semblance of their original state.
With my right hand I grip the mouse at one o'clock and maneuver that around the screen to make contact with my left arm. The cursor makes touches a fingertip and the flesh gives gently to the sharp little arrow. I press further with mouse.
The cursor breaks skin, the little white arrow a digital scalpel. Blood beads up around the tiny wound and I instinctively pull it back. My hand sweeps aside the desktop icons. They scatter. The cursor is stuck fast and I pull it along with me. I startle again as the mouse moves of its own accord in my right hand, the feedback from my flailing. It's pulled into the little gap between the adjustable desk and the stationary table and it clatters to the floor, the jolt of the track ball digging the cursor further into my index finger.
My coworkers look over at the noise and, uninterested, return to the news broadcast at five o'clock.
I pick up the mouse and lay it carefully back on the pad. I grab my left wrist with my right hand, pulling, but the cursor is an anchor. I take up the mouse again and, gingerly, pull it to move the cursor away from my finger. It's stuck fast. The little notches on the back of the arrow snag flesh. Blood drips deeper into the screen, splattering on the five pointed sheriff star badge, running across its edges and into the cracks. There is still no pain.
My jaw is clenched and the knuckles on the hand holding the mouse are white. I push the cheap black plastic mouse and my finger together slowly. I move it through the resistance and I don't stop when the blood streams steadily from the little hole I'm leaving behind. The badge is a horrid red mess.
Suddenly my right hand, pushing the mouse, jumps forward when the resistance stops. On the screen, there is a tiny hole in my fingernail.
Freed, I yank my arm again and again. The monitor rocks back and forth and the screen, a liquid crystal monster, tears slowly away, leaving that sheen behind on my palm, then my knuckles, and then my fingertips. Blood drips from the sliced skin and nail but the blood is wrong. It glows like it's backlit and the color seeps into the air around it, pixelating the dispatch room one drop at a time. It creates little snaking rivers in the dried rock salt on the tiles and stains the grout between them.
The phone rings. I answer it with my right hand and allow my left to drain on the floor.
"Communications," I say. Pause. "Oh hey, Jack. Yeah, all quiet here." I look at the high resolution display at the end of my left arm. "Nothing out of the ordinary."
Sams? Izzat you? :lulz:
:eek:
Quote from: Eater of Clowns on January 28, 2014, 03:02:16 AM
Quote from: Dirty Old Uncle Roger on January 28, 2014, 02:51:17 AM
Sams? Izzat you? :lulz:
Ohhhh fuuuuuuck.
Since I started writing on this board, my life has been a litany of horror. IT ALL COMES TRUE.
So, yeah. Welcome home, Sams.
Quote from: Nigel's Red Velveteen Skinmeat Snacks on January 28, 2014, 03:08:55 AM
:eek:
I know, the pixels seeping into the world around it is an artist's nightmare, but what are you going to do? This model of reality has notoriously bad color separation.
Quote from: Dirty Old Uncle Roger on January 28, 2014, 03:09:18 AM
Quote from: Eater of Clowns on January 28, 2014, 03:02:16 AM
Quote from: Dirty Old Uncle Roger on January 28, 2014, 02:51:17 AM
Sams? Izzat you? :lulz:
Ohhhh fuuuuuuck.
Since I started writing on this board, my life has been a litany of horror. IT ALL COMES TRUE.
So, yeah. Welcome home, Sams.
Chaplain's got me watching a vid of Nessie tearing into a group of new templars. On an eight hour loop. He thinks I might be able to spot where the mission went wrong and we can try something new, but I don't know. I watch and I watch and the loop stays the same, but I'm seeing it differently. The templars keep changing, new people, new faces, most I've never met but some of them are friends and family, famous people and fictional characters. Their helmets cover up their faces but I can tell. It's a new person there every time but it doesn't make any difference. Nessie still has her day.
Quote from: Eater of Clowns on January 28, 2014, 03:29:18 AM
Quote from: Nigel's Red Velveteen Skinmeat Snacks on January 28, 2014, 03:08:55 AM
:eek:
I know, the pixels seeping into the world around it is an artist's nightmare, but what are you going to do? This model of reality has notoriously bad color separation.
I keep telling everyone that, and they just look at me like I'm crazy. Fucking ocean is nothing but jellyfish and starfish, and I live in an insane asylum masquerading as a state in the union, and they expect me to be HAPPY about it?
QuoteQuote from: Dirty Old Uncle Roger on January 28, 2014, 03:09:18 AM
Quote from: Eater of Clowns on January 28, 2014, 03:02:16 AM
Quote from: Dirty Old Uncle Roger on January 28, 2014, 02:51:17 AM
Sams? Izzat you? :lulz:
Ohhhh fuuuuuuck.
Since I started writing on this board, my life has been a litany of horror. IT ALL COMES TRUE.
So, yeah. Welcome home, Sams.
Chaplain's got me watching a vid of Nessie tearing into a group of new templars. On an eight hour loop. He thinks I might be able to spot where the mission went wrong and we can try something new, but I don't know. I watch and I watch and the loop stays the same, but I'm seeing it differently. The templars keep changing, new people, new faces, most I've never met but some of them are friends and family, famous people and fictional characters. Their helmets cover up their faces but I can tell. It's a new person there every time but it doesn't make any difference. Nessie still has her day.
Jesus, I miss that story. I almost wish I had left room for a sequel. But not really.
It had to end or else we'd still be in the Southampton sewers failing in the same ways, one day after another. IMAGINE THAT.
Quote from: Eater of Clowns on January 28, 2014, 03:47:35 AM
It had to end or else we'd still be in the Southampton sewers failing in the same ways, one day after another. IMAGINE THAT.
HAHAHAHA...good thing I'm totally blind to metaphor, or that might have been depressing.
I read cards. I use a deck of 36 cards from Germany and there's a method you learn in order to do it. It's not woo, it's kind of like learning a language and it seems to work. Lo5 or illusion or something, I don't know, but it's kind of cool. It takes a long time to get fluent with it, like five or six years.
I do it through the phone lines, but they're really slow these days. A lot of people signed up to do it, I think, and it's hard to get noticed. Too many people piled on. Stupid people that never bothered to study, but the customers don't know that. I signed up at another place that does live cam but I hate it. Sometimes I get guys rubbing their dick, things like that. You get squicked out, it's hard to stay on long enough to make much there. I do typewritten readings too, through Etsy, usually. Those are tedious, but it beats thinking your going to make some money and then having to boot the customer because he just showed up to rub his dick.
It still beats the fuck out of retail though. Then again, just about anything that doesn't involve being skinned alive and rolled down a mountain of salt and broken glass beats the fuck out of retail.
But like I said, it's slow right now. I might start private tutoring or something. I do a lot of that shit on facebook anyway, try to explain the method to people. Might as well get paid for it. We're trying to start a guild to preserve the method from all the new agers trying to "innovate" it (translation: not learn it and pull stuff out of their asses instead). It's a cool method, it developed between 1840 and 1980 or so with no books written about it or anything. Just oral tradition and adding in what worked and throwing out what didn't, I guess. I like the method better than I like answering "WHY DIDN'T HE TEXT BACK?????" over and over, anyway. :lol:
I work in Purgatory, and have since July 2000, a couple of months after I graduated high school, when I apparently died and didn't realize it.
I am a Data Coordinator. I don't know what that's supposed to mean, really. It feels like a damn funny title. Before that I was an Administrative Assistant. Before that I was a Data Coder, which isn't probably what you think it is.
I get on the elevator, get off the elevator, and I walk 6 feet forward. I swipe in. I walk another 10 feet forward, grab my coffee cup off my desk, wash it if it looks a bit haggard and head to the conference room (which I refill everytime it empties. Surprisingly, I do not seem to be addicted to caffeine, since I usually don't drink it at home or at Villager's). Then I go back to my desk and turn on my monitor, since my computer must never be shut down, for reasons I have nothing to do with, and for reasons I don't completely understand (it has something to do with collecting emails. It wasn't always my terminal. Matter of fact, I forget exactly why I moved to that one, but it was originally a conscious decision on my part).
So what does being a data coordinator entail? Well, what we do overall at my job is epidemiological research. We're pretty well known in that field, and are affiliated with Harvard (Harvard, however, does not sign my paycheck. The hospital that gave me my ID badge and runs the lab does). Anyway we send out questionnaires to several large volunteer cohorts, they fill in bubbles with number two pencil, or occasionally pen, or rarely, orange fucking crayon (that's a copy over, as the original cannot be salvaged as a document from the get go, regardless of how mint condition the paper is). Data coders open up the envelopes en masse (sometimes coordinators do that too). Then they look over the questionnaires for errors, inconsistencies, and what the fucks. It's basically what gets entered into the "do not write in this area" field job.
The what the fucks go into problem boxes. Part of being the coordinator entails figuring out the fuck it is and then giving the questionnaire back to the coders.
Then the questionnaire goes to the scanning room where it is imaged into a computer friendly format.
Then the coordinator talks to the computer about that computer friendly format and fixes errors that the coders somehow missed, or that the scanner somehow confused, in a process we call validation (improperly erased bubbles is a big one there, or inconsistencies with past reports on weight or that sort of thing. Either way it involves me going through folders of the original questionnaires to find out why the database is unhappy with the input, and then punching in a number value that everyone is happy with and still consistent with the questionnaire). And that is pretty tedious. And sometimes really frustrating if it is coder error.
Then, the next step is to scan the questionnaires again into basically a PDF photocopy so that a human friendly version is readily available. I've been doing that a lot lately and enjoy it more, since, even though it's still about as enthralling as validation, allows me to multitask. I can read shit while the folder is scanning and it's perfectly acceptable, since well, what the hell else am I going to do while the scanner is going? I also have to validate the PDFs, but that's a fairly quick process.
Then we recycle the questionnaires. Which might take some time. I still occasionally get asked to chuck out questionnaires that I and my friends did back in 2004.
I'm also a full time student so I can be a scientist instead of a data janitor. I get my BS in 2017. Someone must have finally prayed for my soul to be released from Purgatory.
I like that you always refill the conference room. A typo, yet an EXCELLENT typo.
I spent a year doing data collection, data entry, data checking, and data coordination, sometimes all at the same time. It's damn fine experience, and yet I hope to NEVER DO IT AGAIN.
Quote from: Nigel's Red Velveteen Skinmeat Snacks on January 28, 2014, 05:31:26 AM
I like that you always refill the conference room. A typo, yet an EXCELLENT typo.
:lulz: That's what I get for adding to a thought after the fact. I like that image though.
"RIGHT!!!! EVERYONE IN THE CONFERENCE ROOM NOW!!!! I'M MAKING COFFEE!!!!!!"
QuoteI spent a year doing data collection, data entry, data checking, and data coordination, sometimes all at the same time. It's damn fine experience, and yet I hope to NEVER DO IT AGAIN.
It's important work. And sometimes you have to keep repeating that like a mantra.
I make pretty things using a sewing machine by custom order, because nobody except grandmothers know how to sew anymore. I trained myself, I work for myself, and I hate my boss. She's a bitch who makes a huge mess and blames it on Obama.
My customers are self-righteous spoiled fucktards with too much money and no desire to spend any of it to receive a quality garment because they're so goddamn used to Wal-Mart prices. When you order from me, you get 24 hour support, unlimited alterations and repairs, RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT OF A PATTERN THAT FUCKING FITS YOU AND ONLY YOU of a specific historical garment you HAVE to have even though you think wool is itchy and asked me to do it in polyester to save money.
I am not a Ren fair vendor, I am not a costume store, I have a motherfucking goddamn ARTIST AND HISTORIAN, pulling late hours on your landsknecht because if you look good, then I look good. You don't see the tears and sweat and blood I put into my craft because you're too busy bitching I couldn't "cut you a deal" because you know someone who ordered from me before. Food does not go in my mouth and electricity to power my machines does not stay on if you do not buy from me. No, I will not substitute cotton for linen, you cheap piece of shit, it will rip the first time you wash it on hot...and you will, despite the care sheet I include with all of my garments (most saying DRY CLEAN ONLY) and then you will turn around and complain that I fucked you over.
You fucked yourself. It will be $100 extra if you want it before this deadline. Shitneck.
But damn, I make people look good.
I do geographical work for a company that helps people determine if their dirt is full of poison, helps them extract poison from their dirt if it's there, and helps design systems that reduce the amount of bullshit that enters the environment.
I accidentally found out where the abandoned missile silos are on my first day. Turns out, there's a LOT of them.
Quote from: Cainad (dec.) on January 30, 2014, 12:21:16 AM
I do geographical work for a company that helps people determine if their dirt is full of poison, helps them extract poison from their dirt if it's there, and helps design systems that reduce the amount of bullshit that enters the environment.
I accidentally found out where the abandoned missile silos are on my first day. Turns out, there's a LOT of them.
We have dozens of Nike silos. Some were sealed up or whatnot, some were just sort of de-weaponed and then forgotten. Homeless people live in them now.
I make sammiches.
Quote from: Dirty Old Uncle Roger on January 30, 2014, 01:04:21 AM
Quote from: Cainad (dec.) on January 30, 2014, 12:21:16 AM
I do geographical work for a company that helps people determine if their dirt is full of poison, helps them extract poison from their dirt if it's there, and helps design systems that reduce the amount of bullshit that enters the environment.
I accidentally found out where the abandoned missile silos are on my first day. Turns out, there's a LOT of them.
We have dozens of Nike silos. Some were sealed up or whatnot, some were just sort of de-weaponed and then forgotten. Homeless people live in them now.
We sure were ready to get them just as dead as they got us, huh? :lulz:
Quote from: Cainad (dec.) on January 30, 2014, 01:15:30 AM
Quote from: Dirty Old Uncle Roger on January 30, 2014, 01:04:21 AM
Quote from: Cainad (dec.) on January 30, 2014, 12:21:16 AM
I do geographical work for a company that helps people determine if their dirt is full of poison, helps them extract poison from their dirt if it's there, and helps design systems that reduce the amount of bullshit that enters the environment.
I accidentally found out where the abandoned missile silos are on my first day. Turns out, there's a LOT of them.
We have dozens of Nike silos. Some were sealed up or whatnot, some were just sort of de-weaponed and then forgotten. Homeless people live in them now.
We sure were ready to get them just as dead as they got us, huh? :lulz:
Just do it.
Quote from: Cainad (dec.) on January 30, 2014, 01:15:30 AM
Quote from: Dirty Old Uncle Roger on January 30, 2014, 01:04:21 AM
Quote from: Cainad (dec.) on January 30, 2014, 12:21:16 AM
I do geographical work for a company that helps people determine if their dirt is full of poison, helps them extract poison from their dirt if it's there, and helps design systems that reduce the amount of bullshit that enters the environment.
I accidentally found out where the abandoned missile silos are on my first day. Turns out, there's a LOT of them.
We have dozens of Nike silos. Some were sealed up or whatnot, some were just sort of de-weaponed and then forgotten. Homeless people live in them now.
We sure were ready to get them just as dead as they got us, huh? :lulz:
Nikes weren't nukes, they were static anti-bomber defenses.
Think of them as the Maginot Line of the cold war.
Ohh gotcha.
Quote from: Dirty Old Uncle Roger on January 30, 2014, 01:17:52 AM
Think of them as the Maginot Line of the cold war.
:lulz:
Quote from: Dirty Old Uncle Roger on January 30, 2014, 01:04:21 AM
Quote from: Cainad (dec.) on January 30, 2014, 12:21:16 AM
I do geographical work for a company that helps people determine if their dirt is full of poison, helps them extract poison from their dirt if it's there, and helps design systems that reduce the amount of bullshit that enters the environment.
I accidentally found out where the abandoned missile silos are on my first day. Turns out, there's a LOT of them.
We have dozens of Nike silos. Some were sealed up or whatnot, some were just sort of de-weaponed and then forgotten. Homeless people live in them now.
Around here they auctioned them off to private purchasers. Or tried to. One of the telecom bunkers is in a park and they just piled dirt over it.
I am a small business....just like George W Bush!
Quote from: Nigel's Red Velveteen Skinmeat Snacks on February 02, 2014, 12:51:42 AM
Quote from: Dirty Old Uncle Roger on January 30, 2014, 01:04:21 AM
Quote from: Cainad (dec.) on January 30, 2014, 12:21:16 AM
I do geographical work for a company that helps people determine if their dirt is full of poison, helps them extract poison from their dirt if it's there, and helps design systems that reduce the amount of bullshit that enters the environment.
I accidentally found out where the abandoned missile silos are on my first day. Turns out, there's a LOT of them.
We have dozens of Nike silos. Some were sealed up or whatnot, some were just sort of de-weaponed and then forgotten. Homeless people live in them now.
Around here they auctioned them off to private purchasers. Or tried to. One of the telecom bunkers is in a park and they just piled dirt over it.
We also have Titan silos, but nobody ever goes in them, on account of the ghost of Curtiss LeMay wandering around screaming.
People phone me to look at things they want to not be there any more. I go and look at the thing and decide how much I can charge the person for doing so. Lots of paper occurs as these things are now more often than not in oil refineries and chemical plants. Sometimes nuclear.
I should not have my job and quite frankly am amazed that I do. This amazement is only secondary to witnessing the incredible range of ways people try and get themselves killed by not being able to LOOK UP or understand the concept of "Supporting wall".
Over the years, one thing i've learned about is the number of explosions that happen in places like this that never make the news or shareholders reports. "Weak 3rd quarter" in the oil and gas sector seems to mean "Shit blew up". The severity of the language indicates how many people were injured. This also seems to apply to other industries.
Quote from: Junkenstein on February 03, 2014, 03:47:06 PM
"Weak 3rd quarter" in the oil and gas sector seems to mean "Shit blew up". The severity of the language indicates how many people were injured. This also seems to apply to other industries.
It certainly does here. :lulz:
Damn.
When we strange monkeys decide to enjoy some of these fine, fine psychedelic drugs, there's five obvious first choices dependent mostly on availability and the stories we've heard about them and how much of a fucking chicken we are: cannabis, Psilocybin mushrooms, LSD, mescaline, and salvia. Most of us strange monkeys end up doing the first -- pot, that is. When we do, most of the times we have one of the five typical reactions to it, depending on the strain of weed we used, our emotions and thoughts at the time, our surroundings, and the dosage we went after, knowingly or unknowingly: "this shit isn't working at all", "this shit isn't that much fun, to be honest, but I like those YouTube videos you're putting on", "wow, this shit is sort of fun, I mean, why is this lampshade so funny and red and elephants?", "this shit is way more fun than I thought, I can't stop laughing at that lampshade, it's... elephants!", and "DRIED BREAD WITH MUSTARD IS THE MOST AMAZING FOOD KNOWN TO MAN!".
I'm on the dried bread with mustard part and looking forward to experimenting some more with all of the others at the moment, since it sounds like an interesting thing to do -- this is my first day/night off work, which was editing, laying-out, re-editing and re-laying-out content for magazines, newspapers and websites. I've known for a month now that I'd be leaving that mostly stressful, at times fun and rarely rewarding nuthouse, since my employers suggested -or rather, demanded- a salary cut of 3/5 off of what I was being payed so far, which was plenty enough to pay for rent and bills and buy bread and mustard for me to last a month, but not worth much more money than that. Luckily, friends do bring me interesting psychedelic drugs, and I saw some rocks on my way home that could be tasty, given some time experimenting with more powerful substances, a butane lighter and lots of distorted perception of time.
Strange thing is: I did like my job, and I still do like my employers, despite all our differences which weren't little or small. Greece ins't really working as a set, at the moment; we're all just wandering around trying to find ourselves a purpose.
-S
:lulz: Ah, the joys of posting while high.
I live and breathe qualitative analysis of discourse of schizophrenics while trying to not go insane.
Im not sure how that last part is working out though :fnord:
Quote from: StandBackJack on January 27, 2014, 04:13:40 AM
I work for The Man.
Yeah, That man right over there.
Is he watching?
Turns out that not only
do you work for The Man, you also compile a database of pot legalization "violations" in Colorado. Bravo, asshole.
I work in a bank which is more bureaucratic than a Vogon tax collector convention, so I have about a dozen titles depending on which internal department is requisitioning my assistance. My favorite of the titles, just for general length and inability to easily articulate, is "Senior Merchant and Client Review Specialist." I basically perform audits on merchant practices for all merchant institutions utilizing our credit products. If I find deceptive or fraudulent practices going on I unleash financial hellfire of biblical proportions upon the offenders via account termination, seizure of funds and property, calling their mommas fat, and other time-honored banking practices.
My favorite part of the job is being able to exercise the aforementioned powers, because anyone who defrauds, cheats and steals from people, especially their customers who trust them, deserves a bit of wrath. In day-to-day interactions I tend to be pretty mellow and polite, so it's also cool being able to play the part of an officious hard-ass when I get to deliver the verdict. Balances out the personality, it does.
My least favorite part of the job is the monotony. For every 1 honest-to-Cthulu DOO (Deceptive Owner/Operator) that I find, I usually wade through about 300 accounts that are perfectly upstanding. The sales draft forms, demographic reports, law enforcement summaries and financial statement review drafts blend together into a never-ending parade of black and white ink that makes you want to give the middle finger to society and go farm avocados wherever avocados are farmed.
Quote from: Manta Obscura on April 03, 2014, 01:19:26 AM
I work in a bank which is more bureaucratic than a Vogon tax collector convention, so I have about a dozen titles depending on which internal department is requisitioning my assistance. My favorite of the titles, just for general length and inability to easily articulate, is "Senior Merchant and Client Review Specialist." I basically perform audits on merchant practices for all merchant institutions utilizing our credit products. If I find deceptive or fraudulent practices going on I unleash financial hellfire of biblical proportions upon the offenders via account termination, seizure of funds and property, calling their mommas fat, and other time-honored banking practices.
My favorite part of the job is being able to exercise the aforementioned powers, because anyone who defrauds, cheats and steals from people, especially their customers who trust them, deserves a bit of wrath. In day-to-day interactions I tend to be pretty mellow and polite, so it's also cool being able to play the part of an officious hard-ass when I get to deliver the verdict. Balances out the personality, it does.
My least favorite part of the job is the monotony. For every 1 honest-to-Cthulu DOO (Deceptive Owner/Operator) that I find, I usually wade through about 300 accounts that are perfectly upstanding. The sales draft forms, demographic reports, law enforcement summaries and financial statement review drafts blend together into a never-ending parade of black and white ink that makes you want to give the middle finger to society and go farm avocados wherever avocados are farmed.
Not avocado farms in Mexico though, they controlled by drug lords (also lemons). :fnord:
Controlled by drug lords and lemons.
Or drug lords who are lemons. Like this guy:
(http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/1103363/144145987/stock-vector-mexican-lemon-with-sombrero-and-mustache-cartoon-vector-character-144145987.jpg)
:lulz:
Quote from: The Johnny on February 04, 2014, 03:42:28 PM
I live and breathe qualitative analysis of discourse of schizophrenics while trying to not go insane.
Im not sure how that last part is working out though :fnord:
Oh my, wow. :eek:
I mean, analyzing their speech patterns is certainly bound to be useful, but fuuuuck.
Quote from: Nigel on April 03, 2014, 02:48:09 PM
Quote from: The Johnny on February 04, 2014, 03:42:28 PM
I live and breathe qualitative analysis of discourse of schizophrenics while trying to not go insane.
Im not sure how that last part is working out though :fnord:
Oh my, wow. :eek:
I mean, analyzing their speech patterns is certainly bound to be useful, but fuuuuck.
Missed that. Johnny, if you can/want to go into more detail there, I know I'd be interested to read it.
My job is to get as much money as I can by doing as little as possible. This only seems to work if my employer also makes as much money as possible as a direct result of my laziness.
This is why I work with computer systems. They're designed for exactly this purpose.
Quote from: Nigel on April 03, 2014, 02:48:09 PM
Quote from: The Johnny on February 04, 2014, 03:42:28 PM
I live and breathe qualitative analysis of discourse of schizophrenics while trying to not go insane.
Im not sure how that last part is working out though :fnord:
Oh my, wow. :eek:
I mean, analyzing their speech patterns is certainly bound to be useful, but fuuuuck.
@Nigels: Idk if its language barrier thing, but i have doubts that "analyzing speech patterns" is the same as "qualitative analysis of discourse"... so i looked in the web for "speech pattern" and an article of "how to spot psychopaths: speech patterns blah blah..." came up, so im going to copy paste the methodology parts to make a comparison:
Quote from: http://www.livescience.com/16585-psychopaths-speech-language.html
...
The researchers interviewed 52 convicted murderers, 14 of them ranked as psychopaths according to the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised, a 20-item assessment, and asked them to describe their crimes in detail. Using computer programs to analyze what the men said, the researchers found that those with psychopathic scores showed a lack of emotion, spoke in terms of cause-and-effect when describing their crimes, and focused their attention on basic needs, such as food, drink and money.
Well, i will use a computer program, but thats 2nd step (and used as support, i could do it by hand), and it doesnt do any analyzing... i mark fragments by my own analytical categories, and the program just dumps upon request whatever markings i already from a specific category (f.e. discrimination or biography or delusion, etc.)
"Lack of emotion" is a qualitative condition, i dont see how a computer would show that... "cause-and-effect" is algo qualitative... focus on basic needs is also qualitative.
So, so far the automated and quantitative parts are not spoken about, and they probably are doing the same thing as I'm doing.
QuoteWhile we all have conscious control over some words we use, particularly nouns and verbs, this is not the case for the majority of the words we use, including little, functional words like "to" and "the" or the tense we use for our verbs, according to Jeffrey Hancock, the lead researcher and an associate professor in communications at Cornell University, who discussed the work on Monday (Oct. 17) in Midtown Manhattan at Cornell's ILR Conference Center.
Now, this part sounds more automated, the counting of use of "functional words" which i dont do at all and is quite quantitative... this is a first divergence.
QuoteHow words give them away
To examine the emotional content of the murderers' speech, Hancock and his colleagues looked at a number of factors, including how frequently they described their crimes using the past tense. The use of the past tense can be an indicator of psychological detachment, and the researchers found that the psychopaths used it more than the present tense when compared with the nonpsychopaths. They also found more dysfluencies — the "uhs" and "ums" that interrupt speech — among psychopaths. Nearly universal in speech, dysfluencies indicate that the speaker needs some time to think about what they are saying.
With regard to psychopaths, "We think the 'uhs' and 'ums' are about putting the mask of sanity on," Hancock told LiveScience.
Psychopaths appear to view the world and others instrumentally, as theirs for the taking, the team, which also included Stephen Porter from the University of British Columbia, wrote.
As they expected, the psychopaths' language contained more words known as subordinating conjunctions. These words, including "because" and "so that," are associated with cause-and-effect statements.
"This pattern suggested that psychopaths were more likely to view the crime as the logical outcome of a plan (something that 'had' to be done to achieve a goal)," the authors write.
And finally, while most of us respond to higher-level needs, such as family, religion or spirituality, and self-esteem, psychopaths remain occupied with those needs associated with a more basic existence.
Frequency... frequency of a phrase or word i do also take into account, but our timelines are of entire years, while for the psychopaths its done in i suppose at most 3 sessions...
Use of "subordinating conjunctions"... thats totally automated and quantitative, as ive said, i dont count or analyze, im more focused on content rather than "language sequences".
QuoteTheir analysis revealed that psychopaths used about twice as many words related to basic physiological needs and self-preservation, including eating, drinking and monetary resources than the nonpsychopaths, they write.
By comparison, the nonpsychopathic murderers talked more about spirituality and religion and family, reflecting what nonpsychopathic people would think about when they just committed a murder, Hancock said.
The researchers are interested in analyzing what people write on Facebook or in other social media, since our unconscious mind also holds sway over what we write. By analyzing stories written by students from Cornell and the University of British Columbia, and looking at how the text people generate using social media relates to scores on the Self-Report Psychopathy scale. Unlike the checklist, which is based on an extensive review of the case file and an interview, the self report is completed by the person in question.
This sort of tool could be very useful for law enforcement investigations, such as in the case of the Long Island serial killer, who is being sought for the murders of at least four prostitutes and possibly others, since this killer used the online classified site Craigslist to contact victims, according to Hancock.
Text analysis software could be used to conduct a "first pass," focusing the work for human investigators, he said. "A lot of time analysts tell you they feel they are drinking from a fire hose."
Knowing a suspect is a psychopath can affect how law enforcement conducts investigations and interrogations, Hancock said.
And this last part i just left in because its interesting, not any point attached to it.
So with this basic and general differentiations with what i do and speech patterns, i can go more into detail as to what i actually do.
Quote from: Junkenstein on April 03, 2014, 03:14:32 PM
Quote from: Nigel on April 03, 2014, 02:48:09 PM
Quote from: The Johnny on February 04, 2014, 03:42:28 PM
I live and breathe qualitative analysis of discourse of schizophrenics while trying to not go insane.
Im not sure how that last part is working out though :fnord:
Oh my, wow. :eek:
I mean, analyzing their speech patterns is certainly bound to be useful, but fuuuuck.
Missed that. Johnny, if you can/want to go into more detail there, I know I'd be interested to read it.
We have one 3 hour session every week with around 15ish people with "psychiatrical experience". Psychiatrical experience denotes someone who has included but not limited to: schizophrenia, bipolarity, depression, ADHD.
After everyone arrives, they propose subjects to talk about, then we make a general vote to see which ones will be talked about that day and then we start the 1st subject... the person that proposed the subject makes a long introduction of it and then the rest give their opinion on the matter. There is no limitations as to what is the subject to be discussed.
Everything is recorded and then transformed into text.
Since our objectives as a project revolve around social inclusion, de-stigmatization and possible redirection to treatment, our analytical categories are composed in a matter oriented in that manner. Since the team of the project does not choose the subjects, the analytical categories are created post-factum, which means that we create categories of important things besides the core ones which is exlusion, biography, delirium.
Any given paragraph can range between 0 to 13 markings related to a certain category, and a paragraph is not a totality, rather, sentences are the totality. The test run is being done by hand and pens with different colors, once we get the hang of it, im going to do the "marking" with a certain program which will, upon request, make a big compilation dump of everything marked in a certain way... for example: "person X" "biography" "2012" would dump all the markings pertaining to a specific person's biographical text from 2012, and finally, that is analyzed with a social sciences, qualitative analysis approach.
So yeah.
Technically i could do this with a person's facebook wall, or with post history in a forum, but by fuck would i do it because of the difficulty in systematizing and formatting the text and doing the analysis itself. The ideal format is interviews, just mentioning what is possible.
I'll be interested in hearing more as you move along.
I just started on a Photovoice research project.
Interesting work there Johnny, thanks for taking the time to tell us about it.
Quite interesting.
I am looking forward to hearing more about your work.
Thanks y'all, most material in its pure form is non-distributable cause privacy of clinical material... but the idea is to first make an academic paper, and later a book regarding the effects of the dispositive and matters of exclusion and inclusion and life trajectories... delirium and clinics is strictly internal or therapeutical use.
Quote from: The Johnny on April 04, 2014, 12:43:34 AM
Technically i could do this with a person's facebook wall, or with post history in a forum, but by fuck would i do it because of the difficulty in systematizing and formatting the text and doing the analysis itself. The ideal format is interviews, just mentioning what is possible.
The thought occurs that your skill-set is probably pretty close to what the NSA/GCHQ would look for in regards to certain roles.
It also occurs to me that if you ever wanted to do a hatchet job on someone it'd be a thing of beauty. I'd just like to take a moment to encourage that.
Quote from: Junkenstein on April 07, 2014, 08:09:15 AM
Quote from: The Johnny on April 04, 2014, 12:43:34 AM
Technically i could do this with a person's facebook wall, or with post history in a forum, but by fuck would i do it because of the difficulty in systematizing and formatting the text and doing the analysis itself. The ideal format is interviews, just mentioning what is possible.
The thought occurs that your skill-set is probably pretty close to what the NSA/GCHQ would look for in regards to certain roles.
It also occurs to me that if you ever wanted to do a hatchet job on someone it'd be a thing of beauty. I'd just like to take a moment to encourage that.
seconded :lulz:
i work three very part time jobs(move out of my parents house? HA YOU'RE FUNNY)
The job i love most is being a tutor at my local community college. I tutor Psy 161 which is statistics as it applies to psychological experiments. I don't like the subject of statistics much (It's pretty much all the more persnickety parts of doing math and lumped them into one discipline) but i love the act of actually tutoring. I get my own office(while i'm in it), i get to help students one-on-one, and most importantly, i get to teach without an entire legion of ill-informed idiots telling me how to do it. A person comes in, I ask what they need help understanding, i explain it to them patiently, they thank me for my help, and at no point does anyone push an agenda on me our my students. Plus, it's the only one of my jobs that keeps me on a regular schedule, everywhere else i work is event based, meaning i dont have work when they don't have an event lined up.
Second place is my job at my church as Sexton. Basically in the event of a wedding or similar event, i'm the dude that sets up the chairs tables and also i work the sound system. Had a bit of fun at this job a couple weeks back as i basically got to dj a gay wedding between two very nice ladies from my church who were nice enough to tip me 60 bux after the whole thing. Lots of physical work, but cool perks also.
The job i'm trying to leave is as an event specialist for a marketing firm (see, guy who gives out food samples at supermarkets) i actually used to enjoy this job a lot more than i do now, the work isn't too strenuous, i get to talk to people now and again. What ruined it for me was finding out about their pay practices. For years they told me they couldn't give me a raise because of a new "wage freeze" policy wherein apparently everyone's not getting a raise because reasons, yet I found out they're hiring a bunch of new people at 15 bux an hour(which is four bux more than i make) Couple that with the promises they made when i was hired that i'd get raises every year or so and you can see why i'm on the lookout for something better. Hopefully more tutoring work.
nevermind, thought i found some creepy NSA connection but it just ammounted to this:
QuoteDedoose project data is also very secure as all protocols and policies meet U.S. National Security Agency standards and project administrators control the levels of access for all users linked to a project.