- Salespeople are ten-a-penny, and can be quickly and easily replaced from a pool too vast for any one industry/sector. Good salespeople, who form a relationship with their clients, understand their needs, and sell the product to fit their clients' needs are like gold dust. Excellent salespeople, who do everything the good ones do and sort out their own admin are rarer still. None of them should ever be salaried, as that induces nothing but lethargy. One should never tell a salesperson that their job is easy, because the act of meeting the clients' needs while balancing the revenue needs of one's employer is both an art and a science, and very few can do it well.
- Editors and writers are ten-a-penny, and can be quickly and easily replaced from a pool too vast for any one industry/sector. Good writers and editors, who take in interest in their subject matter - whatever it may be - and strive to bring some passion to their craft are like gold dust. Excellent writers and editors, who do everything the good ones do and get their copy in on time are rarer still. Only the crappy ones should be chained to their desks. One should never tell an editor or a writer that their job is easy, because the act of writing clear and interesting copy is both an art and a science, and very few can do it well.
- Designers are ten-a-penny, and can be quickly and easily replaced from a pool too vast for any one industry/sector. Good designers, for whom the act of creating a product - be it the beautiful layout for a well-crafted editorial piece or an advertising campaign - and seeing it take physical form is the greatest reward in and of itself are like gold dust. Excellent designers, who do everything the good ones do and turn in artwork that's 100% print-ready are even rarer. One should never tell a designer that their job is easy, because the act of creating an editorial layout that is clear and pleasing to the eye, or an advertisement that truly sells its product is both an art and a science, and very few can do it well.
- One phrase that should never be uttered by any group is "You've only got a job because of me" because it is both thoughtless and just plain wrong, undervaluing the skills, talents and experience of both the individual and their group. Saying those words should be considered 'gross misconduct'.
- The best publications come from companies whose departments respect each other's part in the process and work effectively as a team.
Saturday 26 May 2012
Rules of Thumb for a Publishing Environment
Some may find this controversial... but, trust me, this is taken from over ten years experience in publishing, and damn near twenty years in pre-press. If any salespeople, editors, writers or designers read the following and feel offended by my remarks, I'd have to question your commitment to your field because, actually, I think the following is quite complimentary to you all.
A New Record?
So I've mentioned that it normally takes me about a week to make myself indispensable... And on about my third day in my current freelance placement, my boss had a quick meeting with her boss, and came out to announce that they already wanted to extend my contract to six weeks, possibly two months.
One weird thing is the number of déjà vu flashes I've been having this week... Salespeople not putting things on the system till after the magazine has gone to press, Salespeople going off down the pub while there's still stuff they need to sign off, Salespeople arguing that late copy isn't their responsibility, never has been, never should be...
Of course, all this is possibly hypocritical of me, since I said within my first couple of days that I believe Salespeople should not be salaried, but should work solely on commission, as that's the only way to encourage them to sell on time, as close to rack rate as possible, and to make their bookings official. Any Salesperson worth paying would appreciate that structure because it allows them to earn more money (commission on rack rate being higher than 'pants round ankles' rates) and getting their bookings on the system on time ensures they get paid the full amount. It's really a simple bit of logic, so it's surprising how resistant Salespeople (and, often, their managers) are to the idea.
Today - final press day on my first magazine this time round - got a bit hairy. The bulk of the magazine went to press yesterday, leaving one section - the very front and back of the mag - to be finalised by lunchtime today. The hold up was caused by one section with a lot of late sales (thankfully repeats) and one full page ad near the front, which was sent only a short time before the cut-off point.
Typically, the problem in a situation like this would be the clients being tardy with sign-off (including simply agreeing to a particular repeat ad) or the supply of copy.
Not so, today.
What went wrong today was the company's web/email system, and on two levels:
One weird thing is the number of déjà vu flashes I've been having this week... Salespeople not putting things on the system till after the magazine has gone to press, Salespeople going off down the pub while there's still stuff they need to sign off, Salespeople arguing that late copy isn't their responsibility, never has been, never should be...
Of course, all this is possibly hypocritical of me, since I said within my first couple of days that I believe Salespeople should not be salaried, but should work solely on commission, as that's the only way to encourage them to sell on time, as close to rack rate as possible, and to make their bookings official. Any Salesperson worth paying would appreciate that structure because it allows them to earn more money (commission on rack rate being higher than 'pants round ankles' rates) and getting their bookings on the system on time ensures they get paid the full amount. It's really a simple bit of logic, so it's surprising how resistant Salespeople (and, often, their managers) are to the idea.
Today - final press day on my first magazine this time round - got a bit hairy. The bulk of the magazine went to press yesterday, leaving one section - the very front and back of the mag - to be finalised by lunchtime today. The hold up was caused by one section with a lot of late sales (thankfully repeats) and one full page ad near the front, which was sent only a short time before the cut-off point.
Typically, the problem in a situation like this would be the clients being tardy with sign-off (including simply agreeing to a particular repeat ad) or the supply of copy.
Not so, today.
What went wrong today was the company's web/email system, and on two levels:
- One bit of copy fell foul of IT Security, which prevents .zip files coming in. The salesperson who received it had to ask IT to release the email... then (rather foolishly) simply forwarded it to me... resulting in the email falling foul of IT Security all over again. That took a total of about 2 hours to sort, from the time the client sent the artwork, to the time I received it. By that point, we'd solved the problem by other means: the file was copied to a memory stick, and transferred manually from one machine to another.
- Another bit of copy fell foul of a routing delay with both email (the client sent the artwork - twice - about an hour before it arrived) and internet traffic (I uploaded the file to the printers, got the 'Artwork Received' message from their file delivery system, saw the file logged in their history as having been uploaded, and yet it took about 20 minutes to finally appear within the magazine on their system).
Curiously, the company is in the process of shifting to a new 'Cloud-based' system, which sends a shiver down my spine. I'm a control freak, and I'm very aware of that... so the idea of not even having my files stored locally is repugnant to me... There's also a new email system being installed and already people are complaining about it. Hopefully the staggered installation will mean some of the bugs are ironed out before the roll-out is completed.
It's an interesting place, certainly... and the products (the magazines themselves) are pretty cool - I nabbed a back issue today, to give to my father, because it features an article about a new space telescope, the successor to Hubble. It's not exactly busy by my usual standards, but what is? The lightness of the workload actually made me quite arrogant about the final few ads - I allowed more time for them to arrive than I should have done, so the system delays turned a slightly late magazine into a very late magazine but, still, it was only an hour or so late, and it's not as if it was late into the evening.
Kind of a shame that they don't have any permanent positions going... It seems they're in the middle of some redundancy processes, and are obliged to offer any 'spare' jobs to supposedly suitable candidates but, when the roles being made redundant are along the lines of, to choose a title at random which may not even be applicable, 'Production Editor', anyone from a Production background will immediately know that the 'Production' prefix of that job titles is utterly inapplicable. An editor is an editor. They have no involvement in true Production work (in the specific sense of 'sending the magazine to print'), and their skill set doesn't fit a Production role... But, of course, the upper echelons never understand such complex semantics...
Aaaaaanyway... it's late, I'm tired... I've had a really good week (and most of the bizarre resentment I felt at the weekend about losing all my idle time to gainful employment has faded away)... Time to start thinking about getting some kip.
Sunday 20 May 2012
Power Outage
Obviously it's all back up and running now but, not long after 9pm, everything in my home suddenly and unceremoniously shut down. There's an alarm somewhere down the road that goes off whenever the power goes (not very often, thankfully) which has become part of the soundtrack to the area. I'm guessing it's one of those burglar alarms that's rigged to go off in the event of losing power.
Shortly after everything kicked off, I heard sirens... I figured it might be an ambulance responding to someone blowing themselves up, but it seems it was a fire engine. It parked outside the station, and four firemen spread out, looking for something. Not sure whether they found it or not, but the fire engine drove off a little way after a few minutes.
In all, I think the power was out for something like 20 minutes (amusingly, it came back on just as I was setting out candles as a precaution, having spoken to my folks a few moments before to update them on my OMGDRAMA!) but, typically, that was 20 minutes in the middle of a TV show I was watching. That'll teach me to watch the +1 airing of a show, rather than the standard channel... Oh well, there's always the repeat during the week.
Kind of beats me why we have so many TV channels, even on Freeview only, if so many of them are taken up with repeats... then again, sometimes, it comes in handy.
Shortly after everything kicked off, I heard sirens... I figured it might be an ambulance responding to someone blowing themselves up, but it seems it was a fire engine. It parked outside the station, and four firemen spread out, looking for something. Not sure whether they found it or not, but the fire engine drove off a little way after a few minutes.
In all, I think the power was out for something like 20 minutes (amusingly, it came back on just as I was setting out candles as a precaution, having spoken to my folks a few moments before to update them on my OMGDRAMA!) but, typically, that was 20 minutes in the middle of a TV show I was watching. That'll teach me to watch the +1 airing of a show, rather than the standard channel... Oh well, there's always the repeat during the week.
Kind of beats me why we have so many TV channels, even on Freeview only, if so many of them are taken up with repeats... then again, sometimes, it comes in handy.
Saturday 19 May 2012
First Day
As first days in a job go, Friday started quite badly, but turned out pretty good in the end.
I had been instructed to arrive at 10am, a full 30 minutes after the start of their day, to allow my contact there time to settle in and figure out what I should be doing. I left home just before 9am, giving myself plenty of time. After a few minutes waiting on the station platform, and announcement came over the PA about "severe delays" on the line because of a signal failure in town. The train arrived shortly thereafter, and seemed to travel quite smoothly, but I hadn't got the direct line for my contact, so I sent a text to the agency asking for the number as a precaution. By the time the response came through, I was moments from Baker Street.
Arriving at the office about ten minutes early, I announced myself at Reception, took a seat, and waited...
...And waited...
And it turned out that my contact was running late. By the time someone had come down to bring me up to the right floor, she was only just getting there herself via the stairs. And, gentle reader, as a temp, one of the last things you want to hear on your first day is that the person you'll be working for/with asked for you to start on a later day, but that someone further up the food chain went ahead and arranged it for that day anyway... At the very least, it suggests you'll have bugger all to do.
Thankfully, such was not the case in this instance. I was given the tail end of one of their supplements - ads already chased in, waiting to be laid out on their pages. The next problem was that the machine I was supposed to be working on hadn't been properly set up yet (it later transpired that it had only just been returned from the home of the full-timer I'm covering), so I had to be taken round to the other side of the office (Editorial). This lasted until I was basically done (as far as I knew), by which point 'my' machine had been set up, so it was back round to the other side of the office to finish off.
The problem with coming in to a project that's done bar the final stage - output - is that you have to presume that all the available artwork is considered OK to go... and, unfortunately, several of the ads failed various flightcheck points. One had to be rebuilt from scratch because it was so terrible. Even so, the part pages were all ready to go before lunch, and the full pages - which, as with my last employer's proprietory system, ideally need to be run through the system - naturally followed quite quickly. All the Editorial pages were already done, so the entire supplement was with the printers not long into the afternoon.
And there was another bit of fun: I was more familiar with the Printers' online file delivery system than the company I'm working for now. I noticed this in my last visit when I pointed out that, if only they changed their system's output settings so the page number was at the front of the final filenames, they could save themselves an awful lot of time. The system is always on the look-out for page numbers at the front and, if it finds them, it will automatically place the files on the corresponding pages if they are uploaded to its pasteboard. I demonstrated with the first five pages... then two batches of ten each... then the final 30 pages in one hit.
One potential problem arose in that, out of 60 pages, five uploaded successfully, but then just disappeared. Considering I've uploaded magazines of 300+ pages by this method, and 'lost' only two or three pages at most, those odds didn't look at all good... but it's something to keep an eye on over the next few weeks...
Nevertheless, with this multi-page upload option demonstrated, one of their IT guys (observing for a whole different reason) said "Right, we'll have to change our settings, that makes things much easier!"
After checking off all the pages (and finding some errors in the Editorial side of things, which we couldn't access to correct for all kinds of network-related reasons that will need to be fixed next week), the rest of the day was spent doing a handover with the other temp who was finishing on Friday. Next week's project is similarly small (the largest magazine I'll be working on looks to be less than 100 pages, and they're all bi-monthly or bi-weekly!) but will have more advertising to work on - both collating complete artwork and setting ads from scratch - including a fairly large recruitment section which, I'm told, will all be last-minute sales.
Nowt new there, then.
Before I left for the day (a good ten minutes early, since my work was done) my contact had to call the agency to confirm who was billing whom for what and, during the conversation, described me as "a calming presence".
I'm not quite sure how to feel about that... People used to cower in terror from me. Either age or unemployment has clearly mellowed me out.
Well, that and the fact that none of these people know the meaning of the word 'busy'.
I had been instructed to arrive at 10am, a full 30 minutes after the start of their day, to allow my contact there time to settle in and figure out what I should be doing. I left home just before 9am, giving myself plenty of time. After a few minutes waiting on the station platform, and announcement came over the PA about "severe delays" on the line because of a signal failure in town. The train arrived shortly thereafter, and seemed to travel quite smoothly, but I hadn't got the direct line for my contact, so I sent a text to the agency asking for the number as a precaution. By the time the response came through, I was moments from Baker Street.
Arriving at the office about ten minutes early, I announced myself at Reception, took a seat, and waited...
...And waited...
And it turned out that my contact was running late. By the time someone had come down to bring me up to the right floor, she was only just getting there herself via the stairs. And, gentle reader, as a temp, one of the last things you want to hear on your first day is that the person you'll be working for/with asked for you to start on a later day, but that someone further up the food chain went ahead and arranged it for that day anyway... At the very least, it suggests you'll have bugger all to do.
Thankfully, such was not the case in this instance. I was given the tail end of one of their supplements - ads already chased in, waiting to be laid out on their pages. The next problem was that the machine I was supposed to be working on hadn't been properly set up yet (it later transpired that it had only just been returned from the home of the full-timer I'm covering), so I had to be taken round to the other side of the office (Editorial). This lasted until I was basically done (as far as I knew), by which point 'my' machine had been set up, so it was back round to the other side of the office to finish off.
The problem with coming in to a project that's done bar the final stage - output - is that you have to presume that all the available artwork is considered OK to go... and, unfortunately, several of the ads failed various flightcheck points. One had to be rebuilt from scratch because it was so terrible. Even so, the part pages were all ready to go before lunch, and the full pages - which, as with my last employer's proprietory system, ideally need to be run through the system - naturally followed quite quickly. All the Editorial pages were already done, so the entire supplement was with the printers not long into the afternoon.
And there was another bit of fun: I was more familiar with the Printers' online file delivery system than the company I'm working for now. I noticed this in my last visit when I pointed out that, if only they changed their system's output settings so the page number was at the front of the final filenames, they could save themselves an awful lot of time. The system is always on the look-out for page numbers at the front and, if it finds them, it will automatically place the files on the corresponding pages if they are uploaded to its pasteboard. I demonstrated with the first five pages... then two batches of ten each... then the final 30 pages in one hit.
One potential problem arose in that, out of 60 pages, five uploaded successfully, but then just disappeared. Considering I've uploaded magazines of 300+ pages by this method, and 'lost' only two or three pages at most, those odds didn't look at all good... but it's something to keep an eye on over the next few weeks...
Nevertheless, with this multi-page upload option demonstrated, one of their IT guys (observing for a whole different reason) said "Right, we'll have to change our settings, that makes things much easier!"
After checking off all the pages (and finding some errors in the Editorial side of things, which we couldn't access to correct for all kinds of network-related reasons that will need to be fixed next week), the rest of the day was spent doing a handover with the other temp who was finishing on Friday. Next week's project is similarly small (the largest magazine I'll be working on looks to be less than 100 pages, and they're all bi-monthly or bi-weekly!) but will have more advertising to work on - both collating complete artwork and setting ads from scratch - including a fairly large recruitment section which, I'm told, will all be last-minute sales.
Nowt new there, then.
Before I left for the day (a good ten minutes early, since my work was done) my contact had to call the agency to confirm who was billing whom for what and, during the conversation, described me as "a calming presence".
I'm not quite sure how to feel about that... People used to cower in terror from me. Either age or unemployment has clearly mellowed me out.
Well, that and the fact that none of these people know the meaning of the word 'busy'.
Thursday 17 May 2012
Things
Oh, mercy me... I'm just so funny with my subtle humour... for this post is all about the 2011 movie, called The Thing, which was made as a prequel to a 1982 movie, also called The Thing, both derived from a 1938 novella by John W. Campbell called Who Goes There?. There's also the small matter of a 1951 movie The Thing from Another World... But the less said about that, the better.
So... Things.
Ahem.
The original movie, starring a very youthful Kurt Russell and directed by John Carpenter, is one of my all-time favourite horror movies. The reason for this is simple: certain scenes burned themselves into my memory, the very epitome of "you cannot unsee this". It got to the point that I could remember the scenes, but couldn't be sure which movie they were from over the 15-odd years since I first saw it on home VHS, but the memory of the defibrillator scene, the blood tests, the upside-down, crabwalking head, and the guy pushing his hand into another guy's face are absolutely indelible.
Part of the reason for this is the groundbreaking special effects, all of which were practical - that is to say, both scale models and full-size models, animatronics, and buckets of fake blood. That may sound outré by today's standards, where almost everything on our cinema screens is computer generated but, as artificial as some of those models looked, they were more real than anything CGI can dole out, even today.
So it was rather a surprise to read that the makers of the new The Thing were intending to do as much as possible using practical effects, rather than relying on CGI for everything. A movie that explains the events leading up to the 1984 film, and also honouring its SFX team by using their methods? What sorcery is this?
Now that I've seen it for myself, I can confirm that there are lots of CGI shots throughout the movie, and they do stick out like a sore thumb. The practical effects are decent, generally of higher quality than those from John Carpenter's version in terms of fine detail... but, ultimately, they're just not as memorable.
Fair warning: there may be spoilers ahead...
OK, no, there are spoilers.
Really, there are.
Essentially, what you've got is a combination of events from the 1951 movie (block of ice brought into the research station) and the 1982 movie (almost everything else), so you know pretty much exactly what to expect at every stage. It also lets you know what's about to happen all too often, killing most of its surprise. I only jumped at two points, and one of them was one of the characters shouting "Boo!" after sneaking up behind one of the others, right near the start.
It also makes a couple of mistakes, as far as I'm concerned... First and foremost, 'infected' people are way too talkative. I'm pretty sure that, once someone had been 'turned' in Carpenter's version, they didn't tend to have much dialogue. Another issue is that this is a creature in which every cell is capable of acting independently (according to Carpenter's version)... and yet, when one of the littler critters gets chopped in half, rather than become twice as dangerous, it skitters about and tries to knit itself back together. This is its downfall, as it becomes vulnerable as soon as it stays still for the few moments it needs to reconnect.
Then, of course, there's the issue of the dog. The 1982 movie begins with a dog running over the snow and ice, pursued by a sniper in a helicopter so, of course, that's how this one has to end... But the dog is 'absorbed' very early on, and then doesn't appear again until the very end.
Oh, and that's another thing (hahah... OK, I'm going to stop now) - Whereas the first film ended with the two survivors at an impasse (and both probably freezing to death, assuming both were human, which was deliberately left to the viewer's imagination). This one has a big climax inside the alien spacecraft, then Mary Elizabeth Winstead's character torches her colleague because he's been assimilated... and then the scene fades to black. All things considered, it seems highly unlikely that she hasn't been assimilated herself, but that possibility is not explored, it's just left hanging - and not as effectively as the sense of doubt at the end of Carpenter's movie. Then, we cut back to the base camp, as a very familiar helicopter is arriving. Then the dog turns up. Then the only certain survivor gets the pilot to fly after the dog so he can shoot it.
Don't get me wrong, I actually quite enjoyed the film for what it tried to do... but it didn't bring anything really new to the story (apart from CGI, and the idea that the creature spat out anything inorganic from the bodies it absorbed - titanium plates from broken bones, fillings from teeth, etc), and some of it was quite contrived - I mean, how did the helicopter pilot and co-pilot survive the crash and walk back to the base through the snowstorm? Plus, it used so many obvious horror movie plot devices... Not just those from Carpenter's version, but plenty more for other movies.
Overall, unoriginal, but pretty good fun.
In other news, I'm off to work tomorrow... though not in any of the expected ways. To cut a long story short, no decision has yet been made on the permanent job (they'll be deciding who they're bringing back for a second interview soon), and the 2-week holiday cover job that turned into a 9-month maternity cover job has been cut down to one month only, because they can't afford a temp for 9 months. I've been advised to make myself indispensable so that, when the month has elapsed, they'll decide to renew me (assuming I haven't been offered the permanent job by then).
Normally it takes about a week to make myself indispensible...
We shall see...
So... Things.
Ahem.
The original movie, starring a very youthful Kurt Russell and directed by John Carpenter, is one of my all-time favourite horror movies. The reason for this is simple: certain scenes burned themselves into my memory, the very epitome of "you cannot unsee this". It got to the point that I could remember the scenes, but couldn't be sure which movie they were from over the 15-odd years since I first saw it on home VHS, but the memory of the defibrillator scene, the blood tests, the upside-down, crabwalking head, and the guy pushing his hand into another guy's face are absolutely indelible.
Part of the reason for this is the groundbreaking special effects, all of which were practical - that is to say, both scale models and full-size models, animatronics, and buckets of fake blood. That may sound outré by today's standards, where almost everything on our cinema screens is computer generated but, as artificial as some of those models looked, they were more real than anything CGI can dole out, even today.
So it was rather a surprise to read that the makers of the new The Thing were intending to do as much as possible using practical effects, rather than relying on CGI for everything. A movie that explains the events leading up to the 1984 film, and also honouring its SFX team by using their methods? What sorcery is this?
Now that I've seen it for myself, I can confirm that there are lots of CGI shots throughout the movie, and they do stick out like a sore thumb. The practical effects are decent, generally of higher quality than those from John Carpenter's version in terms of fine detail... but, ultimately, they're just not as memorable.
Fair warning: there may be spoilers ahead...
OK, no, there are spoilers.
Really, there are.
Essentially, what you've got is a combination of events from the 1951 movie (block of ice brought into the research station) and the 1982 movie (almost everything else), so you know pretty much exactly what to expect at every stage. It also lets you know what's about to happen all too often, killing most of its surprise. I only jumped at two points, and one of them was one of the characters shouting "Boo!" after sneaking up behind one of the others, right near the start.
It also makes a couple of mistakes, as far as I'm concerned... First and foremost, 'infected' people are way too talkative. I'm pretty sure that, once someone had been 'turned' in Carpenter's version, they didn't tend to have much dialogue. Another issue is that this is a creature in which every cell is capable of acting independently (according to Carpenter's version)... and yet, when one of the littler critters gets chopped in half, rather than become twice as dangerous, it skitters about and tries to knit itself back together. This is its downfall, as it becomes vulnerable as soon as it stays still for the few moments it needs to reconnect.
Then, of course, there's the issue of the dog. The 1982 movie begins with a dog running over the snow and ice, pursued by a sniper in a helicopter so, of course, that's how this one has to end... But the dog is 'absorbed' very early on, and then doesn't appear again until the very end.
Oh, and that's another thing (hahah... OK, I'm going to stop now) - Whereas the first film ended with the two survivors at an impasse (and both probably freezing to death, assuming both were human, which was deliberately left to the viewer's imagination). This one has a big climax inside the alien spacecraft, then Mary Elizabeth Winstead's character torches her colleague because he's been assimilated... and then the scene fades to black. All things considered, it seems highly unlikely that she hasn't been assimilated herself, but that possibility is not explored, it's just left hanging - and not as effectively as the sense of doubt at the end of Carpenter's movie. Then, we cut back to the base camp, as a very familiar helicopter is arriving. Then the dog turns up. Then the only certain survivor gets the pilot to fly after the dog so he can shoot it.
Don't get me wrong, I actually quite enjoyed the film for what it tried to do... but it didn't bring anything really new to the story (apart from CGI, and the idea that the creature spat out anything inorganic from the bodies it absorbed - titanium plates from broken bones, fillings from teeth, etc), and some of it was quite contrived - I mean, how did the helicopter pilot and co-pilot survive the crash and walk back to the base through the snowstorm? Plus, it used so many obvious horror movie plot devices... Not just those from Carpenter's version, but plenty more for other movies.
Overall, unoriginal, but pretty good fun.
In other news, I'm off to work tomorrow... though not in any of the expected ways. To cut a long story short, no decision has yet been made on the permanent job (they'll be deciding who they're bringing back for a second interview soon), and the 2-week holiday cover job that turned into a 9-month maternity cover job has been cut down to one month only, because they can't afford a temp for 9 months. I've been advised to make myself indispensable so that, when the month has elapsed, they'll decide to renew me (assuming I haven't been offered the permanent job by then).
Normally it takes about a week to make myself indispensible...
We shall see...
Tuesday 15 May 2012
Interviewing II
Interviews are quite strange... Every company does them differently so, no matter how many interviews you get, you always find something new and unexpected in each.
For example, today's lasted about an hour and a half.
Yes, you read that right.
This one actually involved a test, too... putting together an advertisement from supplied materials. Nothing I haven't done a million times over the last almost-20-years and, the way it was introduced to me was almost apologetic. Not only did it sound as if they already knew it was well within my abilities, but they gave me 15 minutes to familiarise myself with the materials: "but I don't expect you to finish in 15 minutes".
Gentle reader, back when I was dealing with 6 magazines (plus editions) every month, 15 minutes was about all anyone could spare per ad. Maybe a little more if it was something special, but deadlines are deadlines.
I'm not sure how long it ended up taking me (probably not much more than 15 minutes, largely due to my fumbling of InDesign keyboard shortcuts) but, by the end of it, I'd taught my interviewer a new trick (Shift + Command + Alt + click-and-drag to scale an image in proportion), and created an advert that she preferred to the version she'd made up last week.
Sometimes, I'm just awesome.
So, the reason the interview lasted as long as it did was largely down to the amount of small talk and talking around the job - comparing previous experiences, and the like. Quite unlike most of the interviews I've had, particularly those for temporary jobs, but it all added to the fun of it. Weird, to say that an interview was 'fun'...
Not a bad day, all told, considering I arrived early enough to drop in on the nearby HMV and pick up the Wii version of Telltale Games' Back to the Future and Studio Ghibli's Arietty (the anime adaptation of The Borrowers).
Then, on the way back home, I stopped off in a branch of Sainsbury's and a branch of Tesco, hunting for other things... and finding a 3 DVD set of 'The Barnabas Collins Episodes' of the ancient TV series Dark Shadows for a mere £10. A quick phone call to a friend - who's a massive fan - and I bought a copy. Also grabbed a cheap-and-cheerful copy of the recent prequel to The Thing. I loved the John Carpenter original, and skipped on the cinema release of the new film due to mixed reviews... Now the DVD costs about the same as a cinema ticket, I figured it would be a worthy investment.
I'd say I'm open to being proved wrong... but the cast includes Mary Elizabeth Winsted. That's good enough for me.
For example, today's lasted about an hour and a half.
Yes, you read that right.
This one actually involved a test, too... putting together an advertisement from supplied materials. Nothing I haven't done a million times over the last almost-20-years and, the way it was introduced to me was almost apologetic. Not only did it sound as if they already knew it was well within my abilities, but they gave me 15 minutes to familiarise myself with the materials: "but I don't expect you to finish in 15 minutes".
Gentle reader, back when I was dealing with 6 magazines (plus editions) every month, 15 minutes was about all anyone could spare per ad. Maybe a little more if it was something special, but deadlines are deadlines.
I'm not sure how long it ended up taking me (probably not much more than 15 minutes, largely due to my fumbling of InDesign keyboard shortcuts) but, by the end of it, I'd taught my interviewer a new trick (Shift + Command + Alt + click-and-drag to scale an image in proportion), and created an advert that she preferred to the version she'd made up last week.
Sometimes, I'm just awesome.
So, the reason the interview lasted as long as it did was largely down to the amount of small talk and talking around the job - comparing previous experiences, and the like. Quite unlike most of the interviews I've had, particularly those for temporary jobs, but it all added to the fun of it. Weird, to say that an interview was 'fun'...
Not a bad day, all told, considering I arrived early enough to drop in on the nearby HMV and pick up the Wii version of Telltale Games' Back to the Future and Studio Ghibli's Arietty (the anime adaptation of The Borrowers).
Then, on the way back home, I stopped off in a branch of Sainsbury's and a branch of Tesco, hunting for other things... and finding a 3 DVD set of 'The Barnabas Collins Episodes' of the ancient TV series Dark Shadows for a mere £10. A quick phone call to a friend - who's a massive fan - and I bought a copy. Also grabbed a cheap-and-cheerful copy of the recent prequel to The Thing. I loved the John Carpenter original, and skipped on the cinema release of the new film due to mixed reviews... Now the DVD costs about the same as a cinema ticket, I figured it would be a worthy investment.
I'd say I'm open to being proved wrong... but the cast includes Mary Elizabeth Winsted. That's good enough for me.
Monday 14 May 2012
Interviewing
And now, after another unusually long break (I've been working on other stuff, honest... not just resting on my laurels!), here's a brief update...
After my most recent temping stint, I was alerted to the fact that I had been requested - yes, by name - by one of the places I worked at earlier in the year. Two different departments were after me, in fact. The same folks I worked with before wanted me back for more holiday cover, and another department (who'd heard good things about me) wanted to interview me for a medium-term contract position...
Also around this time, I managed to wangle myself back into the running for a permanent position... And I interviewed for that on Friday.
These folks were initially wary because their vacancy is slightly lower down the food chain than my last permanent job, and because they saw evidence of creative leanings on my CV. They had discounted me about a month ago because the job offers no creative control of the products. I only learned this when I asked for feedback and, thankfully, my agency contact didn't even need to query their concerns with me before insisting that they take another look at my CV. Good thing, too, because the interview seemed to go really well.
There were two people interviewing me (can't remember either job title now!) and both came across very well, and described quite a relaxed and friendly workplace - without Salespeople, by the sounds of it, so that will take the stress levels WAY down straight away. If that makes it sound as though I was interviewing them, you could be right. I've eaten further into my savings than I ever intended, but I still want to be sure I get the right job for me. They have their big projects, and everything else gets slotted in around them. They work and 8 hour day, with overtime occurring when there's something one feels compelled to finish, and occasional overnight visits to the Printers...
I made a crack about the predominance of workaholics in the industry, and both laughed... I think that's a good sign.
I'm wary of saying that I'm the no-brainer choice but, if they're finding themselves throwing away the CVs of graphic designers and creative directors, I'm probably the closest fit they've had... Before I left, they mentioned second interviews (including the concept of a test, which chilled me to my very core, even though I tend to do quite well in tests) so, at the very least, since they haven't already found their ideal candidate inside a month, I'd like to think I'm in with a shot.
Either that, or they're really not in a hurry.
They're based in a nice area, easily accessible by rail, and their products are quite cool... so it could be fun.
My next interview - scheduled for Tuesday - is for the contract job. Initially, I was told it would be commencing in August... but then I was also told it was only going to be a week or so cover. As it turns out, it's a 9-month job starting at the end of this month.
And, just to make things fun, the department I'd worked in before wanted me back possibly for the end of this month, too.
Took a trip to see my folks yesterday - and to see of my sister and niece, who were heading home after lunch following their most recent hospital appointment. The niece continues to be utterly exhausting (but in a nice way... except when she's being argumentative and loudly negative about everything), which is quite amazing considering her condition at birth. Looks like everything is going quite well for her now, though she was attached to a heart monitor for the weekend.
News of Grandmother is not so good... although it's becoming quite difficult to judge. My mother fears that she's only well behaved when visited by someone other than her. Certainly, when I went along with her last time, she was bright and chatty... but apparently she was back to being nasty and cynical when my mother visited on her own during the week. She conceded that she had interrupted something - Grandmother and fellow residents were having a sing-song when she arrived - so that might have triggered it, but she said something along the lines of having "made a mistake, choosing this place" and my mother decided against contradicting her because, at the very least, if she believes she chose the place she's in, it sounds as though she's settled.
Today, I tried to tidy up some of my filing - my parents bought me a ring-bound file for insurance details quite a while back, and it's been sitting on top of my filing drawers ever since. Once I removed the cellophane, however, I found a significant problem. There aren't many plastic sleeves already in the folder, and all of them are too small for any of my - largely A4-sized - documentation. Plus, I have so many sheets of paper pertaining to my various insurance policies, I'd need more sleeves to have a hope of fitting any of it in. I may just have to get a standard ring-binder and use that...
...And another for all my temping invoices/remittance forms...
...And probably several others for several other purposes... But now I'm getting back to the point where I'd rather not think about it, because it's too much like getting organised.
Which, y'know, would be a good thing... but it's just such a hassle for me. I have to read through things all over again just to determine where they should be filed... I know just stuffing everything into drawers is going to end up being counter-productive, and my 'out of sight, out of mind' approach to filing is utterly stupid... but I'm just not an organised person.
Except in the office, of course... so perhaps getting back to work - on a medium-term contract, if not full time - will put me back in the right frame of mind.
After my most recent temping stint, I was alerted to the fact that I had been requested - yes, by name - by one of the places I worked at earlier in the year. Two different departments were after me, in fact. The same folks I worked with before wanted me back for more holiday cover, and another department (who'd heard good things about me) wanted to interview me for a medium-term contract position...
Also around this time, I managed to wangle myself back into the running for a permanent position... And I interviewed for that on Friday.
These folks were initially wary because their vacancy is slightly lower down the food chain than my last permanent job, and because they saw evidence of creative leanings on my CV. They had discounted me about a month ago because the job offers no creative control of the products. I only learned this when I asked for feedback and, thankfully, my agency contact didn't even need to query their concerns with me before insisting that they take another look at my CV. Good thing, too, because the interview seemed to go really well.
There were two people interviewing me (can't remember either job title now!) and both came across very well, and described quite a relaxed and friendly workplace - without Salespeople, by the sounds of it, so that will take the stress levels WAY down straight away. If that makes it sound as though I was interviewing them, you could be right. I've eaten further into my savings than I ever intended, but I still want to be sure I get the right job for me. They have their big projects, and everything else gets slotted in around them. They work and 8 hour day, with overtime occurring when there's something one feels compelled to finish, and occasional overnight visits to the Printers...
I made a crack about the predominance of workaholics in the industry, and both laughed... I think that's a good sign.
I'm wary of saying that I'm the no-brainer choice but, if they're finding themselves throwing away the CVs of graphic designers and creative directors, I'm probably the closest fit they've had... Before I left, they mentioned second interviews (including the concept of a test, which chilled me to my very core, even though I tend to do quite well in tests) so, at the very least, since they haven't already found their ideal candidate inside a month, I'd like to think I'm in with a shot.
Either that, or they're really not in a hurry.
They're based in a nice area, easily accessible by rail, and their products are quite cool... so it could be fun.
My next interview - scheduled for Tuesday - is for the contract job. Initially, I was told it would be commencing in August... but then I was also told it was only going to be a week or so cover. As it turns out, it's a 9-month job starting at the end of this month.
And, just to make things fun, the department I'd worked in before wanted me back possibly for the end of this month, too.
Took a trip to see my folks yesterday - and to see of my sister and niece, who were heading home after lunch following their most recent hospital appointment. The niece continues to be utterly exhausting (but in a nice way... except when she's being argumentative and loudly negative about everything), which is quite amazing considering her condition at birth. Looks like everything is going quite well for her now, though she was attached to a heart monitor for the weekend.
News of Grandmother is not so good... although it's becoming quite difficult to judge. My mother fears that she's only well behaved when visited by someone other than her. Certainly, when I went along with her last time, she was bright and chatty... but apparently she was back to being nasty and cynical when my mother visited on her own during the week. She conceded that she had interrupted something - Grandmother and fellow residents were having a sing-song when she arrived - so that might have triggered it, but she said something along the lines of having "made a mistake, choosing this place" and my mother decided against contradicting her because, at the very least, if she believes she chose the place she's in, it sounds as though she's settled.
Today, I tried to tidy up some of my filing - my parents bought me a ring-bound file for insurance details quite a while back, and it's been sitting on top of my filing drawers ever since. Once I removed the cellophane, however, I found a significant problem. There aren't many plastic sleeves already in the folder, and all of them are too small for any of my - largely A4-sized - documentation. Plus, I have so many sheets of paper pertaining to my various insurance policies, I'd need more sleeves to have a hope of fitting any of it in. I may just have to get a standard ring-binder and use that...
...And another for all my temping invoices/remittance forms...
...And probably several others for several other purposes... But now I'm getting back to the point where I'd rather not think about it, because it's too much like getting organised.
Which, y'know, would be a good thing... but it's just such a hassle for me. I have to read through things all over again just to determine where they should be filed... I know just stuffing everything into drawers is going to end up being counter-productive, and my 'out of sight, out of mind' approach to filing is utterly stupid... but I'm just not an organised person.
Except in the office, of course... so perhaps getting back to work - on a medium-term contract, if not full time - will put me back in the right frame of mind.
Saturday 5 May 2012
And The Downside To Temping
Can't quite believe that I neglected to post this little anecdote last week, but that's with the benefit of hindsight and self-checking. I guess at the time, at the earliest opportunity, I was in such a panic about it that I didn't want to write it down anywhere, in case that somehow made it true.
I've mentioned I have weird superstitions, right?
So, anyway.
On Wednesday, before handing over my invoice for the two days I'd worked at that point, I had to speak with the Chief Sub-Editor, because the advertisement artwork on the front cover was being flagged as a problem by the printers' online file delivery system. It was bleating about Spot colours, basically. I know from experience that this system will flag all kinds of non-issues as problems, simply because it's set to pick up literally every possible problem... So, when a document was set up using Pantone colours, but those Pantone colours were set to work as Process colours rather than Spot, it flags them as problems because they're still called 'Pantone XXX'.
For convenience, the system does include a Java-based system that lets you look at a PDF in great detail, even down to viewing it by colour separation, so I knew that the colours were Process, not Spot. I told Chief Sub all this, and one of his colleagues - also very familiar with the system and its overzealous warnings - chipped in to confirm what I was saying.
With that out of the way - literally my only concern of those two days, it's such an easy job to cover - I took my leave for the day, saying that "Ads-wise, we're all done-and-dusted".
So, naturally, when I got my train, it took two stops for the creeping paranoia to set in.
Had I uploaded all the ads?
Because, thinking back, I didn't remember seeing the inside front cover when we were looking at the front cover.
I got off the train and checked my phone, intending to call the office and enquire. After all, it wouldn't take me long to dash back and fix my mistake. But, of course, there was no signal on the Underground... And, besides, I wasn't sure I'd updated their number on my phone, since they moved offices.
Well, shit.
So I got back on the next train, resigned to the idea that I'd find an irate voicemail message from the Chief Sub as soon as the train broke to the surface.
There was no message.
Nor was there a message on my home phone.
And I wasn't going back till Friday.
Needless to say, I didn't sleep very well.
Needless to say, when I went back on Friday, the first thing I did when I got to my desk was check the uploads folder, to ensure I'd put the ad in there... because if it was in there, it would have been uploaded. Of that I was certain.
I breathed a great sigh of relief when I saw the file was, indeed, present.
Actually, that's a lie. I was very, very quiet about it. I considered mentioning it, making a big joke about it... Silly me and my paranoia and self-doubt... but eventually decided that wasn't such a good idea. People think I'm weird enough when I talk about how much I enjoy the work... Don't really want to add to it by telling them I lose sleep over imaginary mistakes, because I don't ever get to feel settled and comfortable in an office while I'm temping...
I've mentioned I have weird superstitions, right?
So, anyway.
On Wednesday, before handing over my invoice for the two days I'd worked at that point, I had to speak with the Chief Sub-Editor, because the advertisement artwork on the front cover was being flagged as a problem by the printers' online file delivery system. It was bleating about Spot colours, basically. I know from experience that this system will flag all kinds of non-issues as problems, simply because it's set to pick up literally every possible problem... So, when a document was set up using Pantone colours, but those Pantone colours were set to work as Process colours rather than Spot, it flags them as problems because they're still called 'Pantone XXX'.
For convenience, the system does include a Java-based system that lets you look at a PDF in great detail, even down to viewing it by colour separation, so I knew that the colours were Process, not Spot. I told Chief Sub all this, and one of his colleagues - also very familiar with the system and its overzealous warnings - chipped in to confirm what I was saying.
With that out of the way - literally my only concern of those two days, it's such an easy job to cover - I took my leave for the day, saying that "Ads-wise, we're all done-and-dusted".
So, naturally, when I got my train, it took two stops for the creeping paranoia to set in.
Had I uploaded all the ads?
Because, thinking back, I didn't remember seeing the inside front cover when we were looking at the front cover.
I got off the train and checked my phone, intending to call the office and enquire. After all, it wouldn't take me long to dash back and fix my mistake. But, of course, there was no signal on the Underground... And, besides, I wasn't sure I'd updated their number on my phone, since they moved offices.
Well, shit.
So I got back on the next train, resigned to the idea that I'd find an irate voicemail message from the Chief Sub as soon as the train broke to the surface.
There was no message.
Nor was there a message on my home phone.
And I wasn't going back till Friday.
Needless to say, I didn't sleep very well.
Needless to say, when I went back on Friday, the first thing I did when I got to my desk was check the uploads folder, to ensure I'd put the ad in there... because if it was in there, it would have been uploaded. Of that I was certain.
I breathed a great sigh of relief when I saw the file was, indeed, present.
Actually, that's a lie. I was very, very quiet about it. I considered mentioning it, making a big joke about it... Silly me and my paranoia and self-doubt... but eventually decided that wasn't such a good idea. People think I'm weird enough when I talk about how much I enjoy the work... Don't really want to add to it by telling them I lose sleep over imaginary mistakes, because I don't ever get to feel settled and comfortable in an office while I'm temping...
Maybe Not Improvement, As Such
Back home after visiting my folks to pick up some post, drop off my father's birthday present and take a trip over to see my grandmother in her new digs. Not a bad half day, all told...
Things got off to a weird start when, at 10.10 this morning, I got a phone call from the folks who arranged my mortgage. I'd had an email from them last month, reminding me that my fixed rate ends this year, and another last week offering me some improvements on my related health insurance, but had agreed to speak to them sometime next week if work made it impractical this week. The phone call this morning was not from either of the people who emailed me, though, and the most recent email did mention something about "overzealous colleagues"... But, still, ten past ten on a Saturday morning? Really?
Once I got myself out of the door, getting over to my folks was not a bad journey, except that the rail replacement bus smelt somewhere between overripe brie and vomit. At one point, the woman sat next to me asked if the window opened, and I was only too happy to oblige.
Curiously, my grandmother's new accommodation - another care home specialising in Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia - is almost halfway between my home and my parents'... Except not really... just that the route from either location would take about the same length of time by bus. It's a really nice place - slightly smaller, but 'cosy' rather than 'claustrophobic', and they have several lounges dotted about, so it was easy enough to find a quiet place to sit and chat without being interrupted or disturbed by noise from other residents.
Until an alarm went off, that is.
This new place is far more active - not just that they have more residents, the residents themselves interact more (and more freely), and the staff seem to take a bit more interest. That may be an unfair judgement, but I visited the other place over a Bank Holiday weekend, and only saw one nurse.
Grandmother seems well settled and, while she would complain bitterly about her fellow residents and their visitors at the old place, the only complaining she did today was very clearly in fun. Not for her, the sing-song exercise sessions. Oh, mercy, no. She was far more chatty, too... far more engaged, generally, with the world around her. She kept talking about 'the river' and 'the pond', and I only learned later than she was referring to the Thames and - most likely - the water features at the last care home. In her younger days, she lived in Chiswick and Richmond, each within easy walking distance of a stretch of the Thames, and it seems this current place is situated in an area that's just leafy enough to remind her of her home in those days.
Alzheimer's is an amazing disease in many ways... while the brain is wasting away, it's also trying frantically to piece itself back together. Where fragments of memory get lost, it patches together similar situations and themes to create new - erroneous - memories and, all the while, struggles to fit them into the context of the here-and-now. This new place looks like it will be good for her, because she'll be more active - physically and mentally - and she is at least eating properly now, so the glitchy repair process will be more effective (if confusing for anyone else she talks to, who remembers the whole of the fragments she's piecing together). According to my mother, where she can't remember anything of a place or situation, she'll make something up entirely.
Whereas my last trip to see my grandmother was deeply unsettling, and left me feeling rather melancholy, this one left me rather more hopeful. As we left, I told her I'd see her again soon and, with a laugh, she said "If I'm all in one piece!"
Pretty sure she will be...
Things got off to a weird start when, at 10.10 this morning, I got a phone call from the folks who arranged my mortgage. I'd had an email from them last month, reminding me that my fixed rate ends this year, and another last week offering me some improvements on my related health insurance, but had agreed to speak to them sometime next week if work made it impractical this week. The phone call this morning was not from either of the people who emailed me, though, and the most recent email did mention something about "overzealous colleagues"... But, still, ten past ten on a Saturday morning? Really?
Once I got myself out of the door, getting over to my folks was not a bad journey, except that the rail replacement bus smelt somewhere between overripe brie and vomit. At one point, the woman sat next to me asked if the window opened, and I was only too happy to oblige.
Curiously, my grandmother's new accommodation - another care home specialising in Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia - is almost halfway between my home and my parents'... Except not really... just that the route from either location would take about the same length of time by bus. It's a really nice place - slightly smaller, but 'cosy' rather than 'claustrophobic', and they have several lounges dotted about, so it was easy enough to find a quiet place to sit and chat without being interrupted or disturbed by noise from other residents.
Until an alarm went off, that is.
This new place is far more active - not just that they have more residents, the residents themselves interact more (and more freely), and the staff seem to take a bit more interest. That may be an unfair judgement, but I visited the other place over a Bank Holiday weekend, and only saw one nurse.
Grandmother seems well settled and, while she would complain bitterly about her fellow residents and their visitors at the old place, the only complaining she did today was very clearly in fun. Not for her, the sing-song exercise sessions. Oh, mercy, no. She was far more chatty, too... far more engaged, generally, with the world around her. She kept talking about 'the river' and 'the pond', and I only learned later than she was referring to the Thames and - most likely - the water features at the last care home. In her younger days, she lived in Chiswick and Richmond, each within easy walking distance of a stretch of the Thames, and it seems this current place is situated in an area that's just leafy enough to remind her of her home in those days.
Alzheimer's is an amazing disease in many ways... while the brain is wasting away, it's also trying frantically to piece itself back together. Where fragments of memory get lost, it patches together similar situations and themes to create new - erroneous - memories and, all the while, struggles to fit them into the context of the here-and-now. This new place looks like it will be good for her, because she'll be more active - physically and mentally - and she is at least eating properly now, so the glitchy repair process will be more effective (if confusing for anyone else she talks to, who remembers the whole of the fragments she's piecing together). According to my mother, where she can't remember anything of a place or situation, she'll make something up entirely.
Whereas my last trip to see my grandmother was deeply unsettling, and left me feeling rather melancholy, this one left me rather more hopeful. As we left, I told her I'd see her again soon and, with a laugh, she said "If I'm all in one piece!"
Pretty sure she will be...
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