Punkie

You got me. I think it was because our group was under one contract set of hires (I was an employee, but some of these people were still part of a contract), which is why we weren’t let go immediately. But sometimes you get some manager who doesn’t want the OLD people, but a FRESH NEW set of people. For example, when the entire QA department was let go an outsourcer, all the documentation we made was thrown out the window because “that was the old way!” And the next major software release was a disaster. And we were going from a 16 bit client (Windows 3.1x based) version to the new 32 bit (Windows 95/98-native) version, and the QA/testing was not really part of the process. “Who are these product testers, and why are they so negative about the product? LOSE 'EM! They only see mistakes, there’s no room for that kind of attitude, and it slows the whole release cycle down.”

Corporate stupidity.

This is comedy gold. MANY years ago, late 1990s, my department was getting laid off, but due to some contract line items, they gave us 90 days to find a new job within the company and then blacklisted us, which was another bullshit thing. Then someone found in a job hiring seminar in a nearby convention center where our company had a booth. The seminar was free, so a bunch of us went.

At the booth, we found out that they were interviewing for our jobs (QA testing engineers). Not a surprise, but they got excited when the first few of us were uniquely qualified (duh). But after the third person, that guy didn’t hide we still worked for our company. Someone from the HR team panicked when they realized the group of us were CURRENT employees. What made it even funnier was that not only was it the same QA testing jobs they needed to hire for, but the pay was about 20% greater than we were making.

HR called corporate asking “what do we do???” Corporate said “SHUT THE BOOTH DOWN!!” A very weird reaction. Then we applied to other jobs at the fair, and when we left, the booth was still closed. The next day, those that interviewed got taken into a meeting room and cursed out by management for “that stupid stunt!” We asked, “so why are we being blacklisted?” “You’re not being blacklisted!” “Uh… nobody internally will return our calls, and we have found out that they were told not to return our calls due to a leaked email.”

Oof. Oddly enough, i got a new job a few weeks later in the same company. So it kind of worked.

Specialization can breed a narrow limit of scope when it come to general knowledge. Sometimes the best lawyers and surgeons are complete idiots when it comes to falling for things like, say, internet scams. I am not sure if that’s what’s happening here, but I have known enough assistants of big skilled people that they always say “This guy is a brilliant surgeon, but doesn’t know how to cook or even how to shop for his own groceries.”

It’s the “not handling” part that gets us as kids. We knew better. Adults didn’t. In my case, I was in high school, but it was on a “Teacher workday, student holiday” we had each semester. I watched it live on NASA TV, which we had on channel UHF 55 in the DC area. Even the voice of mission control delayed about a minute or two. I remember thinking, “THAT didn’t look good…” but then they said nothing but normal speed and temp readings, so I thought it was just the angle of the chase plane. Only when the famous “forked cloud” appeared that the announcer said, “we have an apparent major malfunction,” or something.

I was in a discussion the other day about this, and someone brought up the “freedom vs. security” as the kind of “trade” someone assumes if they would, with complete freedom, fuck up someone else because they had no restrictions. We were discussing how the reason most laws exist is because somebody fucked it up for someone else.

A friend of mine started the anime meme “Is this a butterfly?” She’s actually employed as a translator for anime, so it made sense.

See, I think one of three scenarios might have happened:

• Luigi didn’t do it. He was framed and set up because out of the hundreds of prank tips, this guy looked “close enough.”
• Luigi did it, but the evidence was made up to make the case solid and the police look competent. Luigi wasn’t stupid, but he’s boned anyway.
• Luigi did it, and he really was that stupid.

As a writer, one of the aggravating tropes we have to follow is, “make the story believable,” when reality sometimes doesn’t align with “a good story.” Some criminals are really that stupid, and some armchair theory, based on decades of movies, books, and TV shows, you expect “hey, this is what they SHOULD have done is.” And they didn’t. It’s like when a chessmaster has to watch complete amateurs play chess. “Obvious strategies” are ignored, and basically both players are just not thinking past their last move.

I look at it like, he kept us safe! Couldn’t hurt, right?

The DC Metro system has no public bathrooms. This causes problems, if you can imagine. I was starting my first week of work in Silver Spring, and as I was exiting the station, there was a woman in leather spandex stirrup pants yelling at the station manager she needed to use the bathroom. The station manager told her “we don’t have bathrooms, lady.” Back and forth as I passed them. Then the woman just said, “A-IIGHT!” backed up, pulled down the spandex, pulled aside her thong, squatted, and dropped a huge, coiling log right in front of the turnstiles.

We had a homeless (?) guy named “Gandalf.” he was named that because he wore a stadium jacket with a broken zipper, tied at the waist with a rope, big floppy hat, and a cane. Used to rant in tongues. Near where I worked was the (now former) Discovery Building, and during “Shark Week,” they put a HUGE inflatable shark “through” the building (head on one side, tail on the other. This thing was stories high). Gandalf used to spend time across the street, shouting biblical phrases at it like he was banishing some demon. Thanks for keeping us safe, Gandalf.

Before they build the STSS, there were “gangster types” that would hang around, gun handles poking from their waistbands. That stopped the DAY after football player Plaxico Burress nearly shot his dick off in a nightclub by having his gun stored in a similar way. Never saw guys flashing their gun like that since.

This was also where “yo momma” insults were also invisible to me. Like, “You don’t even know my mother, you’re just saying that and it makes no sense.” It wasn’t a trigger for me like it was other kids. I saw it for what it was. I’d tell my friends, “they just say that to get you mad, don’t listen,” but they’d get mad anyway. It’s like they couldn’t help it. I think dares were in that headspace as well.

I wasn’t popular growing up. I was really awkward and non-athletic, so I didn’t bow to peer pressure as much as the other kids. I was going to be unpopular either way, so…

As a kid, I never got that concept because it seemed like being manipulated. “I dare you to do this dangerous thing for my amusement!” Uh. No? “Chicken!” Okay, whatever, dude.

This sounds kind of sad, but bear with me. This was c. 1976-1980.

My father was mostly absent, but I prefered his neglect to his abuse, so that was okay. He’d go on business trips a lot. My mom was an alcoholic, and sometimes she’d be passed out for days. I grew up an only child in a suburban home, and some weekends a year, I had the house to myself. From age 8-12, I had a few weekends here and there where fortune fell upon me and I’d be alone in the house with no real responsibilities. Friday night home from school to Monday morning going to school, all I had to do was check if my mother was still passed out, and if so, it was like one long vacation from my life to be myself. Bonus if there was still food in the house, which usually there was something I could cook myself.

I wasn’t allowed to watch TV as a kid, except sanctioned PBS shows, but we had a small B&W TV in the kitchen for my mom’s soap operas and cooking shows. I’d drag up all my Legos, pour them on the kitchen table, and watch “illegal TV” all weekend while building stuff with my Legos. Eating when I wanted to, or not, and I had free reign of pretty much anything there.

My positive childhood memories are scant and few, and most are just things like that. Like “sometimes the sun came out, if only for a brief time, before the storms returned.” I have a lot more as an adult.

This is something that influences a lot of culture. Like most people when they think of style and decor in the 1980s, are thinking of Los Angeles in the 1980s. The rest of America was not always neon pumps, leg warmers, and thin piano ties.

I had a motherboard like this: the USB ports didn’t work until it booted into an OS. You had to connect a PS2 to make changes in the BIOS, and could only boot from IDE. It was super-annoying.

Not currently, but I did a few sides jobs in the last ten years.

I am a Linux systems administrator. Before I did full contract work, I did part time contract work (alongside my full time salary job) for a general contractor as a piecemeal basis. A job here, 20 hour support there. Some jobs I made $300, some $3000. It was sporadic and came in waves. I got this from a former contract job who recommended me when they folded.

I also did writing gigs. I optioned a few scripts and sold a few short stories. That’s still ongoing, but I haven’t sold anything for a few years.

Pro Cavity Creeps agenda:

MBAs who contract dev work out to India to make a quick buck without realizing how bad the code they’re going to get back usually is.

Ah, but some of them DO know what they are doing! In the IT world, I have seen where people say a job is about 2-3 years, show no loyalty to the company, and so on. But they don’t understand managers are doing this, too. Many KNOW these outsourcers are shitty (or don’t care because that’s not a metric they care about beyond selling points), but in a 2-3 year turnaround time, by the time it’s apparent they don’t work, the people who made those decisions are already gone. They ALSO thought ahead to the 2-3 year plan. Here’s how that goes:

Year 1: Make proposal based on costs. Find someone in Puna who will sell you some package with some bright, smiling, educated people who speak whatever language and accent that makes your pitch. Proposals are made, and attached to next year’s budget.

Year 2: Start the crossover. Puna Corp has swapped out the “demo people” for their core chum bucket. Sometimes, they don’t even change the names. How is an American gonna know that the Vivek Patel they saw in the demo is not the same guy named Vivek Patel who is working with your bitter employees who see the writing on the wall? Sadly to many who don’t care, “they all look/sound alike.” Puna is a product, their employees are a static pattern of commodity. Your people say they are shit, but, “oh, those grumbling employees. Your job is safe! We can’t fire you, you are too valuable!”

Year 3: The crossover has gone badly, but you are already looking for the next company to work for. The layoffs happen, and all the good folks are gone, and replaced by the Puna Corp folks. Things start to go badly, but you already got one foot out the door, charming your way into another company.

Year 4: You’re gone. Your legacy is that you saved a butt-ton of money. You are a success! The product is shit, but that’s not your problem. By the time the company realizes the tragedy, it’s middle manager versus middle manager, all backstabbing and jumping ship. Customers don’t matter, marketing covers up the satisfaction. “Wow,” you say. “Things sure when to shit THE MOMENT I LEFT.” You look fantastic! When you were there, you saved money! When you left, it all went downhill! You are a goddamn rockstar. Then repeat.

I have seen this happen since the 90s with a lot of tech folks. Everyone thinking short term for themselves. Only the customers get screwed via enshittification.

It would have been the 1990s by ADC, a street map company local to this area (and possibly other cities).

In the late 1980s, I had a roommate who graduated with a business degree and got recruited for a government contractor right out of college. She packed up her life and moved to the DC area. A month into her new job, the contract was pulled. But because she had a clause in the recruitment contract, they couldn’t fire her. But they had no work for her, either. So she had to come to work every weekday, 9-5. She’d sit at her desk with nothing to do. They didn’t ask her to look busy, just present.

She read about 3-5 novels a week. Over the next few months, we watched her get more and more depressed. She’d complain about her situation, but it fell on deaf ears. “Must be nice,” people said in jealousy. “Get paid to do nothing.” She became despondent in the lack of people’s sympathy. “Nobody understands how much this sucks!”

Eventually, she got a new job. Her mood vastly improved.

I’ll never forget that lesson. People need to feel useful, productive. Sitting at a desk with nothing to do, no purpose, no validation. It will destroy you.

I have not done this for Youtube, but I have done it for tech reviews as a ghost writer. Basically, a lot of those tech reviews done under a pseudonym in magazines. No, I won’t tell you which ones, I like getting paid. Anyway, I’d say about 40% I had to send back in a set amount of time, about 50% I am told to destroy or keep, and 10% they don’t tell me and won’t answer my queries. Reselling is almost always a huge no-no, and that also applies to giving stuff away.

Sounds fun, but some of this stuff is utter, unworkable crap. So many SBCs that never see the light of day, or have the most impotent release announcements on the planet. Like, “this is set for release Jan 3rd, 2024.” Then it’s not ever mentioned on any main page on their website, is listed as a .gz image in their repo (which is on gdrive), but only one release candidate and it’s the same one you reviewed where the wireless chip just randomly stops responding until you reboot. Maybe has a byline on their products page under “this power adapter works with [list of models, including the one they don’t have for sale on the same site].”

I have two HUD displays I got in 2022, which look amazing, but the screen never powered on (which is why I have 2, they sent me a replacement, which was broken the same way), and I am considering at this point making them some cosplay item or taking it to a rave, because it glows super sexy. But with no working LED screen, kinda useless.