Updates:
A peer of mine, doing the same exact work as me, but making 14.5K more doesn't know how to make a webpage without tables. No clue about CSS except to style the color or size of something inline. We are both web developers.
The leader of the web group (not that it matters but making 42.2K more than me) read "Col. Mustard" outloud like this: "What's cawl mustard mean?"
An editor (since I'm on it, let's go, making 25k more than me) sent me 6 pages unedited, seemingly unread copy.
Worst of all, these are the official salaries posted 2 years ago. I don't make any more money since then, I assume they all do.
Places where poor people congregate
Yes, I'm talking to you: Wal-Mart. The DMVs of America. The line inside of a Krystal. Thrift Stores. Hospitals. Yes, all of you. I'm not necessarily complaining about poor people, but; moreover, annoying, job-less on purpose poor people. Whenever I go to these places, I'm so uncomfortable. I end up witnessing atrocities that I thought fiction. Most recently, I'm at a thrift store. I like thrift stores. Lots of my friends like thrift stores. But, by nature, they attract people on a budget, or people without a budget. Today, weird Christianity came into play with the poor people. They went about their poor business together, making deals for people to clear out gutters, at reasonable "Christian-rates." The whole things was irritating and weird. The worst of the worst. And I had to shower when I got home. Ewww.
Random Notes from Saturday
- So-called photographers in non-major-market cities: if your primary business is shooting women in front of a white sheet, at the very least crop out the bottom of the sheet. I realize you make a living out of tricking young models into getting naked AND having them pay you for it, and I realize you can do this because you live 4 hours outside of a large town. Good for you, but c'mon, learning photoshop is so 1984, just do it Jackasses.
- Why is it that the people who drive the slowest are also the most dangerous on the road? Driving in a grocery store parking lot is always a disaster, but today I'm behind an SUV going 2-4 mph and still managing to almost hit everyone in their path. Good job, I didn't even know it was possible. I looked, guessing that the woman driving was on the phone - this seemed like a plausible excuse for the slow-cum-reckless driving. But no! No kids in the car either. And she wasn't 80! So, I have no idea. Maybe she really does kill people if she goes above 5 mph.
- Friends that have a 'talent' that they suck at, but don't know it; learn to take a hint. When your friends try to gently guide you into a new hobby, there's a reason for it. We want to protect you from the world and what it will think of your crap. In particular, you, ex of mine that can't write. It used to be okay -- nobody saw it but us. Now that it's public, it's just embarrassing for everybody except you. Get embarrassed. Please.
Passive-Impressive Tweeting
This is a great example, although I think this one was on-purpose, it illustrates the general point. You start with one part of normal, stupid and mundane, "eating a cheesburger" then add a shot of something you want to boast about at the end like "with my hot asian girlfriend." So, for you slow people, the tweet would read "Eating a cheeseburger with my hot asian girlfriend."
This is great for people that can't figure out less obvious ways to tell people how cool they are. It's also great for tools. Either or.
This is great for people that can't figure out less obvious ways to tell people how cool they are. It's also great for tools. Either or.
Microsoft
This is an easy target, but MY GOD! On a daily basis I find myself completely irked with Microsoft. As someone who has to create HTML emails Outlook is a crazy thorn in my side...as it is in everybody else's. I won't even go there because it will boil my blood. Instead I'll focus on something not many people mention, but it's an important point in UX design. I have 3 hotmail accounts left over from years past. Mainly with email subscriptions and newsletters that I'm too lazy to migrate over. So, the one thing I do enjoy about Hotmail that some other email web-based email apps lack is the ability to switch between accounts without forcing a logout and login. It's handy. Well this isn't:
It's an incredibly poor design choice. It's your 'sign out' tucked neatly into the drop-down to change user accounts. I'm not an idiot, I'm a pretty damn agile and accomplished mouser, but countless times I've logged out inadvertently. Most annoying thing ever. I don't suspect it will be fixed. It's far too easy.
It's an incredibly poor design choice. It's your 'sign out' tucked neatly into the drop-down to change user accounts. I'm not an idiot, I'm a pretty damn agile and accomplished mouser, but countless times I've logged out inadvertently. Most annoying thing ever. I don't suspect it will be fixed. It's far too easy.
Remixed Photography
You guys are great. With your novice photoshop skills and deep desire to call yourselves photographers. What I'm specifically referring to are GWCs that do google image searches, find a cool picture of Italy, take a photo of a model and plop her on top of it. Under a few Creative Commons licenses you can certainly 'remix' or create derivative works, but in these examples I've seen, I seriously doubt this is the case. And, even if it is, the work is so damn lame! I see tons of it on Model Mayhem. Don't get me wrong, I love MM, but there are some total novices claiming to be professionals out there. They make everybody look bad and piss me off!
People that have trouble with commitments
I'm totally anal about being on time and keeping appointments I've agreed to. I'm probably not normal in how much I care about it. If I've decided to agree to something, it means that I respect it enough to give it my attention. I see it as complete disrespect when someone doesn't value my time. I realize things come up and change, that's why God gave us 20 million different ways to communicate in the digital age. There is absolutely no excuse for not making contact to say "I'm going to be late," or "I can't make it." Sometimes people don't do it because they are embarrassed. It's obvious -- they make up excuses afterwards, or play down whatever happened. Sometimes they are just hopelessly lame.
These scenarios seem to pop up lots in my personal life. I deal with those in a certain way. What irks me today is that it happened to me professionally, and ended up infringing on me professionally and personally. I had a photo shoot scheduled, so I took off work to get things set up. Early morning chat and everything is lined up. Time for shoot comes and goes. I'm so pissed I refuse to make contact to ask if we're still working together. No show. No call. No text. No tweet. No voicemail. No IM. No email. No note. No nothing.
Next day, I get a call. Nonchalant. "Hey, I missed the appointment, it couldn't be helped. Things came up, want to reschedule." So, basically, things came up, but I couldn't take the 15 seconds it took to call you right now to call you yesterday...in any of the 14 hours of day. I don't respond. 24 hours later I decide that it's important for me to do this work. I had been criticized for not being racially diverse enough in my portraiture and the model was a beautiful African American woman that I felt could fit my style well. So, I give her a call and agree on another appointment. She's kind and thankful. She has the whole day free.
The day comes. We chat in the morning (again). The time I had proposed won't work, so we bump it back a few hours. The new time comes and goes. Nothing. Nada. It's been a week and I've heard nothing. No more chances. I gave one too many, and it cost me.
These scenarios seem to pop up lots in my personal life. I deal with those in a certain way. What irks me today is that it happened to me professionally, and ended up infringing on me professionally and personally. I had a photo shoot scheduled, so I took off work to get things set up. Early morning chat and everything is lined up. Time for shoot comes and goes. I'm so pissed I refuse to make contact to ask if we're still working together. No show. No call. No text. No tweet. No voicemail. No IM. No email. No note. No nothing.
Next day, I get a call. Nonchalant. "Hey, I missed the appointment, it couldn't be helped. Things came up, want to reschedule." So, basically, things came up, but I couldn't take the 15 seconds it took to call you right now to call you yesterday...in any of the 14 hours of day. I don't respond. 24 hours later I decide that it's important for me to do this work. I had been criticized for not being racially diverse enough in my portraiture and the model was a beautiful African American woman that I felt could fit my style well. So, I give her a call and agree on another appointment. She's kind and thankful. She has the whole day free.
The day comes. We chat in the morning (again). The time I had proposed won't work, so we bump it back a few hours. The new time comes and goes. Nothing. Nada. It's been a week and I've heard nothing. No more chances. I gave one too many, and it cost me.