Only When They Need Me
Just a few days ago while I was at some weekly organization just minding my own business, a woman I know of came up to me to say hi. In any ordinary circumstance I would just be at ease and smile back politely.
Trouble was, although I sort of knew who she was, it had been years since we last greeted one another. Believe me when I tell you that even though I tried to say hi to her each time I bumped into her at the weekly meet, all I got was a dumbfounded stare in return. I doubt she even knew who I was, let alone my name.
But what transpired that day was somewhat different, almost surreal. She came up, mentioned my name and proceeded to inquire regarding my well-being and how work was. She made a big, glaring mistake :-
People who claim to know me well DO NOT ask me questions about the nature of my work, the location of my current office and most certainly what college I graduated from. Not especially since I've been with my present company for the past half a year and college graduation is old story to my ears.
So I grew curious and pondered silently, wondering what the hell she was actually after. People you are not closely associated with don't just suddenly come up to you for no apparent reason. Hell no. Life has taught me that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Everything has an agenda lurking behind it. Sensing something amiss, I decided to play along, feigning interest and giving her the most convincing smile I could offer while keeping my guard on DEFCON 1. I kept a straight face throughout the whole ordeal without my thoughts ever betraying my facial expressions.
After answering that I now specialized as a web designer for the umpteenth time, the real talks got underway. According to her, she was very "happy" to see me again (sure, everyone's "happy" when they want me for something) and that a particular branch in our organization badly needed volunteers, and how she would appreciate it if I could make good use of myself there, probably handing me an Interceptor body armor vest and expecting me to entertain their offsprings by being live ballistic target practice.
That coming from a lady who just walks past me week after week without even acknowledging me as her son's friend. One who can stand a few inches away from me yet never saying hi, and is now talking to me as though we've just had our last memorable conversation as good friends last Wednesday over at her house for family dinner. But the truth is sorely lacking and far from it. And now here she is, cooking up some unconvincing sob story just to enlist me in. But the Force is only persuasive to weak minds. The burning question was just how she could instantaneously remember my name like cheesecake that quickly. There had to be a mole somewhere.
I glanced over to my friend standing nearby, conducting paper material business from the makeshift booth. He was quite acquainted with this lady, I was sure about that, and the mysterious pieces to this whole fracas fell in their respective places straight away. He must've mentioned my name while talking to her a little while ago, and when I walked down that dusty tarred road, she hurriedly made her way towards me, and with my name temporarily imprinted in her brain, tried to chat me up, with "insincerity" written all over her face.
Come on, you can do better than that. What a douchebag, seriously.
I told her as honestly as I could that I would really look into her proposal, but made it clear that I strictly do not negotiate with terrorists. That is my policy. Just kidding. Rather, I told her as-a-matter-of-fact that there would be no promises whether or not I would be available, since now I'm pretty much tied down with college and the assignments that come with it plus projects from work.
Which kinda brings me into the next scenario that I would like to emphasize on: Please do not ask me to do your website. Or any graphical/multimedia art for that matter.
It's not that I'm trying to be cold here or something. No, I'm fine really if you want to be friends with me and ask me out for tea. But sometimes you just have to know when and where to draw the line between work and play. It's a bit tiring to see history forever repeating itself once more - someone suggests a gung-ho, bombastic idea for "some project", and they insist on throwing in a hell lot of irrelevant stuff like videos, mp3 songlists and eye-candy Flash animations in it. The reason? Just to impress the crowd. But they never kind of figure out the fact that someone, not them, is going to have to suffer for all those cheap talks and ideas.
That person is yours truly. And judging by how things go, the formula and storyline is alway going to be the same - In the beginning, things are fine. Promises are made and smiles are aplenty. To top it all off, they immediately promise you a rag-tag team of artists and web gurus to assist you in the project. Soon, the figure drops from ten individuals to only two, with those quitting citing tiredness, busyness and having to take care of the occasional sick cat at home.
Unsurprisingly, not long after you'll be the only one left and will be forced to put on a trick-and-pony show all by yourself. Fine. So you arrange for an emergency meeting to gather ideas in order to spearhead this project. At the end of the day, no one turns up.
So you curse and scream but you still need to rush the deadline by the end of the month or there's gonna be hell to pay and tons of lecturing sessions to attend. One side of your brain struggles to finish the promotional website while the other side tries to complete the animation job at hand.
I'm pretty much sure even the process of dying wasn't this complicated and stressful.
There are a few lessons to be learned here from the above fictional and mock scenario :-
01: ALWAYS DO THE DIRTY JOB YOURSELF
I just can't seem to stress this enough. When you have an idea, first consider if it is feasible and practical. No one wants to haul his or her ass doing something they didn't vote for in the first place. You suggest it, you do it.
02: KISS - KEEP IT SIMPLE, STUPID!
I honestly don't have all the time in the world to listen and act according to everyone's whims and fancies. That includes what you feel and think has got to be in the presentation. I don't get paid big bucks for your information to do this. Nor do I relish doing this because "I love to do it". No I don't. It's a waste of my time off from work. At least someone pays me at work, no matter how tough the scenario is.
03: SWEET WORDS DO NOT WORK ANYMORE
No amount of persuasion is gonna sway me from this. No. Too many times I've been fooled into doing something for free, and in the end all I get is more work to do because they somehow develop this mentality that I'm the only remaining designer guy alive on earth and thus have grown too attached to it. I still don't understand why the rest can just decline so easily and get off scot-free.
04: "BROTHERHOOD" EXISTS FOR A REASON
One of the meanest thing that a person can do to another is to drop all sense of brotherhood and leave the other to drown in the muck. It sucks, and just shows how selfish the former can be. My advice: go grab yourself a copy of a pirated war movie DVD (any war will do) and learn the lessons of teamwork and the brotherhood of war.
05: KNOW WHEN TO DRAW THE LINE
My lecturer taught me a phrase that still sticks in my mind til this day - do not volunteer for someone else. Somewhat related to Lesson #01, but on a much more general term. This also includes knowing when to stop offering ideas for animation sequences that are not feasible and just highly impossible to create on a standard desktop PC, running semi-professional software. Please do not volunteer, force and layout the groundwork requirements for something that you won't probably even lend a hand to complete.
EPILOGUE
I politely declined for the moment, yet I was careful to arrange my words. To put it simply; I won't really have time to indulge in this kind of mumbo-jumbo anymore. I said my goodbye and promptly left, wondering if my name would disappear from her mind as quickly as she'd memorized it, and have things going back to the point where she'll not "know" who I am anymore. Life can be so strange.
Trouble was, although I sort of knew who she was, it had been years since we last greeted one another. Believe me when I tell you that even though I tried to say hi to her each time I bumped into her at the weekly meet, all I got was a dumbfounded stare in return. I doubt she even knew who I was, let alone my name.
But what transpired that day was somewhat different, almost surreal. She came up, mentioned my name and proceeded to inquire regarding my well-being and how work was. She made a big, glaring mistake :-
People who claim to know me well DO NOT ask me questions about the nature of my work, the location of my current office and most certainly what college I graduated from. Not especially since I've been with my present company for the past half a year and college graduation is old story to my ears.
So I grew curious and pondered silently, wondering what the hell she was actually after. People you are not closely associated with don't just suddenly come up to you for no apparent reason. Hell no. Life has taught me that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Everything has an agenda lurking behind it. Sensing something amiss, I decided to play along, feigning interest and giving her the most convincing smile I could offer while keeping my guard on DEFCON 1. I kept a straight face throughout the whole ordeal without my thoughts ever betraying my facial expressions.
After answering that I now specialized as a web designer for the umpteenth time, the real talks got underway. According to her, she was very "happy" to see me again (sure, everyone's "happy" when they want me for something) and that a particular branch in our organization badly needed volunteers, and how she would appreciate it if I could make good use of myself there, probably handing me an Interceptor body armor vest and expecting me to entertain their offsprings by being live ballistic target practice.
That coming from a lady who just walks past me week after week without even acknowledging me as her son's friend. One who can stand a few inches away from me yet never saying hi, and is now talking to me as though we've just had our last memorable conversation as good friends last Wednesday over at her house for family dinner. But the truth is sorely lacking and far from it. And now here she is, cooking up some unconvincing sob story just to enlist me in. But the Force is only persuasive to weak minds. The burning question was just how she could instantaneously remember my name like cheesecake that quickly. There had to be a mole somewhere.
I glanced over to my friend standing nearby, conducting paper material business from the makeshift booth. He was quite acquainted with this lady, I was sure about that, and the mysterious pieces to this whole fracas fell in their respective places straight away. He must've mentioned my name while talking to her a little while ago, and when I walked down that dusty tarred road, she hurriedly made her way towards me, and with my name temporarily imprinted in her brain, tried to chat me up, with "insincerity" written all over her face.
Come on, you can do better than that. What a douchebag, seriously.
I told her as honestly as I could that I would really look into her proposal, but made it clear that I strictly do not negotiate with terrorists. That is my policy. Just kidding. Rather, I told her as-a-matter-of-fact that there would be no promises whether or not I would be available, since now I'm pretty much tied down with college and the assignments that come with it plus projects from work.
Which kinda brings me into the next scenario that I would like to emphasize on: Please do not ask me to do your website. Or any graphical/multimedia art for that matter.
It's not that I'm trying to be cold here or something. No, I'm fine really if you want to be friends with me and ask me out for tea. But sometimes you just have to know when and where to draw the line between work and play. It's a bit tiring to see history forever repeating itself once more - someone suggests a gung-ho, bombastic idea for "some project", and they insist on throwing in a hell lot of irrelevant stuff like videos, mp3 songlists and eye-candy Flash animations in it. The reason? Just to impress the crowd. But they never kind of figure out the fact that someone, not them, is going to have to suffer for all those cheap talks and ideas.
That person is yours truly. And judging by how things go, the formula and storyline is alway going to be the same - In the beginning, things are fine. Promises are made and smiles are aplenty. To top it all off, they immediately promise you a rag-tag team of artists and web gurus to assist you in the project. Soon, the figure drops from ten individuals to only two, with those quitting citing tiredness, busyness and having to take care of the occasional sick cat at home.
Unsurprisingly, not long after you'll be the only one left and will be forced to put on a trick-and-pony show all by yourself. Fine. So you arrange for an emergency meeting to gather ideas in order to spearhead this project. At the end of the day, no one turns up.
So you curse and scream but you still need to rush the deadline by the end of the month or there's gonna be hell to pay and tons of lecturing sessions to attend. One side of your brain struggles to finish the promotional website while the other side tries to complete the animation job at hand.
I'm pretty much sure even the process of dying wasn't this complicated and stressful.
There are a few lessons to be learned here from the above fictional and mock scenario :-
01: ALWAYS DO THE DIRTY JOB YOURSELF
I just can't seem to stress this enough. When you have an idea, first consider if it is feasible and practical. No one wants to haul his or her ass doing something they didn't vote for in the first place. You suggest it, you do it.
02: KISS - KEEP IT SIMPLE, STUPID!
I honestly don't have all the time in the world to listen and act according to everyone's whims and fancies. That includes what you feel and think has got to be in the presentation. I don't get paid big bucks for your information to do this. Nor do I relish doing this because "I love to do it". No I don't. It's a waste of my time off from work. At least someone pays me at work, no matter how tough the scenario is.
03: SWEET WORDS DO NOT WORK ANYMORE
No amount of persuasion is gonna sway me from this. No. Too many times I've been fooled into doing something for free, and in the end all I get is more work to do because they somehow develop this mentality that I'm the only remaining designer guy alive on earth and thus have grown too attached to it. I still don't understand why the rest can just decline so easily and get off scot-free.
04: "BROTHERHOOD" EXISTS FOR A REASON
One of the meanest thing that a person can do to another is to drop all sense of brotherhood and leave the other to drown in the muck. It sucks, and just shows how selfish the former can be. My advice: go grab yourself a copy of a pirated war movie DVD (any war will do) and learn the lessons of teamwork and the brotherhood of war.
05: KNOW WHEN TO DRAW THE LINE
My lecturer taught me a phrase that still sticks in my mind til this day - do not volunteer for someone else. Somewhat related to Lesson #01, but on a much more general term. This also includes knowing when to stop offering ideas for animation sequences that are not feasible and just highly impossible to create on a standard desktop PC, running semi-professional software. Please do not volunteer, force and layout the groundwork requirements for something that you won't probably even lend a hand to complete.
EPILOGUE
I politely declined for the moment, yet I was careful to arrange my words. To put it simply; I won't really have time to indulge in this kind of mumbo-jumbo anymore. I said my goodbye and promptly left, wondering if my name would disappear from her mind as quickly as she'd memorized it, and have things going back to the point where she'll not "know" who I am anymore. Life can be so strange.
Labels: Irritation
JDream ranted at
22:50
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