Useless Conversation

[Chimpy]

Is there no market for you degree?  I honestly don't know anyone that has a degree in what you do.  

My degree is in theatre technology. There is a market for that (though not in this town, and I can't afford to move back to Chicago or to another major city to freelance), but I left that business because I was stuck with no real advancement towards what I was trained to do because I was good as a carpenter. Also I burned out on the whole entertainment/museum business.

I had a job interview with the Art & Design department at the University here which I got because of that degree....but I have not heard back and it has been almost 2 months since my interview. Though who knows, I could get a call tomorrow....the university is known for being poor at timeliness.

[ghost]

I'll tell you this, my friend, if you are good at carpentry and have half a bit of sense you can probably do okay just doing that.  It is almost impossible to hire someone good that will show up for that sort of thing. 

[Nebu]

I had a job interview with the Art & Design department at the University here which I got because of that degree....but I have not heard back and it has been almost 2 months since my interview. Though who knows, I could get a call tomorrow....the university is known for being poor at timeliness.

Do a follow up call.  Many universities have suffered budget cuts and may have a hiring freeze.  This means that they may be waiting for the freeze to be lifted before they can hire. 

[Paelos]

Build gazebos or something. Hell put an ad in the paper that says you'll freelance carpentry. That could be fun in the meantime.

[squirrel]

I'll tell you this, my friend, if you are good at carpentry and have half a bit of sense you can probably do okay just doing that.  It is almost impossible to hire someone good that will show up for that sort of thing. 

Quoted for truth. Getting a decent carpenter to do modest reno's on our condo was a fucking nightmare. We weren't doing much either, some flooring and a small alteration to a couple of non-load bearing walls. Stuff we almost could do ourselves if we had time. Contractors with a good name are fully booked here.

[SnakeCharmer]

because I was good as a carpenter.

Nothing wrong with pursuing that.  You should make a damn good living, work on your own terms (i.e. yourself), and quite possibly do something you really enjoy to make a buck.  There's a hell of a good market in custom made furniture, mantels, etc.  Hell, a burned out wannabe hippy buddy from college builds a chair or whatever a month and sells the damn thing for 6 grand...

[Chimpy]

Clarification, I was a scenic carpenter. I did not do houses. I built sets for theatre and museum exhibits. Sure, I have some cabinetry and framing skills, but I am no finish carpenter. I can't hang a door or properly install a window in a house. Nor do I have a truck full of tools. (or even a truck anymore)

I am probably going to end up getting a hold of the local for the stagehand's union here and see about how to get on the list for non-union (or *shudder* join the local) people for events tomorrow.

[NowhereMan]

Goddamnit Paypal, I cannot complete the account confirmation steps to remove the limitation on my account because the limitation prevents me from doing what you want me to. I hate having to ring people over these kinds of things, just implement a system that works and let me continue to live in splendid isolation.

[IainC]

Goddamnit Paypal, I cannot complete the account confirmation steps to remove the limitation on my account because the limitation prevents me from doing what you want me to. I hate having to ring people over these kinds of things, just implement a system that works and let me continue to live in splendid isolation.

I set my Paypal account up while I was living in France so every time I buy anything from Ebay, the Paypal stuff is always in French. Since then I've moved countries twice and because Paypal doesn't let you edit the country field of your account I've needed to delete and recreate my account twice. Despite that I still get the main Paypal page in French until I log in when it is in German, all of the emails from Paypal are also in French.

How to do multinational integration wrong.

[Sir T]

Thanks guys btw. Just for the curious, what I'm I'm going to be doing is going to old people and interviewing them about the 'olden times', then editing and transcribing the interviews and making them available in the library. Its important work, as when these people pass on those memories will be lost. It should be interesting too, apart from the transcribing which I can see being tedious as hell. In march I'll be a receptionist in Askeaton tourist office.

So if anyone's around Co. Limerick, Ireland next year let me know and I'll show you the sights. 

To be honest I'm bloody thankful. Its a good time to have a secure job, even if it is only for the next 12 months.

[IainC]

Thanks guys btw. Just for the curious, what I'm I'm going to be doing is going to old people and interviewing them about the 'olden times', then editing and transcribing the interviews and making them available in the library. Its important work, as when these people pass on those memories will be lost. It should be interesting too, apart from the transcribing which I can see being tedious as hell. In march I'll be a receptionist in Askeaton tourist office.

So if anyone's around Co. Limerick, Ireland next year let me know and I'll show you the sights. 

To be honest I'm bloody thankful. Its a good time to have a secure job, even if it is only for the next 12 months.

Get one of these. The external designer we have has one and was showing it off at a recent visit, we were having a design meeting in a local café and he took the notes then immediately transferred them to his laptop in seconds. I played with it a bit and it had no problems deciphering my extremely opaque cursive script.

[RhyssaFireheart]

That sounds like a really interesting job, Sir T.  Congrats on the new employment!

[Sir T]

Get one of these. The external designer we have has one and was showing it off at a recent visit, we were having a design meeting in a local café and he took the notes then immediately transferred them to his laptop in seconds. I played with it a bit and it had no problems deciphering my extremely opaque cursive script.

Bookmarked. Thanks for the tip. That's defiantly on my buy list in the next couple of weeks, soon as I have a new place to live close to work.

[voodoolily]

Thanks guys btw. Just for the curious, what I'm I'm going to be doing is going to old people and interviewing them about the 'olden times', then editing and transcribing the interviews and making them available in the library. Its important work, as when these people pass on those memories will be lost. It should be interesting too, apart from the transcribing which I can see being tedious as hell. In march I'll be a receptionist in Askeaton tourist office.

So if anyone's around Co. Limerick, Ireland next year let me know and I'll show you the sights. 

To be honest I'm bloody thankful. Its a good time to have a secure job, even if it is only for the next 12 months.

That sounds like an awesome project. Do you have one of those you-talk-it-types kinda software programs? I hear they've come a long way.

[Soln]

Actually, that does sound like an interesting project to me as well.  I was planning to do this with my own parents.

Lianka knows a lot about speech to text, so she might also have some advice on freeware apps and recorders.

[Engels]

Dragon Naturally Speaking is available as an iPhone app, but I'm not sure it'd be useful for longer interviews. Dragon has come a long way, but its a bit on the expensive side. It does, however, do the job well once trained for a specific voice. How it would run for an assortment of recorded people, I don't know.

Oh ya, grats Sir T. If I recall, you were one of the first victims of the horked economy on this board, so its heartening to see you get a gig.

[NowhereMan]

Most speech to text programmes require training for a specific voice, there's also a good chance they'd need some specialism for any regional dialect (depending on how far into the countryside you're venturing I'd imagine this being an issue) so I'd say you're probably best off with the handwriting thing. The job sounds amazing though, my own mum is a great repository of various family stories and it seems like every family in Ireland had at least one crazy relative that was secretly married three times or some story of a relative hiding a fortune before dying and not telling anyone where (in our case a cousin in Co. Claire whose father sold all their cattle and died a day later. He said he'd buried it and they never found it.) I imagine some of it'll be a bit depressing but it's certainly better than data entry and it's a job.

[ghost]

Fuck.  So I'm going to have to let an employee go, which is going to snowball into letting several go because of various reasons.  Owning a business sucks sometimes. 

[Bunk]

I've been sitting here today deflecting questions from a guy in my group such as "do you think I have anything to worry about?" "what criteria do they use when they are laying someone off?".

I already know he's one of the ones that will be let go. Just can't tell him.
It sucks.

[voodoolily]

Fuck.  So I'm going to have to let an employee go, which is going to snowball into letting several go because of various reasons.  Owning a business sucks sometimes. 

I've been sitting here today deflecting questions from a guy in my group such as "do you think I have anything to worry about?" "what criteria do they use when they are laying someone off?".

I already know he's one of the ones that will be let go. Just can't tell him.
It sucks.

That sucks, guys.

[ghost]

The worst part for me is that they are really good people.  I just can't afford to pay them. 

[Chimpy]

So I just went out onto the back deck to go put something in my recycling bin (one of those 50gallon rolling cans with lids) and as soon as I set foot on the deck I see this large cat sized black shape dart off the deck and start climbing the tree about 20 feet away.

No light on my deck so I go in the kitchen and grab a flashlight. It was a raccoon. Pretty good sized one too, sitting on a branch directly above my recycling bin and not looking too happy.

[Sir T]

The worst part for me is that they are really good people.  I just can't afford to pay them. 

  Any chance you can get them together and talk to them honestly and ask for a pay cut all round? Its better than being on the dole in this climate.

[FatuousTwat]

So I just went out onto the back deck to go put something in my recycling bin (one of those 50gallon rolling cans with lids) and as soon as I set foot on the deck I see this large cat sized black shape dart off the deck and start climbing the tree about 20 feet away.

No light on my deck so I go in the kitchen and grab a flashlight. It was a raccoon. Pretty good sized one too, sitting on a branch directly above my recycling bin and not looking too happy.

Well, it could have been a opossum. /shudder

[IainC]

Well, it could have been a opossum. /shudder

Luckily it was only an raccoon!

[FatuousTwat]

Well, since literally everyone I know drops the O in opossum, and I've never actually heard anyone in person pronounce it the other way, it sounds pretty bad to me when I say AN POSSUM out loud.

[Ironwood]

The worst part for me is that they are really good people.  I just can't afford to pay them. 

Then you should treat them thus.  The truth, the entire way, no hedging or dissasembling, just tell it to them plain and make it clear that should things pick up, they'll be the first in line for a rehire.

You're all killing me here.  This is why I got out and it doesn't feel better from the outside.

[ghost]

Then you should treat them thus.  The truth, the entire way, no hedging or dissasembling, just tell it to them plain and make it clear that should things pick up, they'll be the first in line for a rehire.

Oh, these folks will be long gone by then.  They are imminently hirable.  when I took over my orthodontic office I inherited the very best staff in a large town.  Unfortunately they were also the most expensive. 

As for the Opossom thing-  we had one come up on our deck when I was younger to eat the cat's food.  My dad popped it in the head, right between the eyes, with a .22 and it ran off the deck.  I thought it was dead, but 30 minutes later the little fucker was back, eating the catfood, and with a trail of blood running out of the hole between his eyes. 

[Lantyssa]

Well, since literally everyone I know drops the O in opossum, and I've never actually heard anyone in person pronounce it the other way, it sounds pretty bad to me when I say AN POSSUM out loud.

An Opossum.

A 'possum.

[Cyrrex]

Regardless, a possum that takes a bullet to the brain case and come backs from the dead to chow down on cat food?  Scary.

[Sir T]

That's some seriously good catfood.

[ghost]

It was really fucking creepy.  My suspicion now is that the bullet glanced off of the angular bone and either got lodged in the soft tissue or exited somewhere that we couldn't see it. 

[Rasix]

Remove the head completely.  Only way to be sure.

[Cyrrex]

It was really fucking creepy.  My suspicion now is that the bullet glanced off of the angular bone and either got lodged in the soft tissue or exited somewhere that we couldn't see it. 

Even so, if this happens to you or me...I don't think the first thing we do is go to Taco Time.  Hardcore.

[Sir T]

Remove the head completely.  Only way to be sure.

But if you do that lightning might flash all over the place and all the lights might blow out.

Seriously, we had a dog growing up that used to chase rabbits, and when he caught a rabbit the first thing he always did was chew the head off. Jack Russels are really hardcore hunting dogs.