This Sucks...

posted on: 2007-12-11 at 11:11:00 AM

Well here I am. I'm 32 years old, and I've been steadily rising in the ranks of retail management. For once, I am at a place where I can be financially well-off for in a job that I am comfortable in (well -- comfortable for 10 out of the 12 months.. the holidays suck).

I got my promotion on November 2nd (read here). I have been employed as a "Merchandise Sales Manager" for 34 days before one of the richest men in the world, Carlos Slim, cashed out one of his many empires, which happened to be the place of my employment.

GOD DAMMMMMMMMIT. Wait.. Doesn't this sound familiar? Haven't I already gone through this once before?

Yes. I have. I've already closed one of these stores. I've already gone through the ridiculous amount of wheeling and dealing with various annoying cheapskates while pedaling shitty merchandise. I hated it then, and I am fairly certain I am going to hate it now.

What is driving me nuts more than anything is how, at this company, I have never been stable. Here is the time-line:

• Oct. 2002: Carl gets job running video game store.
• Feb. 2007: Carl leaves fun (albeit low-paying) game store to work in greater pastures. Gets job at giant computer store as Asst. Sales Manager. More pay, great bonus opportunities, better benefits, etc. YAY.
  
• +4 days: Company closes half of their stores, including the one Carl was just hired in days before. Awesome general manager leaves. Newly promoted sales manager, myself, and warehouse manager forced to manage closing store without a CLUE.
• +80 days: We suck rocks. Close store. Carl has no new job in sight.
• +2 days: Carl gets re-hired as "regional" pseudo "manager in training" at new location. N0 benefits, no bonuses, no "home store."
• +3 weeks: Carl is back with his old boss whom he loves. Takes the good with the bad and makes-do with his half-ass situation.
  
• + 65 days: Carl gets temporarily relocated to far-away location. Enjoys 38 - 60 mile commute (depending on babysitting requirements). Begs and pleads to go back to the "home" store. Sucks rocks, again.
  
• +35 days: PROMOTION! Carl is back at his home store! Back with his favorite boss! Benefits! Bonuses! Breaths multiple sighs of relief!
• +?? Carlos Slim closes store. Rinse. Repeat. Retch.
  

I can choose to be upset.. And frankly, that is an option that is hard to resist considering the swelling ball of white-hot aggression I am feeling towards the lack of caring that big-box retail seems to universally share.

But instead .. I'll take this as pure entertainment .. again.

I think I am going to stop working in the retail field. I love people, I am a great salesperson, and I know it's an easy buck for me to make -- but IT IS NOT WORTH THE STRESS. My plan now is to go down with the ship. The light at the end of this fucked up tunnel is called "Unemployment Compensation." Yay liberal democrats!

I'll chalk all of this up as one of the weirdest years of my life.

What next? I am thinking of trying to brush up on web development again. I know I love to design and code websites -- and I know I am fairly good at it -- but I am as rusty as that Miller Genuine Draft Pontiac driver! LAWLZ. I do know that I will reap the unemployment for a good while as I spend that time restructuring my life. My house is a mess, my emotional foundation isn't very good, and I have a lot of repairing to do. Most importantly, I am going to spend a lot of quality time with my kid. I almost never get to see him and that isn't cool with me.

Labels: new life, stress, work

posted by Carl | 1 Comments | Leave a comment

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OMGWTFBFGSAUCE

posted on: 2007-07-01 at 10:56:00 PM

Why do I ALWAYS have to have a fast computer? I have always been fascinated with the idea of having a nice .. envelope-pushing rig to play games and .. well I don't know. I love to tinker with settings and I love to watch things fail -- I love to hate to watch things fail even more. It's maddening. I don't know what my problem is. I have gone insane.

My latest project has proven to be the most frustrating of all time. I haven't had a fully working computer in about four weeks now-- well, not one that stayed on longer than twenty minutes at a time. ARGH!

It all started a few months ago when I got my new job at the giant computer store. I had a pretty nice computer before I started working there, but being involved in all the facets of the computer retail scene gave me WAY TOO MUCH ACCESS. THE POWER WAS TOO GREAT!

Through the span of a few months, I took my existing machine (AMD 64 5200+ Dual-Core Windsor on an Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe-WE motherboard running 2GBs of Corsair DDR2-6400 XMS RAM) and upgraded it with various bits and pieces -- and then I bought the big-daddy video card: nVidia's 8800GTS (previously, I had the 7800GT).

Mind you, I know there are MANY cards out there which are far superior to the one pictured here. I know that someone COULD spend $4000 on a video card array. I know that if one wanted, one could go supremely over-the-top and blow my computer (and most others) out of the water. In this dissertation, I am speaking of commonly available "consumer" grade products. So you geeks out there who want to show me up. Suck it.

So I had my 8800. Man oh man was I stoked. I was ready to push s0me pixels like NOBODY'S business. I was giddy with excitement as I installed the card (I had already pre-installed the drivers and many benchmark utilities and demos). I turned on my machine, booted into Windows ... well, it didn't really work right. Immediately I got flickering, missing pixels, system crashes, etc. No big deal, right? Just replace the card!

I do .. same thing. I test, I reconfigure. Days pass.

So it must be the motherboard, right? Replace that, re-install everything. Re-test. SAME THING.

I call the manufacturer's tech support (imagine that .. ME calling tech support). They say "you need a better power supply." So I get one. In fact, through the span of about a week, I get three! Why three? Because each one yielded the same results and I thought MORE POWER = LESS GAY.

The problem wasn't the motherboard (because I replaced it twice) and it wasn't the video card (because I replaced it FOUR times in the span of two months). The problem wasn't the RAM (because I tested it for 12 hours straight using MEMTEST86 - and also tried using all four DIMM slots using every possible matrix of configurations). The problem wasn't my OS (because I installed both XP and Vista -- 32bit AND 64bit!). The problem wasn't my power (because I have a quad-rail 850 watt PSU running off a battery back-up and I have physically tested all of the voltages going out to devices with a multi-meter). The problem wasn't the video card alone (because I stress-tested it in other computers with NO problems).

My house must be haunted. The computer Gods do not like me.

No matter what combination of new hardware I replace .. the SAME problem kept creeping up on me. I have a stable system for about twenty minutes .. and then I have a nice little strobe-light for a monitor and a video card that could cook an egg in under one minute. OMG WTF.

I have even gone to the trouble of using Angie's machine to build a test rig and replaced every piece of my hardware with hers, one-by-one. INDIVIDUALLY, EVERYTHING WORKS PERFECTLY. My gut tells me that there is a problem with my board (the Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe Wireless Ed.) and the 8800GTS series nVidia video cards. Something with the combination of the two creates crazy heat and/or voltage issues. Scroll back up and look at the picture of the guy on the card. That picture shows what users using that card look like after they've gone through what I have! LOL!!1

Finally today, I decided to toss in the towel. I bent over and grabbed my ankles and took what was coming. Because I am stuck with my Asus board and AMD processor, I decided to back down and get a lesser video card. I suppose if I were to have replaced the board with a DIFFERENT chipset, I could have tackled the problem -- but I simply do not have that option right now. Besides, I really do like AMD.

I am now sporting a pair of 8600GTS in SLI mode and seem to have a stable computer. Stable enough to be able to write this blog right now, at least. I'm still seeing some glitchiness -- but I'm going to be patient.

I'll post scores soon. That is if I have a computer tomorrow morning. I am leaving the AC on all night and have my alarm set for 6:00am.

Labels: amd, bfg, computers, stress

posted by Carl | 1 Comments | Leave a comment

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An End of an Era

posted on: 2007-05-14 at 8:49:00 AM

Jebus... Where do I start?

Firstly: I want to hereby publicly announce that I am chalking up the past three months of my professional life as PURE ENTERTAINMENT. As I've written in prior blogs, and as some of you know from talking to me in real life .. the Computer "Mega Store" that I was hired on to be a manager for closed within the first four days of my working there.

Replace super-cool store Manager, Mike with Bob. Bob had bitch tits. WAIT NO, NO HE DID NOT HAVE BITCH TITS. THAT IS A LINE FROM A MOVIE. I'VE BEEN WAITING TO SAY THAT FOR MONTHS

Bob is the man in charge of the liquidation sale. He is one of the most interesting and bizzare people that I have ever had the pleasure to interact with. Bob is from Wisconsin. He is old(er) and has been in the retail-sales arena since the 1970s. I've been in sales for a long time -- and maybe it's as simple as old-school vs. new-school, but where I come from, being a successful salesperson equals being helpful, understanding, and caring. I think, possibly, the general intelligence of the average technology consumer has increased in the past decades -- and with the advent of the internet, getting specifications, price comparisons, reviews, etc. is second nature to most people.

You can't swindle most customers today. In the 1970s, you could -- and moreover, that was how salespeople thrived. Consumers didn't know what "solid state" or "high fidelity" meant because (unless their uncle was a Ham radio operator) that information was only spread via specialty magazines and "shop talk."

Bob's disposition is one of cynicism and pessimism. I find myself trying to "cheer him up" (as do the girls behind the counter .. which is another source of hilarity for me). He smiles often, but it seems to me he's just waiting for the next opportunity to hem-and-haw about something insignificant. I will cut Bob a break because his job is to deal with stores that are closing -- customer retention, referrals and overall customer satisfaction are not things that will necessarily serve him well. Also, making lasting relationships with those he works with has no lasting value, either.

Bob is a nomad.

It has been both grating and wholly entertaining to work in my closing store for the past few months. I have been serendipitously placed in the middle of the likes of Bob and his cronies, bright-eyed high-school kids, and the most overly-dramatic and rabble-rousing employees I've interacted with in a long time (which isn't a bad thing-- it takes a very comfortable and open workplace to allow such behavior).

So, I've been working amidst chaos. The store looks like an Alabama mobile-home park and I'm quite done with it. Today is the last official day there, and I am EFFING HAPPY. As I've said .. this is 100% entertainment for me. I have a few days of store clean-up ahead of me and then I start my new job (same company, different location). I cannot wait!

*SIGH* In other news, the spawn is awesome. He's kicking ass and taking names and as it's turning out to prove, he's quite the flirt. He loves people and he LOVES the women (I don't know whether to be proud or scared). He's four months old now and you can see TONS of pics in my pics section.

He had ear surgery last month and is now officially bionic in that he has tube implants. There was a significant amount of drainage which in most cases is bad, but in our case, is good because it shows that his hearing loss was probably due to some "leftover" gunk in his middle ear. Hopefully his hearing will increase significantly soon. We still have some more tests to go through to find out, though.

I'm going to hit level 58 in World of Warcraft soon and FINALLY make it to the Outlands. Before any of you reading this get angry at that last sentence, please realize that I've played that game since December of 2004. You do the math.

I'll catch you all up on the other facets of my miserable little life soon.

PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST.

Labels: stress, work, WoW

posted by Carl | 2 Comments | Leave a comment

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Very Bad News

posted on: 2007-03-09 at 9:27:00 AM

So.. I have horrible news. I lost my job (sort of).

Here's the back-story. I was happily employed at my last job (the video game store) for well over four years. I hadn't been actively looking for employment, but I wasn't turning away suggestions or impulses to bigger, better things. As I've described in previous blogs, I ran into my old boss from the job I held previous to the video game store at a new computer "Super Store" while I was shopping for an HDTV. He expressed that he would like to hire me, and within a few months, I was offered a position that was very tempting.

Here's where it gets bad. I accepted the job, and quit my previous job. The separation was fine, I helped train my replacement and everything was peachy (or so I thought). I started working at the new place as an assistant store manager (woo hoo! dress shirts and black slacks)... Four days into my new job, and the company announces they are closing over half of their stores across the country.

That's right -- I haven't even worked a week, and I was being told that my store was closing.

Not only that, but the store manager that was running that store (and was most of the reason why I accepted the job in the first place) was transfered to another store that wasn't closing.

What's more, but my previous boss at the video game store seems to think I was "bitter" because I wrote an email upon my exiting the company giving suggestions on how I think they could improve business (and I think the letter was very tasteful and positive .. as did many others, including my dad, a veteran Project Manager of over thirty years). I asked my old boss if I was "rehireable" when I left, and he very stoutly claimed "ABSOLUTELY."

Maybe he'll find a position for me -- but I don't know. I'm confused as to how corporations work. I thought I'd have figured it all out by now.

So here I am, basically, half-running a closing store. I am not doing anything that I consider to be "fun," because there is no more sales atmosphere or coherent structure. Basically, we're just "SELLING EVERYTHING TO THE BARE WALLS." My job went to fun and exciting assistant sales manager to junk-pedaler and loss-prevention crony. It's very, very, very depressing.

WHO MOVED MY CHEESE?

The stress from all this has mounted into something that I've never experienced. I'm developing a rash on my neck as well as having severe fatigue. I intend to do everything I can to get over this hump, and I will find good employment. I am not going to let this get the best of me, and I am doing EVERYTHING I can to stay positive.

Labels: stress, unemployment

posted by Carl | 1 Comments | Leave a comment

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