Category Archives: Work

I hate it.

Important Meeting

Personal Bits, Work

Doncha just hate it when you spend 48hrs gearing up for an important meeting, you polish your portfolio case, relable all the stuff in your portfolio, shine your shoes and then have the whole thing fall apart? Dammit. I was suppose to go to Knowcean Software today for a possible freelance contract position, so I crossed my “i”s and dotted my “t”s and ransacked my hard drive for the latest stuff to put into my portfolio only to get to the office and discover… there’s nobody in the office! I asked on another floor if there was anyone in Knowcean, the office on the entire second floor, and they thought they had moved. Im sitting in the lobby all confused and stuff with Japanese school girls coming in and out of the building. My cell rings. “Ah ha!” I think and answer it with a smile, thinking the interviewer just gave me the wrong address. Nope. Its the retail job for the Mac re-seller calling me in for an interview later today. So not a total loss… As Im on the streetcar home, the VP of Knowcean Sales calls me and apologizes for missing me, they had to go “out of the office for an emergency” We rescheduled. What kind of emergencies are on a Friday afternoon around lunchtime, kids? Thats right! Martini emergencies! STAT!

I’ll post more after my Carbon Computing meeting…see ya!

5:30PM Dammit…In the interview, they asked me what the difference is between notebook RAM and desktop RAM as well as the difference between Rasterized and PostScript printing. I was wrong on both. Dammit! If they hire me I will be suprised. Okay thats harsh but I was not very tech-y for a computer store. I nailed the customer service end though. Im sure of that. The General Manager liked me, I think. Time will tell. Wish me luck.

Panther. Right. Cat thing…

Personal Bits, Work

Why are the holidays so wrought with anxiety when we’re suppose to be relaxing and enjoying our lives? I personaly could not care if suddenly Nazis from Dimension X suddenly pop into exsistance from a tear in our reality and jackboot themselves into power and decree that Christmas was banned. I hate Christmas. Do a search on “I hate christmas” and “blog” for me will you? You’ll see how original Im being right now but I just got to get this out right now so we can enjoy our time together. To quote Ron Schrab, “Halloween kicks Christmas’ ASS!” Call me a grinch, a humbug, whatever, I just think we apply too much emotional filters to Xmas. The wrong kind of emotions, like anxieties about money, food, activities, etc.

Three interesting leads yesterday: One was walking into Carbon Computing (on a lark) and asking if they had any seasonal work and talking to the manager. We chatted a bit and he asked if I knew OS X, to which I replied “Jaguar? Sure!”

“Panther,” he said not lifting his eys from my CV.

“Pan…oh yeah, Panther. Right. Cat thing…” I trailed off mumbling.

“Don’t worry. We do the same thing all the time around here,” he said and promised to call me later.

The second thing was I came home to a message for a job interview on Friday for a part time, contract position with someone I dont remember applying to. Ive applied to so many in the last two weeks that I only remember the ones I wildly lied to, to get an interview with. So I have to think fast when I go in. Wish me luck.

The last was the bar. I talked to the GM and we both had the exact same idea for what my role would be for the bar which was cool. Im writing up a proposal as I type this. Yup. I am.

Got it, Jack

Celebs and Media, Queer stuff, Toronto, Work

Im sitting in the diner on QaF and Im in a two-seater booth across from a guy who has mentioned his girlfriend a few times (got it, Jack) and how nice the waitress’ ass is (“Nice pants,” I reply) and all during the scene Im mouthing the words “fisting at the Don Jail”. Suprisingly he picks up “fisting” and “jail” and laughs and holds up his meaty hairy forearm. At the cut I tell him of a guy I knew who had numerical increments tattooed up his arm past his elbow. He goes white. Take that back to your girlfriend, Jack.

Im in a bit of a tizz…I am forced to going back to the bar for pick up shifts and the odd promotional night as that there are very little jobs out there right now. As I write this I am moments away from a meeting with the GM to negotiate getting “half” my job back, which would allow me time to do freelance stuff but yet pull a decent paycheque (which is better than no paycheque) from the bar. I feel dirty and gross but its better than working at a bath house or scrubbing pots. I know a few guys who are in the same predicament, taking jobs for the sake of jobs right now (except for one Panda in the states who has landed a dream job koffkofffuckoffkoff). I call it the NMD or New Millenium Depression, because Im depressed about having to do this crappy work to get by (note: that was a joke, no emails please!)

It seems to be a trend for the post-Internet implosion people, to take on a couple jobs while still holding onto some shred of internet work. Ive reworked my portfolio site to align it with web trends (ie: got rid of the Flash navigation) and added new thingys to it. Its only been two days. Where the hell are the phone calls? I know…I know…hit the streets, send out emails and open my yap at every given opportunity.

Last night, at 2am, I applied to WestJet as a Customer Service Rep!

Black Ink

Celebs and Media, Toronto, Work

Today was boring. I was street filler in front of the gym where our intrepid QaF friends work out. I was kind of pissed when I found out that for all the scrambling I did to borrow my Dad’s car for the scene (they pay extra for extras who use their own cars in shots), the casting company had overbooked the background with cars. They didnt need me. Harumph! Before I could raise a stink the Eastern European guy behind me (who was also S.O.L.) exploded “If I have to pay for parking because you arent going to use my car I am gone!”

“Bye,” says the holding director. And as he walks out, she scribbles something beside his name in black ink. She looks up at me.

“I will …um… just go get my car out of security holding,” I mutter.

Cleavage

Celebs and Media, Personal Bits, Work

Call time for Prom Queen was at 7:30am. I dont think Ive been up before 8am since spring 2002. It was weird to see people actually on the street. They got us into Hamilton and into background holding at 8:30 and left us there until 5:30. Seriously. I had forgotten my book and my gameboy and, for kicks, I was considering killing the owners of the greasy fry-up that was renting out their 15×15 “party” room to the production company. It would have been something. The collection of extras was your similar-to-QaF trendy hip fags in one corner, the straight boys in another and a few older types, playing friends of lawyers (one played by Scott Thompson), all sitting around absorbing the smell of stale cigarettes and bacon. They pulled half the extras into set for tight shots and left the rest of us there to listen to the owners of the restaraunt (?) tell us about how people kept on filming pornos in the back “party” room. He was going onto his third sexcapade story when I blurted out “OOOH! King of the Hill!” which thankfully came on the tv over the make-up benches. Volume up. Ten minutes into the show they called us to the set…fuck. No…not during The Bold and the Beautiful…

Wardrobe was interesting. Intructions were to bring hip youthfull biz type clothes, which I have none. I brought my brushed black cotton sport coat, grey dress shirt and acid lime green tie borrowed from my roomie. The assistant wardrobe took one look and made a face that resembled your finger after being a week in water. “Oh go ahead and put that on,” she said of the tie. When the main wardrobe mistress came in I was the first person she saw coming into the room “Thats a great tie!” she exclaims. Oh movie people.

By the time they placed us on set and gave us our crossing cues I was in a much better mood. Punchy. Scott Thompson flubbed his line 5 out of 7 takes but they didnt seem to mind the order of “this brave gay teen”. I had my first instant background mime lesson in seconds. “Cantelope, watermellon” my lips feighned while my eyes were so expressive. The girl I was paired up with had a cracking great chest with a pair of lips for a zipper pull lain poetically over her cleavage. I couldnt stop looking at it. I wound up mime-talking to it at one point. She and I nearly started to laugh out loud at one point.

In all a good day if not long. I wound up getting extra cash upon extra cash for the time-overages. I wonder what I will be put on next?

Queer as Folk, Indeed

Celebs and Media, Queer stuff, Work

So Im in a holding pen somewhere out in a derelict Mississagua factory thats been converted into the set of Babylon, the nightclub where our lovely citizens of Queer as Folk bitch at each other on the dancefloor. And Im with 200 other club kids/musclemarys/heroin addicts/blithering idiots that make up the “background” as we are called (no longer “extras” weve been reduced even further). And Im listening to this loud mouthed, long haired homophobe spew third rate gay jokes. Im in shock. I am sure he was doing it to make sure nobody would hit on him. Fat chance. this guy wasnt as ugly as…oh…the Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons but he was just as annoying and far from amusing. As I went from holding pen to wardrobe (they didnt like my sparkly Hustler shirt–sorry Paul) to make up (the hairdresser tsk tsk at the back of my neck and said he didnt have the time to do a whole head shave) I was amazed at the amount of homophobic comments were made. Crew would joke about not bending over. Make up girls joked about who looked gayer. And of course you had the nervous straight guys asserting their machismo with comments like “They should make a show called Queer Factor where you have to fish used condoms out of a tank with your teeth.” Perspective time: Im on a shitty third rate soap opera tv set and I expect sensitivity?

Well…yes. I do.

I hear all the time that gay people “respect” Showcase and QaF for putting out some gay culture, but it looks like its rotten from the inside, kids.

Some random thoughts:

• I was “dancing” beside a group of kids, two of which had braces. You gat paid extra money if you are kissing on screen so they should have paired those two up and had them lock metal.
• To get the “background” going, they would blare out the music and start us dancing with lots of energy, only to shut it off mid-beat so the actors could say their lines. If you know what a “audio black hole” is then you know how hard it was not to stop dancing a beat after the music ended. It was like going over a cliff every time.
• Saw my brother’s ex-girlfriend’s brother on set doing makeup for the main actors. Nice guy. We did the gunslinging Isaac-from-Love Boat kapow at each other across the room. Funny.
• The guy that wound up being with me (my date, I shall call him) for the whole shoot was straight. The floor director paired us up and put us on the stairs and the first thing out of his mouth was “My girlfriend’s roommate got me into this.” Gotcha buddy…I wont come onto you. Kudos to you when we were asked to move through the crowd past the camera for grabbing my shoulder and konga lining. I hope they keep that.
• Food sucked. Hot dogs and PandJ sammiches. I bet first season background got better.

My First Day Without a Job.

Personal Bits, Work

My first day without a job. I went in and cleaned out my desk and handed over the keys. It felt good. Last night was a good fun bar shift. Near the end there were 9 guys around my bar and some of them I have had sex with (and would again) and the others I would have liked to. At one point I had a guy with a huge foreskin kneeling on top of my bar, serving shooters out of it. Here’s a tip for you bar-going types: If the bartender buys you a drink, don’t tell him you find the busboy attractive. A guy did just that to me after I bought him the drink. I then put on my best liar-face and proceeded to explain that the busboy was a female to male transgender and if you didnt believe me, look at the eyes and hands. Oh, and ask him outright, he’s very very proud of being transgendered. I then stirred the pot more by going over to the busboy and saying “That guy at the end of the bar likes you…he wants to know your background.” So the busboy went over and struck up a conversation. You should have seen the guy’s eyes as he went from the busboy’s face, hands, hairy forearms, back to his face…looking for any signs of femininity. I will miss that job.

I went and saw Texas Chainsaw Massacre this evening. It was like watching a American Eagle Outfitters fashion commercial for the first 20 minutes and then BAM in walks R. Lee Ermey as the sherrif. Someone must have given him acting lessons after Full Metal Jacket because he pretty much stole the show, other than Jennifer Beal’s boobies.

My First Extra Gig

Celebs and Media, Personal Bits, Toronto, Work

I went and saw Kill Bill this afternoon. It was impressive, action-packed, stylish and clever. Your basic Tarantino film. I recommend it to all who like anime, Japanese fighting movies, 70s pulp fiction, and Uma Thermin. Lucy Liu was ok, but she only had one good scene where she looses her cool. She could have had great acting but it was replaced by an anime hommage for her character set up and development. Gotta love the camera shot through the hole in the assasinated politician at the two escorts looking back and screaming. Brilliant. The only troubling thing I think about post-really-cool-movie elation is that most of the fight scenes weren’t really original. There was the decaps, the dismembs, and even the sword-over-the-head-kill-the-guy-behind-you-before-swinging-it-down-onto-your-opponent move. I wonder how many movies will be made with these Hong Kong wirefight moves? Like the slo mo/fast action pan in The Matrix, we will probably get tired of them and move on.

I just got a call. My first extra gig is on Prom Queen. The made-for-tv story of that guy who took his male date to the prom. Exploitation upon exploitation! Just give me the cash! This should be interesting.

Google Me This, Batman

Work

Have you played with the Google Start Up page? All the blocks of text can be dragged and dropped wherever you want. Easier to use than My Yahoo! Friendly! Clean!

I fear my job as web page designer will be obsolete in a year’s time if this takes off. It won’t matter how long I suffer over page balance (like we use to do over fonts and font sizes) because some inbalanced dink will do what they want with the pages they view.

But damn if it ain’t cool! I can see all my Gmail incomings!

Google needs to let RSS feeds to be added to it but soon…soon…

Bruce Banner Scared

Work

I had to perform the second least favorite part of any manager’s job today: hand out a letter of reprimand. He had it coming though and I was tired of everyone making excuses for his behaviour: “Oh is he working tonight? Glasses will be backed up…better get prepared.” or “Is he on tonight? We’ll be here longer to clean up.” or even the classic comment from the other manager: “You know if he ever calls in sick or wants to change from when I manage, I have no arguement.” Why are we making excuses for this dick? Today he didnt even show up for his shift. He was partying too hard the night before and he knew he had to open the bar at noon. He wound up calling at 2:15pm to apologize. I informed him that he was written up and that we needed to talk face to face, could he come in and see me within the hour? Sure. He swans in at 7pm. Im about to explode. He looks like a hounddog with a thorn in his foot. “There’s nothing I can say!” he says (after he said ‘Im sorry’ of course). I handed him the letter, bitched him out and made him sign it. Bitching him out was threatening him with immediate dismissal if he ever shows up to the bar drunk or stoned like he was last week and that he better consider what his job means to him if he’s going to jeapordize it for himself and the rest of us (he had left out some bottles from the night before as well as skivving off from his shift–effectively putting the bar’s licence on the line if we were ever spot inspected). I could feel my anger rising and I was getting scared. Like Bruce Banner scared. Like “holy shit Im gonna lose it in front of this guy”. The other manager could hear it in my voice. I finished the converstaion with “Get the fuck out of my face.” I think I was harsh but the other manager said I was far too nice. After, a second employee asked if I was ok, to which I said “Im ok. Not too sure about him, though,” meaning the slacker employee. “Oh well then, do you want some mushrooms?” he asked. I nearly lost it. I said calmly, “I have to work tomorrow,” and I walked away. Christ. I dont condone drug use…I condone stupidity and poor choices.