wewt!

Since our last installment, I have snapped a couple of pictures of some of the higher points of my day.  This is what I like to call “Job security.” As long as you fine folks keep behaving like such, I should be able to ink out some sort of living.

Aside from the foul smells, most of this doesn’t really bother me. It’s fairly interesting to see how people live. The only real sad thing I keep thinking of is that they had an infant living in absolute filth. Very sad. It’s like watching the little starving Ethiopian kid on TV with Suzanne Summers.

So without further ado…

[Show as slideshow]

Aside from about 10 pairs of latex gloves, the only other casualty of the day was my sense of smell. Oh the smell!

Good times!

You know at the bottom of those emails from your tech support people, where it asks you to take a survey and you might win something? Yeah, they use those ratings for something. I wrote a little script so I could cut and paste my most recent ratings and see my average.  We’re expected to stay above a 9.0. I’m just on the edge. I got rep bombed with some 1′s.

 $ ./rate.pl -n
Sean's Hack-O-Matic Rating Hack! HUZZAH!
#       Rating  Total   Avg
========================================
1:      10      10      10.00
2:      10      20      10.00
3:      10      30      10.00
4:      10      40      10.00
5:      9       49      9.80
6:      1       50      8.33
7:      10      60      8.57
8:      10      70      8.75
9:      9       79      8.78
10:     1       80      8.00
11:     9       89      8.09
12:     10      99      8.25
13:     10      109     8.38
14:     8       117     8.36
15:     10      127     8.47
16:     10      137     8.56
17:     10      147     8.65
18:     9       156     8.67
19:     9       165     8.68
20:     10      175     8.75
21:     10      185     8.81
22:     10      195     8.86
23:     5       200     8.70
24:     10      210     8.75
25:     8       218     8.72
26:     10      228     8.77
27:     10      238     8.81
28:     10      248     8.86
29:     10      258     8.90
30:     9       267     8.90
31:     8       275     8.87
32:     10      285     8.91
33:     10      295     8.94
34:     10      305     8.97
35:     10      315     9.00
36:     10      325     9.03
37:     10      335     9.05
38:     10      345     9.08
39:     10      355     9.10
40:     10      365     9.12
41:     4       369     9.00
42:     10      379     9.02
43:     10      389     9.05
44:     10      399     9.07
45:     5       404     8.98
46:     10      414     9.00
47:     10      424     9.02
48:     10      434     9.04
49:     6       440     8.98
50:     8       448     8.96
51:     10      458     8.98
Rating Average: 8.98

Here’s the code, just for those who are curious:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use Getopt::Std;
getopts('hn');

if ($opt_n) { $nolog = 1; }
if ($opt_h) { print "USAGE: $0 [-n]\n\t-n = no logging\n"; exit; }

# Eat it, Yoshi!
@ratings = `cat ./rate.txt`;
$history = "history.txt";
# Setup variables
$total = 0;
$rate_total = 0;

print "Sean's Hack-O-Matic Rating Hack! HUZZAH!\n";
print "#\tRating\tTotal\tAvg\n";
print "========================================\n";

foreach $line (@ratings)
{
        chomp $line;

        # If a blank line or a comment (#) skip the line
        if ($line eq "" || substr($line,0,1) eq "#") { $currentline++; next; }

        # DURTY DURTY
        ($spam, $ham) = split/Rating: /,$line;
        ($rating, $spam) = split/\]/,$ham;

        # NO NUMBER? NO CARE!
        if (!$rating) { next; }

        # If ticket had multiple ratings, let's not cheat ourselves. Conquer and divide... (and average!)
        if ($rating =~ ",") {

                @multirating = split/\,/,$rating;
                foreach $mr (@multirating) {
                        # For each rating, you need to increment your count to keep the average correct.
                        $total++;
                        # Add the new to the existing
                        $rate_total = $rate_total + $mr;
                        $current_average = sprintf("%.2f",$rate_total / $total);
                        print "$total:\t$mr\t$rate_total\t$current_average\n";
                }

        } else {
                # Incremement for the average.
                $total++;
                # Add the new to the existing
                $rate_total = $rate_total + $rating;
                $current_average = sprintf("%.2f",$rate_total / $total);
                print "$total:\t$rating\t$rate_total\t$current_average\n";
        }
}

# Average the totals, round to 2 decimal places
$avg = sprintf("%.2f",$rate_total / $total);

print "Rating Average: $avg\n";

# Log it for historical tracking.
if ($nolog) {
        print "Logging disabled\n";
} else {
        &HistoryLog("$avg");
}

sub HistoryLog
{
    my($sec,$min,$hour,$mday,$mon,$year,$wday,$yday,$isdst) = localtime(time);

    open (LOGFILE, ">>$history");

    printf LOGFILE "%02d/%02d/%04d %02d:%02d:%02d => %s\n",
    $mon+1, $mday, $year+1900, $hour, $min, $sec, $_[0];

    close(LOGFILE);
}

I found a DVD with a bunch of mp3′s that I had backed up.. In there, I found a bunch of old Louisville indie/punk/hardcore/whatever.. So I’m rocking out. Lots of Metroschifter and Falling Forward. You can see what’s going down by looking at my Last.fm widget.

Sold a couple more things on craigslist today, including one of my car stereos that’s been in a box for over year and our grill. The grill I just wanted gone, getting paid for it was just a bonus. I didn’t want to take it back to kentucky, and I didn’t want to just throw it away. Sold it for $50, which I figured was fair enough. I didn’t even flinch when the guy paid with a check. I figured I could play russian roulette for $50.. As luck would have it, the check was good, and Bank of America (where it was written from) didn’t even try to charge me some astronomical fee to cash it, as I am no longer a customer of that institution of lending.

On to slightly more depressing news, I bought some boxes today. I spent $87 on freaking cardboard boxes. I didn’t even buy a bunch. One bundle each of small and medium boxes. Good thing I’m trying to throw away everything I don’t think I’ll ever miss! Trying to break my packrat ways.

Closing on a brighter note, spent about 2 hours on the phone yesterday speaking to people (whom shall remain nameless for now) that I’ve had previous business relationships with, and we’re hoping to do some business together soon. Be good to hit the ground running when I arrive back in Louisville.

I’ve been cleaning up my data, cleaning up my possessions, now I just need to clean up my financial affairs, and I think the rest of 2010 will be ok.

Another work week has come to a close, and here we are…. During this last week, I’ve given my notice, I turned 30, and I’ve had a serious motivation issue. Of course, my motivation, or lack there of is nothing new at all.

I felt like I struggled this weekend with my ticket counts. I only had 45 or so tickets on Sunday, and Saturday I didn’t close my 40th until right at 10pm. Granted, both days were slow, but still. Today wasn’t particularly busy and I closed 56 tickets. My ratings have sucked, largely because I’m just not getting any. I got 1 rating yesterday out of 46 tickets and it was a 1. Today I posted 56, and I got two ratings, a 9 and 10. Anything 2-9 is fucking worthless to me. 1′s suck, but I’m more of a yes or no, white or black kinda guy. Just so you know, at the job, you’re expect to maintain a 9 or higher rating. With today’s 9 and 10, I’m at a 8.6.

When I was leaving work, it was starting to lightning. As I drove home, the lightning got progressively stronger. On the beltway, the lightning got awesome. Cloud to ground. I wish I had a camera fast enough to get some shots.

By the time I got to 1960, it started raining, hard. I had the top down. I managed to get all the way to my apartment complex before I really got wet. If the gate had been open, I probably would have been fine.

So now it’s Friday (monday) night.. I watched the season finale of House which was pretty awesome, now I’m killing my Netflix queue.  Good times.

We’re about 2 weeks away from my “not so triumphant” departure from Texas. I gave notice at my job yesterday, and I was worried that they might not even accept it, telling me instead to “holla back.”

So when I arrived today and my supervisor said he wanted to speak to me before I even clocked in, I got a little nervous. However, he just wanted to know if there was anything the company could do to keep me there, etc. It was nice change of pace. I apologized and politely declined. Later, the evening supervisor asked me similar questions.

It’s nice to feel appreciated, especially in a company where you feel like you can just get lost. (See my last post where I said that no one would notice if I didn’t show up.)

So anyway, yeah..

Tonight I have begun migrating the server that hosts this site among others to a new IP address. This is more fun than I care to mention. I think I will skip it, as my wrists hurt.. I have been ignoring my RSI, and I will pay for it, I’m sure.

Well, it’s Monday again. The Friday of my work week.  My job is a strange thing.  Unlike any of my past jobs, I don’t take anything home with me. Due to the fact that we’re open 24/7/365, once I punch the clock, it’s unlikely that I’ll have to deal with an issue again. That is, I don’t come in to find 10 issues from yesterday that no one has dealt with because they’re “my problem.”

That said, I have no real responsibility. My presence means nothing, and aside from a note on some report somewhere, I figure it’s unlikely that anyone would notice if I didn’t show up. The company is too big, too disconnected. We use a webpage to queue our selves for breaks.

That’s not to say that it’s a bad company. On the contrary. The company seems to care about it’s employees, as much as a company can and be profitable. The free meals, the break room with all sorts of distractions and diversions, etc..  However, once you get to a certain size, you lose track. I have just already grown sick of the cubicle city; the time clock punching; of the ticket quota.

Still, it’s a far departure from the land of World Class, where the management treats it’s employees like some sort of indentured servants. Probably the wrong way to say it. Suffice it to say, my short time there left me somewhat jaded with how employers treat their staff.

That’s not to even mention Turbochargers.com, where I’m still trying to get my tax documentation correct so I can file my return. David likely has never given a shit about any one of his many employees over the years, and he wonders why he can’t keep any of the good ones. No one wants to work for someone who’s attitude is a cancer to those around him.

My mood and general disposition improved so much when I left there. I was such a more pleasant person to be around, in general. I was content at RAD, even as I saw how they treated their other employees, because it wasn’t me. It’s easy to be apathetic about a situation when it doesn’t directly affect you. You can walk the halls, and ignore the bodies of the fallen comrades that litter your path. When the money is coming in, of course. Life is cheap. Content to use partying and decadence as a diversion to the issues at hand.

I find myself in the worst financial shape of my admittedly short life, with very little in prospects.. I stand here, sit here, ponderous. What lies in wait? What’s next?