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Sep. 29th, 2003 11:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miko2I forgot to finish the story of my badge that Jennifer drew for me. And to do it, I should first talk about my badge and Sky's badge from last year.
Sky did a badge for me last year and as usual I didn't ask for anything in particular. We'd been to see the film Spirited Away recently in the theater, and Sky had the art book on the movie with him, so he drew me as the demon/spirit character No-Face (or Noh Face, since his face is a Noh mask). So I was "That No-Face Miko" for the rest of the con.
At the same time Jennifer drew Sky as his fox/kitsune persona but (if I remember correctly) in a Japanese girl's sailor style school uniform.
So back to this year. I asked Jennifer to do a badge and told her to draw my raccoon persona, but otherwise left it up to her. She didn't work on my badge right away, but later in the evening she was working on it and wouldn't let me see it until she was done. I got the impression that she'd been kibitzing with others in the Con Ops room on what to draw, and she and others know I'm a fan of the Oz children's book series. So she drew my Miko raccoon figure as Dorothy... ie in a white blouse and blue checkered dress, holding Toto, with a yellow brick road in the background. It was quite cute, very funny. ^_^
Although one of the door guards thought it was a furry Pauli Girl. Uh, yeah, whatever...
Story #2
So my company was bidding on a big account. It was someone who was already a customer of ours but who had a large chunk of business that we weren't handling. And for some reason, their company rep (their traffic guy I guess) came in after 4 pm, when the night crew was already there. Not that it would have mattered much, I think. Anyway they hadn't warned us about it ahead of time, it was still summer and very hot, and most people were wearing tee shirts and shorts. But we're usually dressed down on both day and night crews so whatever. What you see is what you get.
And their rep was someone I knew from my days at my previous company, but although they stood right in front of my desk and introduced him to the IS people and the Vice Presidents, they didn't introduced him to any of us peons. Nor did he give any indication that he recognized me, although I'm fairly certain he couldn't have helped but do so.
Anyway, let me tell you about this guy. Let's call him Tim, because that's actually his name. Tim is a prick. He's the kind of prick who's very ambitious and not above doing anything to further himself, and who looks down on almost everyone else as beneath him. While at my former company he did everything he could to assume as much responsibility as possible and learn every aspect of the business. This is not a bad thing in most people, but Tim is the kind of guy who likes to be in control, and to keep others from knowing exactly what he's doing.
Among his bigger offenses was what happened after he got a girl pregnant (a girl who also worked at my former company). She broke off the relationship after realizing what a controlling bastard Tim really was. He tried to use his family's money, power, and lawyers to force her to give up the child to him and his family. He was really vicious about it, put this girl through hell.
I should note at this point that Tim's family was quite wealthy and powerful. His great-uncle (think that was the relationship) had founded the company that we now worked for, and was a big lawyer who was well known in transportation and had argued before the supreme court. So Tim was a guy who had lived a fairly priveledged life, and usually got what he wanted.
Anyway in the end he made too many enemies at my former company and was let go. That same week, two shipments that he had had total control over were found to be completely screwed up. This was right after he'd left... and he was such a perfectionist that there was no way it was an accident. So basically he was not only a prick but a vengeful one at that.
So anyway, he comes in and pretends to not recognize me, and talks to our Sales VP, and everyone can kind of tell just from that short meeting that he's aloof and judgemental, and later I told people a little more about him. And today we found out that we didn't get the business we were bidding on. His reasons were that we were not dressed professionally when he met us, and that our server was not secure enough... specifically, he noted that a 'disgruntled employee' could cause havok.
Something I'm sure he knows about from first hand experience.
Anyway you can only hope and assume that in the grand scheme of things, people who base their business decisions on what clothing you wear rather than how well your company runs will suffer the consequences.
But I wouldn't put it past Tim to have really based his decision on the fact that he recognized me and it brought back bad memories from his sad, pathetic past, which I'm sure he'd rather nobody knew about.
Story #3
So there's this huge lot out in front of our company, and some other company has been using it for many months to store containers on. Every afternoon they cram as many containers as they can onto this lot. They line them up inches apart... it's quite the operation. And I assume that they're all empty and that they come back and use them the next day, but otherwise I really have no idea what they're up to.
A month ago they sent in machines to grade and level the land and spread gravel around. I thought maybe whoever owned the property was going to pave it or build something there or otherwise find another use for it, but instead they just put up a fence all around the property with a gate in front, and then they went back to shoe-horning as many containers into that space as they possibly could every night. Only now they had a guy sitting out front near the gate in his sports car, all night, acting as a guard.
Guarding what, I have no idea. Maybe stealing empty shipping containers is a big problem these days?
So anyway, the first thing about this that I found extremely funny is that it took less than a week for one of their drivers to run over part of the gate. Now the left side is bent over and sags halfway to the ground. I'm not sure they can even close it... I've never really seen it closed and locked, but maybe sometime after I go home (around midnight) the guard in the sports car locks up and leaves. Which must be a lot of fun with a broken gate.
The second thing I found funny is that the little guy in his sports car now has a honey bucket nearby. I have no idea what he was doing before this week, but I do know that there were days when he was there before I came to work and was still there when I went back home.
Must be a fun job, guarding a lot full of empty containers all night.
Sky did a badge for me last year and as usual I didn't ask for anything in particular. We'd been to see the film Spirited Away recently in the theater, and Sky had the art book on the movie with him, so he drew me as the demon/spirit character No-Face (or Noh Face, since his face is a Noh mask). So I was "That No-Face Miko" for the rest of the con.
At the same time Jennifer drew Sky as his fox/kitsune persona but (if I remember correctly) in a Japanese girl's sailor style school uniform.
So back to this year. I asked Jennifer to do a badge and told her to draw my raccoon persona, but otherwise left it up to her. She didn't work on my badge right away, but later in the evening she was working on it and wouldn't let me see it until she was done. I got the impression that she'd been kibitzing with others in the Con Ops room on what to draw, and she and others know I'm a fan of the Oz children's book series. So she drew my Miko raccoon figure as Dorothy... ie in a white blouse and blue checkered dress, holding Toto, with a yellow brick road in the background. It was quite cute, very funny. ^_^
Although one of the door guards thought it was a furry Pauli Girl. Uh, yeah, whatever...
Story #2
So my company was bidding on a big account. It was someone who was already a customer of ours but who had a large chunk of business that we weren't handling. And for some reason, their company rep (their traffic guy I guess) came in after 4 pm, when the night crew was already there. Not that it would have mattered much, I think. Anyway they hadn't warned us about it ahead of time, it was still summer and very hot, and most people were wearing tee shirts and shorts. But we're usually dressed down on both day and night crews so whatever. What you see is what you get.
And their rep was someone I knew from my days at my previous company, but although they stood right in front of my desk and introduced him to the IS people and the Vice Presidents, they didn't introduced him to any of us peons. Nor did he give any indication that he recognized me, although I'm fairly certain he couldn't have helped but do so.
Anyway, let me tell you about this guy. Let's call him Tim, because that's actually his name. Tim is a prick. He's the kind of prick who's very ambitious and not above doing anything to further himself, and who looks down on almost everyone else as beneath him. While at my former company he did everything he could to assume as much responsibility as possible and learn every aspect of the business. This is not a bad thing in most people, but Tim is the kind of guy who likes to be in control, and to keep others from knowing exactly what he's doing.
Among his bigger offenses was what happened after he got a girl pregnant (a girl who also worked at my former company). She broke off the relationship after realizing what a controlling bastard Tim really was. He tried to use his family's money, power, and lawyers to force her to give up the child to him and his family. He was really vicious about it, put this girl through hell.
I should note at this point that Tim's family was quite wealthy and powerful. His great-uncle (think that was the relationship) had founded the company that we now worked for, and was a big lawyer who was well known in transportation and had argued before the supreme court. So Tim was a guy who had lived a fairly priveledged life, and usually got what he wanted.
Anyway in the end he made too many enemies at my former company and was let go. That same week, two shipments that he had had total control over were found to be completely screwed up. This was right after he'd left... and he was such a perfectionist that there was no way it was an accident. So basically he was not only a prick but a vengeful one at that.
So anyway, he comes in and pretends to not recognize me, and talks to our Sales VP, and everyone can kind of tell just from that short meeting that he's aloof and judgemental, and later I told people a little more about him. And today we found out that we didn't get the business we were bidding on. His reasons were that we were not dressed professionally when he met us, and that our server was not secure enough... specifically, he noted that a 'disgruntled employee' could cause havok.
Something I'm sure he knows about from first hand experience.
Anyway you can only hope and assume that in the grand scheme of things, people who base their business decisions on what clothing you wear rather than how well your company runs will suffer the consequences.
But I wouldn't put it past Tim to have really based his decision on the fact that he recognized me and it brought back bad memories from his sad, pathetic past, which I'm sure he'd rather nobody knew about.
Story #3
So there's this huge lot out in front of our company, and some other company has been using it for many months to store containers on. Every afternoon they cram as many containers as they can onto this lot. They line them up inches apart... it's quite the operation. And I assume that they're all empty and that they come back and use them the next day, but otherwise I really have no idea what they're up to.
A month ago they sent in machines to grade and level the land and spread gravel around. I thought maybe whoever owned the property was going to pave it or build something there or otherwise find another use for it, but instead they just put up a fence all around the property with a gate in front, and then they went back to shoe-horning as many containers into that space as they possibly could every night. Only now they had a guy sitting out front near the gate in his sports car, all night, acting as a guard.
Guarding what, I have no idea. Maybe stealing empty shipping containers is a big problem these days?
So anyway, the first thing about this that I found extremely funny is that it took less than a week for one of their drivers to run over part of the gate. Now the left side is bent over and sags halfway to the ground. I'm not sure they can even close it... I've never really seen it closed and locked, but maybe sometime after I go home (around midnight) the guard in the sports car locks up and leaves. Which must be a lot of fun with a broken gate.
The second thing I found funny is that the little guy in his sports car now has a honey bucket nearby. I have no idea what he was doing before this week, but I do know that there were days when he was there before I came to work and was still there when I went back home.
Must be a fun job, guarding a lot full of empty containers all night.
