Random School/Work-Venting Post

First off...I got an 85% on my Comm1 final, which put my overall grade in the class at 80%. Not a *great* grade, but perfectly acceptable with me.

I talked to my instructor tonight about Comm2, and he was talking about how most of what we're going to go over is codecs, with just a small side of the technologies used to transfer data. He did say that Comm2 is a lot harder though.

One of the cool things he told us was that he's trying to get us access to one of the few class A radio stations that transmits at 50,000 Watts so we can check out the transmitter. The only problem is, the radio station is located downtown, and the tower is on top of a mountain....

 

Why do TA's try to show off by making the hardest tests and classes? I hate them. I hate them all

 

Bah, I just hate it when I am supposed to simply check a colleague's work for correctness - and in the process I end up doing it entirely, not only because it screws up my planning. We use the four-eye-principle to eliminate errors. Said colleague is a newbie still, and he reliably overlooks the obvious to jump on the unimportant - which means the corrector then has to do the bulk of the work. Annoying, it isn't as if I don't have work myself.

So I had a few words with him about this today, a calm 'Well, you screwed up completely, you absolutely should have seen this - it is blatantly obvious - get your act together. Tea with that?' type of conversation. I hate those, too.

 

Hey! I was a very nice TA back in the days! All I ever wanted was to make sure my students were as ready as possible for the final exam (since I had zero control over that particular exam). All my students ever wanted was to waste time and then complain when they didn't do well

 

The problem seems to be when the TA actually teaches the class (final exam and all)... no professor. I loved my geology TA, she rocked, but now I have one for a history class, on her own, her first class, and it is misery.

 

one more instance of 'you should absolutely have seen it'

After our Turkish boy from yesterday, one of our Turkish girls who was tasked to do this: Compare whether a given XML text is as in a given PDF, and if not, please correct using the PDF as your reference. Report after two hours was: I corrected one error, as for the rest, they are wrong but there is no reference to be found in the PDF.

So I went on to take screen shots of that to report, only to find that (a) in fact the points in question were accurately displaying what was in the PDF and (b) that there was no error, and thus nothing to correct. So whatever she did to the data, there was no reason for it. After that, I then had to proceed to check whether that's just a freak accident or true for all instances (of course, it was the latter). So I ended up re-doing the work, which took me about one hour.

What is so difficult about saying: 'Great, there is no error! Everything is fine!'? File name and indeed, the XML text itself, all give clear pointers where to look in the PDF ... You cannot miss it. I wonder whether she even looked into the PDF ... geez

Bah, and I have migraine.

 

Sweet....my 'Environmental Issues' class looks like it is going to be easier than I thought as 95% of the students in class also have their capstone class this quarter (think of the capstone as a PhD's dissertation...you have 11 weeks, and a budget of $300 to do *one hell* of a big project pertaining to whatever your major is...oh yeah, you also have to write a novel on the project. ) Anyway, since the capstone takes up 110% of a student's time, this class has been adjusted for minimal effort... In-class participation is 55% of the final grade!

 

Well, looks like finishing at 6AM depends on whenever my boss's there or not. Not to mention the brutal reception I got when I called the boss to ask whenever I was finishing at 6 or not. Six months of self-control therapy have just been smashed in a matter of seconds, now excuse me while I go destroy some crap to try and calm the f*** down.

Find another golden boy to do your ****ing 9.5 hours shift of pure, unadultered BOREDOM, ********, not to mention I have to suffer THREE ****ING RUSHES when I'm at my most F'N tired.

 

DotW, what do you do again? 9.5 hour shift sounds rough...

 

Night shift guy in a ****ing convenience store. Those shifts are a [censored] pain because not only do I have to deal with THREE rushes of people, I also have to deal with the BOREDOM!

The [censored] boss works tomorrow. I hope for his ass that he lets me leave at 6AM, otherwise things are gonna get ugly. Being an ass to me just because I'm leaving soon is a big mistake, and he's gona have to pay the piper... this is a game of two, and I have all the credentials I need.

 

A colleague of mine today just couldn't decide which path to take, between three options. I offered him as a solution Ragusa's Decision Matrix™ ...

Code:

1,5	path A
3,6	path B
2,4	path C

He asked how that would help with his decision. Easy, I said. You now take d6 and roll dice ...

 

Well, night shift hell is officially over. I gave my two weeks notice, and my now former boss tells me he needs me Sunday night for a last shift, then I am free to leave if it's OK for my successor to start next week.

Now I REALLY am going to throw a F'N party. Hell, I'm already flying sky high.

 

After cooling down and rethinking things, I decided to take the smart route by asking a transfer to another store. I can get day/evening shifts, and don't need to go through the hassle of finding something else. Normally I could care less, but I can ask for a transfer... so why not.

Besides, my successor has already been found, so he's taking over my hours this week. I'm basically inactive until I get word of where I'll be heading next.

 

HAHAHA! So I called my boss today to hear about the status of my transfert... nothing so far, but he made a proposition -- I stay right where I am, I'll work on days when we get supplies coming in, which means I can freely not give a [censored] about the damned hypocritic morons since I'm paid to fill up the store, not serve the said hypocritic morons! I take a shift cut BIG TIME, but as a tradeoff, I'll work in other stores that need some help. And come summer, I'll have a HUGE bargaining chip, so I can pretty much pick the shifts I want and if anyone below me has a problem with that, they can stick it because I have no qualms about pulling off some workplace politics and using my (as of now) 7 months working there as an equalizer.

Works for me. I can also use the spare time to do computer jobs -- I found this to be a non-neglectable source of income.

 

I'm in a general credit World Civilizations class (1500-present) and just THIS semester, I'm on my THIRD professor. That's absolutely positively unheard of here. The first had to take a medical (I think) leave of absence and she was awesome and an easy grader. The second was a terrible professor and absolutely boring... Then today I come to class and there's an old asian guy teaching. What the heck!

I might as well add that I like the newest guy

 

Uh. I yesterday received an e-mail from a colleague that read: "HELP! I MESSED UP MY PROGRAM SETTINGS!".

Indeed. The only problem with that person and her computer is that she, while otherwise thoroughly competent, is afraid of it, and misplaces files in hysterical drag-and-drop operations. Considering that she's at it for about two years on this particular machine, the whole comp is a bloody mess in dire need of a format/reinstall. But I digress - I fixed her problem, which took me about three minutes - deleting the fubar-ed folders and copying standard ones back. It was nothing serious really. She then asked for a 'cookbook' recipe on how to fix it herself (which is a good sign), per e-mail. Which she received. It started with:

1. Stay calm. Worse things have happened.
2. ...

That's key, really

 

ahh **** out! just as i am completing my 7 reports in physics today i realize that i have earlier missed 2 reports that are due on monday!!!

 

Gah my comp takes ages to search and replace text strings in some 40.000 files. But there's a remedy.

I have gotten permission to work from home tomorrow and to work the files at my home comp. There I will utilise my computer's advantages over ye olde box here at work to the fullest - Quad-Core vs. Pentium D - eight times the RAM - four times the disc speed = much, much less waiting. Plus, I don't have to take the (unpaid for) ride to work. Not too bad.