Life with CG: September 2009 Archives

I know this isn't the "California for Dummies" I promised but I just couldn't resist. (It will come, just not today.)

I've been at DreamWorks for a little over three weeks now, and let's face it, while it's nowhere near as bad as most, it is a corporation. That means you have your little corporate sheep moments here and there. You have your "Kickoff" meetings. You have your "Touch Bases." You have your Microsoft Outlook with your meetings and your calendar and your email and your to-dos all wrapped in that Dilbert inspired wrist-slitting, soul-smothering, oh-God-I-really-do-work-in-a-cubicle-please-euthanize-me user interface. Imagine my inner programmer's unbridled joy when I found out I would be working on a Linux box, probably one of the most stable, un-bloated operating systems in existence. And then imagine my utter dismay when I found out that someone had actually written a Microsoft emulator for Linux so that we could all run Outlook and therefore, "communicate effectively as a team." Let me tell you, it was a long, hard fall with a big rainbow-colored splat at the end.

A common activity between classes (since I have no homework) is to watch my Outlook calendar change before my eyes. The training department is in total control of my class schedule, and apparently in control of very little else, so they'll schedule me for two or three classes a day a week in advance and then randomly shift things around until it makes sense. If I look at my calendar at just the right time of day, I can see the little blue-outlined boxes move up, down, from this day to that, all without any interaction from me. It's like Microsoft TV. I can witness the near future of my life unfolding before my eyes like Windows releases--"OK, this is what we'll do. Oh wait, that's broken, let's do this. No, that's too annoying, let's go back. Wait, no one's coming to that class because it negates everything they learned in the last class--let's just take the last class and make it prettier and bigger and slower." And so on.

One day during my first week here, a class just disappeared from my schedule. Poof! Gone. I wondered if it had moved to another day, so I started searching. Next week? No. The next? Nope, not there either. The next? AHA!--but it was in conflict with a meeting I didn't know I had, enticingly titled "Touch Base (& Cookies!)." What the hell is a "Touch Base (& Cookies!)?" I asked myself. And why am I being bribed with cookies to attend? I envisioned some doe-eyed HR representative with five minutes experience standing at the head of a conference table with a big plate of cookies, wringing her hands with giddy anticipation as her drooling invitees filed in one by one and took their seats. No one knows the topic of the meeting; no one cares. There's cookies! And what's with the training department? Didn't they see that I already had a "Touch Base (& Cookies!)" scheduled? Excuse me BUT THERE'S COOKIES! Have they no shame?

Turns out the training department made a boo boo. When they called to inquire as to why I wasn't present in a class that apparently had not been rescheduled at all, they corrected their mistake and restored my calendar. Relief! My "Touch Base (& Cookies!)" could once again take it's rightful place on the afternoon of September 16 without having to share space with a how-to on production management software.

But the damage to my psyche had been done. As the weeks wore on and my calendar filled up farther and farther into the future, I kept going back to September 16 just to make sure everything was OK. Yep, "Touch Base (& Cookies!)" was still intact. As a matter of fact, while all my classes and kickoffs and cookieless touch bases swarmed my calendar like flies, "Touch Base (& Cookies!)" seemed to be the most stable meeting on my schedule.

The shameless bribe certainly served its purpose--apparently you can sell any product or idea just by giving away cookies. It wasn't long before I no longer needed Outlook to remind me of the "Touch Base (& Cookies!)." "Touch Base (& Cookies!)" was imprinted on my brain like phosphor burn on a thirty-year-old Pac Man screen--September 16, 4pm to 5pm.

I find myself in awe of this deceptively simple crowd-pleasing technique. Just imagine how many of life's little irritations could be made palatable if only cookies were a part of the package:

"ObamaCare (& Cookies!)"

"Saddam Has Weapons of Mass Destruction (& Cookies!)"

"April 15th (& Cookies!)"

"Your Vehicle Warranty is About to Expire (& Cookies!)"

"You Have One Month to Live (& Cookies!)"

"Your Father is Transitioning to a Woman (& Cookies!)"

"BEYONCE HAS THE BEST MUSIC VIDEO OF ALL TIME (& Cookies!)"

The trick is, the cookies have to be REALLY good. And they were. Just don't ask me what the meeting was about because I don't remember.

I've been getting that question a lot lately. I'm writing this at work if that tells you anything. I'm not actually sitting on my blog site typing it all into that nice little window it provides; instead, I'm writing it in my favorite Linux text editor Nedit, or as I like to refer to him, Ned. Ned and I are old friends. We go way back to my grad school days when I ran him on an SGI. We took a seven-year haitus as I moved to Windows (forcibly, at gunpoint) and Mac (willingly), but we're back together again and very happy. Very, very happy.

I'm starting my fourth week at DreamWorks and I'm still in training. This is not a surprise, as they told me I would have four weeks of training when they hired me. I sort of envisioned this full-day-of-classes-type schedule where I would be sitting in front of a computer while someone at the white board told me what to do and why I was doing it, and then gave me homework to fill the remainder of the day. Well... that's close. What's actually happening is that I'm spending anywhere from two to four hours a day in front of a computer while someone at the white board tells me how to use tools that I don't yet know why I'm using because I don't really know what my job is. And most of these classes have no homework, so it's mainly a laundry list of "here's what it does" and then "thanks for coming, bye." No practical application as of yet. I'm holding out hope though.

Ten hour days are mandatory here, so you get ten hours a week of guaranteed time-and-a-half overtime, which you need because they've used that to justify their very low hourly rate for TAs (technical assistants). So that leaves anywhere from six to eight hours of complete and utter boredom per day. I've written emails, I've stalked old boyfriends on Facebook (one of which is about sick of it I'm sure), I've watched training videos, I've even taken one shell scripting tutorial and tried to rewrite it in Python. But I stopped short of completing it because I haven't made it far enough in my Python classes yet to figure out how to finish it off. Maybe tomorrow after Studio Python I. Or maybe Thursday after II. Who knows.

The good news is, this is the week they start the film-specific training. That means I get to learn exactly the what and how of the tools we'll be using for the movie I'm going to be working on. I'm in the lighting department which is at the end of the pipeline, meaning we have the most responsibility and the power to render nearly-finished frames. As a department, we set the mood of the film. That's an awesome job. One that scares the crap out of me.

I still don't really know what a Lighting TA does around here. If I did, the classes I've been taking would make a hell of a lot more sense.

So while my inner overachiever is completely under-stimulated, I've been enjoying the amenities to their fullest potential. Well, except for the free breakfast. I've tried, really I have, but I just don't do mornings. And most days the breakfast isn't anything to write home about--donuts, bagels, fruit--I can get that after a night at the local Comfort Inn. But Wednesdays are IHOP days around here. That's when they cook eggs, waffles, bacon, etc. I live for Wednesdays. And yet I've only made it to one Wednesday breakfast before they shut down the entree line.

It was good too.

Most of the time I'll come in a little after 9, and there might be a bagel or a cake donut left. But usually I'll head over to the toaster and toss in an English muffin or some raisin bread, butter it Paula Deen style, grab a Coke and take it up to my desk. So I actually have been eating breakfast. This is a new thing for me. And here's the weird thing: I'm dropping the pounds like mad. For years now, drinking Coke has been a rare treat. Most of the time I just lived on Evian because I was avoiding caffeine. Then while I was still in Texas I discovered Mexican Coke (mmmm real sugar) so I started drinking them a little more but not much. Then I got here and found free Coke everywhere. There's a fountain in the cafeteria and a fountain in every break room on every floor. I caved.

Apparently the caffeine is killing my appetite to the point that I just don't eat as much as I used to. And I don't really snack between meals either. Plus, I get home so late at night I don't really want to cook so I just nibble on whatever I can find and then go work on the web site. I haven't actually cooked dinner in about three weeks. They warned me when I got here about the "DreamWorks 15" because of the free breakfast and lunch. It seems to be working in reverse for me.

My weight loss actually started when I moved, the result of sheer panic. I dropped two pounds the day the movers told me what day they were showing up. I leveled off for a few weeks after that but then about a month ago, about the time I got here and started going outside, it started dropping again. My jeans are falling off. I'm not really complaining because I've been wanting to see 135 again for about five years... the problem is, I don't have smaller jeans to replace them with, and no time to go get them. Not yet anyway. However, I just went downstairs to the Bake Off and sampled everything up for a vote. That should buy me another couple of days before I run into the Old Navy wearing the last thing that still stays on, which would be my underwear.

And that's another thing. They do stuff here. They're having a bake off downstairs in the cafeteria as I write this. I sampled caramel corn with bacon (that was so out of context I have yet to form a complete opinion on it), toffee with chocolate and saltine crackers (not so good), a nice chocolate cupcake, much better toffee with chocolate and yes, another Coke. They're also having a talent show here on October 1. I have no talent that can be exhibited on stage; however, I suggested to my cube-mate David that maybe next year we should get three people together, dress as Muppets and do "Manah-manah." He laughed, but deep down I think he only shares my sense of humor to the point that he'd like to see someone else do it.

About a week ago, someone transferred to the Glendale office. We gave them a nice champagne send-off in the middle of the afternoon. Then last Friday night, someone brought me a Mike's Hard Lemonade out of the blue. Do I like it here? Yeah, I do. I like it here.

We work in a building that shares property with a bunch of other companys' buildings. And in the center of it all is a gym. A free gym. A very nice gym with a large pool. I went to sign up a few weeks ago and they said I'd get an email--I haven't yet. I need to go over there. But it may be a moot point because I'm getting a bike next week and I'd almost rather go out on the trail around the bay than spend yet another hour at work (or near it) at the gym. I'm already here so much, the bike will be a treat, whereas the gym will be more like, "Damn, can't I go home yet?" Yeah, I think that's how that will turn out. It's nice to have the option though. Some of their ellipticals have TVs attached where you can set your own channel. As long as those are working, this will always be an option for me. Perhaps on a rainy day.

A rainy day is something you don't see here in the summer, or so I've been told. We actually had one yesterday. It was nice. But today the sun is back out, it's 70-something degrees, windy, and I took what has become a ritual walk to the water on my lunch hour. We're right on the bay here, and the paved paths that run through the property are also public access. So every day I spend about 15 minutes eating and another 15 walking down to the water, staring at it for a bit, and then walking back. I've been landlocked my entire life. I don't get tired of the water. Unfortunately for the last four days I've had 1pm classes that made it impossible to take my walk, but today I decided dammit I'm going down to the water if I have to run down there and run back. I walked fast, stood there for a minute and then walked fast back. It was worth it.

My need to go outside comes from years of living in Texas with mosquitoes, fire ants and heat, but it's heightened by the fact that I now work in almost total darkness. The lighting department is very dependent on color calibrated monitors and a lack of glare; therefore, the overhead lights are never on, the windows are covered and you get one desk lamp to aim at your respective cube wall. On my first day I got my desk lamp. Ironically, I needed a flashlight to see where to plug it in. Now I'm sort of used to it; I don't feel like I can see a computer screen anymore with the lights on. With my eyes already causing me some age-related problems lately, that's a bad sign.

And by the way, there are not only NO fire ants here, there are NO mosquitoes, NO waterbugs and very few spiders. I've seen three silverfish in my apartment and one brown spider in the month I've lived there. That's about as bad as it gets.

I like that work doesn't start until 9 here. Of course that means I don't leave before 7:30 every night, but the commute by then is about 15 minutes back to the apartment. Even in the morning it doesn't take me more than 20 minutes to get here. What I'm fighting with is the same thing I've fought my entire life, and that is actually going to bed at night. Night is when I wake up. And now that I'm working when I get home, I'm that much more awake when I should be going to bed. Saturday night I worked until 3am, which meant I slept until 1pm on Sunday. That was the end of any illusion I may have had of a normal schedule. I went to bed again last night at 3, probably didn't actually sleep until 4 and then the alarm went off at 8. That was physically painful. Hence the breakfast issue on Wednesdays. Painful.

Some things never change.

Well, back to work (or lack thereof). Stay tuned for an entry I've been planning for some time entitled, "California for Dummies."