So due to the credit crunch a bunch of once viable lunch options that once existed are now gone (shut down), lowering the quality of food, or scamming you by giving you less food.

There was a pretty nice French place I used to go for lunch quite often. It was 1200 yen (13usd, 8gbp) and you would get a big plate with salad, soup, bread, quiche and some vegetables as a starter followed by another big plate with meat, vegetables, sauce and mash potato. Pretty filling, even for my standards.

One day they announced that they are closing down and not doing lunch anymore. It made me pretty sad because I enjoyed the food and it was reasonably priced.

However, one week later they re-open and now lunch is 1050 yen (11usd, 7gbp) and all you get is one plate with salad (taking half the plate) soup, some meat and some random piece. The amount of food you get now works out to literally half of what you were getting before but the price hardly changed. Those motherfuckers think they are smart …

We normally go to non-Japanese restaurants for lunch, but since we are out of options me and a colleague decided to go exploring for a week and try Japanese places only.

I am definitely going back to this place again

Before

After

And in other news, I had an interview for a bank job last week. I passed the first interview with the developers proving that I am indeed capable enough of working for the company. Now I have to pass the interview with the two main managers this week.

I actually interviewed with this company 2 years ago. The developers loved me but I failed at the interview with the main manager. Hopefully history doesn’t repeat itself. Anybody got tips on how to kiss ass in interviews? I assume not doing it well enough is what got me rejected last time…

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Email from work I recieved yesterday.

Subject: A little bit of advice…

Prometheus,

Although I hate to be the one to pick on you or the one to be bossy, I’d like to
play the “sempai” = senior card here. Please read the following as constructive
criticism. This is meant to be advice, which hopefully will help you to get by
in this company.

I believe 103 is pretty laid back and we’re getting along cool. That’s great,
but this only works because we all understand that this is a workplace, and we
should maintain a certain level of discipline. Now this is not something we
drill into each other, but yet I believe it is a rule that we naturally abide
by.

Recently, I’m getting the feeling that this professional awareness is becoming a
bit weak with you (it’s quite obvious when you fall asleep during work, or
you’re chatting via Skype or MSN Messenger, or checking your Keitai  = cell e-mail, or
checking your Facebook account or  whatever other pages you may be checking
out). Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for a certain amount of leeway and we all do
some of the above at some point during the day. That’s fine and cool, but it
must remain a secondary if not tertiary priority, which I can’t help feeling is
not true in your case recently (not that I have proof for that, but I think
giving that impression to your surroundings is enough of a reason to think about
it).

You’re a cool guy and I hate to be the one to yell, but I think it kind of looks
bad on you if you keep going with this attitude. The scary thing about this
company is that people are too nice to say anything, but they do take notice and
it does have an impact on your reputation as a workforce. And I don’t want you
to fall into that reputation.

So here are some ideas (my 2 cents if you will):

- Try to reduce the time spent on chatting and private webbrowsing. If you have
too much time, try to find something useful to do. I’m sure you can think of
something. If you absolutely can’t find anything, let me know, maybe I can help
you out.

- Try to keep an eye on what’s going on with the clients, what they are asking
for in the e-mails, how we are going by it etc. (Like John Doe’s case at Company X.
We’re talking about it in the office, but no one will come to you and give you
an extra report. Now let’s say The CEO comes in, and asks you about Company X’s status. How
cool would it look if you could recap the whole thing? …and how bad if you
have no idea?)

- Focus on the topic when others are talking about relevant issues you should
take part in. Don’t address your chat window or keitai=cell phone when people are talking
to you.

- Try to be a more active communicator.
If you get tasks to do from others and it spans across days or weeks, let them
know once in a while how far you got and what you’re up to (remember 104? They
didn’t know if you were still working on their requests and stuff…). Update
your teammates so they know where things are at. Check with them if anything is
unclear.
If the task you are working on is complex, confirm that you understand what you
are being asked to do (as opposed to just a simple “Yeah” followed by silence
until you’re done). Nothing is more comforting than knowing that someone you’re
asking understands your request.

Also, especially this month, you are doing the daily processes. Ask yourself:

- If Mr X and Mr Y were gone, would you be able to run the CD cut with full
confidence? Check the spots you don’t feel 100% comfortable with and check with
the guys. Your goal should be to be able to run all daily tasks and CD cuts, and
be able to take full responsibility for your output. Given your position (one of
the people running cuts and dailies), in an emergency situation you may be on
your own, and then people must be able to trust in your output.

- If The Ceo came in and wanted a recap of todays issue with the CAFs, would you be
able to explain everything? To be honest, I missed some of the things that were
going on this morning myself, since I was busy with other tasks. So what I
did is ask the guys what was going on. You know, just to have an understanding
of the issue. Afterall, you never know when that knowledge becomes important. It
was a bit disappointing to see you sleeping while we were talking (and I wasn’t
the only one to notice…). Try to be aware of what’s going on, especially if it
is something that involves your scope of work (PRICES are part of the database
you are creating today!)

OK, that was a lot of “yelling” which again I’d like to emphasize is meant as
constructive criticism. All of what I wrote is based on what I can perceive from
my desk or when I wander around in the office (I’m not spying on you, it’s just
noticeable). Some of the things I pointed out about you may not apply 100%, or
it may be things that you are already aware of. But I decided to write based on
the impression I get from you, since this may be the impression others may be
perceiving too.

I’m not telling you to be perfect. But you may want to show a bit more proactive
participation. This is me trying to nudge you into the right direction (”right”
as in “the way that is probably expected from you in this office”), before you
get hit by a harder wave in form of a CEO or other influential people around
here. No one knows I’m sending this to you. If this were Mission Impossible,
you’d be now hearing a voice saying “This message will self destruct in 5
seconds.”

Hopefully my message is coming across.
Let me know if I can be of help.

Best,
My T

Meh, it is pretty hard to put any effort in or try hard when the work you do is boring and soul crushing. So thoughts? My tank is on empty lol, not sure if I have the energy or desire to change..

Quit or wait for the sack?

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Woah, that was close. It completely slipped my mind. My memory must be getting hazy in my old age.

I woke up early with plans to knock out a few episodes of Gossip Girl before going to work. As I sat there I felt a shock go through my body. I like to call it memory shock. You know, when  a surge run through your body and then boom all of a sudden you remember something that you had forgotten.

It is a good thing I remembered when I did. An hour or two later and I would have found myself in a spot of bother. Today is my day. Right after a national holiday as well… The worst thing about it is that I was supposed to do it last week but it got pushed forward one week.

I guess it is just one of the perils of working for a small company.

There are 6 of us in our room. We do a rotation and once a week someone gets to come to work 1 hour early to let the cleaner lady in…

It made me reminisce of my stretch at NEC a few years back and made me start wondering if big company life is better than small..

In a small company you have to become part of an interchangeable unit. If somebody can’t come in you need to be ready to pick up their slack for them. You normally need to go the extra mile, do tasks you don’t really want to do (picking up the phone..), and once in a while go above the line of duty. At a bigger company you only need to worry about covering your own arse and getting your own work done. Screw the company and everybody else ;P

I think the thing I liked best about a big company is your lack of presence. In a small company if you spend too long in the toilet eyebrows start getting raised about where you have disappeared to. You can’t really keep leaving your desk or just start wandering around. Anything and everything you do is more or less under a microscope.

But when I was at NEC I was on some Spiderman shit. Once the folks got rid of the, “OMG there is a black man in the building” syndrome and stopped starring at me all day I was free to run loose through the building. Heck, there were days were you might not see me for like 2 hours straight. But what could they really do? I might have been in a meeting, on another floor or another part of the building carrying out a task.

Another good thing about big companies is that they have extensive resources. I remember the floor I was on had two big toilets with lots of cubicles. The first time I entered one of the cubicles a light bulb appeared above my head.

Since the buildings are so big the cleaners would just leave 5-6 rolls in each cubicle instead of leaving one and coming back every hour. Do you understand why the light bulb went off? Well let’s just say that, “Toilet Roll” did not appear on my shopping receipt for the next 6 months.

So what type of companies are you guys working in? Which do you prefer big or small? Do you have any interesting perceptions of either?

What is your poision? Are you a paper clip theif, a pen pocketer, or like me a toilet roll bandit.  Or are you big time and steal desks, chairs, printers and anything that is not nailed down.

Oh and here is a curve ball that I just thought off. An ethical question.

I go to work and steal 10  1-2 rolls of toilet roll.

Some kid runs into a store and steals a pack of toilet roll of the shelf.

Is there any difference? Is one more ok than the other?

Would be interested on thoughts on that.

Lastly, this link made me laugh a bit:
http://www.itsatarp.com/

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Today is the worst day of my life….

Wait, what is this feeling. The feeling of a moment relived. Like when you see two black cats. I remember now, they call it Déjà vu aka a glitch in the Matrix.

Last week Monday at 9AM I was thinking the exact same thing as I sat at my desk starring into the abyss. I was also thinking the same thing the Monday before that, and the Monday before that also.

It is never ending. It is an infinite cycle. Kind of like a while loop that contains no breakpoint in sight (programmer jargon).

Every Monday is the worst day of my life (does this make sense?)!!!!

Well, ok no more complaining. It is time to fix things.

Question:

Why do I 9-5?

Answer:

To pay the rent…

Hmm, I guess seeing that is the only reason I work all I really need to do is find an alternate means to pay my rent. With my overflowing talents it should be as easy as pie.

So let’s think, what can I do…:

l  Freelance Programming

l  Online Poker

l  Rob and Steal

l  Chef

l  Artist

Ok so lets look at the talents that I listed above.

Programming is self explanatory. It is what I do every day. I guess the only problems would be getting contracts and having the discipline to get stuff done. Starting projects is easy but finishing is pretty hard. The push to get the last 10% done is always pretty intense.

Online Poker is something I don’t talk to many people about. They probably think it is just some reckless gambling like Pachinko or slots. Well it is actually a skill game. And I just so happen to have the skillz to pay the billz.

The main problem is the volatile nature of the game. Because of short term luck, no matter how good you are you will experience patches where you lose a decent chunk of money even though you played well. Losing $500+ in less than 1 hour can, ahem, spoil your day.. I suppose I am immune to losing retarded amounts of money now but it can still be pretty stressful.

Rob and Stealing is something I would only do if my back was against the wall. I think that I would be pretty darn good at it. After all, I did learn from the best:

Cooking is something that I used to like doing, but I haven’t really done much lately. I could do some catering or work as a freelance chef for special occasions. I guess it would be easier to show you my skills rather than explain them with words:

The above dish is called, “Spaghetti with a T”. It was made using high quality spaghetti only found in the mountains of the North Pole. The bolognaise was cooked at a low temperature using the on and off method where you cook for 5 minutes and then leave it to cool for 2. The sauce contains fire tomatoes, garlic, basil and high quality mince meat.

How do you like it? It is to die for right! I am sorry if the picture made your mouth water or made you hungry

With my food presentation skills and vast knowledge of rare cooking ingridients (North Pole spaghetti) finding a gig shouldnt be too hard, right?

Lastly is Art. Oh you never knew I drew? I actually had one of my pieces in a magazine. I was walking though Harajuku a few years back and a magazine editor asked me to draw a piece for the magazine. It was one of my finest hours. 

The theme was, “Draw a childhood cartoon character“. The editor was amazed. She had never seen such a drawing that I showed her

So, thoughts? Am I the next [Insert famous artist] or should I bury my sketchbook and never pick up a paint brush again?

So that is it. Which route would you recommend I take?

I am not too sure. The only thing I do know is. Prometheus is talented, Prometheus is tender… Prometheus is beautiful… Prometheus is a mystery.

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Based on my last blog some of you might be thinking that I killed someone either recently or in the past. Please rest assured that, that is not the case. I was just flexing my creative muscles.

But let us return to the real world (the matrix).

Credit crunch, housing market collapse, bad economy, recession, homelessness, skyrocketing unemployment, the end of the world, armageddon, 666, blah, blah yeah, yeah etc, etc.

Ladies and gentlemen, it might just be the end of the world as we know it.

But screw that topic, lets go back to talking about me :).

So yeah, had a general meeting on Tuesday. Got some bad news. The good ol’ be careful what you wish for.

Lets go back, back in time. It was a stormy night, or was it a sunny day?

We were rounded up like cattle for the slaughter and summoned to the meeting room.

The business isn’t doing well. We are losing revenue. So here is the plan. Three phases. The final phase will result in jobs being lost based on how important you are to the business.

After the meeting we were told phase 1 has already commenced.

The next month (January 2009) got an email saying we are in phase 2.

Phase 2 was apparently room cuts and a few other things but nobody getting fired.
However nobody was actually informed as to the specifics that the declaration of phase 2 would entail.

After sweating for 2 months we were all once again summoned on Tuesday. Basically one person who works off site is getting the chop at the end of this month. In two months time 2 more people will be getting the chop once the CEO is back from a business trip. People who are least important to the company and don’t work hard enough will be prime candidates (and here I am writing blogs instead of doing work LOL).

It was pretty intense because the first hour of the meeting was boring slides. Everybody was falling asleep. Then BANG. He just started talking about firing people and betting the house on a new business model…

Two people were even called out by names stating that their roles have become redundant of late due to the market. So either find new roles and functions or get a pay reduction or even worse the chop.

Harsh times are upon us. It is survival of the fittest. Who will survive? Only time will tell.

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