"There's an island I had visited briefly once ten years ago in the Whitsundays, at the southern end of the reef. It was a pretty dreadful place, called Hayman Island. The island itself was beautiful, but the resort that been built on it was not, and I had ended up there by mistake, exhausted, at the end of an author tour. I hated it. The brochure was splattered with words like "international" and "superb" and "sophisticated," and what this meant was that they had Muzak pumped out of the plam trees and themed fancy-dress parties every night. By day I would sit at a table by the pool getting slowly sozzled on Tequila Sunrises and listening to the conversations at nearby tables which seemed mostly to be about road accidents involving heavy-goods vehicles. In the evening I would retire woozily to my room in order to avoid the sight of maddened drunk Australians rampaging through the night in grass skirts or cowboy hats or whatever the theme of the evening was, while I watched Mad Max movies on the hotel video. These also featured a lot of road accidents, several of which involved heavy-goods vehicles. I couldn't even find anything to read. The hotel shop had only two decent books, and I'd written both of them."

--Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt

Labels: books, douglas adams

( 0comments )

Hold on to your credit cards. According to a past post (which you can read here), I named names at a Games Workshop in Glendale, California. I basically documented the abuses that my husband (and fellow employees, not to mention female clientele) have to endure.

So here's the latest update in chronological order:

1. Shawn, the cell manager guy who quit Games Workshop in Glendale and then told Shad (the district manager who enjoys bullying timid employees and ignoring the employees he knows would stand up to him) all the nasty things the employees said about Shad (sucker DM) behind his back, called B last Tuesday. Shawn claimed he couldn't get a hold of our number until then, because every time he called the store, Jimmy (the manager of Games Workshop in Glendale) and Shad (stupid DM) would answer the phone and refuse to disclose B's number.


2. Shawn proceeded to explain the circumstances under which he left: when he put his two weeks notice in, Shad was going to take over the store, and Shawn knew that if Shad took over, there was a high probability that all of the employees would blanketedly quit, and that would kill the store (at least for a little while). Shawn was trying to make the transition of management an easy process and attempted to convince Shad (bully DM) not to manage the store. But bull-headed as Shad (really thick-headed DM) is, he wouldn't listen, so Shawn was forced to disclose the complaints the employees had about him in order to convince him otherwise.


3. Once Shad (moron DM) realized how much he is not respected at Games Workshop in Glendale, but rather is dealt with as a playground bully is dealt with: either ignored (by the same employees who don't like him) or feared (by the employees who are timid by nature), Shawn (the guy quitting) asked what was going to happen to B, because Shawn, again, told Shad (stupid DM) that he brought B to Games Workshop in Glendale in order to train him to be a manager.


4. That's when Shad (really ugly DM) told Shawn, "B's just not management material. He's not a corporate guy." And that's why another Games Workshop employee informed B that he no longer had a chance at being a manager because Shad (bigot DM) didn't like him. Shawn passed that information on, hoping it would be passed to B.


5. So B goes into work later that same afternoon after his conversation with Shawn, and Jimmy (current manager) asks B why he has a chip on his shoulder and if he wants to talk about it. So Brad does. He tells Jimmy exactly what went down, and Jimmy was like, "I'm sorry Shawn lied to you but like I told you, no one in the company knew you were moved here to be trained as a--" but luckily B interrupted that nonsense and set the record straight. "No. Shad did know because (insert anonymous GW employees here) told him." In fact, I remember one time when the employees were doing something, maybe running an Intro Game, and Shad (ass DM) asked why they were running it that way and they replied, "Because Brad suggested we do it that way since it worked in Northridge." And Shad (big fuckin' asshole DM) said, "Who said you do what B says?" And the employees replied, "Shawn did. He said to listen to B and do what he says because it's as good as Shawn telling us himself. B's here to be trained as the new store manager." And that's when Shad (shitface DM) said, "Oh really?! We'll see about that!" --Now, I will interject here that perhaps all these lies were fed to Jimmy (i.e. that no one knew B was there to be trained as a manager), but then how did Jimmy know to approach B about it in the first place 2 weeks ago? But anyway, maybe it's true that Jimmy didn't know why B was at Games Workshop in Glendale, other than he was just another peon employee. So it's not entirely Jimmy's fault, but I will, also, interject that Jimmy is still an ass in his own way.


6. So to Jimmy's credit, he listens to B and says, "Well, do you think you're going to be able to move past all this and like your job again?" Hmmm... B has gone to 3 (that's right, 3 interviews so far, so I'm going to take a wild guess and say....) "No. I don't think I can do that." So Jimmy responds, "Well, you know that will eventually only leave us with two options. You know what those two options are, right?" Oh yeah, B knows. "I'll quit right now if you want me to." Heh. "Oh, that's not necessary," Jimmy is quick to get on B's good side because they had a giant grand re-opening weekend this last Saturday & Sunday.


7. B put his two weeks notice in. That was exactly one week ago. But I haven't gotten to the good part yet!


8. There was a little bit of panic down at Games Workshop in Glendale on Sunday. Turns out there has been some chatter regarding complaints about the customer base and the ogling of women. Heh. Turns out my friend Des read my journal and told his sales rep in Michigan and that information trickled all the way back to Glendale. It was so freakin' awesome. Jimmy took everyone aside for a meeting and was like, "You guys have to watch what you say around here. There have been some complaints about what you guys have been saying about the customers--" COUGH, it was Jimmy's comments, but whatever--"Yeah, and you guys can't make any more comments about the women in the store." And B's like, "I never made those kind of comments to begin with." And Jimmy was like, "Oh. Yeah. Well. You're happily married." Hahahahaha. Please recall the entry where I chronicle what Jimmy says about wanting to fuck the women walking by and cheating on his wife here ).


9. The shady raffle competition, where a customer was literally ripped off (read all about it in my comments below) is under investigation. Hahahahahahaha! Jimmy is an ass! Jimmy is an ass!

All this courtesy of your local Nerdslut.

Labels: real life, work

( 3comments )

at August 30, 2005 8:29 PM  Lorie said...

I don't see the raffle rip-off story in your other post. You can't just taunt us with juicy gossip like that and then not deliver!

(Or if I just can't read, ignore all that and kindly point out where it is in the post.)

 

at August 30, 2005 11:21 PM  Samantha said...

Oooh, you know, you're right. It's not in that post. But here's the juicy gossip:

So people who bought a Wood Elf army box (it's the new/revised army that just came out) could choose to enter a raffle in order to win back their money. Because let's face it, Games Workshop crap don't come cheap. It was about a hundred bucks.

So, if you bought the wood elf army box, you could enter a raffle to win your money back. Well... This guy, Chris, a regular, buys the army box because Brad told him, "The raffle is in a couple days, and well, if no one else enters then it's basically a default you know?" So Chris pays full price for it, mostly because the chances are very slim that anyone else is going to enter.

However, one of the employee's girlfriends, uses the employee discount to buy the box and enters the raffle as well. Well, that's not really fair to start with anyway... but whatever. So the day of the raffle, Jimmy says, "I don't like Chris. I don't want him to win the raffle. So, congratulations (insert anonymous GW employee herer), your girlfriend just won."

The worst part about this situation is that Jimmy makes sure to tell the employees that they're not allowed to reveal how the raffle was determined to anyone, and that they are to just make like the raffle actually did go off.

But we all know that ain't gonna happen when one of the employees is married. Especially when one of the employees is married to a Nerdslut out to seek justice.

And so I passed that information on as well, in addition to everything that was originally posted.

 

at August 31, 2005 9:31 PM  Alex_Knight said...

Well, I had to do my civic duty and point this out as it was well... crap.
I told my friend Greg (Games dept. manager at work.) about this and he okayed me telling the rep when I placed the order last Monday. He was surprised I didn't mention the rule of fear and intimidation that Shad uses. I wanted to keep things as anonymous as possible, so I couldn't use too much info that an employee would know.

 

Reality:
This is what it's like looking at my husband's play list.

It's scarier than Jim McDowell and his website. (I just don't get it--the website, and Brad's music, as for Jim himself, I don't know him.)

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at August 24, 2005 11:11 AM  Anonymous said...

Hey now! In 200 years the Dirty Dancing Soundtrack will be like the Mozart of the 21st century. Or something.

-B

 

I have a problem. And it's not as simple as Lactose Intolerance. I am like two people, and they're killing each other. One of my personalities is a veritable social butterfly: very outgoing and vibrant and bubbly, the other personality is an insanely introverted homebody who hates leaving the comfort of her home.

I just went through Orientation for the Writing Program in order to be an Assistant Lecturer at USC, and I feel like I truly lucked out because the other members of my orientation group are really spectacular in that they're all genuinely nice, friendly and they're interesting to boot. (Where did that expression come from, by the way? "To boot!" Canada is the easy answer.)

I was invited to go along to something called Grad Bar, which was like a specialized meat market for graduate students. Three of the single members of my group went and found out it was more like clubbing with intellectuals (we all thought it was going to be casual, like a dive bar where people talk and mingle). But I didn't go, my reasons being four-fold: 1) I'm married and my husband wouldn't have been able to go with me because he was working and working at Games Workshop is tiring enough 2) I'm married and even though my husband would have been totally fine with my going with my three fellow female orientation mates, it still felt wrong 3) I don't really drink and 4) I don't dance.

We had a break between the end of Orientation and our departmental meeting this morning, and when I asked my orientation buddies about the other night at Grad Bar, I felt like I had missed out somehow. Granted, I missed out on an experience I didn't really want anyway, but I still felt like I missed out.

I was invited to go to a potluck tomorrow evening at one of the orientation buddies apartments, and I can't go. I mean, I physically can't go, but even if I couldn't physically go, I wonder if I would have ended up not going anyway.

I have this problem where I am very friendly and outgoing. I genuinely take an interest in getting to know people. But when it starts to go deeper, I shut down. A few of my friends can attest to this, not only because some of them have experienced it, but also because I have had a problem warming up to a married couple--who by all rights I shouldn't have a problem warming up to--but I do anyway. They're perfectly friendly, warm, outgoing, interesting people. But I feel like I have nothing in common with them. I'm not sure if it's because they've pointed out on at least three occasions (that I can remember) that I'm closer in age to their eldest daughter than to either of them. Also, between the two of them, they do have 6 children (only one together). That might have something to do with it.

However, these new people in my life are fellow grad students, in the English Department, one of them is even in Creative Writing (she's incoming poetry, and I'm incoming fiction). Even though it's insanely hard for me to feel close to people, I have no problem sharing histories, like where I'm from or the fact that I was fired for not being pretty enough to answer phones (it's amazing what 6 months away from the situation can do for clarity--I actually think it's funny now). Even though I can share personal stories, I can't seem to share myself.

It's so hard to feel close to anyone.

What I can't help but wonder is: since this is essentially the second time I haven't gone to a social event with these genuinely nice and friendly and interesting people, will I ever get another chance or have I already blown them?

( 3comments )

at August 20, 2005 1:32 AM  Lorie said...

I think it's a bit premature to make any sort of predications about who you will or won't be friends with after you've only been there for a couple of weeks, if that. I'm sure there will be many other times when a group of people go out somewhere or have a potluck, especially since your program so far has seemed really good about creating a support network for grad students. I think social occasions will flow well from that.

And what's with the links to random things like flower arrangements and lactose intolerance? Is that supposed to give you higher Google rankings or better Adsense or something?

 

at August 20, 2005 12:49 PM  Samantha said...

I like my random links. :P

 

at August 20, 2005 9:30 PM  Lorie said...

I don't actually have a problem with them. They always just throw me for a second when I come across them.

 

Brad as GW Model
Originally uploaded by sexyphlegm.

My husband used to be 6'3" tall and 239 pounds. He had a deep and beautiful laugh, the kind of laugh where he laughed with his whole body. He was a good-natured fellow: he enjoyed kittens, held babies like bombs, and an easy-going demeanor. He was a huge hulk of a man with tree trunks for legs, and just as sinewy, and a robust voice to match. He was probably a lumberjack in a previous life.

But the evil corporation Games Workshop mercilessly kidnaps him for 37.5 hours a week, shrinks him down to size, so they may torture him however they seem fit.

He is forced to do manual and domestic labor (like moving heavy boxes, setting up battle scenes and dusting) under humiliating circumstances (like dusting places that have no dust).

But the most egregious act that Games Workshop has committed so far has been to screw Brad over for every possible promotion.

There was a guy called Sean who used to the district manager for Games Workshop in the L.A. area. He's the one who hired Brad in January with the intention to make him a Manager-In-Training (MIT) as soon as possible. The store with which Brad was first employed had not had a manager in about 7 months, and so there was the possibility that Brad may take over that location. When Brad joined the team, the store became the highest grossing store in the region, as then was ranked #6 out of hundreds of locations of GW stores around the country. Brad's average price per sale was the highest of his coworkers and he built a Lord of the Rings (GW) community out of nothing.

He was transferred to Glendale 3 months ago, with the promise that he was going to be trained as a manager or as an Assistant Manager to the Glendale location as that store was also without direct management. He has yet to receive a single day of training in that regard.

The man who originally hired Brad recently quit the company without so much as a word to Brad--he didn't have the decency to even tell Brad about his quitting even though he informed Brad's fellow employees. With Sean's departure, there was the vague chance that this would mean that Brad would finally get trained because there were spots to fill: Sean's position as cell manager for L.A. and still a manager in Glendale was needed.

When Brad moved to Glendale, within 2 weeks his per sales average nearly doubled the closest employee (meaning that Brad was earning the store an average of $54.00 per transaction when the nearest coworker was only earning $30.00). He has also managed to start a Lord of the Rings community in the Glendale location as well--again he was able to build this customer support from nothing: his coworkers didn't like the game so they didn't sell it and thus no customers purchased it and so no one played it in the store.

Instead of utilizing Brad's skills, the District Manager, Shad, has seen fit to use his own personal bias against Brad and conveniently overlook him for logical promotion. Instead of training Brad to be a manager, employees were shifted around in the various locations and someone new was brought in to be the manager at Glendale.

According to a reliable source (another Games Workshop manager who is honest and forthcoming with the truth) informed Brad quote, "You probably had a good chance of becoming a manager eventually with Sean around, but Shad just doesn't like you. So I just don't see it ever happening now."

Personal agendas should not play a role in the workplace, but they do, as I found out earlier in the year when I was laid off for not being pretty enough to answer phones (read pretty as: blonde and buxom enough, no seriously). If an employee has demonstrated competence, likeability by all of his co-workers, skill and finesse, there should be no logical reason to not utilize him more thoroughly in the company. However, Shad dislikes Brad for no particular reason, and so Brad is suffering the consequences.

As a side note, Shad is an ass. Shad throws chairs in meetings to try to intimidate employees. He gets in peoples faces and degrades and demeans them. I suspect that he enjoys squashing people’s egos into the ground because it either gives him a hard-on or it fills him with power, and then gives him a hard-on.

Jimmy is the new manager at Glendale Games Workshop. And Jimmy is also an ass. And that's not a personal bias: I heard him make fun of his own customers. He calls the customer base for Games Workshop quote: "Fat, lonely desperate gamers."

Jimmy used to be in the military, but now he looks more like Jabba the Hut, so you'd think maybe he was just making fun of himself (I mean, he was in the military and couldn't get a better job than retail, nobody even wanted him to at least peddle car insurance)?

Unfortunately for Jimmy's wife, Jimmy is married. And whenever relatively attractive females enter the store at Games Workshop in Glendale he makes comments about how he "hasn't cheated on his wife in 2 years, but man that is one fine piece of ass."

In addition to these humiliations that Brad must endure, Games Workshop forces him to do highly skilled labor, for instance networking the cash register to the mainframe of the corporation for only $8.50 an hour when that easily would have cost them $1200 by any other computer consultant. The employees at Glendale Games Workshop barely knows how to even turn on a computer nonetheless setup a network, and even Brad's boss and his boss's boss didn't know how to set up the cash register properly, but because Brad is not entirely brain-dead he did it for them.

Brad accepted this job as a last resort. I was being laid off for an illogical reason (as stated above) and Brad took the first job that was offered. He remained faithful and loyal to the company because he enjoyed what he was doing and he thought that he would be treated fairly. So he worked as hard as he could to do his best and drive in sales for Games Workshop in Northridge and Glendale, but still does not get a single drop of recognition.

I think it's unfair that personal bias plays such a major role in the workplace today. People should be professional enough to realize that they don't necessarily have to like the people with whom they work, as long as those people do their job and do it well and don't actively annoy anyone. (Because we all know Brad doesn't go out of his way to be obnoxious. Brad's just not that kind of person.)

And it is for this reason that I loathe Games Workshop in Glendale and now Games Workshop in general. They treat their employees unfairly and they make fun of their customer base and they sexualize any female presence inside the store--actually that's a lie, they ogle women who merely walk by the store as well.

The management in Glendale, as I have described to you, is hypocritical and mean-spirited. (Is it any surprise, then, that Shad works out of the Games Workshop Glendale location?) So do everyone a favor and if you have to buy Games Workshop merchandise, buy it from a local hobby shop (or if you can find it online--particularly eBay--even better). They need the business more than this company (even though Games Workshop will ultimately get paid anyway). Or if you live in the L.A. area shop at Northridge instead of Glendale.

( 1comments )

at August 16, 2005 2:12 PM  Power_Overwhelming said...

Whores.

 

The Expatriate Achtung! You are 23% brainwashworthy, 27% antitolerant, and 28% blindly patriotic

Congratulations! You are not susceptible to brainwashing, your values and cares extend beyond the borders of your own country, and your Blind Patriotism ("patriotism" for short) does not reach unhealthy levels. In Germany in the 30s, you would've left the country. One bad scenario -- as I hypothetically project you back in time -- is that you just wouldn't have cared one way or the other about Nazism. Maybe politics don't interest you enough. But the fact that you took this test means they probably do. I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt. Did you know that many of the smartest Germans departed prior to the beginning of World War II, because they knew some evil shit was brewing? Brain Drain. Many of them were scientists. It is very possible you could be one of them, depending on your age. Conclusion: Born and raised in Germany in the early 1930's, you would not have been a Nazi.

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 13% on brainwashworthy You scored higher than 47% on antitolerant You scored higher than 51% on patriotic

Link: The Would You Have Been a Nazi Test written by jason_bateman on Ok Cupid

( 0comments )

The job ad reads as follows:

GC and GC/MS Chemist - Air Analysis

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reply to: canaya@simi.caslab.com
Date: 2005-07-08, 6:42PM PDT


Columbia Analytical Services has an excellent career opportunity at our Simi Valley Air Quality Laboratory.

Duties include but are not limited to: Blah Blah blah.

Minimum of 1 year experience. Yada yada yada.


Equal Opportunity Employer. Women/minorities/disabled/veterans encouraged to apply.
Job location is Simi Valley

Compensation: Competitive



With jobs like these out in the world it's makes me wish I was a Black woman who lost a leg in 'Nam instead of just a regular, run o' the mill poor white chick. I'd send my old persona some funeral flowers and then contently live out the rest of my life with the knowledge that if I ever applied for a job, and didn't get it, I could sue the pants off of any company I chose.

( 0comments )