Being productive

I have a new job, and not enough work, so I guess it's time to start blogging again.  I can't say much about what my work is and any issues that are directly related due to fun secrecy and professional conduct agreements, but I can blog about the indirect things.

Basically the short version for those who don't know is I recently started a high flying job in a corporate environment, which is obviously fairly different to the theatre world

Things like how, I find it really really difficult to sit at a desk at work for 8h a day.  Don't get me wrong, I might do that at home playing games, watching tv or just sitting on twitter, being far less productive than any work day, but it's the sedentary part of working at this job that I'm struggling with.  Sitting at a desk, in front of a PC and on a telephone for 8h.  For the last 7/8 years, the kind of work I've been doing I might have been able to sit down, it might have required heavy use of IT systems, but there was never really just sitting there.  There was always something to check in elsewhere in a venue, someone to help with a costume, a cast member with a question, clearance to obtain, a 5 minute call to give, a standby for a cue.  When oping a show I might get the chance to sit down for it, but it's not just staring at a screen, it's a constant adjustment process.

The other problem is it's been a long time since the kind of work I've done has been 'work on x until complete'.  By which I mean, most theatre work comes in lots of little discrete chunks.  Help someone with a costume, prepare props, give calls, standby for cue.  Even the larger chunks break down into relatively small pieces.  It might take a good few hours to hang a piece of set off a fly bar, but that's broken down into things like rearrange set store/workshop for clear access, clear stage, bring set piece in, install fly hardware, clear stage, bring fly bar in, attach fly lines, take bar half out, load bar, walk set piece up the stage till it's upright, check bar loading, fly bar fully out, fly bar in, check alignment etc.  Even problems break down into little chunks.  The job I'm currently doing, chunks break down into: 'test system', which i could further break down into -> 'plan systems testing '-> do background reading -> read specific report.  Except that specific report is often hundreds of pages long.  And not easily locatable, and then requires a data access permission I don't have and need to request and wait until someone else approves it.

I'm the least experienced person in my team at my new job.  Which isn't a problem per se, but coming from a background which involves EVERYONE being very in control of their workload.  I always considered tech crew, whether theatre, film, events, whatever, somewhat similar to a military squad.  Experience and technical expertise will be taken into consideration, but you rely on everyone else on the team knowing more or less what needs doing, and how to do it, on picking up the next piece of work and getting on with it without needing to ask first, and being capable of doing that work to a high level without needing checking.  If you ask someone to rig a light, you more or less expect it to be done right, clamps tightened enough, safety chains, accessories installed as per the plan, and plugged up to the right channel/circuit. By and large, you don't have time to review and check everyone's work, you expect them to be able to do it, and get on with it, and move on to the next thing, they don't need to ask everytime they finish rigging a light, they just move onto the next one on the plan, and once that bar's done, you move on to the next bar, etc.  Events, film, tv, theatre, they all rely on having a skilled team of people who know what to do, how to do it, when to do it, and they all just get on with it relatively autonomously

I'm currently in a position where it's not easy to move around between the various tasks that make up the whole 'job'.  If I'm waiting on someone to give me access to a file, there's not a lot else I can be getting on with.  I don't know enough to know how or where to pick up other bits of work that other people might not have started on, and most work we havent started on in because we CANT.  As a team we're waiting on other people in other divisions etc.  It's like knowing a set piece needs to be rigged and flown, but the piece not having arrived at the venue yet.  Aside from the occasional chase, there's not a lot you can do.  And coming from a place where even if I've been just general crew, you have to be very in control and keep a good awareness of how everything fits into the big picture, which due to my lack of experience in my new role, is something I simply don't have the capability or understanding of yet.  I know it's by and large jsut new job teething problems, I know this kind of stuff will get better, or I'll get used to it, but for now it's making the transition for me, on a mental level, very difficult.  It's more or less the complete opposite of what I'm used to so na

Also, the last time I was working a corporate job, I had a boyfriend to email pointlessly during the day, keeping me occupied, helping boost my motivation and mood throughout the day, and generally making it look like I was doing work when I wasn't.

No such luck this time around...

Though as a boon, the graduate intake are back from college and in the office this week so there's lots of cute boys to check out.  Less cute girls unfortuantely.  But that might be because it's hard to rock a pant suit unless you're Hillary Clinton.  Still, cute boys in suits (alas sitting at the other end of the office to me, but the coffee machine is that way so...).

One (singular sensation...)

So.. Let's talk about the Xbox One.

There's all kinds of rants going on about the features announced about the Xbox One, so I figured the crowd isn't exactly going to get any louder in relative terms if I add my voice into the mix.

I'm actually a supporter of a lot of the things most people are bitching about.  And yes, I'll start by admitting I was never going to be a potential PS4 buyer.  I like Halo too much :P

The Xbox One is supposed to be part of the 'next-generation' of consoles.  It's a successor that builds on an established franchise, yes, but the entire point of the new consoles, especially with regards to the PS4 and Xbox One, is that they are supposed to be the flagships in what will be the next generation of consoles.  When you step up a generation, the point is that there's generally a leap, it's supposed to take a new approach and inevitably people gripe about it because we don't like change.  Remember the change from keypad mobiles to touchscreen keypads?  The sudden change (or even lack of) haptic feedback took a LOT of getting used to for a lot of us.

Microsoft has tried (and arguably failed) the 'next generation' trick recently, with Windows 8.  I admire them for what they set out to do: recognizing that we are moving into a world of tablets and touchscreens, the way we interact with a UI is evolving, at a seemingly increasingly rapid rate as technology grows in leaps and bounds and the commercial processes for putting that once-futuristic technology into every aspect of our life equally grows in great strides.  So they got rid of the Start button, a mainstay of Windows for decades.  Everyone knows, that everything, sooner or later, can be found from the Start menu.  And that was the problem.  When they removed the Start button, no-one had any idea how to access things that weren't already there on the screen in Windows 8.  How do I change the settings, how do I change the layout, the background, what if I want to  run a program I don't use very often, how do I bring up the system specs etc. Windows 8 has a lot of issues, but to me, that was the biggest issue with the Start function.  Not that they got rid of it, but that Windows as a UI had been built around the Start button for so long, it wasn't obvious to anyone how to use a version that did away with it, and people are generally pretty impatient in terms of how long they're willing to persevere with non-intuitive technology.  Removing the Start button was supposed to signify a total rethink about how users interacted with the Windows system and the technology it drives.  It failed, but I admire the idea behind it.

That's kind of where I stand on the Xbox One.  I think what the Xbox One is trying to do is exactly what should be expected of a next generation console.  Think of the 'futuristic' media and entertainment technology  we're all familiar with from every 80's sci-fi movie.  And even more recent stuff like Minority Report or <...>.  It shows a world that is completely connected, in every way.  The media we have on our computers connects with our TV, connects with our phone, connects with us out and about.  It updates, adapting and adjusting for local weather, traffic, whatever.  We envisaged this as the way technology would work in the future 3 decades ago and more.  And this is very much the end goal technology has looked to over the last few years, driving the smartphone revolution, phablets, the iCloud, Windows Media Center, Skype phones as effective land-lines, you name it.

Well, with that said, how in the hell did you think all this future tech was gonna happen?!
Of course the Xbox One is permanently connected to the internet; of course it requires an input system that relies not just on predetermined button presses, but can learn to read your movements and understand your voice; of course it's designed with the idea it will integrate with your other technology in a way that is so ubiquitous it seems almost invasive to us (though arguably, Apple has been ahead of the curve on this one for years, though equally, it has less hurdles to overcome).  As I said, this is exactly what I think should be expected of a console that is supposed to be indicative of the "next generation" of console technology.  Consoles aren't gaming stations anymore.  They're not glorified DVD players.  They're not something to keep the kids occupied that isn't as expensive as a PC or a Mac.  And we don't expect to be constrained by formats anymore.  Multiplayer gamers want to play with their friends whether they have an Xbox, a Playstation, a Mac, Windows or Linux.  We want the same list of friends and contacts as we have in our email clients, phones, skype lists etc.  With the same ability to separate and divide according to privacy.  It's what we expect more and more out of our technology, but the underlying things that allow that to happen, that drive that, that will give us our hoverboards and our lightsabers and auto-drive cars, we're going to kick up a huge fuss about.

That's not to say I'm oblivious to the shortcomings of the Xbox One.  All that future tech, the ubiquity I mentioned earlier, we ARE a little uncomfortable with all of that.  We don't want people video calling us on toilet walls, or asking us how that pair of crotchless panties is working out for us, or getting fired by a message sent to our home during dinner one evening.  The PRISM scandal is all too topical and indicative of a 1984 society in which our every feeling, thought, and action is monitored, not by the CCTV used to deter crime or obvious designated systems, but by everything's in our daily lives; our chats to grandma over the phone, our weekly shopping & travel habits via rewards cards and credit histories, the social groups we move in - we're simply not comfortable having all this monitored so overtly just yet.

The Xbox One can, and should offer a lot to those who want to (and can) be connected 24/7 - the prospect for evolving gaming worlds could herald a new era of MMORPG developers who I'm sure would be all too happy to find a way to reignite their continually declining revenue streams.  But I fully agree that requiring a connection every 24 hours is going to push people away from it.  There's a strong contingent of people out there who avoid Ubisoft and EA games precisely because they require a constant connection.  And for some people this is simply too onerous a requirement.  My parents have broadband, but they live in the country, it's shitty broadband, it cuts out, it drags like a dog in bad weather, it's never gonna cope with a 24/7 online streaming demands.  They easily could have implemented a system that would have required an online connection only once every 30 days - which seems to be the current market-acceptable time interval for compulsory syncing services - leaving decisions of 24/7 connectivity to game and app developers.  Even streaming services - which by their nature demand a constant connection - are increasingly finding ways to allow "offline streaming" by downloading a TV show or movie at a time.  People still want, and expect, the option to play their games on a rainy day, when they're cut off from the world.  Everyone's internet goes down and we all know it usually takes a good 2 weeks till the company gets it up and running properly again, so 30 days seems adequate.

The Kinect sensor is a mandatory piece of kit for the Xbox One, and again, it arguably needn't be.  You can have the option of it adding a whole range of extra content, and new ways of interacting with the console and all it's media, but why is it necessary?  And there's no backwards compatibility, which is always going to be an issue, and is just dumb on a lot of levels, but then that's going to be a growing problem in the next few years as the internal architecture of computing components, and how technology works at its underlying fundamental levels (as in more underlying and fundamental than the programming language) goes through a complete overhaul.  But I still agree that backwards compatibility is a huge issue at the end of the day.  And then of course there's the US/EU & UK pricing.  Now I fully concede I'm somewhat desensitized to the habit of just changing a $ sign to a £/€ and making a tidy profit on the extra mark-up due to too much US travel, but in an increasingly global world, making an extra $100 or so off people just because they live in Germany simply doesn't fly.  People are monumentally stupid.  But when you actually say "we think you're stupid" to them, angry (consumer) mobs tend to be surprisingly effective at voicing their anger one way or another.

The Xbox One has a lot of problems.  I really like what it's trying to do.  I don't think it will work, and I am counting down the days until Microsoft makes a backtrack on the internet connectivity issue.  It's a shame, but I don't think consumers are willing to accept the 'restrictions' of an Xbox One system just yet.  Not in a "they'll grumble but eventually get used to it" way, I really don't think the market is at that point where it will accept these things as inherent requirements yet.  But then the problem is, isn't an Xbox One without all the things that people are currently throwing up a huge fuss about just an Xbox 360 with some faster processors in it?  Where's the next generation in that?


EDIT:  Penny Arcade's comic today sums this up beautifully: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2013/06/17

By tomorrow morning I'll have this thing beat.

Points for reference.


My mind is currently in a very specific haze where it loses all ability to process any higher level thoughts.  Not because those thoughts are too trying or oppressive or anything, it just loses the ability to do it.  Like trying to do complex tasks when you're drunk for example (though actually, i'm pretty competent at that particular skill).

This haze only comes about in certain circumstances - basically when my brain effectively completely shuts down without warning and reboots itself.  It takes a good few days to get itself back to fully functional each time.  When I'm less crazy, this is usually characterized by my body without warning or indication crashing out for 18 - 36 hours at a time, usually causing me to miss work without notifying them which as you can imagine is all kinds of fun to explain afterwards.

Unfortunately, I'm beyond batshit crazy these days.  Crashing out still forms a part of the circumstances, but this particular instance was also characterized by a 3 hour memory blank in my head.  It's a memory blank that feels very much different to the block of absence of awareness you get from sleep.  I can't remember anything from 3pm - 6pm today.  I appear to have tweeted during that time, so I was obviously awake.  To be honest I can't remember anything until 11.30pm.  But there's a good block of a few hours that definitely does feel like the absence of awareness that happens during sleep I mentioned above.  And my activities I can track using computer logs dry up around 5.30pm, so I'm guessing not long after I crashed out.  I remember being at my friends house at 2.30pm, hence why I've managed to pin down the memory blank down to 3pm - 6pm.

I've managed to work out a few things about my mindset during these hours.  I was clearly going very very crazy inside my head.  The sort of crazy that makes me curl up as tight as possible it hurts so much.  The sort of crazy that leaves me crying, as I have done at several points in the last 4 days.  My ability to deal with reality completely broke down, and when this happens I know what the safest place my mind considers is.  A small, warm, dark place.  The smaller, and more minimalist the space, the better.  So I will curl myself up into a tight ball, pressed up against a wall so hard it hurts my back.  Or under a desk space.  Or bathrooms.  Bathrooms are generally the smallest and least furnished rooms in a house.  Often with no natural light sources especially if you live in a city.  And they have a lock on them.  I can shut the world out and not let anything in I don't want to deal with.   I find the dark comforting too.  Most people don't, but what I don't see, I don't have to accept as part of my reality.  The darkness helps to delineate a firm boundary wherein I define my reality.  The darker the better.  Pitch black so you can't see your hand in front of your face.  And I have exceptionally good night vision so this requires blocking out practically all light that could possibly enter the space.  The place I create for myself is small and defensible.  It has virtually nothing beyond myself in it, and so nothing else that I need to deal with on any level.  Within this space there are no distractions from just me, myself and I, so I can fully devote myself to fighting the monsters that rage inside my head.  Chris could attest to this, he's seen me scramble across the room in fear driving myself into the smallest possible space in a bid to feel safe when my crazy has been in full overdrive.  It terrified the crap out of him.

At least that's how it's supposed to work in theory.  Except the problem is, when I'm that crazy, my ability to comprehend and process reality has become so dysfunctional, that I have to reduce my concept of reality to this artificial, practically non-existent state, so equally, my ability to deal with the thoughts in my head, even then, is still so poor that eventually my head just BSOD's, and I crash out wherever I happen to be,

Which is how I came to find myself, at 11.30pm tonight, on the floor in the corner of my bedroom up against the door, the lights switched off, and the door firmly locked (luckily for occasions like this, my bedroom has a lock on it, so I didn't end up commandeering the bathroom for the entire evening mysteriously), my head in a haze that immediately told me it wasn't working properly, and a distinct feeling that some of the missing time that had passed was not just because I was unconscious.  Given this was a Monday night, I was supposed to be running Exalted, which means that the front door (which my bedroom is right next to) was opened and shut at least 5 or so times, my phone rang, people probably knocked on my door; when I crash, I really crash, and not even the fires of hell will wake me (seriously I've slept through neighbours' houses in the same block being on fire, engines outside with sirens blaring, firemen all over my house checking for damage etc).  I did not notice a thing.

Worst of all in all this, the random memory blanks I'd been having for about 2 months up until 4 weeks ago had pretty much stopped.  It was one of the few improvements in my crazy recently.  Then again, maybe not so improved.

This also took me 1h36 minutes to write.  Writing is HARD when your thought processes simply don't aren't operating.

In Conversation With.... Myself

I'm watching '3 Day Weekend' which is one of those trashy TLA gay releasing movies, and this is the conversation I have with myself about the film's plot:

 This is clearly a movie about people and their sexual hang-ups.  I'm gonna get annoyed aren't I

 My issue isn't so much GET OVER IT PEOPLE (though that too), its more BE FUCKING HONEST ALREADY.  You don't like something, or you're not comfortable with a situation, say so for god's sakes, it's fix SO MANY relationship issues

 See and now, because you waited till your boyfriend was gone to sleep with the other guy, it looks like you're sneaking around and now he's obviously gonna walk in on you both early and throw a hissy and you just shoulda all had a threesome and got it over with.

I should never, ever be allowed to be in any kind of position that requires me to give relationship and/or sex advice to people.  It'd end OH SO BADLY.  Like lawsuit-badly.

EDIT:  Turns out when the guy got back they did actually have a threesome, he then kicked his partner out of bed and stayed fucking the third wheel as revenge sex.  And then they broke up.  Go figure.

Skim Milk Marriage

So I've been reading the transcripts from the recent Prop 8 and DOMA Supreme Court Of The United States hearings that have been happening over the last two days.  I'll highlight other gems in future, but this one particularly stood out:

Counsel for BLAG (i.e. the pro-DOMA side) arguing the merits in the DOMA case: "...No State loses any benefits by recognizing same-sex marriage. Things stay the same. What they don't do is they don't sort of open up an additional class of beneficiaries under their State law for -- that get additional Federal benefits. But things stay the same..."

Justice Ginsburg: "They're not -- they're not a question of additional benefits. I mean, they touch every aspect of life. Your partner is sick. Social Security. I mean, it's pervasive. It's not as though, well, there's this little Federal sphere and it's only a tax question. It's -- it's -- as Justice Kennedy said, 1100 statutes, and it affects every area of life. And so he was really diminishing what the State has said is marriage. You're saying, no, State said two kinds of marriage; the full marriage, and then this sort of skim milk marriage."


YES.  Justice Ginsburg TOTALLY gets it.  It's not asking to be granted additional benefits, it's asking for recognition of equal rights and benefits already existent.

Murdering Sleep

A twitter rant I posted the other night regarding my sleep...

You know what I hate most about being tired?  This whole getting-to-sleep thing.  It's supremely time consuming and I'm crap at it :(
Unless I'm pass out style drunk it takes me at least 2 - 3 hours to get to sleep.  Every single night.  Since I was 12.
It doesn't matter where I am, how tired I am, what time it is, what side I sleep on, I close my eyes and my brain just doesn't turn off.
I've tried music, reading, meditation, breathing techniques, counting sheep, none of it works.
Hell even sleeping pills don't seem to work on me properly half the time.
I know other people have problems sleeping, but 2 -  3 hours just to get to sleep every night for 14+ years?
It feels like everyone else learnt this ability and I somehow just missed it.
Like how I don't walk right.  Somehow it just came out wrong in me and it's too late to really do anything about it now.
I don't understand how everyone else can sleep so easily and sometimes I want to practically cry about that it's so bad.
I just want to be able to sleep properly.  One night every 2 weeks even.
At least then maybe I wouldn't feel going to bed was such a battle.  That at least once every 14 days I could sleep right.
And I'd have that to look forward to.  But somehow, I'm broken.  Again.

Monday night/daytime I actually slept about 12 hours, including a solid period of 8 uninterrupted hours.  This is the first time I've done this in over a month.  |In fact over the last month I've been averaging less than 3 hours sleep a night and the most I'd had in one 24h period was 5 hours.  Of course the 12 hours were completely full of bad dreams but at least some kind of proper sleep was something.  And then naturally Tuesday night I was wide awake at 5am and unable to sleep again.

And yes, I've been to the doctors, I've told them about this, I've told them I work with high voltage electricity and a month's severe sleep deprivation (relatively speaking by my standards, technically I'm probably always sleep deprived given how bad/absent my 'normal' sleep patterns are) is having noticeable effects on my ability to do things, reaction times, thought processes etc.  They refused to do anything about it.  Well technically they told me to come back in 2 weeks (this already being 2 weeks since I first went to them with the problem).  So I went to book an appointment.  The doctor has no appointments before 4pm for the whole of April.  I start work at 4.30pm each day.  I love the NHS, but I really hate my healthcare at times, it's a constant battle against the multitude of ways in which I try to seek some actual help.  And people wonder why I hate going to the doctors.

Towels

The last time I wrote this many blog posts in one night you all panicked.  Guess it shows there's something in me trying to come out I guess.  Can't promise it will be good.  Or pretty.  Or come out on my blog first rather some more physical method.