Bear Down Wildcats

Congrats Merk! Hoping to be 4 or 5 years behind you.

Merkin wrote:Last week put in my official retirement papers, will be out 4/30/2020.

Nice!

What’s the plan? Double up on your BDW posting activity and annoy the shit out of the wife?

Chicat wrote:

Merkin wrote:Last week put in my official retirement papers, will be out 4/30/2020.

Nice!

What’s the plan? Double up on your BDW posting activity and annoy the shit out of the wife?

Hard to double up, and already annoy the wife!

I am an avid garage sale, estate sale and thrift store shopper. Buy collectibles and flip them on eBay. I have already filled up the garage, 2 spare bedrooms, and one side of the outside of my house with bins of crap to flip. Full time job in itself.

Also travel, seeing my daughter and her family in NC end of May when he next baby is due, and just bought 3 day tickets for DisneyLand at the old price for later in the year.

Congratulations Merkin! Smells like Victory! Buy yourself a commemorative Robert Duvall UofA hat.

Very nice Lando and Merk!

Congratulations Merk! Chicat yeah they are horrible. They are making "the client experience better" when really thier cutting overhead and micromanaging. Lots of people are quiting or looking to get out. I got really lucky.

Chi sending you positive vibes hope all works out for the best with work.

Lando05 wrote:Chi sending you positive vibes hope all works out for the best with work.

Thanks brother, I appreciate it. But really I just need to figure out where I can find a position that’s not in sales and pays me the same and won’t make me commute into the city, where they’ll for some reason value my 15 years of media sales experience. In other words, I’m living in a fantasy land...

Merkin wrote:

Chicat wrote:

Merkin wrote:Last week put in my official retirement papers, will be out 4/30/2020.

Nice!

What’s the plan? Double up on your BDW posting activity and annoy the shit out of the wife?

Hard to double up, and already annoy the wife!

I am an avid garage sale, estate sale and thrift store shopper. Buy collectibles and flip them on eBay. I have already filled up the garage, 2 spare bedrooms, and one side of the outside of my house with bins of crap to flip. Full time job in itself.

Also travel, seeing my daughter and her family in NC end of May when he next baby is due, and just bought 3 day tickets for DisneyLand at the old price for later in the year.

Congrats, Merk! I expect double postings on the Old Houses account on FB (or whatever it’s called). I often flip through the photos when your critiques end up on my timeline.

Lando05 wrote:Congratulations Merk! Chicat yeah they are horrible. They are making "the client experience better" when really thier cutting overhead and micromanaging. Lots of people are quiting or looking to get out. I got really lucky.

That whole thing reminded me of George Clooney in Up In the Air. I think the same consulting firm must be working with universities all over the world. We used to have an amazing wood shop and digital fabrication facility that many people used on a regular basis. Now we have an amazing wood shop and digital fabrication facility that nobody ever uses anymore because of the regulations forced onto us by some new middle-manager safety officer they hired. There is just more and more people being hired to make things worse and worse. And they have nothing to do with the core missions of teaching or doing research. Oh well.

Congrats merkin and lando!

Good luck Chi!

Bear down all!

ByJoveByJingle wrote:

Lando05 wrote:Congratulations Merk! Chicat yeah they are horrible. They are making "the client experience better" when really thier cutting overhead and micromanaging. Lots of people are quiting or looking to get out. I got really lucky.

That whole thing reminded me of George Clooney in Up In the Air. I think the same consulting firm must be working with universities all over the world. We used to have an amazing wood shop and digital fabrication facility that many people used on a regular basis. Now we have an amazing wood shop and digital fabrication facility that nobody ever uses anymore because of the regulations forced onto us by some new middle-manager safety officer they hired. There is just more and more people being hired to make things worse and worse. And they have nothing to do with the core missions of teaching or doing research. Oh well.

This is a great definition of what consulting firms do. They aren't looking out for what's best long term they just want to improve short numbers so the CEOs can max out their salary and retirement package before they have to retire in 10 years. Fuck your loyal employees and customers.

CalStateTempe wrote:How do you trudge on when you hit that realization that your direct boss’s managerial style is old school/top down draconian bullshit and creates more problems than it solves, especially and irretrievably losing your confidence?

Man this person sucks and everyone above them knows it.

We are in thunder dome time...either this gets settled once things get back to quasi normal in a few months or I walk.

The U of A is bracing for the blow of the hard decisions in light of the vanished revenue streams.

What needs to happen is to deflate the bloated administration, which has been choking us. What will happen is staff layoffs and furloughs for everyone, but which will hit the lower salary people the hardest.

I stole my chair from work on Saturday so I could resemble a professional by working from my kitchen table instead of laying on my couch. Also, I ate chocolate chips from the bag during a conference call today while only wearing dirty basketball shorts.

Lol...I video visit with my patients during my day job. Polo on top, hiking pants on the bottom. Loafers, no socks, like euro trash.

Untucked shirt. Oh yeah.

Longhorned wrote:The U of A is bracing for the blow of the hard decisions in light of the vanished revenue streams.

What needs to happen is to deflate the bloated administration, which has been choking us. What will happen is staff layoffs and furloughs for everyone, but which will hit the lower salary people the hardest.

I wonder how this will play out at CAPLA versus the larger University community. I imagine CAPLA will rely to an even greater extent on idiots like me and other suffering local professionals in an adjunct capacity to fill the gaps. But I can’t imagine there is a large local pool of out-of-work historians, or mathematicians or physicists.

Today has been the most fucked up and busy day of my 13 years at this company. Non stop shit storm.

scumdevils86 wrote:Today has been the most fucked up and busy day of my 13 years at this company. Non stop shit storm.

That’s why you make the big bucks Andrew.

Chicat wrote:

scumdevils86 wrote:Today has been the most fucked up and busy day of my 13 years at this company. Non stop shit storm.

That’s why you make the big bucks Andrew.

*Insert POM suicide smiley gif*

I some how managed to accidentally paste, then delete, a stupid picture of my face that was meant for coworkers in teams messaging into a technical ticket in Jira project management. Apparently, it auto uploads anything you paste into a comment even if you delete it from the comment. So our vendor's engineers were treated to a picture of me making a stupid face in a selfie for almost 2 hours before my wife saw it while walking by and I deleted it. Incredible.

I just taught someone I work with that CTRL + V = paste.

FML

TucsonClip wrote:I just taught someone I work with that CTRL + V = paste.

FML

Not quite as bad, but I taught someone how to schedule an event in the calendar in Outlook.

I dictate my boss’s emails...

I had to help someone at an AVP level not too long ago with finding our company's website. It is also incredible how many people that get paid more than me are essentially illiterate.

I had to tell my boss two weeks ago how to find a deleted but not trashed email in her outlook box.

Seriously.

And apparently because of this “I’m good at tech”.

Sung to the intro song for the Donny and Marie Osmond Show:

I’m a little bit furloughed,
I’m a little bit unemployed

That sucks.

Well, I’m just a little bit furloughed so far. Plus my wife is furloughed, so maybe not just a little bit furloughed.

Damn I’m sorry LH.

That blows. Sorry to hear that.

Thanks but I actually kind of like being furloughed if it protects precarious people from having their positions eliminated. We’re all sacrificing to get through this together, but it’s not like loss of income compares to the 14 hour shifts health care workers are devoting to caring for infected patients.

Unemployment.....the pay's not to good but the hours are wonderful.

Damn, sorry to hear it. I hope this shit gets better soon.

Longhorned wrote:Thanks but I actually kind of like being furloughed if it protects precarious people from having their positions eliminated. We’re all sacrificing to get through this together, but it’s not like loss of income compares to the 14 hour shifts health care workers are devoting to caring for infected patients.

Wait, what, without pay?

My wife, an aide at primary school still is getting paid. Non essential people at Cal Poly staying home are still getting paid.

One of my brothers works for Pima County as a data analyst, and is off for 6 weeks. 2 weeks at full pay, 2 weeks at 2/3 pay by the feds, then the last 2 weeks sick time.

One my sister in law works at the UA key shop, but is home, and pretty sure she is getting paid.

Longhorned wrote:Thanks but I actually kind of like being furloughed if it protects precarious people from having their positions eliminated. We’re all sacrificing to get through this together, but it’s not like loss of income compares to the 14 hour shifts health care workers are devoting to caring for infected patients.

LH- So sorry to hear. Don't you teach at UofA? I didn't know any profs got furloughed.

Luckily my wife's job is busier than ever right now at the UofA, so she doesn't seem to be in any jeopardy with my job currently eliminated.

Alieberman wrote:

Longhorned wrote:Thanks but I actually kind of like being furloughed if it protects precarious people from having their positions eliminated. We’re all sacrificing to get through this together, but it’s not like loss of income compares to the 14 hour shifts health care workers are devoting to caring for infected patients.

LH- So sorry to hear. Don't you teach at UofA? I didn't know any profs got furloughed.

Luckily my wife's job is busier than ever right now at the UofA, so she doesn't seem to be in any jeopardy with my job currently eliminated.

Your wife would be in zero jeopardy, but potentially lower-income staff would be if we don't take measures like furloughs to protect their employment. I'm being paid right now and will continue to get paid, but the announcement of furloughs for U of A employees is immanent. The task force is finalizing how the furloughs will work, but they're chiefly going to hit employees making six figures, and they'll soften as they make their way downward from there until they reach a certain point of income that the university will protect from furloughs.

In the recession of 2008 when I was at the University of Illinois and earning about $58,000 a year, I think my furloughs amounted to about $600 per month over several months. In exchange, the university made clear that there were specific days when I should not work. At the same time, they held you accountable for working on those days.

Yes, it's going to be hard. It's hitting families where one parent has already been laid off elsewhere. And families where both parents are U of A employees who are both getting furloughed.

And U of A is rescinding its offers to incoming graduate students.

All of this comes down to President Robbins' unilateral mismanagement of tuition revenue streams before the crisis even hit. As a result, U of A has to continue offering free tuition to its more privileged students for the next three years while there will be an enormous drop of incoming tuition-paying students whose families are suddenly out of work.

Longhorned wrote: In the recession of 2008 when I was at the University of Illinois and earning about $58,000 a year, I think my furloughs amounted to about $600 per month over several months. In exchange, the university made clear that there were specific days when I should not work. At the same time, they held you accountable for working on those days.

We had the same thing at Cal Poly. 10% pay cut but I didn't have to work the first and third Fridays, and the other half of staff on campus didn't have to work the second and fourth.

No idea what the academic side did.

I liked taking the first and third Friday off so much, I did it the rest of my career, even after the one year furloughs ended. I was actually off last Friday, so kept it off even though I was stuck at home.

Merkin wrote:
One my sister in law works at the UA key shop, but is home, and pretty sure she is getting paid.

I wonder if I met her! Had to go over there to get a key for the shitty group office they give to part-time instructors.

I know one professor in my college at Arizona has been not renewed for next year. They call these positions career track (more teaching responsibility, less research). They have also rescinded an offer that was accepted by a prospective new tenure track faculty member. I was made an offer two days before all of that was sent out in a college-wide communique. And I have no idea whether I will be teaching a studio in the fall or not. I would imagine they are paying me less than anybody, so maybe the offer will be honored. We’ll see.

My understanding was that the furloughs were simply pay reductions but amortized over a longer period so they wouldn’t be as painful all at once. And they aren’t accompanied by commensurate down-time. And the more you make, the higher the hit you will take. Tenure and tenure faculty will supposedly be asked to step in and pick up the teaching slack—at least in the architecture school. It also sounds like the incoming freshmen at the college will be taught remotely. Crazy times.

Merkin wrote:

Longhorned wrote: In the recession of 2008 when I was at the University of Illinois and earning about $58,000 a year, I think my furloughs amounted to about $600 per month over several months. In exchange, the university made clear that there were specific days when I should not work. At the same time, they held you accountable for working on those days.

We had the same thing at Cal Poly. 10% pay cut but I didn't have to work the first and third Fridays, and the other half of staff on campus didn't have to work the second and fourth.

No idea what the academic side did.

I liked taking the first and third Friday off so much, I did it the rest of my career, even after the one year furloughs ended. I was actually off last Friday, so kept it off even though I was stuck at home.

Hey, Merk, was just reading a NYTimes profile of "Weird Al" Yankovic and had to ask: Is this bathroom the best place to take a dump on your campus?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/09/maga ... S-6F9tn3DI" target="_blank

In 1979, during his junior year, Weird Al stood in a men’s bathroom at Cal Poly (he liked the acoustics of the tile) and recorded a parody of the No. 1 song in America, the Knack’s “My Sharona”: a lusty, humpy, cringe-y ode to seducing a teenage girl. Weird Al’s version was a two-minute romp about lunch meat called “My Bologna.” It had a crazy, D.I.Y., nerd-punk energy — you could hear Yankovic committing every fiber of his lonely soul to the bit, crooning and grunting like a man driven insane with desire. It didn’t matter that the pun was bad, that the singing was raw — all of that was exactly the point. Dr. Demento’s listeners went crazy for it, and radio stations picked it up nationwide, and the lead singer of the Knack urged Capitol Records to release the song as a 45 — and suddenly Weird Al had his first recording contract. To this day, Cal Poly marks that bathroom with a plaque as the birthplace of Weird Al Yankovic’s career.

Haha, I have checked out that bathroom, and last time I was there it was still in the original shape it was when Weird Al was here.

But no dumping there, I only dump in the John Madden stalls in my office building. Another note, it used to be a girls dorm when built, and only stalls, no urinals, so I do like to pee in private now. I think my office is 10x12, with a very tiny closet, so can't imagine 2 college girls in 2020 sharing such a room. It was built in the 1930's out of unreinforced concrete, so unsafe for students due to earthquake laws. Staff is expendable though.

I’m sorry to keep bring it up, but I really really dislike my boss.

I love my group and health system, they are on point, but my direct boss, this person really sucks.

I'm getting ready for a Zoom meeting and DAMN my hair looks terrible. It was long to begin with and now it's getting out of control, downside of having curly hair.

At least I've still got some, at my age, so I'll stop complaining. The quarantine beard is for another post.

wyo-cat wrote:I'm getting ready for a Zoom meeting and DAMN my hair looks terrible. It was long to begin with and now it's getting out of control, downside of having curly hair.

At least I've still got some, at my age, so I'll stop complaining. The quarantine beard is for another post.

Doing my morning stand up Zoom meeting now, ever single person has video off!

wyo-cat wrote: At least I've still got some, at my age, so I'll stop complaining. The quarantine beard is for another post.

We should have a BearDown Wildcat quarantine beard contest.... Mine's already lookin good.

I broke out my old beard comb, cleaner and conditioner this week.

Now I've got to find my dye, it's more gray this time around!

always had a beard which i have been keeping clean... but could not stand my hair getting long and took a number two clipper to it the other day. My poor daughter cried when she saw me. My son just gave me a sad look and shrugged his shoulders. Feels great! If my girlfriend does not leave me, considering keeping it.

wyo-cat wrote:I'm getting ready for a Zoom meeting and DAMN my hair looks terrible. It was long to begin with and now it's getting out of control, downside of having curly hair.

At least I've still got some, at my age, so I'll stop complaining. The quarantine beard is for another post.

Problem solved.

My hair was getting a bit long, at least as far as I was concerned. I let my wife shave it all off. Now she thinks she’s having an affair with someone different.

I work for one of the casino company’s here in Las Vegas so I’ve been furloughed since the first of the month while my wife is working from home. It’ll grow back enough before I go back to work whenever that may be, but at least unemployment has already kicked in. Will be nice when that extra $600 starts coming in too.

On a conference call as my boss was just about to run through the Q1 numbers her new puppy started liquid shitting all over the place.

So ... much ... screaming ...