It’s back from the dead! The TB Mega Thread.

[Jwar]

I had some time to reflect and feel that I overreacted. I'm sorry for that guys. I have had a lot of pressure in my life lately (not an excuse) and I'm sincerely sorry. You guys are like a second family to me. Please take this as truce to all, and let's not talk about it again.

I love you guys.

[behndy]

*huuuuuugs*

.... i was a very innocent child. still am in a few ways.

but i thought a reach-a-round was when you give someone a hug and sneakily grab or pinch their butt.

not.... not that OTHER THING. i was actually kind of horrified when i found out my error.

[Jwar]

*huuuuuugs*

.... i was a very innocent child. still am in a few ways.

but i thought a reach-a-round was when you give someone a hug and sneakily grab or pinch their butt.

not.... not that OTHER THING. i was actually kind of horrified when i found out my error.

We're good dude! I love you still!

I think I just read things wrong and got upset because the guy I did the pedal for got upset.

I've been very emotional lately. I think I missed my period.

[dubkitty]

you fucker, you got MaxMaps' baby!

[warwick.hoy]

Yay; I love a peaceful bunch of disgruntled TBers



So I; I just put in about 17 days at work with only one day off. So today marks the 1st day of a five day vacation. I've been so burned out on work lately. If you haven't heard about 2 months ago the manager of my crew moved on and I got promoted into his position. I work in the Deli Department of Spokane's only food Co-op. The position moved me onto salary and as much as I want to see it as the opportunity to gain productivity I can't help but feel slighted when I have to work 9 days in a row and not get paid for a good portion of that time. Yes I technically make more money as my paychecks are bigger than when I was just a cook,...but if you figure in the hours,...I'm in reality making less.

I guess on the flipside there is a lot of encouragement to take advantage of PTO which I'm all too happy to oblige. I'm also pretty confident that the work I put in now is going to translate well when it comes time for my review (which ought to happen pretty soon).

It's both exciting and exhausting; and my hope is to not make the same mistakes as my predecessors who were self reliant to a fault. I want to relinquish some operational control and trust my crew to handle that place in my absence. A few things occur from this trusting attitude; this gives the crew ownership of their department and also relieves some of the stresses on myself so that I can handle all the things that are piled on my plate. The crew also has my back and I in turn have theirs. It's a pretty strong dynamic and considering the department's high profit margins (only considering cost of goods,...labor is a whole nuther ball o wax); I pretty much get what I need to have an efficient running department.

So I'm taking five days to unplug from work and recharge. Gonna spend two days with a very good friend who lives in a farming town 30 miles south of Spokane; then come home; hopefully work on some music/make some noise and just generally relax and get refreshed.

What was so taxing this month was little event in Spokane called Hoopfest (or what I like to call Brofest/Poopfest). What the city does is essentially shutdown all of downtown for two days; erect basketball nets in the streets and have what amounts to the worlds largest 3 on 3 basketball tournament. So many people show up for this that every hotel in a 30-50 mile radius is booked out. Then the city is flooded with meatheads and jocks who would prefer dine on pepsi and fritos (you won't find any of that shit at my work) as well as pro street ball teams that come up here and school the amateurs (which is about the only satisfaction I get out of Poopfest). People have been shot during these events. Fights are common place. The locals leave town put off by the crowds and those that stay but aren't involved are generally surly because 250,000 truculent, uncaring, littering tourists have invaded the city. The stress and demand on the local hospitality industry is huge; and in the end it's really not worth it.

So about 3 days worth of intense preparations (not to mention about 3 weeks over agonizing over making sure I had the raw materials needed for that preparation) for something I could give a fuck about; preceded by giving up my weekends covering illnesses and taking care of inventory; stuff that I do give a fuck about, means that I worked about 2.5 weeks with only one day off. At least I won't have to deal with this event again until next year and hopefully we will be in a better position to handle it. It just sucks that this going after the tourism dollar is really all this city has to offer (every weekend it's some sort of "....fest").

/deardiary

[Tendollarcat]

I had some time to reflect and feel that I overreacted. I'm sorry for that guys. I have had a lot of pressure in my life lately (not an excuse) and I'm sincerely sorry. You guys are like a second family to me. Please take this as truce to all, and let's not talk about it again.

I love you guys.

Just throwing a comment in as a guy who has hung with you over the interweb for a chunk of time now. You're a good dude Jwar. It somes across in your friendships on here. It comes across in trades and conversations we've done over the years. It comes across in the way you care about your family. It also comes across in the way you are running your etch stuff. I know you've been going through some rough stuff man. Hang in there. It's pretty clear a bunch of people on here have your back.

[D.o.S.]

That thread, it's:

[Tendollarcat]

Warwick - Sounds huge man. I'm a manager of 16 people in my job and am running some pretty high pressure automated processes. In context, we replaced a team of over 120 and run a bunch of electronic processes when they used to be manually maintained. It's big risks and potentially big hours. I went through a similar thing in my job. The hardest thing I found in the transition away from the work itself was literally and not theoretically letting go of stuff. I couldn't be there to fill every gap and cover every eventuality. You can do it for a proportion of time and then burn out sets in, or you can't be two places at once when dual issues occur or something else really triggers a fire you can't put out.

In the end, I had to painfully carve out some time to create a couple of experts in my team. This wasn't promotions or money, because I can't always control that in my job. It was my way of saying to good people - "You're the best person we have in this area. I need you to run it day to day and tell me your worries and problems. I'll focus on making those go away". It's delegation and utilising the talent you have I guess but I didn't want to write you some trite response when you've clearly been busting your arse.

The cool thing about identifying your best people this way is that you can reward them when you get a chance. They are being asked for their thoughts and they often grow really fast in response. It actually ends up being good for them and good for you after a period of transition. I got to give a really good dude a big pay rise this month. It was one of the high points of my year because he'd deserved it for a while and my company agreed. I'm not sure I always enjoy leading people and I miss a chunk of the day to day work but it does have its moments.

[warwick.hoy]

Thanks TDC. That was one thing my predecessors never really focused on; delegating responsibilities. They took it upon themselves to bear the brunt of all the responsibilities. That's not to say that they aren't good people. Just never learned by others examples.

But I feel like it should be our (mine and my crew's) department not just my department. I've been showing the crew the ropes. I refuse to hoard knowledge; I'm soliciting opinions; putting people in a position to succeed; identifying strengths and weaknesses.

The crew loves me even though I may not be the most experienced manager and am still in the process of getting organized and figuring it out. They all exhibit a lot of initiative; respect and loyalty and that in turn commands a lot of my respect and loyalty.

[Jwar]

So you guys know how I've been having trouble with my wrists and shit...it went away. I started wearing wrist wraps at the gym and have not had trouble since. Fucking LOVE my Roscoe. GOD! I was getting sooooooo depressed that I was going to have to get rid of it.

Oh and you know how I kind of try to downsize and shit, well...I'm going to start a new board now. LOL So I'll have 2.

On the new board so far will be Industrialectric Incinerator and Squarewave Generator, Dwarfcraft Devices Robot Devil in a smaller sexier enclosure, ILFDD, Metaxsonix TM-3, and few others I can't talk about yet. It's going to be the "I etched every fucking pedal on this board, board."

Haha

[behndy]

niiiiiiice. i fuckin LOVE having a second board at home with pedz i like and a Rusty as the pre. i've been able to practice and write at home without lugging my Big Bitch home every night.

WOOOOOO.

[goroth]

Home/ gig board dual setup is great. I dig having different pedals on both and knowing how they "translate". More sounds = more fun.

[MaxMaps]

you fucker, you got MaxMaps' baby!

[MaxMaps]

what happened ?

who am I ?

Where are my pants?

[dubkitty]