Geekiest habits that you have.
- Thread starter Zyst
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Turn... on? I'm not sure I understand. You mean to imply they can be switched off?Ambi said:
First thing I do in the morning is tap [Shift] to bring my computer out of screensaver mode and I can check on the progress of whatever task I'd given it to do overnight - re-encoding videos, downloading mods, running SETI@home, or whatever else.
Zyst said:
Haha, the actual story I was going to refer to involved my job. It's one of those shitty nationwide restaurant chains and they recently passed a survey for employees to fill out. I guess they were having trouble finding people who were actually willing to fill it out, so they called me during a late afternoon lull so I could do it.
I really didn't want to participate, because I knew I would be frustrated with how general the questions would be and could foresee myself answering the questions mentally with a lot of "but..." clauses. I did it anyway, because while I wouldn't say I'm a lazy person I would definitely say that I avoid physical activity whenever possible.
So, of course, the survey is exactly as I expected, a bunch of general statements with the options "strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, strongly disagree," like those sections of job applications that attempt to trick people into admitting that he/she, as an employee, would indeed steal from the dollar store. To boot, it had an SAT-style "fill in the answer bubble fully with a #2 pencil, making your marks heavy and dark and leave no empty space" format. Since this wasn't an application and they weren't trying to trick anyone into admitting anything, there was an "not applicable/I don't know" option, and a section at the end where you could fill in more precisely what your opinion of the company is and how they can improve it. Since I was bored as tits at a gay bar, I saw this as an opportunity to properly express myself and proceeded to haphazardly scratch "N/A" for every question except the last, which somewhat resembled "Do you feel your opinion will affect the way the company runs" or something like that. In that case, I broke the pencil making sure my mark in the "strongly disagree" field was as sufficiently dark as I could make it (and also in an attempt to stifle myself from writing "FUCK NO" across the question).
Usually, when I get a blank space to fill with my opinion, I'll try to structure my idea before I write anything down so I avoid starting new ideas before finishing the previous one (since my brain tends to run amok). I thought about how the general questions really didn't give exact context to the answer and wasn't conducive to a feeling that any of my concerns would be corrected. Then I thought that that was probably what the company wanted, to put in just enough effort to make it seem like they're willing to fix problems but overlooks the multitude of minor problems that plague places that put in just enough effort to etc. etc. No, I thought. Not good enough. This half-assed standardized test that resembles employee input into the company in order to appeal to an image you're hoping to give off just seems vain, in the same sense as and older generation attempts to research and utilize genuine "street slang" in a desperate attempt to gain respect from their children, and to hopefully use that respect to trick them into doing the washing up from time to time; and it was complete and utter bullshit.
I went into that paragraph attempting to keep it short, and compared to what I actually crammed in to a space about a quarter of the size of that paragraph (and, of course, a bit of outside the box and running along the edge of the page, turning a corner so my opinion should be sufficiently uncensored), it was. I can't remember if I included any swear words, since I usually think with (almost exclusively) swear words, but I usually do a good job of taking them out since they're usually about as clarifying as the word "set" out of context.
If I did include any "naughty" words, I can rest safely, assured that I will not be found out due to the survey's anonymity. Of course, I doubt anyone there is as literate (it IS a restaurant, after all) or as passionate or, indeed, as geeky as I am, so who knows how safe I'll be.
Although there is a girl there who knows nearly every line of every Mel Brooks movie from the 70s and 80s, so who am I to attempt to claim the geek crown of anywhere?
I really didn't want to participate, because I knew I would be frustrated with how general the questions would be and could foresee myself answering the questions mentally with a lot of "but..." clauses. I did it anyway, because while I wouldn't say I'm a lazy person I would definitely say that I avoid physical activity whenever possible.
So, of course, the survey is exactly as I expected, a bunch of general statements with the options "strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, strongly disagree," like those sections of job applications that attempt to trick people into admitting that he/she, as an employee, would indeed steal from the dollar store. To boot, it had an SAT-style "fill in the answer bubble fully with a #2 pencil, making your marks heavy and dark and leave no empty space" format. Since this wasn't an application and they weren't trying to trick anyone into admitting anything, there was an "not applicable/I don't know" option, and a section at the end where you could fill in more precisely what your opinion of the company is and how they can improve it. Since I was bored as tits at a gay bar, I saw this as an opportunity to properly express myself and proceeded to haphazardly scratch "N/A" for every question except the last, which somewhat resembled "Do you feel your opinion will affect the way the company runs" or something like that. In that case, I broke the pencil making sure my mark in the "strongly disagree" field was as sufficiently dark as I could make it (and also in an attempt to stifle myself from writing "FUCK NO" across the question).
Usually, when I get a blank space to fill with my opinion, I'll try to structure my idea before I write anything down so I avoid starting new ideas before finishing the previous one (since my brain tends to run amok). I thought about how the general questions really didn't give exact context to the answer and wasn't conducive to a feeling that any of my concerns would be corrected. Then I thought that that was probably what the company wanted, to put in just enough effort to make it seem like they're willing to fix problems but overlooks the multitude of minor problems that plague places that put in just enough effort to etc. etc. No, I thought. Not good enough. This half-assed standardized test that resembles employee input into the company in order to appeal to an image you're hoping to give off just seems vain, in the same sense as and older generation attempts to research and utilize genuine "street slang" in a desperate attempt to gain respect from their children, and to hopefully use that respect to trick them into doing the washing up from time to time; and it was complete and utter bullshit.
I went into that paragraph attempting to keep it short, and compared to what I actually crammed in to a space about a quarter of the size of that paragraph (and, of course, a bit of outside the box and running along the edge of the page, turning a corner so my opinion should be sufficiently uncensored), it was. I can't remember if I included any swear words, since I usually think with (almost exclusively) swear words, but I usually do a good job of taking them out since they're usually about as clarifying as the word "set" out of context.
If I did include any "naughty" words, I can rest safely, assured that I will not be found out due to the survey's anonymity. Of course, I doubt anyone there is as literate (it IS a restaurant, after all) or as passionate or, indeed, as geeky as I am, so who knows how safe I'll be.
Although there is a girl there who knows nearly every line of every Mel Brooks movie from the 70s and 80s, so who am I to attempt to claim the geek crown of anywhere?