Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.

[Auspice]

@packrat said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@auspice The worst part? Unless you are actively rich you cannot get anywhere here in the UK with really big rooms unless you get particularly lucky, even if you have the budget for a larger home. If you buy a bigger house then that generally means just more fairly cramped bedrooms that are about large enough for a double bed.

Twenty foot across rooms are generally limited to high end luxury housing or huge prestige Victorian homes that tend to run in the three quarter of a million dollar range. You cannot buy something the size of a 3 or 4 bedroom family home that has two bedrooms and more space instead.

It's def. the upside to suburbs. I mean, you get that in downtown areas here more and more (esp. in places like Seattle, SF, LA) that are putting in horrifying 'commuter living' that are these tiny studio apartments that barely fit a twin-size bed, desk, and maybe a kitchenette. They're like dorm living. I looked at one in Seattle when I was desperately apartment hunting before I found the roommate I had last year.

$900/mo, shared kitchen, shared bathrooms... and the reviews were just terrible. Stuff like electricity barely working, about 450 sq. feet, etc.

But I live outside of downtown now (makes commuting sans-car tricky, mind), and I get space at a decent price. But that's really hard in the UK. I mean you get to villages and you have small houses still, but there's just not the willingness to build like they do here.

Which is a good / bad thing because the shitty housing they build here now is just that: shitty. 5 years later and everything is falling apart and you paid half a mil for it.

[RnMissionRun]

My older sister married a Brit and moved to the UK decades ago (she's been there so long that she's picked up a British accent). They both make really good money so when me, my mom and younger sister went to visit them back in '08, we were expecting something fancy, like one of those gorgeous old manor houses. Turns out they live in a tiny 1BR flat in Highgate that they pay around £1900 (~$2700) a month for. Their place is actually smaller than the first apartment I had when I was in college. They seem glad to have it though, apparently it's a really good location and in a really good neighborhood. Meanwhile I live in a 3BR split level house on a 1/2 acre of land that costs me about a third of that.

[Packrat]

@auspice There is that factor here, if you buy a house? It is brick, the roof is slate, you can generally expect that in a century it will be structurally sound and might even still have the original roof. Of course with the cost of land and subsequently housing here it makes sense to build permanent and solid constructions. US houses are far, far cheaper for several reasons but seem to fairly rapidly become rickety as they age.

[Deleted]

I've been job hunting again. My company made it clear they don't intend to promote me, and though I like my job site a lot I can't justify staying here forever at my age. I got chewed out by an overprivileged employee of a well-known company currently facing a lot of shit in the media that shall remain nameless over me booting him out of the building's fitness center for working out after hours. He gave me. So much. Shit.

...and he's probably ten years younger than me. And making twice what I make. With half the brains. Frustrating.

[Thenomain]

@insomniac7809 said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

I am not going to fucking haggle with you

I am very ashamed to say this, but I have developed a racial bias against Indians (et al.) because of this. I'm ashamed because if I look at it more clearly there's very little cultural reasoning for this, but that the Indians (et al.) seem to be the most adamant that this is a thing. I'm okay with people being a little persistent, or even asking, but it's the laugh when I say no that pisses me the hell off. I have unfortunately found that saying something in a lightly angry tone is the only way to stop this; I hate being angry, but the third time I say no, the third time I explain why, if you're continuing to hammer at me then yes I'm going to cut off friendly conversation with you.

I will still talk to everyone as equals until they do something like this, but damn it seems to be the f'ing Indians most of the time.

(Note: May not be exclusive to Indians, as far as my ignorant ass knows. Part of what makes it a horrible prejudice is that I don't honestly know. I just wish people would stop this.)

[Deleted]

But haggling is fun. What I like to do is steadily raise my price the more they try to bargain with me. The frustration in people's eyes brings me joy.

[surreality]

@thenomain ...and my father. I swear to gods, my father does this.

Once upon a time, my car was in the shop, and I was going to go in for an application interview for a job at CompUSA (when they existed) and other than giving me a ride, his sole task was to use the stack of actual cash I handed him to pick up a specific printer. That's all. Really.

While I am in the manager's office, talking about work things and expectations and experience and availability, he tried to -- I am not making this up -- use a coupon for another printer, from another company, from a flyer that was two months old, to try to get the printer for that price.

And demanding he get that price for the entire half hour I was talking through things in the office, much to the exasperation of absolutely everyone I was destined to then work with for the next six months.

He had still not completed the purchase by the time I left the office. I had to pluck the money out of his hand and walk to the register upon discovering this.

[Tinuviel]

@surreality said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

interview for a job at CompUSA

Did they even have the wheel back then?

[surreality]

@tinuviel We would have had to pay extra for one, but Dad haggled them down to include it for half price.

[Auspice]

@tinuviel said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@surreality said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

interview for a job at CompUSA

Did they even have the wheel back then?

I always preferred MicroCenter.

They had those nice twofer deals on wheels, y'know?

[Tinuviel]

@auspice I think that's where most of the parents of my students got their self-control from.

[Auspice]

Another job I didn't get.

yay.

And here I was psyching myself up for an opening Bioware has for a writer.

I really might as well not even try.

[surreality]

@auspice Try, goddammit. You damned well better!

...sometimes, not getting Thing1 is fate's way of saying Thing2 around the corner is way better.

This Thing2 sounds way better.

Try.

Not only is it better, it's more you than teaching cars to drive.

You can do this.

[Auspice]

@surreality said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@auspice Try, goddammit. You damned well better!

...sometimes, not getting Thing1 is fate's way of saying Thing2 around the corner is way better.

This Thing2 sounds way better.

Try.

Not only is it better, it's more you than teaching cars to drive.

You can do this.

It's also vastly more work to do.

Part of the application process is designing an entire quest. In Twine. Which, I mean, I worked myself into exhaustion and illness in March learning how to do. So I guess I have the skillset to do and means the pool of applicants is actually probably fairly narrow (vs everyone and their brother; I have a degree, I can include my completed game + my other dialogue and game design scripts in my app, etc...).

But I'd have to design a quest set in a current Bioware property in Twine to include in my app.

Which is extra work on top of my current work and the portfolio building I'm doing for the completion of said degree.

And I can only think how it'd feel all for naught if I do it and never even hear back from them. Do I really want to work that hard?

I'm... I'm not sure I do.

[surreality]

@auspice That's definitely a fair call to make.

Just don't not do it due to thinking you're not good enough. You absolutely can do that job, and knock it out of the park.

Not wanting to do it under the current pressures and time constraints is more a 'right thing, wrong time' sorta deal, though.

Just no thinking you can't do it.

[Packrat]

@auspice On the plus side, from everything I hear actually working in the video game industry is absolutely horrible. It is an aspirational job, lots of people want to work for Bioware as an example. As a result? Those companies then take horrific advantage of people because they know they can get away with relatively poor wages combined with horrific working conditions and unreasonably long hours.

You can probably find a job a much better job with greater job security and conditions that uses the same skills in another industry.

[Auspice]

@packrat said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@auspice On the plus side, from everything I hear actually working in the video game industry is absolutely horrible. It is an aspirational job, lots of people want to work for Bioware as an example. As a result? Those companies then take horrific advantage of people because they know they can get away with relatively poor wages combined with horrific working conditions and unreasonably long hours.

You can probably find a job a much better job with greater job security and conditions that uses the same skills in another industry.

My current job takes terrible advantage of me.
With way below living wages.
And no benefits.

I mean,
it can't get worse than where I'm at now.

At least getting to do what I enjoy doing / have gone to school for would be nice

and I've been job hunting for the past 4 years with no luck whatsoever

which is part of why I can barely find the willpower to even try anymore

[Sparks]

@packrat said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@auspice On the plus side, from everything I hear actually working in the video game industry is absolutely horrible. It is an aspirational job, lots of people want to work for Bioware as an example. As a result? Those companies then take horrific advantage of people because they know they can get away with relatively poor wages combined with horrific working conditions and unreasonably long hours.

Hi, former professional video game developer here.

The industry is pretty awful in a lot of ways, but I will note a few things:

• It is reportedly getting better; friends who still work in the games industry say that mandatory crunch time is decreasing and horrible wages aren't quite so horrible these days.
• Unfortunately, the 'hire and dump' cycle is seemingly well and truly alive, where people get hired on to staff up a game's development, and then dropped at the end of the game as the studio downsizes back to the previous size. Of all my friends still in the industry, I think one is still at the same company they were five years ago; at least three of them have gone through three companies in that time.
• Even with all that said, there's something special about seeing people playing the game you made and enjoying it. For all that I got super burned out on the grind and decided to do other things, there was a special sort of inner glow you got watching someone play something you helped write, and watching them enjoy it. I've not encountered that many other places.

I mean, all that said, a lot of my friends are still in the industry because they love it too much to do anything else, despite the grind. So if you think it's something you'd really like, @Auspice, then go for it and give it a try!

[Doozer]

I've been waiting for the weather to warm up and a few days ago we were in the high 90's. I want to put my turtle outside but now it's the low 70's for the next few days.

Ugh. I want the heat but then I don't want it.

[Arkandel]

@shincashay I live in Toronto.

I rest my case, and screw you all people who're in places you can walk without slipping and falling on your face because there's black ice everywhere in April.