jayseven

I am back with more boring work-related stuff! Current job is going swell. To the extent where I catch myself wondering if accepting the new role is the right idea -- then I realise I'll be on 4k more a year straight away, with another 6k of comission, 3k of which is guaranteed, plus bonuses.. no brainer. Went to a leaving do for a guy in another department and now I'm actually finding it hard to work without needing to stop and chat to someone all the time. If I wanted to waste my day then this would be excellent but I have a bunch of work that needs doing by a certain time, I just end up feeling bad about being abrupt with people at work... but I guess they 'get' that, or they will eventually. Since I started working 9-5 I've actually been really socially busy - but I've really noticed myself missing these forums and wishing I had more time to come back here properly. Going form Oz to homeless to 50+ hour weeks I've not really been able to commit to these boards properly for over 18 months now Lastly... I think it's good news but many will think it's not; been talking to/seeing my ex (ex) gf and kinda rekindling that stuff.

Had one of those wallpaper days where my voice fell on deaf ears. Work-wise I'm still enjoying the stuff but... I dunno. I've been trying to break it down and psychoanalyse myself all day. Nothing to see here, I guess!

I think there are a lot of positives to bringing a child up with religion, but the elements that are socially frowned upon are what are focused on - that is, the part of religion that disagrees with social norms. I think there are far more parents feeding their children macdonalds or letting them watch TV all day, or spoiling them or swearing/fighting in front of them - or teaching them "would of" instead of "would've". These are more severe forms of abuse. But then I'm probably wrong.

How long have you been self-harming, gaggle? I mean, is it something that's happened over the years sparsely, or is it something that's picked up since you got your diagnosis?

Sorry if my message seemed abrupt - of course May would be set You could do a bit of singapore/thailand on the way to, say, Oz or NZ? I like the sound of mexico - you could do a week there then a week in brazil? I've not trotted the globe much so I always imagine I want to blitz about the place, or that two weeks in one place isn't enough time. It's probably not. Plus to be fair trying to do singapore/thai and one of the antipodes would probably be far too much!

Is May the set time of year to do it? And do you know how long you'd want to travel?

That counts as Daft's come-out post, right? Not as dramatic/obvious as Paj, that's for sure. I always like to put the crown on Logic as the long-term victor, with Emotion initially bolting ahead but fading with time. This works fine with neuroses and paranoia and general social conditions, but when it comes to love it is very difficult to really believe that the heart can be bested by the head with time. In my own experience, the heart wins out, regardless of how wrong the love interest would be. I have often felt, when reading this thread, that I've actually played the bad guy. I've changed my mind. I've dumped. I've appeared hot one minute then cold the next. I've led people on. Some of this is because I've tried to push the logic and override the emotion but eventually I have to give in and give up and realise emotionally I am not attracted or attached or in love or whatever. I'm lucky in that I've experienced love, but unlucky because it prevents me from moving on. In relation to Daft, I would say that it's fairly clear this guy is simply not on the same level as you. This other guy is not committed for one reason or another. I would advise a pursuit down the "get over it" path, but I know not how that is done (I am falling in love with my ex-ex again, so what do I know about moving on?), but emotionally that's difficult. Logic can enter the fray if you decide to be abstract and try to understand what it is you want from a relationship. Is it sex? Companionship? Validation? Confidence? Are you attracted further by the disinterest/arms-length approach for a particular reason? Do you recognise and accept that there is a difference between what you feel you want and what you feel you need... and whether, actually, either of these suppositions are even accurate? I would say that the guy isn't as interested as you. I've had to try to politely put someone down, and basically there's no easy way. My ex still struggles to find the line between being friends and hoping for a re-spark and I don't have the heart to just say to her "we're never going to be a couple." I would guess that this guy you're speaking about equally is ball-less about putting the cards on the table. More words in head but they're shit on post.

I don't know if this is good news or not. More of an observation. I've been posting about my work success recently - well there are people at work I'm going to be leapfrogging. One of those guys has basically pissed off most of the girls on the team I'm moving into, without really realising it. Today I walked out into the smoking area to catch him echoing what I was saying to one of the boss men about wanting more work (only I used more of a finesse with my vocab, and was subtler and generally more indirect) -- he was saying "we spoke before and I said that I wanted more work, I just wanted to remind you that I want to do more things, that I want to take on bigger roles." Boss man said "you'll have to talk to HR about that." When I had a similar conversation Boss man was instead saying "put the effort in, stick with it, and the future may not be a million miles away." The guy who was effectively asking for a promotion has no idea that I'm getting the 'big chair' job in a few weeks (and 4 months quicker than him), nor does he realise he's antagonised the group that really have the final say about which potential colleague is hired. He also ended up saying "I wanna be like [jayseven] - he's a god!" and that made me feel good, but a bit cringeworthy about the situation.. he then exited, leaving me and Boss man to exchange eye-rolls. I put this in the good stuff thread but really it's not news at all, I just couldn't think of a thread to draw from it.

Just honoured to have it happen in my lifetime, considering it's been that long since a brit last did it -- and over a century since a Scot managed it. I love this kind of history-in-writing stuff!

I THINK I've avoided sunburn. Bought some shorts at a charity shop and some books to start a book club at work. Failed at finding a hat so was squinting on a beach all day, but met up with my birth twin -- technically my oldest friend; born in the same hospital 2 hours apart, our mothers were friends pre-birth. It's a cousin-esque relationship. We talked about holidaying this year, so we'll see. Finally managed to buy a beard trimmer and after hacking away at two months of beard I can reveal that I've clearly lost some jowel weight! Looking forward to turning up to work tomorrow looking sexy as a pig in a blanket.

... because when someone signs up JUST to sell shoes you don't go and buy those shoes. If genericnintendofan#12 is still around in 6 months then fine, but if they disappear once they get a result on teh tache comp, then you're just a bunch of gumps. Usually newbs get one-touch banned if all they are doing is advertising, and that's all this one has done. They've made two posts outside this thread but it's clear they're not interested in joining the community, just in explioting the nature of gamers. Rules state you can exhibit a link in your sig but you shouldn't primarily exist on the boards to promote an external enterprise. Generally new members that are blatantly advertising get left alone (at least for a while) if they're providing entertainment. For once it's not a bot, so there's another reason to let it slide. But essentially this individual has joined this forum in order to earn more votes for a competition regardless of whether their entry into the competition is the BEST or not. It's unwanted content, in my view.

I can't believe you guys voted for this.

You remember how I said I was going to barter for 15k? Lols. HR manager said that basically I'll start my new job as soon as they've hired a replacement for me -- well, after I've trained the new person, of course! She then wrote down how much I'll be getting paid... That month where I worked 52 hour weeks and got a bonus? I'll be getting that much every month but on regular, normal 9-5 hours. So chufffffffed

I agree with Jonnas. Being 'judgemental' is a negative connotation, but I do question the practice of calling one out on this. Generally speaking, if someone is decided to be judgemental the focus is on the 'mental' rather than the fairness of judicial processes. I guess it's more a quirk of language. We call her judgemental but actually we mean to say she isn't fair in her construct of an opinion. I do think the best way to react is to treat her opinion as miniscule, or something barely worth debate. Her opinion has been proven to be worthless because she has failed to encompass a lot of facts. I think pitying her is the correct response, not abhorring her. Trying to create a response in line with empathy rather than just flat-out objecting to her logic means that any argument direct with her would fail... of course there's the likelihood that any attempt to do so would fall on deaf ears, but still in moments like this it's important to be aware of hypocracy, regardless of who is right and wrong. Personally if I was introduced to a child named Mercedes or Champagne I'd certainly believe I'd have an idea of the sort of parents the child has - people concerned with wealth who don't actually have it, would be my best guess. However the real issue is that it's how she then decides to blanket-bomb anyone of that class-level. She's not giving a benefit of a doubt, and that's her downfall. That's why she's stupid... and that's why I state as above - the need to rise above such people and flavour any opinions with a semblance of empathy in order to allow ones opinion of judgement to be of better quality. That probably doesn't make any sense. I've had a good (drunk) week.

Potential loop-hole in thread/content; Are we supposed to be judging this person who judges as bad, because she judges?

PPI is the main drive of this department. I'm 100% office admin at the moment and boy is there a lot to do. I'm replacing a girl that was working 9.30-3, and she was struggling so initially I was part-timing doing one of her responsibilities. Even with that support she was finding it a lot of work. Now I'm doing technically an extra 2 and a half hours more than she was doing... but I did 2.5-3 hours a day support for her, and now I don't have the support work that I provided so it's... a lot! I'm also given extra duties from the office manager that my predecessor never did, so I'm tasked with doing a LOT more work than her. For example, yesterday for the outbound mail I had to get 50 cheques signed, fold envelope and send 120 letters in an hour. Today I had 30 mins extra but ended up needing to do 280 pieces of mail... And I've got one job tomorrow that will take 3 hours, the mail again will be anohter hour, the scanning is at least 2, and there's essential filing that will be another hour. So that's my working day taken up already and there'll be surprises while I work. But it is kinda fun! Technically I've made zero mistakes so far in all of my roles... which is why I've progressed as quick as I have. Initially I offered to stay extra hours to get shit done but so far they're clamping down on overtime. I get that they don't want me to use it to do the same work over a longer span of time, but an extra hour every other day would really be good. It was a particularly tough start to the week though. So there's other stuff I need to do weekly that I'm hoping I can get done friday, and there's an ongoing massive, massive re-filing task that deals with 20,000 customer case files that I get to try to do when I've run out of other jobs, and also 6 case worker's filing to be sorted, whom each have 5,000 further cases files that add up to several thousand pages of paper. It's a long-term job so... yeah. There's other spreadsheet stuff and database stuff that I do on the fly. ... It's not really all that exciting.

The point about the d-pad being better on the DS than other consoles is completely fair enough, I'll accept that. The issue of the control stick being poorer on the DS is fair enough as well. The fact that the control stick is still perfectly useable is also a decent point -- if it was unbearable then the pad would've been "fixed" by now otherwise gamers would've given up already. I just think that the space on the controller could surely be better utilised in this day and age. Is nobody willing to pay that thought and see where their brains can run with it? It's much easier to defend the d-pad than it is to try and constructively imagine that there is a better thing. I guess I'm not being clear, and it's late for me so I don't want to spend the words tonight. Maybe next time.

Looks like you had an awesome time flink I got more good news. The new role at work is exciting and tough but lots of responsibilities. I was taken aside and said that basically in 4 weeks time I will have a review and they are looking to promote me for the third time in 3 months. They basically guaranteed the promotion will happen, it's just a matter of exactly when. I'm actually looking forwards to work! Can't really say I've ever experienced this feeling before.

@Ramar I'm not trying to define the experience here, just highlight the potentials.

@Deathjam I mean look at the top 20 best-selling games and see whether the primary control is for d-pad or control stick. I'm not disputing the functionality of the d-pad in non-beat-em-up games, just saying that if you follow statistics it makes more sense to give the primary control area to the control stick, which is the primary control method for the majority of games. I'm not disputing the benefits of the d-pad here, just disputing its location.

Because it's not the primary kind of game, so why should it get the prime controller real estate?

Shorty makes a good point -- seriously, why is the d-pad still considered a primary control option? The beat-'em-up argument is invalid. If anything, it's just used for menu perusal, right? I suppose I'm coming from an xbox-thumbed perspective and my hands assume a certain position by default... but still, is it too early to give the left hand more respect and replace the d-pad with further control buttons? We've got the xyab/squaretrianglecirclecross formation on one side, I think we have enough hemispheres in our brain to cope with extra functions on the other side. Hell, even putting an N64-style C-pad there would offer more functionality than the d-pad... even though it's the same thing except alphabetically altered. Shit. Did I just solve my own problem? Darn.

I suppose there's some potential for new interesting features; set an alarm for a show you want to watch while gaming; have the xbox notifications overlaying your TV stream (jayseven NE is online and playing Dead Island 3! Wanna join? press x!); chat with friends whilst watching the big match; opportunity for free-to-play apps to install/play during ad breaks. Basically microsoft can cut into a huge marketing source and offer an additional later of advertising revenue. What's to stop them offering companies the chance to put a graphic on a visual advert? Maybe encourage businesses to invest in another level of advertising by paying more so that they offer an interactive element to their advert? See an advert for domino's and the console offers you a "press A to order your meal now" pop-up. Again microsoft are going for the business model here, but the social aspect will be worked in. It's an interesting development, but certainly something I'd overlook on purpose.

Does 'sobering up' before sleep really alter the hangover? I've never really done the science. I tend to just go to sleep and hate myself in the morning. Sometimes I do this when I've been drinking, too.

Lots of good news in this thread! Thanks to a lot of coincidences I've been offered a permanent job where I am. Effectively it's two promotions in two months, and again it's due to hard work and ensuring people in charge know I want something. My hopes for bartering for a decent salary have fallen through so I won't be on £15k -- technically £14k so nothing fantastic... but no more phones. I was kinda expecting to have to work for 6 more months but things have accellerated and... yeah. Wow. I now have a permanent 9-5 job with career prospects and... yeah. Not really sunk in. I should be getting a monthly bonus too (I was given £125 this month, so if that continues then it's basically £15k)... it's not as straight-forward as I've made it but basically my hard work and perseverance has paid off and I can now relax and return to normal hours -- and do pub quizzes again!