2003-09-26
This is one of the few times I will post personal information/rants on my interWebLog...
I work for a college. The college I work for is not important. Long ago, I wrote an employment web application that's managed by the college's Student Employment Services department. It's pretty basic: employers post jobs, students/regular folks search for jobs... all free. Today, while looking at the current list of jobs (not because I'm looking for a job at this time, but because it's neat to see how my tool is being used), I saw that my two former employers have posted jobs on the site: McDonald's and Grocery Outlet.
This is where I start my rant.
Ahh yes, McDonald's... my first job (16 years old with a child on the way.) What can I say? I started out paying taxes on $4.25/hr and a year and a half later, I was paying taxes on $4.35/hr. It was a good first job but the pay had much to be desired. The worst part about Micky D's was the managers and the working conditions. The managers would yell at you when there were orders waiting (and I was typically the only person cooking the food) instead of actually *helping* prepare the food. It seemed like we were always understaffed and I would never sacrifice quality for speed... so I got yelled at a lot (yes, actual yelling.) One time, a nice manager (Joe was the best), informed me that the owner of the local stores made over $300,000 a year basically by signing checks. I was happy to leave that sweatshop.
Grocery Outlet (aka Gross-me-out-let): my second job and a reason to thank God every night that I don't work there still. I remember the time a checker got fired because he was taken by a con-artist for $100, "because it was the owner's money", and then the next week was re-hired because we were understaffed. That was supposed to be a statement to us employees that we aught never lose any of the boss' "hard-earned dollars." Side note: we were never *trained* to deal with con-artists. This is another place where I started out making minimum wage and I got two raises only because the state minimum wage was raised twice in the three years I worked there.
I have many other bad and often disgusting stories from both former employers but I'll keep them to myself. Now I'll get back to the subject of this post. I saw these two former (still)-cheapskate-employers posting jobs on my free employment opportunities website and I had evil thoughts go through my mind. At first I was tempted to tweak their listings or perhaps simply remove them from the list. Then I caught myself and thought, "... jeepers Scriptar, you would be sinking to their level if you did something like that..." Thus after much internal debate, I decided to just leave them be.
After all, if I had never had those miserable jobs, I would never have felt the need to get my @$$ in school and get a CS degree and better job and higher pay... I still won't ever shop at Grocery Outlet again, however (but McD's has that one cool manager so I still eat there occasionally.)
I work for a college. The college I work for is not important. Long ago, I wrote an employment web application that's managed by the college's Student Employment Services department. It's pretty basic: employers post jobs, students/regular folks search for jobs... all free. Today, while looking at the current list of jobs (not because I'm looking for a job at this time, but because it's neat to see how my tool is being used), I saw that my two former employers have posted jobs on the site: McDonald's and Grocery Outlet.
This is where I start my rant.
Ahh yes, McDonald's... my first job (16 years old with a child on the way.) What can I say? I started out paying taxes on $4.25/hr and a year and a half later, I was paying taxes on $4.35/hr. It was a good first job but the pay had much to be desired. The worst part about Micky D's was the managers and the working conditions. The managers would yell at you when there were orders waiting (and I was typically the only person cooking the food) instead of actually *helping* prepare the food. It seemed like we were always understaffed and I would never sacrifice quality for speed... so I got yelled at a lot (yes, actual yelling.) One time, a nice manager (Joe was the best), informed me that the owner of the local stores made over $300,000 a year basically by signing checks. I was happy to leave that sweatshop.
Grocery Outlet (aka Gross-me-out-let): my second job and a reason to thank God every night that I don't work there still. I remember the time a checker got fired because he was taken by a con-artist for $100, "because it was the owner's money", and then the next week was re-hired because we were understaffed. That was supposed to be a statement to us employees that we aught never lose any of the boss' "hard-earned dollars." Side note: we were never *trained* to deal with con-artists. This is another place where I started out making minimum wage and I got two raises only because the state minimum wage was raised twice in the three years I worked there.
I have many other bad and often disgusting stories from both former employers but I'll keep them to myself. Now I'll get back to the subject of this post. I saw these two former (still)-cheapskate-employers posting jobs on my free employment opportunities website and I had evil thoughts go through my mind. At first I was tempted to tweak their listings or perhaps simply remove them from the list. Then I caught myself and thought, "... jeepers Scriptar, you would be sinking to their level if you did something like that..." Thus after much internal debate, I decided to just leave them be.
After all, if I had never had those miserable jobs, I would never have felt the need to get my @$$ in school and get a CS degree and better job and higher pay... I still won't ever shop at Grocery Outlet again, however (but McD's has that one cool manager so I still eat there occasionally.)
I wrote a JavaScript Math Test for my 3rd grader today. Now he'll be able to practice his addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts without the anxiety that comes with a normal school test of the timed variety. To take the test, you simply choose which test (1-4) you want to take and then print the page. The test is semi-randomized so it's different each time with no repeated questions. My son gets 5 minutes to complete the test (the addition test is too easy for him) so that might be a good place for you to start depending on your math background. The division problems are strange-looking because it's difficult to make a 3rd grade division sign with ASCII (I used the right parenthesis with overline text-decoration.) I would be more than happy to make it more robust/usable if there is a demand for such things. I shall put a link to it in my interWebLog's sidebar for now. Use it and become an expert at basic math so you can get a better paying job, maybe. Hit refresh (F5 on a PC) to get a new test. Post your best times. Have fun.
2003-09-09
From my Fark post about Internet revenge tactics:
If you try this and you're stuck, press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to bring up the task manager, then go to the "Applications" tab and click on the "New Task" button. Enter "explorer.exe" without the double-quotes.
Yeah, okay -- I was bored.
If you're bored and you want to be evil on your co-worker's XP/2k system while s/he's in the bathroom, type:No, I have not done this to anybody (except to test it on my systems.) Basically what this does is take a screenshot of the Windows desktop, save it to your C drive as x.bmp via MS Paint, hide your icons, and finally kill Windows Explorer. Makes for a good prank, I suppose. Some things might have to be changed if you attempt this.
Windows Key + M, Print Scrn, Windows Key, P, Enter, P, Ctrl + V, Enter, Alt + F4, Enter, C, :, \, X, Enter, Menu Key, R, Alt + B, X, Down, Enter, Ctrl + Tab, Ctrl + Tab, Ctrl + Tab, Space, Tab, Space, Enter, Menu Key, D, D, Ctrl + Alt + Delete, T, Ctrl + Tab, Tab, Down, E, Alt + E, Enter, Alt + F4
... then, hide and laugh while s/he freaks out.
The "Windows Key" is the button between the left Ctrl and Alt keys.. usually has the Windows logo on it. The "Menu Key" is next to the right Ctrl key.. it has an arrow and a menu on it.
If you try this and you're stuck, press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to bring up the task manager, then go to the "Applications" tab and click on the "New Task" button. Enter "explorer.exe" without the double-quotes.
Yeah, okay -- I was bored.