What educational background do you have, [ISB]?

A wonderfully apt clip - thank you, TH!

My last day will be next Monday, and I have to come in over the weekend to train the new hire. The abuse continues daily, and I promise it will get worse with each new post in fond memorium of this sinking ship.

Stay tuned!

Entirely self-educated. I spent my youth in various asylumns where volunteers huddled together mentally ill children aged 12-18 and taught down to the dumbest kid in the room. Graduated valedictorian with the highest marks in the "school"'s history, (like being the world's tallest midget), and went off to university.

I was already proficient in the history of design and all related softwares so I was permitted to assistant teach all my classes and got an A.S. in Visual Communication and Graphic Design.

A few months of art college proved to be a waste as their entire curriculum consisted of handing students paintbrushes and recommending mind-altering substances to help us find our muse. I quickly dropped out.

Been in the industry as a designer for 18 years, and as challenges arose to develop paperless workflow automation solutions, digital publishing apps, pre-order pre-pay apps, mobile timecard solutions, and print workflow automations, I sat down, figured it out, and made it happen.

I've been doing IT and networking support for years, so the move seemed logical. The new gig is entry level with training for their proprietary software provided.

And all my work in music education - the lectures, multimedia work, papers, my foundation project, blogging, etc have all just been recreational in my free time, though the University of Buffalo offered me lecture space and a free Master's for my work if I pay for a Bachelor's. Sadly, they promised me that my foundation was entirely impossible and that there was insufficient community interest to support it financially, so I was told the Master's would be useless.

I think that about sums it up.

The elderly should be harvested for organs and then disposed of in a mass grave.

Why waste good graves when there are landfills?

You can find good stuff in a landfill. I don't want to stumble across some old stiff while dragging a dirty mattress back to my car.

Is this what you call the women you pick up?

Edit: sorry ISB, we shouldn't be using your journal as a slang-off between us. Well, maybe just one more.
:shycouch:

I love this forum.

I prefer the term "your mother".

ENTRY 4: Round it Down
 

Last year I was asked to develop a mobile time card application which we might sell to potential clients. After a bit of research I put together a functioning app and incorporated layers of protection to ensure the validity of data submitted. The back end including hour totaling, notifications of missed punches, and an automated email feature for time off requests.

We used the app internally for several months, but suddenly our CEO terminated the project and went back to using a 1950s wall-mounted punch card machine.

The conversation went thusly:

CEO: “[ISB], can I see your punches? When do you punch in in the AM? Do you punch in, then get settled, get a cup of coffee? What do you do before you punch out? Do you get your coat?”

ISB: “I arrive 15 minutes early each day and get settled in. Immediately before I begin work, I punch in. And I punch out when I stop working.”

CEO: “Well most people aren't as rigid as you. We're going back to paper time cards. With those, the idea is that the punches are just a guide. See I just round it off to 40 hours.”

ISB: “What you’re describing is salary. So am I to understand that not only will I not be compensated for overtime worked, and not only will my overtime hours be bumped into the next week with the requirement that I complete all work early to take my overtime back as straight pay… but now you're removing it completely?

CEO: “I just round down. It’s easier that way.”

Apparently, our CEO became uncomfortable with the fact that the system I designed worked too well for his interests. It documented the fact that he fails to pay his employees for actual time worked, so it had to go.