Krahnos

Sitting here at work, bored out of my skull. It's been soooooo quiet today. At least I've been able to get some paperwork done. I know my GM would say "Call all of your accounts! Make them buy something!". Maybe he's comfortable with that, but in my experience, it rarely actually leads to any real sales.

Been forcing myself to draw more. I'm so far behind in drawing projects that I feel buried beneath an avalanche of unfinished projects. I feel like I've lost myself, who I was, what I loved to do. I'm an artist at heart, not a big, mean manager.

Looking forward to get some drawing done tonight.

Stream of consiousness

 

By Jason Sander

 

Volutone thoughts, part 1

 

I am not a Volutone career man. I have never planned to be, nor do I plan to be in the future. When I hired in, it was under the management and tutelage of Bruce Vann, then manager of Santa Clara. I was ecstatic to get the job.. I even dressed up for the interview in a sport coat and tie. That was old Jason… young, naïve, just a kid looking for a day job that pays decent. At the time it was great. Chuck, Mace, Steve and Anthony were great to work with. Sure it was hard learning the ropes; the guys would tease me, customers would hassle me, I would mess up a lot. Learning the software system was a challenge as well. One of the first things Bruce had me do was to research the software, talk to every employee and take notes on how every process was done. I ended up making my very own manual on how to use Navision 1.0 (as I refer to it now). It took a long while.. over a year to learn how the software worked. I continued to grow as a salesperson, even though I rejected the outside sales job, since I wasn’t ready for it. My first outing with Bruce was disastrous. I’m glad now that I didn’t take that gig. As time went along, I learned that change is rapid at Volutone. Jeff showed up one day and fired Anthony and Felix, and promoted Steve to the manager position, demoting Bruce to outside sales. When I look back on that decision, I think that Jeff’s reasoning was that Bruce is the most experienced outside salesperson at our location. Steve and Anthony really didn’t do much in terms of outside sales. However, making Steve manager was a major misstep on Jeff’s part. Steve didn’t really understand management; if Steve lobbied for the job, he lied, like he always did. He didn’t have the experience he claimed to have, and he certainly didn’t act like a manager the entire time he occupied that chair. When he was at last fired a year and some months later, the job was offered to me. Although I did see it coming, I really didn’t put as much thought into it as I should have. I accepted the job on two conditions; one, the pay was better (duh), and two, that I would receive some sort of training.

 

Well, at least I received one of those. My pay is much better than before.. I really can’t complain too much about that. But training? If throwing me into the water and yelling “swim!!!” can be considered training, then sure, I got plenty. But as I discovered, Steve left a lot of unfinished business, which promptly fell right into my lap. I ended up cleaning up a lot of Steve’s messes, and not all for the best either.

 

As the months have gone by, I have realized that in some ways, getting this manager gig has been good for me. It has taught me to open up, to think on my feet, to consider all sides of the coin before making a decision. It has taught me to be more diplomatic, to compromise, to find a solution which will satisfy all parties. I am still working on these skills; they are very difficult. I have never been much of a people person, but I have learned to work with people more on this job than in past jobs. This can only help me in the future. But what of the future? Well that is what I have to now decide.

 

December 6, 2008. New Navision goes live. Every employee is at work, working inventory and populating the new system. For at least two years prior to this, New Navision has been a buzzword, a hope on the horizon, the “fix-all” to every problem. All of our concerns with the old software would be addressed, all of the bugs would be fixed, and life would be grand. On that day, we discovered that “New Navision” was basically fresh out of the box, little more than a template software program that was being tailor-made to Volutone’s needs as we worked. Now; a template program is fine, as long as the program is completed and running to the company’s specifications by the time it goes live. Now, call me naïve, but building a custom program for a company of 100 employees on the fly, as they are populating inventory, doesn’t seem like a sound business practice. The amount of errors we encountered were astronomical! On each and every error, we had to have the main programmer, John Collins, go into the code and fix the error while we watched and waited. The entire inventory took over 12 hours, and then a second inventory had to take place, because the first one messed up. From that point on, things have never seem to recovered.

 

The economic recession has not made things any easier. Chuck, our technical advisor, and a man I respect very much, has made it clear that he can’t stand the new software. Not only does it work differently from the previous version, but it seems to do strange things on its own. It could be he just doesn’t understand the system, and he thinks he does things correctly, when in fact he doesn’t. But that only illustrates one of the underlying problems with New Navision; it’s user unfriendliness. In order to use Navision properly, a great deal of training must occur. It is extremely powerful software, but unless you know exactly what you are doing, and are extremely computer literate, something can easily go wrong. And if something does go wrong, it takes a highly trained person to correct the error.

 

This illustrates something clearly to me: Chuck is a system integrator. He is an installer. He has spent a great deal of his life perfecting the art of low voltage system integration. This is no small feat; in fact, it takes a great deal of training and ambition in order to achieve what this man has done. But now he finds himself in a position which requires him to understand a software package meant for programmers, and indeed, requires a great deal of patience to learn properly. I fear that Chuck is simply incapable of the kind of patience required to understand Navision properly, as Volutone has implanted it. I have done my best to help Chuck understand it, but there is an obstacle; the program changes on a daily basis. Sometimes, even on an hourly basis, or even less! In September 2009, one day I discovered a number of changes that were being performed live, almost right before my very eyes. Buttons moved, new buttons created, colors changed.. everything was changing. How can someone work inside of a system having learned one way, and then things are moved around and changed WHILE he is working? And when he has a customer on the phone? How can he be expected to NOT express his surprise and anger to the customer as his software system is changing right before his very eyes? This is my dilemma; HQ forever defends these changes. They say that they are good for the system, and they are good for sales. I say, if you think these changes are good for sales, fine. But make the changes in the test database, test them properly to make sure they are working, schedule the change to the live database complete with proper notice to all sales people, THEN go live with these changes! Don’t change things around inside of the live database, without any notice!

 

Bruce: The man who hired me. I’ll never forget when I received his email, inviting me to come in for an interview, on the eve of The AV Room’s closing. I was ecstatic to escape Phil’s business.. as much as I respect Phil and his work, my usefulness in managing his business had severely dwindled. The closure of the store meant the disintegration of my commission pay, which was never that great to begin with. Working at Volutone was an exciting prospect then, and I really looked up to Bruce, as a manager and as a mentor.

 

Now, several years later, I find myself as his superior. How did this happen? Was it meant to be? Was HQ’s plan all along to replace Bruce with a younger, more malleable manager? I do not know the answer to that. I can only say that being Bruce’s superior officer is a strange feeling. The man has a great deal more experience than myself. I still seek his advice even now, and he seems happy to give it. I asked him once, if it was weird for him being employed under me, and whether he wanted to be manager again. His reply? “The only thing I miss about being manager is the money.” I can now see exactly where he is coming from on that. Bruce is extremely dedicated to making Volutone North work… perhaps more dedicated to that goal than anyone, including myself and even HQ itself. But there is a problem. More on that in a bit.

 

Mace: He has worked at Santa Clara for a while. He was hired in to cook burgers at the grand opening, and was then offered a job to manage the warehouse. Macve has embraced his job, and he does a fine job of keeping the warehouse in order. I feel comfortable allowing him a lot of slack, because in the end, he gets his job done. But in recent days, I fear his focus has dwindled. He is forgetful, letting UPS orders slip, and spends a great deal of time on his cellphone with his friends and his girlfriend. He allows himself to become distracted during workhours with his personal life, and as a result has let his work slip. As the months go by, these days, more responsibility is placed upon all of our shoulders, and we all have to step up to the plate. We all have to work harder, and smarter, in order to make more money, to make our customers happy, to keep our jobs and to make our customers happy. If we don’t, we are sunk.

 

Back to the problem mentioned above. There is a disconnect between Volutone North and HQ. There is a rather large philosophy gap, a difference of opinion between how HQ runs the business, and how we want to run the northern territories. In Southern California, Volutone seems content to be smoke and mirrors, to use bullshit as a legitimate tool to sell product to dealers. In Northern California, there appears to be a trend towards more honest sales; actually connecting to a customer, asking questions, finding the right product for the right dealer. Bruce is an Honest Salesman.. his method involves marketing the traits of a product, to expose customers to it, to allow a customer to see how the product is beneficial to him. I respect this method, and I find it compatable to my own style. But in So Cal, the method seems to be talk up a product, go for the quick sale, and somehow convince the buyer that not only is it the best thing every made, but deny their return if it turns out not to be the right product for them. I could be wrong on this last part.

 

I need to stop now.. an hour of stream of consiousness is enough for one night. To those that actually read all of this, apologies; I just wanted to get some stuff off of my chest. There is a lot that I need to figure out, and it's not going to be easy.

I have an experience to share with you all. This deals with car stereo installation shops.

There are a lot of them. In fact, there's one right around the corner from my place, that actually came highly recommended. They do work for several of the auto dealerships in the area, and it is there that I had my windows tinted.  I decided to invest in a sound upgrade for my car, a 2008 Honda Fit Sport. I selected the deck I wanted and the speakers I wanted, and left the car with the shop for the day. Upon my return later in the day, it was installed, and it looked nice.

But there were two problems I noticed. One dealt with the deck's voice activation features. They didn't work! At all! And to top it off, somehow something came ungrounded and a terrible buzz was coming through the speakers. Utterly unlistenable, but I had to endure until I could make an appointment to have the shop fix the problem. Turns it the deck was defective, and the shop was good enough to replace the unit for me at no charge. So they kept my car for the day and when I picked it up, there was a shiny new unit installed, and all seemed good.

That is, until I noticed that the installer had screwed up the wiring and didn't ground the parking brake wire properly. He also didn't hook in the dimmer wire that dims the backlight when the headlamps are activated. So I had to take it back *again* so the installer could rip into my dash and fix the wiring that he screwed up. This time I watched him work; more specifically I watched him struggle with the center console trying to get it off and then back on again. I kept having to tell myself "he's not gonna break my dash.. he's not gonna break my dash, it'll be OK!"

Eventually he got all of the functions working, and on the center console went. *BAM BAM BAM* went his hand on the dash, to get the clips to set in. Of course they didn't set in right, but I was tired and wanted to get out of there. On the way home I noticed that he managed to break something else: my fan control. It no longer clicked. Great.

So back I went a week later to get someone to fix my fan control that was jacked up. This time it was a different installer. Feeling a little bad about having to come back all the time to have the shop fix something else that installer broke, I made the time more worthwhile for the shop by purchasing a small subwoofer and having them install it. They gave me a good price. The sub was put in, and the installer fixed my fan control for me. All was good.

Until something else went wrong. This time, it was the iPod cable hooked to the deck to control my iPod. A horrible noise would come out of one speaker, and then it cut out entirely, at random times. Turns out the iPod cable was defective and needed to be replaced. *sigh* Here we go again. So back to the shop I went. The original installer was the one who was called to replace the cable. This time I purchased an HD radio tuner in thanks to the shop for being this patient with me. Center console comes off (again with much struggling), the iPod cable is replaced, and the tuner is installed into the dash somewhere behind the glove compartment. The installer checks everything, makes sure the fan control works (I made him make sure), and puts the console back in. Of course it doesn't fit right.. this time there's a noticable gap at the top, where the console meets the dash assembly. Oh well.. I chalk it up to the cheap console from Mitra and decide to live with it. At least my system sounds good.

A couple of days later I noticed something wrong with my Mode control for the HVAC system - which on the Fit is a small rotary switch, a part of the center console. It wouldn't turn properly.. in fact it wasn't changing the HVAC mode at all! *sigh* So back to the shop I went (hung over from a party), and talk to the installer. The manager of the shop has him pulled off of another job he was working on to fix my control knob, because he seemed to know exactly what it was - that the HD tuner was blocking the lever inside the dash and preventing it from moving. Really easy to get to, behind the glove compartment. Turns out, that wasn't the whole problem. Yes, the tuner was blocking the lever, but the cable that attached it to the knob wasn't moving.

After completely removing the deck, the center console, unplugging absolutely everything, and getting at the HVAC assembly, it turns out that the teeny cable had snapped and was no longer hooked into the mode control switch. He attemtped the salvage the snapped cable by bending it and reinsterting it into the switch, and we even had the entire console reinstalled and clipped back into place, before the jerry-rigged cable came loose once again. A replacement cable would have to be obtained in order to repair this. Great. To top that off, turns out the customer whose job the installer was pulled from to do this repair work had driven a hundred miles to have his subwoofer made at the shop, and was getting pissed at the store because the installer was pulled to fix my car instead. So I said thank you to the installer and left to go to the Honda dealership to order a new HVAC control cable.

1 Honda Fit HVAC control cable = $8.43.

Today I picked it up at the parts department, and set to work. Having watched my dash taken apart a couple of times now, I felt much more confident about digging into my dash myself. I managed to get the console off, and with much effort, unhooked all three control cables, the entire mess of wiring connecting the deck to my car, and could get at the broken cable. I discovered that with the way cars are manufactured now, everything clips into place, and the clips are designed to go only one-way; IN. Getting the damn thing out of it's cradle was the hardest part of this.. I could only finally do it by using a set of tiny scissors and sliding the cable's sheath to shreds, and forcing it out. Fortunately, the replacement cable came with a new sheath, which clipped easily right into the cradle. With the new cable now hooked, I was able to reinsert the assembly, hook everything back into the deck, reattach all three control cables to their respective lever controls, and slide the console back into place. As a bonus, the center console piece, which had up until this point never fit correctly into the dash, clipped into place PERFECTLY, leaving no gaps and looking factory-made! The shop's installer had NEVER been able to get it to fit right, and I did it on the first try!

Now, finally, after many months, the system is complete and working correctly. It took months, and countless visits, and in the end I had to perform the somewhat complex repair myself, but it is done. And from this experience, I learned the following:

1: Cars these days are made cheaply. Everything clips in, mostly using one-way clips designed to make it fast and easy to assemble, but absolute Hell to remove.
2: If you plan to install an aftermarket anything on your vehicle, don't even waste your time with discount car installers. Sure, they may give you a cheaper price, but either study up your car's repair manuel and do the job yourself, or pay someone who really knows what they're doing.

Above all, never trust your vehicle to a cheap, second-rate car stereo installer!

Last night, I met a childhood hero. I shook hands with Nobuo Uematsu.

As the Distant Worlds concert series finally came to San Francisco, I got to hear the music of the Final Fantasy games performed live by one of the finest orchestras in America. Even though I know the music inside and out, it was a real treat to hear it played live, surrounded by others as much into the music as I was. It was unlike any other concert I've attended, and even though it was more than two hours, I wanted it to go on. It felt so short!

But the real treat was the after party. I almost didn't go, because of the price of the ticket; but I decided that it was truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and so I went. Crocuta ended up coming with me, so we both shuffled into a tiny lounge called the Crimson Lounge, two blocks away from Davies Symphony Hall. There, we were served horse-deouves, and we could order drinks from the small bar. They must have packed that lounge to capacity. I met a cool guy named Brian who works as a sound designer for the studio behind the Ratchet and Clank series. Then Nobuo-san and Arnie Roth arrived, and the party began. Even though they were upfront about wanting to party with us and not sign autographs (we were each handed a signed CD of Distant Worlds when we entered the lounge), they came prepared with silver pens all the same. I ended up getting my original SNES cartridge of Final Fantasy II signed. Nobuo-san is definately a guy who loves his parties, as he was having a grand time with the fans as they took pictures with him, clinking beer glasses together, shaking hands. I Got to thank him for all the incredible work he's done. I even got to talk a little with meastro Roth about the possibility of concert band arrangements of Final Fantasy music. I Wished I had gotten more time to just chat with Nobuo-san and Arnie, but given the sheer number of people there, I really can't be happier with the time that I did get with them.

A grand night indeed!

So it seems like the overwhelming consensus from my last post comes to "Do it you idiot!!!"

So today, I purchased the ticket. I'm-a goin' to the party y'all!!

Pictures will be forthcoming. Please, Torrent, don't kill me. And please, White_Wer, don't hurt Clyde!!! :)

So next month, I will be attending the Distant Worlds: Final Fantasy concert in San Francisco. I have been wanting to see this concert for years now, ever since they first began the series several years ago. I am extremely excited to go see this, and listen to it live, even though there will be little in terms of new material; I already know all of the music inside and out. I grew up with music from Final Fantasy music, and it is a rather large part of me. I believe it has helped mold me into the man I am today.

As excited as I am to be attending this concert, performed live by the incredible San Francisco Symphony, I find myself with a dilemma. The tickets themselves were rather expensive, even for mid-class seats, and between that and travel fees the evening will already get pretty pricey. But this week, I received an email inviting me (and many, many others of course) to purchase a "meet and greet" ticket, for after the show. You see, it was announced that The Man himself, Nobuo Uematsu, will be attending this concert, and after the show they will be throwing a cocktail party. There will be photo opportunities with Uematsu-san (not sure if that's right.. I'm a dumb American), hors-d'orvres, and an autographed copies of the Distant Worlds CD. The problem is the price of this special ticket, available only in limited numbers, is quite high.. over $100. And I have until tomorrow morning when they go on sale to decide.

At this point, despite the cost, I am seriously considering it. After all, the question I am asking myself is: "How often does someone like me get to meet someone like Nobuo Uematsu?" After all, I grew up with his music, since FF1. This is an opportunity to shake this man's hand and tell him face to face how much I respect him and his work.

Damn it. I think I'm going to do it.

Today I've begun the process of making an appointment to see a psychologist. Lately, I have been feeling a great deal of stress, and I feel I need a stranger to talk to and blow off some steam. Work has been hell... loads of stress caused by corporate BS, pressure from customers, upper management and co-workers.

Last night I nearly went postal on my newly-repaired Xbox 360. I expected to relax and play some video games to try and let some of the stress melt off of me, but none of my downloaded games were cooperating. I couldn't even play them unless I was connected to my Xbox live online. Turns out, after three or four hours of ranting and raving and three calls to India, I figured it out with the help of a friend I was chatting with online; the DRM on the games kicked in. Turns out the Xbox I got back was not in fact the one I sent to be repaired, and the downloaded games are licensed to the console, not the hard drive. So I was pointed to a license transfer tool on Xbox.com, one you can only use once ever 12 months, to transfer the licenses to the new console. I redownloaded the games, and they're good to go now. But my stress meter was off the scale, so I just went to bed.

So here I am today, still stressed out, and it's not getting any better. I'm lashing out at people, being negative, my mood's shot. It's affecting my job performance, and it's most assuredly affecting my art, as I can't seem to muster up the mnotivation to draw. This is a serious problem for me, and I need some help.

Now that the election is over for 2008, it is as one more chapter of American history has been finished, with another just starting. It is indeed a historic election, representing a new age not only for our country, but for the world, as a black man has been elected US President for the first time in history. To me, this signals a major shift in overall public attitude in regards to just what an American is. To me, this country was founded by outcasts, wanting to form their own government, and accepting of other people from other places wanting the same thing. But it didn't turn out that way, and I'm happy to see things are finally changing.

On the other hand, I am disappointed to see that bigotry and discrimination still reigns in California. Prop 8 has passed, and it is now no longer legal for gays to marry in California. Although the leader of the "Yes on 8" campaign has said that "it was never about discrimination", that is exactly what it was all about, regardless of what he may say. Marriage is a sacred vow between two people who love each other, whether they're the same sex or a man and a woman. "Yes on 8" represents a selfish desire to deny one group of people this special right; and contrary to what "Yes on 8" says, marriage and civil unions do _not_ represent the same thing, it is still drawing a line. This seems to me to be a similar idea to blacks and whites having separate bathrooms during the days of segregation. Yes, blacks could still use the bathroom, just as long as they used the "black" bathroom. Marriage and civil unions represents the same thing. "You can have the same rights, you just can't be married. That's for straight people."

Look, folks: people just want to be entitled to the same rights that other people enjoy. It's time to finally let go of the old bigotries and prejudices that have plagued our people for centuries. We've already come so far, let's keep moving forward, not backward.

Greetings all! The CD my band, the Ohlone Wind Orchestra, has worked on with trumpet player Mike Vax has just been released! Available from Summit Records, the CD, "Vaxuosity", features Mike performing alongside my band, with whom I play percussion. It is conceived as a "summer concert in the park" kind of experience, with a varied program including jazz, classical, and modern concert band repetoire.

It is available through Amazon.com, but if the CD is purchased through the band's website, the Ohlone Wind Orchestra will receive a percentage of the proceeds, which goes towards supporting the band. Since we are non-profit, music purchases and operating expenses are paid through donations, concert proceeds and CD sales. So if you like classical/jazz and want to help out a community band, please help out by purchasing Vaxuosity from this site:

http://www.ohlonewindorchestra.org/recordings.html

Thank you all for your support!!

For the second part of my real life training, I shall chronicle the strangest, perhaps most mind-blowingly eye-opening day of any job I've ever had, ever.

Krahnos' Real Life Training, Part 2

"Respect your Elders."

I have related here before that my company made me manager of our branch in the Bay Area. Today, I was called to headquarters on the outskirts of L.A. to attend a meeting of the top managers of our company, to discuss pretty much everything there is to discuss in a major corporate meeting. I've never sat in on something like this before... these people have known each other, worked with each other for years, and here I am... two months into the job, green as all hell, barely understanding the things talked about.

I'm decompressing now, sitting at home pondering the things I've learned, the things I've shared with the other managers, my thoughts and input on how to make things better. I did my best, and I think I did a good job, judging by the other managers' reaction to my presence. I really think they want me, and our location to succeed. A couple of my team mates might disagree, but this is where my real challenge lies; convincing them that HQ wants us to succeed in the Northern territories, while working well with HQ itself. I really think it comes down to communication.. it's up to me to find a happy medium here. I just have to be open and honest with my teammates, while trusting that my superiors know what the heck they're talking about. I still have much to learn.

I've decided to start keeping a proper journal of thoughts that come to me in regards to really learning about life. There are a lot of sayings and expressions I've heard growing up that always sounded silly to me, until recently, when I've begun to really think about my life, where it's going, and what I want. In thinking more deeply about these real-life guidelines, I'm finding a lot of truth in them, and a correlation to my own life.

This journal series will document my thoughts on these sayings, and other thoughts that come to me.

Krahnos' Real Life Training Part 1

"If you're on time, you're late."

Bollocks, I've always thought. How can you be late if you're on time? I've always previously felt that showing up to work, or school at the last moment was good enough. That means I can screw around as long as possible at home before I had to do actual work!

Simple, unadulterated laziness. When I go to a musical performance, I do not show up just as my conductor hits the first downbeat. Sure, I'd be on time, but I would be too late to do any preparation before the concert actually starts. In arriving early for the concert, I would have time to prepare my instruments, music, and get into the right headspace to perform. Dedication, and commitment, all improves my performance.

In relation to work, the same concept applies. I am starting to think of work as a performance. I must arrive early in order to get into the right headspace, organize all of my equipment and papers, and prepare for the day. Being on time invariable means I don't have time to do any of that stuff, so I'm scrambling in a panic trying to get ready for the day with phones ringing off the hook. It's embarrassing, and unprofessional.

I can't be lazy anymore!

In my new role of manager of the Santa Clara branch of Volutone Distributing, I've begun to realize a few things. A lot of things that I've been exposed to in the past have been making a whole lot more sense than they used to.

One of these things is the concept of team playing. People who are greedy and want everything for themselves do not play well with others. This is because other people view them for what they are, and don't want to associate with them. To put this in perspective, I've begun to think of life and events in life as if they were a symphony orchestra. In order for a symphony orchestra to play a successful piece of music, several things must happen:

1: The players must listen to one another.
2: The players must play in tune with one another.
3: Individual players must realize that they are a part of a whole. If one person makes a mistake, just keep going. Most people won't notice the mistake, and if they do, it's no big deal. If one stops playing because of the mistake, it becomes a big deal.
4: The players cannot try to outshine other players. Everyone has their chance to shine. Let others have their chance, and they will have more respect for you.

A symphony is never about a single player. Each person involved has a part to play, and that part contributes to the whole. When everyone realizes this, the result can be spectacularly successful. If this concept is not realized, the result is medicore, or worse, a complete disaster.

In short: Do not be greedy. Things come, and things go. Don't try to control every little thing; trust others to do their part.

Make your life a symphony.

I just learned that one of the most recognizable voice over artists in the industry, Mr. Don LaFontaine, has died at 68 years of age. You may not know the name, but you know the voice... "In a world where..."

Very, very sad. Sad Krahnos! The man had an incredible voice, and was a great human being besides, and movie trailers simply won't be the same without him. *lifts drink* Here's to celebrating the life and career of a great entertainer.

Rest in Peace, Don.

Five years ago, I never could have predicted where I'd end up today.

Nor would I have wanted to. Because necessity and desire to put money in the bank have set me down the wrong path. Sure, I work a day job that earns me a decent income, at least enough to make me a feel a regular member of society. It allows me to work regular hours and have weekends off, which is a very nice thing. And yet... why do I feel emotionally stressed and unhappy with where I'm at?

It all comes down to fear, I've decided. Fear of failure, of rejection, of not making enough money to get by. But at the same time, and especially recently, I've been feeling like I'm trying to pretend to be something I'm not. Being made manager of the local branch of the company I work for, and being thrown to the wolves in essence, has reinforced these feelings. The guy before me was lazy, yes, but he was also good with people. His problem is he let problems mount until he burned out on them. But my problem, now that I'm manager, is that I'm too nice of a guy. I want to see people happy, and to me, making people happy is rewarding. Well that might work with friends, but appearantly, it's not working out so well in business. Being the nice guy means stamping PUSSY on your foreheard, and then bending over.

My entire life, I've been an artistic person. I've drawn for most of my life, and I know I have a creative imagination. But this job is wearing me down... it's sucking energy away from my creativity, as I attempt to adapt to these new challenges. And it's tearing my soul apart, trying to change who I am to fit in better with these people. I feel like the more I try to change myself, the more I hurt myself.

But at the same time, I'm afraid. I want to do art... but how does one make a living on art? Where does one get started in such an uncertain career? Where does one go to prove himself?

I dunno. These thoughts and feelings could be growing pains, as my personality changes. But my confidence is not there when it comes to this job.. particularly dealing with irrate customers. I've never been in a fistfight in my life.. I've always been the skinny, wimpy one. So why did they want me to be manager? Did they see something in me? Or was I just conveniant so they didn't have to hire a new manager who knew what they were doing, but cost more?

I want to draw. But I'm worn out. And that makes me sad.

Well here I am, being bad about updating again. Even worse, my post tonight is yet another of my negative rants, so readers beware, dragon's not in a good mood tonight.

Where to start? I guess Tuesday last week. We all knew our manager wasn't happy... he was burning out bigtime, and his attitude became very negative all of the time. It hasn't helped an already strained office, which has steadily lost staff as sales have continued to decline, made worse by the wonderful economy we're now experiencing. The loss of our outside salesman (who used to be manager, the one who hired me, long story there) only made things worse. But last Tuesday, the General Manager of our company showed up on the eve of our big expo, and fired our manager. At the same time, he offered me the position.. ME! The promise of a pay raise prompted me to say yes, even knowing that I was going to inherit a troubled legacy left by our previous manager, the laziest manager I have ever worked under. Today, that was greatly reinforced.

Enter Customer A, not a terribly well-performing dealer, he hasn't purchased much from us... but he has begun buying more from us this year, doing about 4 times the business so far this year compared to last. Now, I come from retail, and in retail, you are taught to take care of the customer. In distribution, it is appearantly very different. You are not dealing with consumers, you are dealing with other businesses. And businesses by nature look after themselves. Now, the question of whether this dealer was deliberately trying to screw us over, or was legitimately confused by the billing, I leave to you, the reader. But here are the facts.

Our company sells Pioneer. In order to buy Pioneer and resell it for a profit, you must be authorized by Pioneer by signing a contract. This contract takes a while to go through, so on occassion, we provide a courtesy, 1-time sale of a Pioneer product on a different account to a customer in order to take care of his immediate need. Since this is done on a different account from the customer's own, a different name shows up on the invoice. We shipped a Pioneer receiver to this customer, along with some other supplies which were billed under his own account; so we have two seperate invoices for one shipment. As I said, a courtesy.

Fast forward 10 months; I find out that the credit card charges were disputed and reversed, leaving our company without payment for product that was received. Our credit department had contacted this dealer about it in order to collect payment, and was met with confusion from the customer because of the two accounts used for the order. This customer claimed he had no memory of the deal, saying perhaps one of his employees placed the order, but he won't be able to check out his paperwork for many more days. In the meantime, he placed an order which he claims was incomplete, blaming our people for screwing up, and became very pissed off at me when our credit department wouldn't release the remainder of the order because of the money he owes us. He called me names, told me he wouldn't buy from us anymore, telling me this isn't the way to treat customers, etc. etc. I admit that I choked, and had difficulty in dealing with his anger, and I failed at diffusing the situation.

Was I wrong? Should I have caved, and personally released the order so he could appease the customer he claimed was angry with him because according to him, "we screwed up" and didn't deliver product that he never ordered? Or was I right in sticking to my guns and going with the story from our credit department?''

And all of this coming about becuase our lazy manager could have fixed it at least a month before now... but he never followed through, and left this in my lap to deal with.

I had myself a good weekend! The weather decided to turn absolutely beautiful, so me and Jaffa went out for a bike ride on Saturday morning. I haven't ridden my bike in over a year, so I wasn't quite prepared for the 20 mile trek we did. I complained a lot, and afterwards my legs were like jello, but I really did enjoy myself quite a lot. After that I kinda vegged for a while, made lemonade and hung out. Saturday evening I went to a BBQ at a friend's place, putting a capper on a really nice day.

Today, Sunday, was very busy. I had a concert to perform with the San Jose Wind Symphony (www.sjws.org) at a Jewish Community Center, a concert comprised almost entirely of showtunes. About half of them we had a pair of singers to perform the vocal parts for pieces like "King and I", "South Pacific", "Gigi", "Phantom of the Opera", and "West Side Story". "Phantom" was arranged in such a way as made it difficult to arrange the vocal parts for it, so I think the performance suffered slightly for that, but overall, the concert went off really, really well. I was dreading the size of the stage and such, but it wasn't as bad as I feared. I really enjoyed doing this one.

Afterwards, I headed to a friend's house where he showed me some of the physical and mental health system he had learned and modifed, which included a shoulder rub using his feet. Really different. It involved some things learned from Kung Fu, including things like "meridians"and defining personality traits by linking them to certain organs; stuff I don't really understand, but found pretty fascinating.

All in all, I had a really good weekend. I think I'm ready to tackle another week!

Some people are so lucky to have jobs where they do not have to deal directly with customers.

I love customers. I really do. After all, they pay my paychecks. Some of them are even fun to have around, and when I can get a groove on with a customer, it's great. But then there are those who simply don't care about anything or anyone but themselves, and see me as nothing more than a hindrance to them getting what they want, and treat me accordingly. Add to that a company that doesn't communicate their plans very well (or at all) to its own employees, a lazy manager, and a shortage of product to offer, and it gets even more fun.

Today was one of those days where absolutely nothing could go right. Every phone call, and every will-call visit was problem after problem after problem. And guess who got saddled with fixing all of these problems? Not our manager, oh no. He's too busy trying to find a spot to clean his four-wheeler. But hey, I'm only doing 20 things at once, I can handle another task. Between getting price quotes, getting yelled at by irate customers, getting yelled at by management for taking a precious few minutes of our head purchaser's time, ringing up customers, making sure paperwork gets done right, running credit cards, calling people to tell them their orders are in, taking new orders, fixing mistakes made on old orders, re-routing mislabeled shipments, tracking special order shipments... etc. etc. etc.. what's one more little task? Pile it on.

Keep shopping for car parts, Mr. Manager. I got it handled.

Ugh. Sorry for the negative tone. I just need to calm down a little. Can't believe FC is in one more week. I think I'm freaking out.

Wow, 45 weeks since my last post. I suppose ever since I found Furaffinity.net, it's been easier to post journals there instead of here. But all that's about to change now; in fact, a lot of things are about to change in my life, and it's me that's going to make it happen.

Many people like to make New Year's resolutions in an effort to improve their lives and make themselves and others around them happier. I, like many others, have traditionally fallen off of New Year's resolutions soon after making them, going back to bad old habits. Why does this happen? I can only attribute it to pure laziness on my part. There simply is no excuse.

So this year, I am making a mental effort to keep on with my New Year's resolution. And what might that resolution be, you ask?

For 2008, I am going to start cleaning up my life.

What this means for me today is a physical cleaning. Since the beginning of the year, I have trying to keep consious of the state of my living space. Historically, I am not the cleanliest person in the world (yeah, you keep laughing, Dan! ;) ), but I feel that just keeping mentally consious of my surroundings and my desire to live cleaner, it will spark the will to keep on top of things.

One of the things that have inspired this new outlook is the BBC show, "How Clean is Your House?" This is a reality show about two cleaning women in Britain, who travel around and clean up the dirtiest, most disgusting homes they can find, often times turning around the lives of those who live in them. It doesn't always work, but by and large, it does. The reason? After letting dirt, garbage and nastiness accumulate for years and years, it seems an insurmountable task to clean it up and make it an attractive living space. After all, who has the time these days? But the motto here is: "Saying one doesn't have the time to clean is nothing more than an excuse. One must make the time to clean, or else it doesn't get done at all." And then it adds up; bit by bit, until the idea of cleaning it is like scaling Mount Everest.

But here's the thing: Once it IS done, and things are cleaned, put away, and the entire place scoured and shining, keeping it that way is actually very, very easy. It just takes a few minutes each day, and being mindful of things like dishes and glasses after eating, and ola, you have a clean place that is friendly for guests and makes one feel good when one comes home after a long day at work.

I know I'm sounding like a budding clean-freak, and many people reading are probably thinking: "I'll believe it when I see it", but let me tell you this: I saw dead ants in my food. If that's not disgusting enough to spark someone into starting to clean things up in their life, I don't know what is.

I took the quiz on "How Clean is Your House?"'s website. HEre are the results:

You are Grimy.

Your kitchen sink is a study in microbiology...you have at least three animal kingdoms living in your drain and your dish sponge rivals most scientists' petri dishes. Your let-the-pieces-fall-where-they-may attitude may seem Zen, but let's face it, you are living foul, my friend. Your house should be a safe haven from the dangers of the world, but how can you sleep peacefully knowing you're surrounded with fire hazards and illness-causing microbes? Plus, the clutter in your home literally steals minutes from your day better spent resting, enjoying a stroll, or having a romantic roll in the hay.

Eew.

-Krahnos out.

I want to ask of the opinion of all of you. When attempting to make a real living, is there really such a thing as a "day job", as well as having real interests that are far more fullfilling? Or is there some rule that you must do what you love 10 hours a day in order to be truly happy? Or better yet, must you concede that in order to make a living, you must devote 90% of your life and happiness to a dead end job and put everything else on a backburner?