BUSINESS, JUST SAYING, RANDOMIZER9.COM, WORK

The Shelf

Author’s note: This was posted to LinkedIn a few years ago.

We have shelves in our bathrooms at the office above the sinks. Crazy it sounds, those shelves are a great analogy for what is wrong at the company I work for.

Our office bathrooms didn’t always have shelves, mind you. Some manager or facilities person a few years ago decided: ‘It would be nice if we had shelves in the bathroom so people can place things there while they take care of their business.’ It’s a good idea, so a shelf was installed. Huzzah!

Things went well for a few months, then one day I noticed the shelf was starting to lean forward slightly, as if it were coming off from the wall. Uh-oh. I stopped using it because I didn’t want my coffee mug to fall into the sink when the shelf finally gave way.

It eventually did break, and for about a week we were once again shelf-less. It was re-installed and life was good again, but after a few more months, it started to lean forward and fell off the wall again.

While I have managed some minor home repairs myself, I’m not going to claim to be Tim the Tool-Man. If I shelf I installed gave way, then okay, fine, maybe I did something wrong or overlooked something that a professional would know to do from experience. How was it that our professional facilities people couldn’t install a simple shelf? A few months later, after we remodeled our building, I got my answer…

There are three brackets holding the shelf in place. Each bracket should have two screws, but for whatever bone-headed reason, only one gets put in. Why? Was the facilities guy in a hurry? Are screws that expensive? My best guess is that the guy figured one screw is ‘good enough.’

Whatever the reason, the job wasn’t done right the first time, and the shelf inevitably has to be repaired. Surely the guy learns that ‘gee, maybe I should do the job right this time and use two screws so this doesn’t happen again.’

Nope! He makes the same mistake again, and as you can see by the picture above (different shelf but you get the idea) he’ll be eventually repairing it again. Even then, the damage has been done and he’ll likely continue ad infinitum.

This is a perfect analogy for how my company does things:

Get a good idea and implement it.
Don’t make the product the right way the first time, but make it ‘good enough.’
Attempt to fix problems after customers complain of issues.
The fixes are also ‘good enough.’
Everything is fine for a while, but the problems inevitably return and the damage has been done in loss of customer confidence and goodwill.
Go back to step 3 and repeat.

So yeah, that’s the way things work (or rather, don’t work) at my office.

I’m just wondering what the facilities guy is going to do when he runs out of wall space. He should have plenty of screws, at least.

300 Seconds, CONS, FURRY, Furry 101, Furry Invasion, PANELS, Podcasting, PODCASTS, Uncategorized

300 Seconds Episode 91: “A few words after Furry Invasion 2018”

Listen to this episode here, or read the transcription below!

You are listening to ‘300 Seconds with Eduardo Soliz,’ and this is episode number 91: A few words after Furry Invasion 2018, so let the 300 Seconds begin!

Furry Invasion took place at the El Tropicano Riverwalk hotel in San Antonio last weekend, October 5-7. I did my best to pack in as much fun as I could in between shifts at work: I hung out for a little while on early Friday to pick up my badge and I made it out on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Overall, Furry Invasion was a marked improvement over last year, but once again, there are a number of little nitpicks that affected me personally that I’m going to bring up. Spoiler alert: They still have panel issues.

I arrived at registration at about ten o’clock on Friday morning and it went pretty quickly; there was really nobody in line. They scanned my e-mail, checked my ID and I got my stuff…awesome! I didn’t hear any squawking about registration this year, though there were a few complaints about finding registration, it was kind of in a weird spot, but that was expected. Two quick nitpicks about registration, however. Number one: Stickers are supposed to go on the BADGE ITSELF, not on the badge holder. Second, and this is more for the people running the show; if you have a guy that’s hacking and coughing his guts out, maybe he shouldn’t be in a position to be handing out credit cards, IDs and badges TO MOST OF THE PEOPLE IN THE CONVENTION. Yeah, the guy that checked me out let out a nice fit of coughing after he gave me my stuff, which made me very glad that I carry hand sanitizer with me.

One big complaint I heard about throughout the weekend was parking: Last year there was a parking lot across the street, however this year new hotel is being built in that space, so that significantly reduced the number of available parking spots. As for me, I was able to easily find meter parking on Baltimore street near the hotel on each day of the convention. My biggest trouble was having enough quarters 😉 Now this is an issue with the venue itself, another venue issue that came up was the elevators breaking down.

And now I’m going to talk about panels for a little bit because there are a number of issues going on here. It was a pretty good plan on paper: The panel schedule itself was done ahead of time, which is good, and the leadership decided to put the panel [schedule] online, and that’s also good. There was also a screen set up with the panel schedules rotating and a QR code that you could scan to pull up the schedule on your phone. This is also good. Unfortunately the plan kinda fell apart in the execution.

To begin with, putting the schedule on the website isn’t a bad idea, but the Furry Invasion website is not optimized for phones. That’s being polite, because it’s pretty awful on phones. Here’s the thing, guys, it’s cool that y’all have an online digital schedule that you can update on the fly, but there is nothing wrong with paper. Once your schedule is as final as it’s going to be, print out a bunch of copies. Hang a copy of each room’s schedule outside the door. Also, make a PDF copy and have that be downloadable from your website.

So I had a weird exchange with my friend Mordecai on Saturday; he thought my Furry 101 panel was at 6PM. I told him it was at 5 and he said the conbook said 6. This really confused me because Furry 101 wasn’t even mentioned in the conbook. Turns out that Mordecai was given a copy of LAST year’s conbook. Don’t that that guys. Just don’t. Recycle them. I was also given a less than ideal time and the crappiest room in the convention, but you know, what are you going to do? Based on all that, I’m probably going to skip presenting next year. On the plus side, they did have a projector set up.

Speaking of scheduling, for whatever reason the fursuit parade started before its scheduled time. I was on my way to get a soda from the machine in the lobby when all of a sudden I saw furries marching towards me. It was all I could do to scramble to find a spot and remember how to work my camera, which is what happens when you have a job that wakes you up at five in the morning.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m nitpicking a lot. When I have to nitpick like this, it’s because most of the convention was good. I had a good time, and I’ve been hearing lots of good things both online and off about Furry Invasion 2018. Overall, I think things will continue to get better as the staff builds from their experience, and I’ll definitely be back next year.

Furry Invasion 2018 was a good con overall. Except for issues related to the venue and my own personal panel issues, which admittedly, are my own, there were no major issues present on the part of the con itself. I had an enjoyable time, when I was able to get out there, I will certainly be back next year, hopefully for the whole thing. The theme for next year’s Furry Invasion is going to be ‘Cyberpunk’ and it appears to be taking place on the weekend of October 4, 2019, and I look forward to seeing you there…or perhaps I should say ‘furward!’

This has been 300 Seconds with Eduardo Soliz, the next episode will be posted after I recover from the long weekend of work and fun. I am Eduardo Soliz, please subscribe to this podcast and check out my website at Eduardo Soliz dot com for more podcasts and short stories. Thank you for listening!

300 Seconds, CONS, Eduardo Soliz, FURRY, Furry 101, Furry Invasion, PANELS, Podcasting, PODCASTS

300 Seconds Episode 90: “A few words before Furry Invasion 2018”

Listen to the podcast here!

I was recently a guest on Tommy Kovacs Splat from the Past podcast. Join us as we discuss our convention experiences in California and Texas. That’s Splat from the Past, episode number 215, on YouTube. And now, on with the show…

You are listening to ‘300 Seconds with Eduardo Soliz,’ and this is episode number 90: A few words before Furry Invasion: The Road to Furdition, so let the 300 Seconds begin!

Furry Invasion will be happening at the El Tropicano Riverwalk hotel in San Antonio this weekend, October 5-7 with badge pickup happening tomorrow night. Because life has been getting in the way of my fun lately, I will only be at Furry Invasion Saturday and Sunday afternoon. I’ll be presenting my Furry 101 panel on Saturday afternoon at 5PM in the Bolivar C room. If you or someone you know would like to know more about the fandom, then come on down.

This is the second year for Furry Invasion; last year’s show was a solid first effort that had a few hiccups here and there, including a few that affected me personally, so just a heads up, this is going to get just a little bitey.

The biggest issues that I had last year were the slow registration line and the panel schedule being disorganized. The problem with registration last year was that attendees were required to print their registration sheets at the convention which slowed down the process considerably. At other conventions, attendees are allowed to print out their preregistrations beforehand, allowing them to be processed much more quickly. I’m happy to report that I was allowed to print out my registration paperwork after paying, so that should make things more efficient. While that problem appears to have been solved, a new one has been introduced by the convention’s choice to put registration in the hotel’s ballroom, which is in the back of the hotel and on the third floor. This is going to make signage VERY important and staff should also be aware of how to get to registration so they can direct people there.

My second beef last year was with the panel scheduling; the schedule that was printed in the conbook ended up being different than the actual schedule, due to some changes being made after the original schedule was made. This led to some confusion among attendees and presenters, including myself. Fortunately, the Powers That Be decided to make the schedule digital this year, which means that last minute-changes can be made without fear of ending up with an outdated print schedule, so good on them. What I’m hoping happens is that they print out each panel room’s schedule and post it outside so folks can see what is happening.

While Furry Invasion has made efforts to fix their registration and panel scheduling issues from last year, one thing that was sadly not addressed, was the weather. Now, you may be asking yourself: What can the convention do about the weather? Well, they can try to push the con ahead a week or two in the hopes that the weather cools down. Cooler weather makes it easier for fursuiters to go outside and have fun, puts less strain on the venue’s air conditioning and is just nicer. Should there be a third go-round, Furry Invasion really needs to look at pushing their date forward a week or two.

I openly admit that yes, I am harping on the convention a bit, but that’s mainly because the first two issues I mentioned were really touchy issues for me personally. As I mentioned at the top, the first Furry Invasion went well; if the registration and panel problems weren’t there it likely would have been a great show instead of a good one. Year two should be better since steps have been taken to address most of the issues from last year and the staff will have a year of experience under their belt to build on.

This has been 300 Seconds, the next episode will be posted after the convention. I am Eduardo Soliz, if you’d like to hear more 300 seconds subscribe to this podcast or check out my website at Eduardo Soliz dot com for more podcasts and short stories. Thank you for listening!

Eduardo Soliz, JUST SAYING, list, TECH

Signs that the group is a just a BIT older than you are

Even though I’m bear-ly in my 40s 😀 I joined an online group for older furries recently. After a while, my Spidey-Sense began to tell me that most of other folks in the group have at least a decade or two on me:

“Attachment unavailable”
Vertical videos
“I hate that thing that’s popular with the young people!”
Black and white pictures
Scans of actual Polaroid pictures
Pictures rotated the wrong way
Five-year old memes
“Why is this [meme] funny? It makes no sense!”
When people say ‘back in the day’ they REALLY mean it
And of course: “Get off my lawn!”

ANIME, CONS, FURRY, Furry 101, How To Panel, Manga, PANELS, SAN JAPAN, Videogames, WORDS

51 Things I Noticed at San Japan XI

San Japan is probably my favorite convention, bar none, and this year was great! As always, I noticed a few things…

BEFORE – I’m guessing “Magical Universe” means there will be a lot more Sailor Moon crossplayers.
#17 Yay?
They’re going to have to try pretty hard to top Okashicon for: “Con with the most pinks and pastels” prize.
Between this and Furry Fiesta 2019’s ‘Roll Fur Initiative” theme, I’m not feeling a lot of love.
As a nerd who’s old enough to have owned an Atari 2600, I’m not exactly the target audience, so yeah.
I’m getting a new fursuit and this will be my first time wearing it. It’s just the thing for MID-90 DEGREE WEATHER.
In addition to the usual con prep, I’m also looking for a new job and getting my house ready to be put on sale the Tuesday after. No rest for the weary! >.<
I guess I can’t awkwardly refer to San Japan as a ‘Comic-Con’ anymore to normies for fear of being sued by SDCC.
Staying at the nearby Tru by Hilton, which apparently is a more modern hotel, which means it annoys me somewhat.
Thing I forgot (again): Aftershave.
Chili’s seems to have become our San Japan Thursday dinner go-to.
Looks like my fursuit won’t be ready for the show. Given the temperature outside and my lack of experience, it’s likely just as well.
Had a funny moment with a friend when I had to remind him that he wasn’t working on Labor Day the following Monday.
Dave: “You can have ambience or you can have a butt-load of arcade games.” I’m glad he went with Door #2.
Maybe they should change the name to ‘Sign Japan.’
I find the lack of security on Thursday nights to be just a little concerning.
FRIDAY – Nothing like waking up early to go feed the meter; a small price to pay for cheap parking!
I was happy with my badge art until I saw the volunteer badges have the same art and now I’m less happy.
#14 The signage was YUUGE!
Yay escalators!
Yay, I forgot about the escalators and took the scenic route down to Artist Alley!
Furst World Problems: I quit wearing my ears because the hairband kept digging into my head.
I got a haircut the other day so there is less hair to cushion it now.
The uneven lanes the Artist Alley are just a little weird.
No panels to run on Friday: HOW DO I HAVE FUN?
Retro Game Museum might be better off being called “Pong Museum.”
Might need to put together a video game history panel, made better because I WAS THERE FOR MOST OF IT.
The arcade was cool, though the sound on the music games wasn’t always loud enough.
You know the competition between the three(!) Chinese joints at Rivercenter Mall is crazy when someone tries to hand you a sample WHILE YOU’RE IN LINE FOR THE PLACE NEXT DOOR.
SATURDAY – I didn’t have enough change to feed the meter for the whole day, so I decided to live dangerously.
Old hotness: Annoying music over Bluetooth speaker. New hotness: Watching anime subs on your phone with the volume turned up
Sign of the times: Sriracha at the breakfast buffet
Thanks for the retweet, Dave. Be nice if your Twitter account wasn’t protected, but such is life.
I had an unfortunate situation with the light switches before Furry 101…maybe not for me, but the dance contest people next door likely hate me now.
Very happy with the turnout and participation at Furry 101 this year, thanks for the help, San Antonio furries!
I always have to buy a paleta from the vendor in front of the Henry B…BECAUSE REASONS
It never ceases to amaze me how easy it is to lose fursuiters at an anime con!
There seem to be more people wearing ears and tails this year, hmm.
Chili’s again for supper. I’m okay with that.
SUNDAY – Good trend: Vendors playing 80s music
I’m still having difficulty finding cool stickers for my my laptop, though I did buy a chibi Bender.
I’m pretty much forced to stay all day thanks to having a panel scheduled at 530 PM.
Decision time: Carry my laptop around all day or return to my car to get it at 500 PM. I went with door #1
Luckily, there is less me to carry around this time so it wasn’t a big problem.
Dunno if anyone is going to be at “How to Panel,” but the show must go on.
#39 Bite my shiny chibi ass!

Maybe I’ll use the setup time to take a nap.
Mental note: Add a “Finish on time and clear the room” slide to the presentation because the group before me didn’t.
Yay, people showed up…including one person with REALLY weird questions. Sometimes you get ‘that guy’ at a panel, and he definitely was THAT GUY.
Overall, the panel went well. I learned some stuff and made notes to add stuff to the presentation to make the next one even better!
I took one of those Lime-S rental scooters back to the car, it was pretty cool!
I was relieved to not find a citation on the my vehicle when I returned to it.
I really can’t find anything major that went wrong this year, it’s gonna be a boring post-game Con Talk episode.
San Japan XII: Sports?! Finally, a theme I can get behind!

Eduardo Soliz, Podcasting, PODCASTS, RANDOMIZER9.COM, Super-Short Storytime, TECH SUPPORT, WORDS

Super-Short Storytime: “Reassurance”

ssst003

In the future, a pair of friends join the Space Force but don’t exactly end up where they want to be. In light of current events, I should mention that this story was written in 2014. Of course, lots of other folks have had similar notions for years.

Books, FURRY, fuzzy words, self publishing, WORDS

A “Real” Book

My first paper book: “Fuzzy Words: The Con Fluff Collection,” is now available for purchase on Amazon!

It has always been my goal to create a paper book. The writing problem with doing so is that my short stories are so short that I had to accumulate a pretty good number of them (27 in all) in order to have a book of reasonable length printed.

Naturally, I encountered a bit of a learning curve in publishing something physical. In the digital world, there is no concern about margins and fonts and all of that stuff, because the screen that your book is going to be read on may be of any size and the reader can adjust the text font and text size to their liking. In the print world, you have bleeds and gutters and covers and inches and all sorts of things that need to be done the right way.

Things have certainly changed for the better: Way back when, if you wanted to print a paper book on your own, you had to go through a vanity publisher, which meant paying to have a few hundred (or thousand!) copies printed. This meant that you took a big risk of being stuck with boxes of books that nobody wanted to buy. Thanks to modern print-on-demand technology, paperbacks can be printed as they’re ordered, so just like in the e-book world, your cost of entry is nearly zero, save for the purchase of proof copies.

I gave both CreateSpace and NookPress a try, and ended up going with CreateSpace because of their expanded distribution options. Also their books seemed to be of higher quality and they offered a better discount to authors purchasing their own copies.

A funny thing happened as I showed friends my print proofs; I repeatedly got this ‘so you’re a real writer now’ vibe (and a comment or two) from them. Never mind that I’ve published quite a few digital ones. Oh well, what can you do?

In any event, now that I’ve finished my first one, I can’t wait to do another!

PODCASTS, Super-Short Storytime

Super-Short Storytime: “Message”

ssst002 A mysterious alien box appears in the desert. What will be revealed once the scientists of Earth decipher its “Message?”

BUSINESS, TECH, TECH SUPPORT, WORK

Contract-to-Fire

work I recently started a new position; my first-ever contract job. At the beginning, I was enthusiastic about coming in and doing a good job. I noticed a few deficiencies off the bat and made some recommendations for improvements in a group e-mail to everyone in the department. My intention was to avoid some of the large issues that had plagued previous workplaces and improve our processes, because to be frank, there were none.

My recommendations were shrugged off with a big fat ‘MEH’ by everyone. I don’t know if it was due to my relative inexperience at the workplace, or the arrogance of leadership, but for whatever the reason, the end result was that nothing happened, and the glaring issues remained.

I was miffed (but not completely surprised) by the lack of response. I imagined that the thought process went something along the lines of: “Why should we listen to this new guy? He doesn’t know how we do things here.“

My first thought was that I needed to change my approach and need address my manager directly instead of broadcasting to the group in the hope that we could come to a consensus. My second thought became a lot more compelling the more it bounced around in my head:

“Why should I care?”

I should begin by mentioning that the position I was hired into has a nearly zero chance of becoming permanent. Folks come here, they work for a year or two, and then they’re gone. Because of that, I have nearly zero investment in this company. Indeed, one of the issues that I wanted to address was knowledge management; if you’re going to have a revolving door of people coming in and out of a department, you might want to have a good documentation process in place so that not all of a person’s expertise walks out the door when their time inevitably comes.

Ultimately, I let it go. I had said my peace, and if the Powers That Be decided to ignore it, then why should I make a fuss? Obviously they know what they’re doing. There’s also no sense in wasting my time with people that have no intention of listening to me.

The unfortunate truth is that a contract worker will never be completely engaged in the future of the company they work at, especially if they have no visible road to bigger and better things.

I’ve since kept my mouth shut about any new issues that I’ve noticed and given up any hope of things improving. It doesn’t make any sense to fight the current, instead I’ll just keep surfing the wave of incompetence until my contract is up.

Besides, why should I be fully invested in the company’s problems when the company isn’t fully invested in me?

BUSINESS, CARS, JUST SAYING, TECH SUPPORT, WORK

The Difference…

work Over the last week, my Honda CR-V (aka The Excelsior) had been starting up just a little more sluggishly with each trip. Eventually, it got to the point where it just barely started, but as is human nature, I figured that it would last just long enough to get to get the battery looked at.

Of course, I waited one trip too many and eventually it didn’t start at all one night. Click-click-click-click-click was all I heard.

After getting a jump-start from a neighbor (always have cables in your vehicle, folks) I went to the auto parts store where I had replaced the original battery a few years prior. I had a strong suspicion that the battery was dead, but when the gentleman asked if I would like to have it tested, it placed just enough doubt in my mind to make me think that might not be the case. I didn’t want it to be something else, because as far as car repairs go, replacing a battery is on the fairly inexpensive scale, and it can be done by one’s self, assuming the vehicle can be taken to a good battery or vice-versa.

The gentleman grabbed a tester and followed me out to my noble (if not currently unreliable) steed. I popped the hood and proceeded to let the gentleman do his job. He attached the clips to the battery terminals and proceeded to push some buttons on the device. After a few moments he told me the battery was good and asked if I wanted him to test other ‘start the car’ parts. I said yes, and he asked me to start the vehicle. I made a crack about ‘I hope it starts,’ but much to my surprise, it started with no hesitation. A few moments and button presses later, the man told me that the alternator and starter were probably okay, too. I thanked him for his time and went on my merry (if slightly worried) way to the grocery store, where the car started again without issue. What the heck was wrong with my car?

As folks are oft to do these days, I went onto social media to share my ambivalence over the situation. Friends offered advice and their own tales of automotive experiences, both good and bad. One friend mentioned that a similar problem had been caused by loose terminal connectors. This idea sounded intriguing to me, as I had recalled my interior lights flashing during the process of having it jumped, and so I resolved to investigate them come the morning. I didn’t park the Excelsior in the garage because I had a feeling I was going to need another jump-start.

The next morning, I hopped into my trusty steed to go have some breakfast and was greeted by the clicking noise again. No big deal, it’s the terminals, right? Wrong. Nothing was loose and there was no corrosion to be found. It has to be the battery, I thought, but what the guy last night told me it was good. I frumped for a while as I searched for nearby mechanics and groused over the pile of money I anticipated I was going to have to spend.

Finally, I decided to get a second opinion.

I got a jump-start from a different neighbor, and observed that both times we had to let my vehicle sit for a while and charge up. The thought of it has to be the battery kept bouncing in my head as I drove to a different auto parts store. I walked inside and asked to have my battery checked. This time around, the tech got a frumpy look on her face when she saw my terminals. The connectors to the Excelsior’s battery have these plastic covers that were getting in the way of the clips, meaning she could only reliably attach the clips to the screws that kept the connectors attached. “I don’t like taking a reading from the screws, the reading is sometimes wrong,” She said. The tech did her best to adjust the tester clip, but was not completely satisfied with the result: “I’m not getting a good reading, can you take the battery out?” She asked.

I said sure, and proceeded to do so, with the tools I keep inside the vehicle. I also had to borrow a pair of pliers, but eventually dislodged the battery and took it inside the store. The tech did her thing, and sure enough, the battery was bad. Fortunately, I had purchased the ‘three-year replacement’ battery the last time and I received a new one free of charge. I installed it myself, which was only fair since I had taken the old one out, and now my trusty steed is trusty once again.

I figured that it would be a good idea to let the tech know about my experience the night before. We both agreed that the other guy just didn’t know about the screws providing unreliable readings.

And thus we have the difference between somebody who only knows how to follow instructions, and somebody that actually knows what they are doing because they have learned how things really work.

Whether they are fixing cars or computers, a good tech will have more in-depth knowledge about the things that they repair than someone who is only taught how to fix things or is working off a script. When the ‘usual steps’ don’t work, a good tech can think things though and improvise to find a solution. A bad tech only knows how to follow instructions, and when those instructions don’t do the job, they’re stuck, and so are you.