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It is starting to get a bit scary isn't it? There's still a long way between Russia supporting/creating a Ukrainian seperatist group and attacking a NATO country though. It all feels like a slow motion game of chicken. It doesn't seem like it'll stop escalating either.

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For the first time ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, I'm getting a bit scared that war in our small country is not out of the question. Although many Estonians have always had this fear of Russia during that time, I haven't really taken that seriously, but I'm starting to.

 

Same here.

As eot says though there's still a long way between interfering with a conflict in a neighbouring country and actually full-on attacking another country, but it's still something that is definitely making a lot of ripples over here. From the looks of it our military budget will increase by quite a margin after the elections this year, and our government is getting ever closer to NATO.

 

Hey Subbes. How're things?

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Weird escalation of my shitty personal life has now affected the well-being of someone not directly involved, and I feel terrible. The person who informed me that my SO was cheating also lives in my SO's parents' house while he applies to college, and is now moving out and trying to find a new place, even though he's found a job, made friends, and was finally having a normal life after being forced to leave his parents' house in siberia. All because I told her that he told me.

 

I am a bad person and this is stupid. It's weird to have affected someone in the collateral damage of something so personal.

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Weird escalation of my shitty personal life has now affected the well-being of someone not directly involved, and I feel terrible. The person who informed me that my SO was cheating also lives in my SO's parents' house while he applies to college, and is now moving out and trying to find a new place, even though he's found a job, made friends, and was finally having a normal life after being forced to leave his parents' house in siberia. All because I told her that he told me.

 

I am a bad person and this is stupid. It's weird to have affected someone in the collateral damage of something so personal.

 

i understand why you feel guilty about this, but the person who started the chain of events is the person that was cheating in a relationship.

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Can't complain, except that i'm fucking old! 

 

The world is pretty bad right now.  I dunno which is scarier - Ebola or RU/UKR.  :/

 

 

 

 

On 8/31/2014 at 2:47 PM, Badfinger said:

i understand why you feel guilty about this, but the person who started the chain of events is the person that was cheating in a relationship.

 

i'm emptyquoting this

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I just got home from a board game day, put all my games on my bed, got a glass of water, then came back and sat down full-weight on the rarest and most out-of-print of those games. An hour later, I'm (really not) done being mad at myself, but it's really interesting how the feeling of cardboard being crushed under my ass codified all these vague feelings I came home having into the realization that I've had a really bad day for no good reason.

 

When I was younger, I had a complete set of the first run on Pokemon cards. My brother and I took our collection to a local shop expecting to be offered thousands of pounds, only to find the guy behind the counter took out the 3 rarest cards and offered us about £20 for them all. We knew they were worth way more so we took our cards back and left.

 

Only I stupidly put the rare cards in my pocket instead of back into our folder and then, later that day, put my trousers in the wash. Should have taken that £20.

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Same here.

As eot says though there's still a long way between interfering with a conflict in a neighbouring country and actually full-on attacking another country, but it's still something that is definitely making a lot of ripples over here. From the looks of it our military budget will increase by quite a margin after the elections this year, and our government is getting ever closer to NATO.

Tbh that needed to happen anyway or they might as well have scrapped the military entirely.

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I have another month or so at this internship I'm in, where I get below minimum wage to work on an animated short that I think is overall quite lacking. I'm a quite critical person, so now I'm wondering if this will be a recurring feeling where I often think the shows and shorts I'm working on are just subpar, and if that really is the case is it worth working in an undervalued industry where they're asking for unpaid overtime (with free pizza!) or should I try do some other work where jobs are still scarce, but less so, and the pay isn't nearly as low grade. Either way I'll want to make stuff in my off time, but maybe spending my days creating stuff that I'm less interested in is just draining more energy for less of a payout?

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I think the idea of taking less pay is to do something that you want to see in the world. I don't know how much value an internship working on a project that's going to turn out crap is actually going to have for your resume; I would try and ask someone in the animation industry whose opinion you respect who seems to enjoy giving advice to newbies.

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I think the idea of taking less pay is to do something that you want to see in the world. I don't know how much value an internship working on a project that's going to turn out crap is actually going to have for your resume; I would try and ask someone in the animation industry whose opinion you respect who seems to enjoy giving advice to newbies.

 

I took less pay to mean "I'm going to look for a new job immediately". Last place I was at had me by the balls during wage talks, easier to stick to your guns when you have a job though!

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I have another month or so at this internship I'm in, where I get below minimum wage to work on an animated short that I think is overall quite lacking. I'm a quite critical person, so now I'm wondering if this will be a recurring feeling where I often think the shows and shorts I'm working on are just subpar, and if that really is the case is it worth working in an undervalued industry where they're asking for unpaid overtime (with free pizza!) or should I try do some other work where jobs are still scarce, but less so, and the pay isn't nearly as low grade. Either way I'll want to make stuff in my off time, but maybe spending my days creating stuff that I'm less interested in is just draining more energy for less of a payout?

 

I dropped out of animation because I realized that nearly all possible career paths in the industry would have involved working on absolutely terrible garbage since animation is by necessity committee-driven, so I moved into studying comics where I could have greater creative freedom since a creator can potentially produce an entire finished work themselves. A friend of mine finally did end up breaking into animation recently because he loves it and works hard; but he's working on Brickleberry, a show that he actively despises.

 

So I guess I have no real advice.

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The taking less pay part was about being in the animation industry, where hours are longer and pay is lower. I'm on a phone so I can't be totally clear, sorry but basically wondering if it's worth taking the starving artist path to work on projects I'm not wowed by. För the record I'm not entirely sure how good or bad others would view the short but I know I'm not big on it. I'm generally a more critical person than others, I'm quick to dislike things so it's not like it's terrible but it doesn't inspire me too much,. Though there are definite ways I see corners being cut or jobs being poorly done more often than I'd like. I don't know if any decision will come of this but it's certainly been weighing on me more lately when approaching a tight deadline for something I had doubts about even if we had plenty of time.

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@tegan And yeah, the disappointing thing about this is its not even a series for commission or anything, it's just a short this studio wanted to make, they're not answering to people and it has such a small committee kind of overhead on it, and still the cracks are showing. Probably due in large part to the fact that it's totally intern made. It is a shame though when contrasted with the hope I had for something more authorial clarity.

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basically wondering if it's worth taking the starving artist path to work on projects I'm not wowed by. I had doubts about even if we had plenty of time.

 

If you want to take the starving artist path I would say starve while making your own projects. You won't mind the overtime there and as long as you have something on the side to support your rent and such it still feels pretty good to work on cool things even if you gotta eat some ramen every now and then.

 

That said, internships are always a situation where you have to do the best with what you are given (aka too little time and next to no money), but if you enjoy working with the people maybe stick around, it might get better after the internship is up and you work there for real (if that's how that shakes out. Though they don't sound too organised). Internships are usually better for the experience in working at an office and getting to know tools and clients. And maybe more importantly where you can cut corners to deliver what you envisioned within the budget. But it won't exactly be your best work that you do there.

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On 9/1/2014 at 4:07 AM, Nachimir said:

Hello again subbes! That sounds like a healthy move.

 

It was a substance abuse treatment nonprofit and the director regularly screamed at employees.  Even I couldn't see any positive in the place - and y'all know I have a skill for making the best of a bad lot - so I got out as soon as I could.  

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God that's messed up. I have the impression that pretty much every nonprofit would be comprised of decent empathetic people because of the subject of their employment and would not expect abusive bosses with a power trip.

Glad you got out of there.

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As someone that works in nonprofit, I'd say that no particular generalization applies to that group. There are empathetic people and there are assholes, just like anywhere else. The empathetic people will find themselves working harder to achieve the mission of the nonprofit, while the assholes will do what's necessary to meet deliverables for grants.

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in the nonprofit 'ecosystem' by and large it has the same proportion of assholes as the for-profit world, everyone's just paid way less.  :)

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If you want to take the starving artist path I would say starve while making your own projects. You won't mind the overtime there and as long as you have something on the side to support your rent and such it still feels pretty good to work on cool things even if you gotta eat some ramen every now and then.

 

That said, internships are always a situation where you have to do the best with what you are given (aka too little time and next to no money), but if you enjoy working with the people maybe stick around, it might get better after the internship is up and you work there for real (if that's how that shakes out. Though they don't sound too organised). Internships are usually better for the experience in working at an office and getting to know tools and clients. And maybe more importantly where you can cut corners to deliver what you envisioned within the budget. But it won't exactly be your best work that you do there.

 

This is exactly where my thinking leads me, if I'm working on my own stuff then if nothing else I am in control of it far more and I'm a lot more invested and engaged.

 

I doubt there will be any specific thing that comes of this internship when it ends, there are 10 of us on as interns (it's an organised program thing, the studio didn't just decide they'd like to amass interns) and I'd be surprised if they take one of us on straight after but even if they do I know who it'll be. I think it's more likely this gets added to the experience section of the CV, and I might be on a shortlist of people to contact if they need work later.

 

Thanks for the perspectives and responses everyone. I'm not usually the kind of person who shares stuff like this publicly, but it helped a lot.

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Clearing my calendar, getting up early every morning, etc etc for the new school year. Log in to the substitute teacher placement website:

 

"Your personnel record contains an expiration date that prevents you from being assigned to jobs"

 

What? Is there any information on this? Nope. That's it. Have fun. What the hell? So now I get to spend my day on the phone with HR. Good times.

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I dropped out of animation because I realized that nearly all possible career paths in the industry would have involved working on absolutely terrible garbage since animation is by necessity committee-driven, so I moved into studying comics where I could have greater creative freedom since a creator can potentially produce an entire finished work themselves. A friend of mine finally did end up breaking into animation recently because he loves it and works hard; but he's working on Brickleberry, a show that he actively despises.

 

So I guess I have no real advice.

My ex did the same thing except she moved to character designs and making comics.

She would also complain about the exact same things you and Super wrote.

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It just got announced within my agency that I'm going to be promoted to a new position, so I feel like it's actually happening now. I got approached a few weeks ago about a database management position opening up in the regional office that operates above the local office where I work. I'm moving away from an entry-level admin job that I've been in for about two years now and am getting a respectable pay bump that'll let me do more than just pay the bills.

 

I don't really know much about database stuff, but I'm the most technically-minded person working in the agency at this moment so I guess I was the prime internal candidate. (CORRUPTION!!! CRONYISM!!!) As a result, they're also encouraging me to go back to school (I was about two years into an undergrad degree) where they'll reimburse me if I take DB-related classes. I was previously doing Computer Science, so I'm going to enroll in the local university and see if they have an IT track or investigate changing my major.

 

Anyways, everything seemed to line up with this job just as I was starting to get a little restless. I'm so excited.

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