Life

[Roderick]

That's not a duck, that's a freak! A fruck!

The most aggressive ducks in my neighbourhood are the Egyptian Geese (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_Goose), but they're way more loveable than your felducks ^_~

[subbes]

"This ain't no Jemima Puddleduck."

[elmuerte]

JavaScript allows ducktyping \o/

[subbes]

Crumbs!

O<

[MrHoatzin]

My boss put in his resignation last friday. I got promoted into a Señor Developer from a mere Web Designer.

This has somehow indirectly spurred two realizations. So this Life entry has one beginning but two ends.

That same friday my new glasses finally came, so now I can see how blind I am (not very, but the world has all this texture that I have been missing for a long time now, and all the living things have aged overnight) and I look like a fat, Serbian Elvis Costello.

I figured I needed to upgrade my wardrobe to look less like a hobo artist and more like my new responsibility.

1) My sister was in town for the weekend, and shopping is her super power, so she helped me find these clothes that fit me well and I ended up spending an obscene amount of money on a bunch of shirts and some neato pinstriped gray pants.

So then I come to work this monday and I feel weird because I am dressed differently, all tucked in and pristine, have fancy new glasses on, the bosses are sharing all this strategy with me on where they want to take the web department and I feel like I have all this heretofore hedged authority to try some new stuff. And I am getting a little weirded out, feeling outside of my element, a little woozy, undercaffeinated (we had run out of real coffee and I can't drink the same stuff everyone else drinks here), then my wife calls me and starts in this official, distant tone, "Hello, I am calling on behalf of Potter-Belmar Labs for Stevan Zivadinovic…" and my head just asploded. I screamed back at her.

It was a peculiar feeling of not being sure who I was any more. I understand how actors go crazy.

2) Now for whatever reason, this decision didn't come very easily to me. For years now the designer wing has felt a ridiculous pressure from higher ups here to be presentable to a group of hypothetical banker clients who could come to tour our offices ANY MOMENT NOW. One of the bosses would always say things like, "Don't dress for your job, dress for the job you wish you had." We've all been resentful to this charade, like spoiled children that we are.

There is also a senior designer at the company, hired a couple of years after me, who is super incompetent. He doesn’t know how to use any of the programs (he makes things in Illustrator that are really better suited for Photoshop, he makes flash banners in InDesign and then delivers them to me to build an hour before it needs to go go live), doesn’t really grasp what a pixel is (every time I give him pixel dimensions he delivers something four times the needed size), his designs are underwhelming (or as I’ve heard them caustically referred to naïve), and he makes so many mistakes that no one really wants to have to proofread the shit he puts together for fear of catching the blame if they miss something (I think his first notable faux pas was when for a client presentation he took a screen capture of a website in a browser, but failed to notice that in one of the other tabs, clearly visible, he had opened yourLogoMakesMeBarf.com).

He somehow lucked into the title of Creative Director at the previous place he worked, and then he got here and became a senior designer. It was always confusing to me that after firing summarily three or four people for making mistakes, they would keep this dude on in spite of the constant sloppiness and general underwhelmingness.

Recently it dawned on me. They are keeping him around so that they would have a clean-cut designer to trot out in front of the clients. The boss lady practically said as much. In stark contrast to all the other, more competent designers, he is always clean cut, has no visible tattoos, and has a really, really fancy car that he parks in the front of the building. He had a Corvette that he ruined by driving it through a puddle (low air intake), so now he drives a Mustang. I think his father is some sort of architect, that shit cannot be bought on a designer salary.

So basically, he was being kept around for show, surviving primarily as eye candy, competence be damned.

And in picking out clothes that looked nice on me, that were stylish but somewhat uncomfortable, I felt like I was doing it for all the wrong reasons. Like I was selling out so that the bosses wouldn’t keep me in a closet forever, afraid that I may scare away some of the fancier clients with my presentation.

I have never felt more like a woman. Patriarchy fucks us all.

[Orv]

I'm not excessively far away, and own a sledgehammer or four. And don't like Mustangs. . .

I used to dress like this;

(As much as I enjoy the man, he dresses the same damn way, though it's probably not his fault.)

I now dress like the fellow on the right, because damnit, I'm an adult, and there is no team uniform for adulthood!

So I know, perhaps inversely, what you feel like. That said, congrats on the promotion, you miserable web designer you.

E: I just realized there is a team uniform for adulthood. It's a pitch black baseball cap with the word "Schaudenfreud" in hot pink across the front.

[Nachimir]

Congrats on the promotion Kingz!

my new glasses finally came, so now I can see how blind I am (not very, but the world has all this texture that I have been missing for a long time now, and all the living things have aged overnight)

Weird isn't it?

I figured I needed to upgrade my wardrobe to look less like a hobo artist and more like my new responsibility.

[...]

So then I come to work this monday and I feel weird because I am dressed differently, all tucked in and pristine, have fancy new glasses on, the bosses are sharing all this strategy [...] and my head just asploded.

It was a peculiar feeling of not being sure who I was any more. I understand how actors go crazy.

You just put yourself through a fuckload of changes at once, and while we tend to want to say "the way you look isn't important", actually the way you present or perceive yourself is going to have a really profound effect on you. If you start wearing something really different to your usual wardrobe, then any uncertainty you feel can become insecurity and make you hypersensitive to the responses of others. It takes a while for that to settle down.

Orvidos is right, there's no uniform for adulthood. You may have changed your wardrobe, but there's no reason you can't make that look more interesting and cooler in your own eyes.

As for understanding why actors go crazy, absolutely. I was once mistaken for a contestant who got really far in a national talent show. We basically have the same face. He was well known for a while and everywhere I went people either whispered or came over to shake my hand. It lasted about a month and one point it started to freak me out, because the expectations of others who looked at me with recognition implied to me I was someone else. Hard to explain, but I think I know where you're at.

As well as all of the stuff you mention, a lot of your social connections at the company are likely changing, and that's a pretty traumatic thing to integrate.

Recently it dawned on me. They are keeping him around so that they would have a clean-cut designer to trot out in front of the clients.

That sucks, but it's a fact of your environment. Maybe with you looking clean cut and being competent, they'll come to rely on you instead. You obviously do a good job, so don't conflate your situation on clothes and clients with his competence situation. Not that you'd do it consciously, but that sort of identification is the kind of fuck up our unconscious minds specialise in.

You are not a member of his tribe. Whatever you decide to do on clothes, it would be worth underlining that to your colleagues in your dress. Also worth thinking about how the sudden change affects your connection to the people now working under you. Dress down days are not necessarily a superficial thing.

And in picking out clothes that looked nice on me, that were stylish but somewhat uncomfortable, I felt like I was doing it for all the wrong reasons. Like I was selling out so that the bosses wouldn’t keep me in a closet forever,

Good reasons to tweak the way you dress until it's something you like. As far as selling out is concerned, this Dave Eggers (Not the Thumbs one!) piece is fantastic:

http://students.ou.edu/M/Eric.C.Mai-1/DE.htm

You actually asked me the question: "Are you taking any steps to keep shit real?" I want you always to look back on this time as being a time when those words came out of your mouth.

Something really good has happened to you, but elements of that have also made you feel perhaps manipulated and like a victim. You're closer than you were to things that make you uncomfortable. In thinking it through and making rational decisions, you can take control of those feelings, adapt to all of your external changes and come to feel like your entire life and identity is your own again.

[Hermie]

Kingzrat Congratulation, Kingz!

As far as "dressing as an adult" goes, the way you dress certainly can have a large effect on how you feel. While my usual uniform tend to center around dorky t-shirts (unemployed student, go figure), I still like occasions to dress up in something proper, simply because they are clothes that make me feel like I look good.

I think it might have been a mistake to let your sister go wild instead of having more of a say yourself?

Because when you pick out a shirt in the morning, and you're able to look yourself in the mirror and go "Yeah.", this not only has an effect on how you feel about the clothes and yourself, it also means you carry yourself better. You give of the air of "This is how I style", instead of "I'm trying to dress to fit my paygrade". Which, if you're going around being nervous about people possibly getting that impression, you're probably subconsciously projecting this already. You said it yourself, you feel uncomfortable in those clothes.

THEN AGAIN I currently have a giant Deadpool on my chest so what the hell do I know about adultdom?

[Roderick]

Congratulations, Kingz. Now go delve into office politics to get that guy fired.

I've had troubles adapting to an office climate. I found the atmosphere sometimes way too political, even if the company is small and usually very laidback. It's weird to suddenly have to pay close attention to what you're saying because everything might be used against you without warning, people will gossip about you. Just, weird.

Dressing up is something I have no qualms with, but that may be because I mix styles a lot and like dressing up. For the past months I've been wearing dress shirts and ties with a waistcoat over it, super neat but always still a little colorful and clownesque. Other days I'll wear jogging pants and t-shirt to work, or a jacket, or just a sweater. I love looking like a professional and businessman though, wearing suits (=ties) makes me feel snazzy and powerful, which is a great feeling.

So, back to you. Work can be constricting and full of responsibilities you don't want sometimes. Well, that's why it's work, not hobby. It's not easy, and perhaps you'll think about up and leaving at times, but whenever I do, common sense prevails and I appreciate the good parts of it.

This rant probably sucked enormously, sorry.

[Nachimir]

wearing suits (=ties) makes me feel snazzy and powerful, which is a great feeling.

That's interesting. The Jehovah's Witness thing means wearing a suit has associations for me with submission and misery. I know from the reactions of others that there's nothing external about that though, people react really well to smartness, which makes me ambivalent.

The way self perception and associations grow into and from clothes is really interesting. Especially as they're something we invented.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Our perceptions about the "good" or "bad" of certain things are completely irrational and based on our own pre-decided opinions. Kingz, instead of thinking you've become "compliant", why don't you try and twist it around another way: You're dressing smart so that you're more likely to get respect from your team. You're dressing smart so that your team is more likely to be protected from upper-management BS, because they'll have more faith in you. You're dressing smart because you like looking snazzy and powerful. You're dressing smart because it puts you in a better mindset for your new role. You're dressing smart because you know the sea of BS you have to swim through each day, and looking a certain way will make it easier for you to get the things YOU want.

Don't imagine puffy suits that you hate, imagine yourself as a smooth character from any 40s, 50s or 60s movies you like.

If none of that rings true, don't forget that you're the one whose decided to feel bad about your suit. Nobody else had said anything to you (that you've mentioned, at least). You may actually look super fucking dapper in that thing!

Anyways, that's my 2c. It may not help at all.

[ThunderPeel2001]

NORTHAMPTON THUMBS

(Do we have any?)

I've just made a stupid fucking decision because I'm an idiot. I just bought tickets to an Alan Moore event in Northampton... and I live in London. Why did I do such a thing?

As tickets are completely non-refundable, I'm believe I'm pretty much screwed. I just threw money away on something I can't afford. Why did I do such a thing?

Would any Thumb like to see comic-book genius Alan Moore in Northampton? The tickets are a mere £5 each. I have two of them.

Argh. I'm an idiot.

[Ben X]

PREDATOR WOULD ONLY HAVE BEEN £6.50.

[ThunderPeel2001]

PREDATOR WOULD ONLY HAVE BEEN £6.50.

Although to be fair, I've seen Predator many times... and I'm still up for drinks.

[Scrobbs]

I think I could get used to living in the country. No hangover this am, up early and been tree cuttin', chainsawin', bonfirin', fence repairin', now it's lunch, this aft am off to cut another tree down.

[subbes]

Why not hop a bus?

(To see AM.)

(Will there be a Q&A?)

[Roderick]

I think I could get used to living in the country. No hangover this am, up early and been tree cuttin', chainsawin', bonfirin', fence repairin', now it's lunch, this aft am off to cut another tree down.

Well done, sir.

[MrHoatzin]

As for the incompetent dude, it is really not his fault. I can't hold it against him. The other day I watched him fumble with a French press, getting too much water, waiting for 20 minutes for it to boil, then plunging it too soon and too quickly, spilling the coffee all over the counter... He seems to be constantly on edge somehow, rushing and anxious... He's probably in his late thirties, early forties, you'd think he'd have his shit figured out by then. I felt sorry and like an asshole for holding anything against him personally.

The clothes do look great, and they're not anything I wouldn't wear otherwise when trying to look dapper. They just weren't hobo plaid seersucker shirts that are always wrinkly by design. This sort of thing, as opposed to this. My sister didn't push anything on me, she just navigated me through the right stores and dissuaded me from picking things that didn't really fit well, made me get a white shirt and a black shirt, that sort of thing.

My objection to it is entirely philosophical and yet somehow on a somewhat irrational level. I don't want how I look to trump how well I do what I have been hired to do. A rational person would just game the system, give in to something as meaningless as dress code and pick a more relevant battle. I have yet to figure out how to get over this ridiculous thing. At some point I think I've figured it out, but then a few weeks pass and I realize I haven't.

And you know, this is such a gentriefied, bourgeois psychosis! Kroms comes in here every so often and says something like, Here's some contraband vids, hope I don't get disappeared by the Stasi, see you guys later hopefully! and I am all I got promoted, but Whaaaa:\:\! Dress code! What the fuck is wrong with me.

[Orv]

What the fuck is wrong with me.

Are you Texan by birth/raising?

[MrHoatzin]

Oh, and that Dave Eggers thing is not really about the same thing. I haven't been obsessive about keeping it real with my art for a long time now, I let my art go where it needs to. And it is not an outwardly looking thing either, I am not anxious about appearing a sellout among my peers. It is some sort of personal sovereignty* thing. It's more a matter of me not liking to be told how to do and not do things, rather than a matter of keeping it real.

The new clothes may not confer a degree of authority, but they sure make me feel smug.

* I couldn't remember this word so I wikied the treaty of Westphalia. We make some really weird cross references and shortcuts in our minds.

[MrHoatzin]

Are you Texan by birth/raising?

Neither. I had Texas thrust upon me, but I think a certain degree of Texanness I have attained of my own volition. I really like the cowboy artist archetype. I one-up it by actually being Serbian.

[Orv]

Neither. I had Texas thrust upon me, but I think a certain degree of Texanness I have attained of my own volition. I really like the cowboy artist archetype. I one-up it by actually being Serbian.

My excuse for what's wrong with you is being Texan, so it all ends up you crazy. Seriously, this place does things to you. Unspeakable, horrible things. Like cravings for banjo.

[ThunderPeel2001]

I think I could get used to living in the country. No hangover this am, up early and been tree cuttin', chainsawin', bonfirin', fence repairin', now it's lunch, this aft am off to cut another tree down.

That sounds like the right kind of life. Busy, active and full of use

Why not hop a bus?

(To see AM.)

(Will there be a Q&A?)

Hmm. It's sounds silly, but that didn't cross my mind. He's doing a reading, so probably no Q&A (knowing Alan Moore). Bus could be done for £17. Hmm.

[subbes]

A pity.

If they'd had a Q&A I'd have asked you to ask him what the hell was up with Cobweb's origin story from Tomorrow Stories Special #1 because seriously, man, that's made me feel like a pervert.

Er. Like more of a pervert.

(Stop looking at my Lost Girls box set.)

[Ben X]

(Stop looking at my Lost Girls box set.)

Oooh, can I borrow?