I've been freaking out for quite some time over whether or not I should take the promotion at work. As if my current craziness wasn't exhausting enough, I had to deepen my indecisiveness by pitting the pros and cons up against each other as if my very soul rested upon the results. I just wasn't sure. Yes, there seemed like some good aspects to the new position, like more money, less work, more hours. There were also a few bad things, like more responsibility, answering to the store manager and more hours. Yeah, I know, more hours should just be a good thing but seeing as how I hate working there, the less hours I have, the better. Plus, I need to free up as much time as I can so I can "work" on my writing and animating. And, thinking of the future, having a supervisor position would look good on my resume. Of course, the more money part was the best part. Yet, I was still hesitant.
As far as I knew, there were only three applicants: me, another associate well suited for the position and another who is barely suitable for existence. So, it was really just me and the other girl. And honestly, I was pretty sure I was more capable than she was. Not bragging, just keeping it one hundred. So, it was really just me and her. But, really, I thought it was just going to be me. I had almost hoped he'd give the job to her just so I wouldn't have to make the agonizing decision of accepting or declining. It would be out of my hands and I wouldn't have to worry about being wrong or right, about screwing up my life even more. At the same time, I knew whatever was going to happen, I'd be pretty disappointed. If I didn't get it, I'd be stuck with less pay and more work. If I did, then I might hate it.
So, I asked for a sign, some definitive answer to let me know if I should take the job or not. Did I want this? Could I handle this? Would this turn into another barback catastrophe? And I didn't want some puny sign, something that could be written off as a minor coincidence or something I could explain away easily. It's almost like when you're looking for something, you'll find it. You'll notice the smallest, stupidest thing and twist it to relate to your situation. I didn't want that. I didn't need any more hesitation. I didn't need to be indecisive about a sign to help me with my indecisiveness! I needed a clear yes or no, not a wishy-washy eh.
The next morning, I went to work like usual, only to come upon a bevy of police cars parked along the road of my work location. They were blocking my usual route so I had to go the long way around to get to the parking lot. As I passed, I noticed there was an accident of some sort. A mangled white car was on the side of the road. Many of my coworkers were out there looking. At first, I thought they were just morbidly curious. As I walked toward the building, one of the associates yelled to me that one of the ones in the crash was one of our coworkers.
Specifically, my competition.
My eyes bulged as I ran to the one yelling and asked if she was okay. Thankfully, she was fine but shaken up. Was this the sign I had asked for the previous night? Was I responsible for her totaled car and frazzled faculties? Was this my answer and if so, was it the loud and clear yes or was it possibly a resounding no? I didn't know how to interpret these unfolding events. Was this my competition being eliminated or was this telling me that she definitely needs this job now because her car is entirely destroyed? As if my nerves weren't already spiked with electricity, it felt like they were being fried from the inside.
I explained this to a coworker later in the day and she assured me I shouldn't be concerned about it. It made me feel only slightly better. I talked myself through it for the rest of the day. After giving it extremely careful thought, I came to a conclusion. I knew what I wanted to do.
Right before my shift ended, the store manager called me into his office. This was it. He was going to tell me I got it. I took a deep breath. He told me after very careful consideration, he gave the job to someone else, someone I didn't even know had applied for it. The reason? Although she had only been there three months, she had more than ten years of retail experience overall, as opposed to my four years. And that was that. Although I worked my butt off there for the two years I was in college and worked twice as hard in the six months since returning, I suppose performance doesn't matter much when you can just say you've been in the game longer. I've also been wiping my butt hole for the past twenty-something years while this lady has been wiping hers for the past fifty-something but does that really mean that she can wipe her butt better than I? I was slightly blindsided by the surprise applicant and after I heard of my rejection, I tuned out the rest of his droning to process what he had just said. I was calm. I was okay. And it was done.
And naturally, just like I had mentioned, after it all sank in, I was pretty disappointed, slightly angry. And the more I think about the manager's reason for hiring this lady over me or the car crash girl, it irks me. But, what can I do? What's done is done and I'm stuck being their little peon. He did mention that I was an asset to the company, as if it was some kind of consolation prize. He inferred that I got "second place" for the job, so I guess he thought he'd slip that right on in there to make me feel better.
But that doesn't make me feel better at all.
Because I was going to accept.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Friday, February 4, 2011
animation notes #1
I'm pretty baffled.
I've been inconsistently sitting down and trying to figure out how to use these animation programs. The software came with five disks and no instructions. Awesome. So, I've been purchasing books and watching tutorials and reading message boards in hopes of figuring out how to work all of this stuff but nothing has totally helped me. I can understand bits and pieces here and there and I can almost put all the information together into something cohesive and understandable but not quite. I feel like I'm almost there but all the information I've read just kind of glosses over the basics and never really applies the instructions to actual animation. It's pretty frustrating.
As I've mentioned, everything I used in college has been upgraded at least twice in the year since I've graduated. I don't want to say everything I learned was obsolete but it's definitely a lot slower of a process than what the new technology is capable of. Unfortunately, I just don't know how to use the new technology! Just to give you a small lesson in animation, it takes approximately (depending on your frame rate) twenty-four frames to make one second of animation. That's twenty-four drawings. Not only that but the drawings usually need to be cleaned up/inked and then filled in with color. So, you're basically creating a picture in three phases. So, that equates to seventy-two images for one second of animation. Now, image doing a two or three minute short animation. It might not seem long but when you take into account the drawing, clean up and simple color fill (not including shading and/or highlighting), it can take weeks or months just to make that seemingly simple two minutes. Drawing every frame by hand is called frame by frame animation. That's what I did for my senior film.
Well, there's a new thing in Adobe Flash called symbols that can increase productivity. You basically draw a shape that you want to animate, turn it into a symbol, and then you can work with that one shape instead of having to redraw it fifteen hundred times. Sounds great but I don't know how to do it. I mean, I do, but it gets complicated when you try to organize your symbols into libraries and then you can do symbols inside of symbols and you can even do movie clips inside of symbols if I'm not mistaken. It's like a hierarchy of symbols and I don't know how to construct it correctly.
So, I sit here and sort through my books and try to to go to the software website and look up stuff on YouTube but nothing really has what I'm looking after and I'm kind of stuck. I suppose I could do frame by frame animation but it could take me forever to produce something. But, I actually prefer frame by frame animation. I like the idea of putting all of myself into animating. I've always been a bigger fan of traditional 2D animation, where you put your pencil to paper and often times literally put your blood, sweat and tears into the thing. I know I've often sweated over a deadline, got misty when frustrated and even gave myself a paper cut or two in the process. You put your all into it. I think it's a bit more personal than 3D animation where you point and click. Now, let me say, I am not against 3D animation at all. In fact, I think it has come a long way and is amazing it its own way. I would even like to do 3D animation in the future. But, as of right now, I prefer 2D. But, since it would be more economical for me to do my 2D on a computer, I'm not getting the full feel of traditional animation by paper. Still, doing this frame by frame is as close as I can get and I'm okay with that. It will just take forever.
One of the cons of frame by frame animation is the tendency to lose the shape of the character after a while. You get so caught up in trying to move the thing that it might start to grow or shrink as you get far into animating. With symbols, however, you don't lose the shape because you're working with the one image over several frames. But, there's a certain look to symbols that you might not be able to achieve with hand drawn animation.
I guess I'll just have to compromise. I don't have all the free time in the world to create a cartoon just however I want. There are many things to consider. I'd love to create an actual cartoon series that would run almost the same amount of length as a cartoon you'd see on television, which is about twenty-something minutes, sans commercials. Imagine doing a twenty minute cartoon and doing around ten episodes of that cartoon. That's about fourteen thousand images right there. No small feat. I might finish by the time I'm thirty. Plus, I'd have no time to work on other projects for myself or others. I definitely don't want to be doing that, though. So, it seems symbols might speed up the process. I just need to find out how to use them! I might just have to do frame by frame for now until I can find out how to do the other because while I'm trying to learn one thing, I'm doing nothing.
I guess we'll see what I can come up with...eventually.
I've been inconsistently sitting down and trying to figure out how to use these animation programs. The software came with five disks and no instructions. Awesome. So, I've been purchasing books and watching tutorials and reading message boards in hopes of figuring out how to work all of this stuff but nothing has totally helped me. I can understand bits and pieces here and there and I can almost put all the information together into something cohesive and understandable but not quite. I feel like I'm almost there but all the information I've read just kind of glosses over the basics and never really applies the instructions to actual animation. It's pretty frustrating.
As I've mentioned, everything I used in college has been upgraded at least twice in the year since I've graduated. I don't want to say everything I learned was obsolete but it's definitely a lot slower of a process than what the new technology is capable of. Unfortunately, I just don't know how to use the new technology! Just to give you a small lesson in animation, it takes approximately (depending on your frame rate) twenty-four frames to make one second of animation. That's twenty-four drawings. Not only that but the drawings usually need to be cleaned up/inked and then filled in with color. So, you're basically creating a picture in three phases. So, that equates to seventy-two images for one second of animation. Now, image doing a two or three minute short animation. It might not seem long but when you take into account the drawing, clean up and simple color fill (not including shading and/or highlighting), it can take weeks or months just to make that seemingly simple two minutes. Drawing every frame by hand is called frame by frame animation. That's what I did for my senior film.
Well, there's a new thing in Adobe Flash called symbols that can increase productivity. You basically draw a shape that you want to animate, turn it into a symbol, and then you can work with that one shape instead of having to redraw it fifteen hundred times. Sounds great but I don't know how to do it. I mean, I do, but it gets complicated when you try to organize your symbols into libraries and then you can do symbols inside of symbols and you can even do movie clips inside of symbols if I'm not mistaken. It's like a hierarchy of symbols and I don't know how to construct it correctly.
So, I sit here and sort through my books and try to to go to the software website and look up stuff on YouTube but nothing really has what I'm looking after and I'm kind of stuck. I suppose I could do frame by frame animation but it could take me forever to produce something. But, I actually prefer frame by frame animation. I like the idea of putting all of myself into animating. I've always been a bigger fan of traditional 2D animation, where you put your pencil to paper and often times literally put your blood, sweat and tears into the thing. I know I've often sweated over a deadline, got misty when frustrated and even gave myself a paper cut or two in the process. You put your all into it. I think it's a bit more personal than 3D animation where you point and click. Now, let me say, I am not against 3D animation at all. In fact, I think it has come a long way and is amazing it its own way. I would even like to do 3D animation in the future. But, as of right now, I prefer 2D. But, since it would be more economical for me to do my 2D on a computer, I'm not getting the full feel of traditional animation by paper. Still, doing this frame by frame is as close as I can get and I'm okay with that. It will just take forever.
One of the cons of frame by frame animation is the tendency to lose the shape of the character after a while. You get so caught up in trying to move the thing that it might start to grow or shrink as you get far into animating. With symbols, however, you don't lose the shape because you're working with the one image over several frames. But, there's a certain look to symbols that you might not be able to achieve with hand drawn animation.
I guess I'll just have to compromise. I don't have all the free time in the world to create a cartoon just however I want. There are many things to consider. I'd love to create an actual cartoon series that would run almost the same amount of length as a cartoon you'd see on television, which is about twenty-something minutes, sans commercials. Imagine doing a twenty minute cartoon and doing around ten episodes of that cartoon. That's about fourteen thousand images right there. No small feat. I might finish by the time I'm thirty. Plus, I'd have no time to work on other projects for myself or others. I definitely don't want to be doing that, though. So, it seems symbols might speed up the process. I just need to find out how to use them! I might just have to do frame by frame for now until I can find out how to do the other because while I'm trying to learn one thing, I'm doing nothing.
I guess we'll see what I can come up with...eventually.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
ruminating retail
There's a supervisor position opening at my work and I don't know if I should take it. One of my coworkers told me about it and seems pretty adamant that I apply for it. It sounds pretty good on paper except I would have to open and close the store, which means getting up earlier and staying at the store later. I know that sounds really petty but I hate getting up early in the morning. I can barely wake up and get to the store at my appointed time now. Plus, if I'm the only supervisor there, I would be the one the associates would call if they have a question or a problem with a customer. I'm not sure if I'm ready to handle that responsibility. I have to call the current supervisors quite often myself. Especially when I have an angry customer. I just let the supervisor deal with it so I won't have to. But, if I become supervisor, I'll have to.
Plus, I'll have keys and codes that I'll have to keep track of. More responsibility. I'm not sure if I can handle it. I kind of already feel stressed out enough. I'm basically in charge of my department now but because I'm an associate, there's a slight buffer zone of responsibility where I can ask for help and/or let someone else take care of a certain situation. If I become a supervisor, it'll all be on me.
I also don't want to be so tied down to the place. Being a peon associate, I kind of feel like I can come and go pretty easily. I show up and do my job and leave. There's no extra paperwork or scheduling to do. I just fold some shirts and get the heck up out of there. I just wonder how all the extra hours will affect my ability to work on my animations. I also wonder how it will affect my ability to leave if I ever did get an internship. I hoped they would let me off for as long as the internship lasted and then would let me back when it was over (if the internship didn't lead to any job opportunities). Being an associate, I don't think it would be much of a problem. But, being a supervisor, that probably wouldn't work out so well.
But then again, what if I don't get a better job or an internship any time soon or at all? I would hate to miss this opportunity, as this will probably be the last opportunity for a long while. There really is no option for advancement as everyone has been at this job for most of their lives. Seriously. These people have been locked into their positions since for over forty years. For some, this has been there one and only job the whole time. So, this is an extremely rare opportunity for advancement and for a pay raise, which I need desperately. But, I've heard conflicting wage amounts. Some say it won't be much more (which I don't see being worth pursuing) and others say it will be a lot more (which would be worth pursuing) so I don't know what to do.
I kind of like the idea of being a supervisor. I like the idea of the associates being happy that I'm working with them instead of some other supervisors. I know I dread working with some and enjoy working with others so I'd like to be that supervisor people enjoy working with. It would make me feel good. I just worry I might not be stern enough when it comes time to discipline someone who might not be doing what they are supposed to. I am pretty non-confrontational.
Then again, having supervisory experience would look good on my resume when I apply for a different job.
There's good and there's bad to this position. I just can't figure out which one weighs more.
I don't want to screw up and take the position and then hate it and either be stuck there or embarrassed by having to revert back to my old position. I also don't want to miss this opportunity for advancement and regret it.
I have to hand in my application by Thursday. Not much time to make a decision.
Plus, I'll have keys and codes that I'll have to keep track of. More responsibility. I'm not sure if I can handle it. I kind of already feel stressed out enough. I'm basically in charge of my department now but because I'm an associate, there's a slight buffer zone of responsibility where I can ask for help and/or let someone else take care of a certain situation. If I become a supervisor, it'll all be on me.
I also don't want to be so tied down to the place. Being a peon associate, I kind of feel like I can come and go pretty easily. I show up and do my job and leave. There's no extra paperwork or scheduling to do. I just fold some shirts and get the heck up out of there. I just wonder how all the extra hours will affect my ability to work on my animations. I also wonder how it will affect my ability to leave if I ever did get an internship. I hoped they would let me off for as long as the internship lasted and then would let me back when it was over (if the internship didn't lead to any job opportunities). Being an associate, I don't think it would be much of a problem. But, being a supervisor, that probably wouldn't work out so well.
But then again, what if I don't get a better job or an internship any time soon or at all? I would hate to miss this opportunity, as this will probably be the last opportunity for a long while. There really is no option for advancement as everyone has been at this job for most of their lives. Seriously. These people have been locked into their positions since for over forty years. For some, this has been there one and only job the whole time. So, this is an extremely rare opportunity for advancement and for a pay raise, which I need desperately. But, I've heard conflicting wage amounts. Some say it won't be much more (which I don't see being worth pursuing) and others say it will be a lot more (which would be worth pursuing) so I don't know what to do.
I kind of like the idea of being a supervisor. I like the idea of the associates being happy that I'm working with them instead of some other supervisors. I know I dread working with some and enjoy working with others so I'd like to be that supervisor people enjoy working with. It would make me feel good. I just worry I might not be stern enough when it comes time to discipline someone who might not be doing what they are supposed to. I am pretty non-confrontational.
Then again, having supervisory experience would look good on my resume when I apply for a different job.
There's good and there's bad to this position. I just can't figure out which one weighs more.
I don't want to screw up and take the position and then hate it and either be stuck there or embarrassed by having to revert back to my old position. I also don't want to miss this opportunity for advancement and regret it.
I have to hand in my application by Thursday. Not much time to make a decision.
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