Chicago MMXII

I will say that I would have been a lot more pissed off had I been in normal seats and not R's company box. Free Macallan 12 and shrimp cocktail can smooth over a lot of superstar ego issues.

Ooh, baller.

What happened to his conservative religious convictions from a while back? I thought he had sworn off being raunchy.

They played a few bars of "Darling Nikki" and went right into another song, so it seems like raunch-trolling is the new standard.

With all due pessimism (being realistic), this is sounds good:

http://www.suntimes.com/news/cityhall/15350928-418/chicago-aims-for-internet-access-in-parks-underserved-neighborhoods.html

The U.S.'s ranking in broadband accessibility and speed is a pretty sorry thing, IIRC. It will be awesome if the ambition behind this project keeps up and we actually get service in underserved areas. And it would be nice to give Comcast some competition.

Right before Katrina, New Orleans had started a city-wide free public wifi project. It was still partly operational in the central business district and a few other places when I was down there and it was really nice.

nice being able to get free wifi in places where you could sit and work for free, like plazas, sidewalk benches, and porches. And from indoor spots near windows.

It was a bad show, that Prince. He didn't "play" a tease of "Darling Nikki," or many other songs. He was sitting by a sampler, singing over short clips of about a dozen classics. During this his band, which was mysteriously down half its members, was literally just sitting there, waiting for him. The sound was awful, he picked up his guitar no more than twice, ceded to solo in "Purple Rain" to a saxophone, then kept the crowd waiting at the end for 30-40 minutes, in the dark, while a crew swept the stage of confetti. Then the house lights went on, 80% of the crowd left, and then he comes back out for "1999" and "Little Red Corvette."

House of Blues as a 4am curfew. He knows that shit. He let his lame protege play 3am to 3:30, then cut the show when the cops made it clear they were handing out thousands in fines for going over. He didn't play a note or even appear except to say the cops were shutting him down. Dude needs to buy a watch.

I'm skeptical of the wifi plan.

It was great when I was in Hong Kong and you could get wifi in public parks. Saved me many times when I needed to pull up a map.

Guys I have to figure out how to ask for a raise before tomorrow, so nervous.

Bring the baby to work.

Good start!

Did someone mention listening parties? There is one at my favorite hat store. I find this hilarious. https://www.facebook.com/events/432896613414808/

C'mon, the guy is a "peerless" singer-songwriter, how can you go wrong?

Oh, Jon, I revise what I wrote earlier: when going for a raise, bring the baby and a gun, too. You'll be set.

http://www.askamanager.org/2012/06/how-to-ask-for-a-raise.html

Good luck!

i find it funny for some reason that jeff has a favorite hat store. a *favorite* one.

good luck jvc.

ask a manager and mean hr lady are good blogs to subscribe to, imo. they are usually fun to read and they have good ideas to sock away and think about.

I say it is my favorite hat store, because it really is my only hat store. So favorite by default.

I can't cope with Evil HR Lady because of her gross underlying ideology, cf. the time she argued that there's no pay gap and even if there were, it was because women don't try hard enough to make more money.

Are these blogs about office life?

No, human resources/management practices/applied employment law. Informational as opposed to personal.

Thanks guys! I actually read that ask a manager one last night, was a good help.

Never mind. Few things worse than agonizing and concentrating on this for a week only to have your performance review canceled literally 3 minutes before its supposed to start.

how frustrating. :(

Eh, it happens. I'm just frustrated because who knows when it will be rescheduled. I was told it wouldn't be this week, I'm traveling to job sites in Cali next week, one partner is traveling the following week, and the other partner is on vaction for the two weeks following that. Annoying.

Gah! Definitely frustrating, even if it is a thing that happens.

So this seems to be pretty common in architecture firms, based on my past experiences and talking to other people, but is that common in other industries? That employee reviews are definitely a "oh, when we get around to it" thing, rather than something that is actually treated as somewhat important?

That seems like the norm in a lot of industries.

Just curious, my wife's past couple of jobs have taken them really seriously so I wondered where the norm fell between the two.

I always thought performance reviews were for right after one has done something wrong so mgmt has anti-raise ammo.

mine got postponed this year but it was more because my boss was new and didn't originally follow the protocol for setting it up

I can't cope with Evil HR Lady because of her gross underlying ideology, cf. the time she argued that there's no pay gap and even if there were, it was because women don't try hard enough to make more money.

Ugh, I'd forgotten about that. TBH, I haven't read either blog in a while b/c I haven't even peeked at my Reader feed in months. I tried really hard as a thought experiment to see it in the most positive light, but she was so clearly saying what you, carl, said above.

Are these blogs about office life?

Of course! I subscribe to some paralegals' blogs, and every profession has its bloggers.

employee reviews are definitely a "oh, when we get around to it" thing

This is the case at my job. Haven't had one in my current position (which I've been in for 2.5 yrs).

for me it's always "you provide the proof of your work in this neverending series of forms and maybe we'll talk to you about it 8-infinity months later"

also guys

NEW SOUND INSTALLATION at the fern room
it's really cool solo clarinet stuff from michael thieke

Okay, guess I should be happy to even be getting sort of annual reviews!

We have rigid schedule for performance management every year. It's nice.

The only place I've worked that was serious/strict about performance reviews was Food Lion*. If they hadn't completed an employee's review by the day of the deadline, they would pull them off of a cash register during a rush if they had to to complete the review.

I remember at one of my reviews my manager verbally lavished me with praise, with plenty of specific examples. Then she pulled out the paper review form and said, "....but, there is no money for the raise you deserve, and corporate uses reviews to determine raises, so I had to give you 3's and 4's instead of all 5's." She added, "Soz! LOL!" and I got a $.10/hr raise.

* I think now it was because they were fending off union organization, so they tried to mimic stuff organization would bring, like regular evaluations and recognition of merit.

performance, I mean, not merit.

In case anyone's interested a couple of bands fronted by MI friends of mine are playing next Tuesday at the Burlington.

https://www.facebook.com/events/231569646965451/

I had one performance eval in my five years w/ the state. I filled it out and my boss signed it without reading it.

Ww, Hopleaf's delicious for lunch.

OTM: http://slightlyinsultingchicagoposters.tumblr.com/post/32226728228

'specially "Big 10 Bar View," which is the subsection of Lakeview where we currently live. *sigh*

I'm going to get a BB gun and start shooting holes into people's giant plastic college logo beer mugs.

I bought a sweatshirt from Michigan Tech recently, the first piece of apparel from my alma mater I've owned, and happened to be wearing it through Lakeview on a chilly day last week. Even though they are far from a Big 10 school, have a D2 football program and pretty much all the students are complete nerds, I still felt slightly bro-tastic walking around.

Haha, pretty OTM, sadly. I would much rather live RP, Uptown, or Edgewater b/c they feel so much homier, but the commute is just too good to leave. Not that I don't love where I live b/c it's crazy convenient to everything and there is tons of street life, but it's a bit homogenous w/ mostly young whites, cut with a just a dash of familiar panhandlers and derelicts of color.

After the thing re Prince yesterday, I was thinking about the gaps in my knowledge of music and I remembered this

Things I learned today:

- Donna Summer is dead (though I didn't know that she wasn't dead before)
- Donna Summer was African-American. I realized that I have always conflated her with Suzanne Somers!

― Pita Malört (Je55e), Friday, May 18, 2012 5:11 PM (4 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Jesse you are starting to serve Tuomasian realness all up in here.

― a parker full of poseys (Stevie D(eux)), Friday, May 18, 2012 5:37 PM (4 months ago) Bookmark