From: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org (alloy-digest) To: alloy-digest@smoe.org Subject: alloy-digest V4 #200 Reply-To: alloy@smoe.org Sender: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk X-To-Unsubscribe: Send mail to "alloy-digest-request@smoe.org" X-To-Unsubscribe: with "unsubscribe" as the body. alloy-digest Wednesday, July 21 1999 Volume 04 : Number 200 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Alloy: TMBG and LoDo [dalexander@juno.com] Alloy: (Un)Employment [dalexander@juno.com] Re: Alloy: (Un)Employment + Frustration [Tim_Dunn.JBA_HEATHROW.SPL_EXTERN] Re: Alloy: (Un)Employment [RThurF@aol.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 23:33:04 -0600 From: dalexander@juno.com Subject: Alloy: TMBG and LoDo >Last night I saw They Might Be Giants at the AT&T LODO Music Festival here in Denver. They have a great live show! After the show, John Flansburg signed autographs at the Media Play booth. Very nice guy. I got a T-shirt and CD autographed. Y'know, I was going to call you to see if you wanted to go with me to the festival, but I ordered my tickets during the last 5 possible minutes and figured I might see you there if you got yours, if you were going. I got a T-shirt and CD signed by John as well! I know there were a ton of people there but it's amazing we didn't see each other! It was great! Only $12 each day for 4 stages and I don't know how many bands (at least 4 each stage, each day). Did you go Saturday too? I also saw Violent Femmes, Cowboy Mouth and Tiny Town. I'm going Friday to the Soiled Dove to see Zuba (a local act). I caught the last half of her last song and thought it was better than all three (aforementioned) bands! She had kind of a Jimi Hendrix sound. Not to mention, there aren't that many girls playing lead guitar anyway. Let me know if you want to go Friday. ___________ JAMac (Dennis S. Alexander) www.dennisa.com - Nutrition/Income Opportunities "The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams" - Eleanor Roosevelt ___________________________________________________________________ Get the Internet just the way you want it. Free software, free e-mail, and free Internet access for a month! Try Juno Web: http://dl.www.juno.com/dynoget/tagj. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 00:06:07 -0600 From: dalexander@juno.com Subject: Alloy: (Un)Employment Sorry, but this isn't really Dolby related but I had to rant. And if anyone knows of a Systems Admin job in my area, I'm looking... Well, here I go again... Robin, I'm in your boat now, though it looks like you're leaving the boat (congratulations!) I got fired last Friday. While it's true that some of our most critical servers were not getting backed up for the last two weeks, it was not my fault that I didn't have time to check the logs to make sure they were getting backed up. The company was great, the boss was pretty good too. Except that he forgot nearly everything I told or emailed him, took credit for all my ideas, interrupted every time I tried to tell him something important and ignored my pleas for help. I told him a month ago that I needed some assistance for only a month or two so that I could bring everything around to a somewhat stable condition. You see, he was hired a week before I was and the rest of the staff came a week or two later; a whole, brand new department. That was two and a half months ago. And the company had not had anything remotely similar to an IT department in at least the last two years! There were huge security holes everywhere... Servers were installed on desktop computers with insufficient memory and no hardware redundancy... No antivirus software (they lost 50 PC's to Chernobyl the week before I was brought on)... It was just a huge mess. My boss, said he would bring in a temp. The day before I got fired he finally explained to me that he felt *guilty* hiring a temp. Why? Because he didn't think it was fair to bring someone in that we might have to let go of if there was no work for them once the projects we would hire them for were done. Excuse me?!? Why do you think they call them temps? Why do people volunteer to be hired on as a temp if that were such a terrible thing?!? For crying out loud!!!! He made me sign a memo two weeks before showing areas of improvement that I needed to work on or he would have to let me go. At the end of the memo, I reminded him of the 'Temp' he said he would hire. Still, he demanded that I put in more overtime. So for the last two weeks I did not have a minute to myself and I had to cancel all my obligations as well! Worse yet, three systems crashed, big time during that two weeks. Exchange (our email) had it's one and only hard drive crash and the backup was corrupt but recoverable. (not my fault) One of our databases got repeatedly corrupted by the exact same employees 4 days in a row! (not my fault) Users down in Colorado Springs could not log on if they went on vacation (WINS had been corrupt for some time and we were now forced to fix it). (again, not my fault.) And while I fixed all these things, I never got a chance to make sure the tape backups were getting everything. Well, my boss found out that our database servers were not getting backed up, (something that went wrong when we restored Exchange (I hate ArcServe!!!!)) and he told the president. Actually, the president fired me, not my boss. Now I know why they've not had any decent computer support in years! DUH!!! I talked with my co-workers the week before and they were already looking for jobs as they couldn't stand the place either and suggested that I do the same. He lied to me about the wage he could hire me at, about giving me "comp time" for overtime spent and about getting some temporary assistance for me. Sorry to rant so much but I hate employers who screw you over!!! I understand exactly how you feel, Robin. ___________ JAMac (Dennis S. Alexander) www.dennisa.com - Nutrition/Income Opportunities "The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams" - Eleanor Roosevelt ___________________________________________________________________ Get the Internet just the way you want it. Free software, free e-mail, and free Internet access for a month! Try Juno Web: http://dl.www.juno.com/dynoget/tagj. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 09:27:46 +0100 From: Tim_Dunn.JBA_HEATHROW.SPL_EXTERNAL@jba.co.uk Subject: Re: Alloy: (Un)Employment + Frustration Hi Dennis and everyone Sorry I seem to have been away for so long! Well, our best IT Support guy left yesterday, giving 1 days' notice, so if you fancy a relocate to London I'm sure we could fit you in. That's especially if you play guitar of course! I'm in a real spot at the moment. Let me explain. Last week for a bit of laugh, I put four of my songs on a tape and gave it in to a venue in London, just to see if they'd ring me and offer gigs. Of course I don't have a band at the moment and record solo in the studio, so I was delighted and horrified in equal measure when I got a call at 9:30 the next morning from an A&R guy offering me gigs, not just there, but at a whole list of other venues around the capital, including the famous London Borderline. He also said (though it may have been flannel) that 13 of his acts in the past 2-3 years have gone on to secure deals. So anyway, He asked me how soon I can come down and play the borderline with my band, and, not wanting to blow this great contact, I told him that I was still looking for a bass player, and would get back to him as soon as I felt the new guy was ready. So now I'm in a complete state, and my cynicism about the gangrenous state of the music industry has vanished overnight and I'm rushing round and advertising for band members and sending out millions of tapes, but most of all, I'm looking for THE guitarist, a cross between Graham from Blur and Johnny from Radiohead (well, you've got to have ambition!) So if anyone from the London Alloy contingents is interested in the road to fame and glory (?) or has any friends who are musicians, I'd be ultimately grateful!!!! Cheers the_copse ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 10:28:34 EDT From: RThurF@aol.com Subject: Re: Alloy: (Un)Employment Dennis, I'm so sorry about your losing your job!!! As you know, I fully sympathize with your situation & the disappointment you must feel. There's nothing like having someone else's irrational and unprofessional behavior trash your own personal livelihood. But think of this as only a temporary setback. Chances are, this company you worked for are already well-known for their 'employment practices', or at least they will be shortly with so many of your coworkers running screaming away from them..! It won't harm your career having associated with them. In fact, it's very much to your credit that you tried so hard in the face of ignorant adversity to fix their many problems for them (whether they appreciated it or not!). Best of luck - I know you'll find something soonthat will make you much happier than this place did :) Robin T ------------------------------ End of alloy-digest V4 #200 ***************************