Mitch
30-03-2007, 07:22 PM
Just got home from work after my first week in the new job.
I can't believe it took me three years to get away from that paper...
the place I work now is a complete change in many directions...
The subjects I've worked on this week have been fascinating. It's not naff newspaper ads for cars or hookers (OK, they call them massage parlours these days, but what's changed?) and you're not dealing with a bint who shoved the tea trolley around one minute who then got promoted straight to telesales team leader the next! :eek:
My job is to pre-flight books and magazines before they go to press, making sure all the pictures and fonts are there before they go off to the printers.
The people I work with - including the three other blokes in my department - are nice. I am actually working with people - including my manager and creative director - who actually know what they are doing (especially with a mac) with stuff like Typography (making the words look good on the page) not like the morons at The Arsebuscuits (most places we've worked, me and Mrs R give them names depending on how we disliked liked working there). I am actually learning stuff!!!!
The guys in the Mac Room understand my jokes for one thing and have similar ideals and heroes (Oliver Reed, Dita Von Teese, Fred Dibnah :)) and we have conversations on a good level, not the usual grunts I got most days. OK, we might get a bit geeky sometimes, but at least we know what we're doing... so it's a small price to pay.
I no longer have to fight the system and blag a copy of Illustrator or Photoshop so I can get on with my work... Everything's there for me on my own machine. The IT department know how to fix macs (very important when there isn't a PC in the building - everyone from the receptionist to the boss uses macs - all sixty or so of us). What's more, once Adobe CS (creative suite) 3 comes out, the firm is buying us guys in the Mac Room top of the range Mac Pro's (as they like us! :D and everything the company produces goes through us). [Techie bit... we use PowerMac G5's running OS X - 10.4.8, Quark 7 and Adobe CS2 --- whereas the Arsebiscuits uses macs that fall over all the time, running OS 9.2 (last supported in 1998), Quark 4 (the journos have to use Quark 3.32 - last supported in 1995) and the RIPS can't cope with postscript 3 or decent fonts]
I'm able - for the first time in years - to let jobs ride over a weekend and not have to rush about like a headless chicken getting a million and one jobs out the same day. OK, there are deadlines (upcoming book fairs being the major ones) and I have to do a fair bit of work still (more mental than anything - remembering things that have been buried in my head since 2000), but there'll be overtime and it's nothing to be scared of - I was doing the same sort of thing before I met Mrs R and moved to Horsham.
I work in a most beautiful old building with a lovely huge wrought iron staircase going up the inside, right in one of the most lovely parts of the world - literally up the road from Harveys Brewery in Lewes.
I start at nine, which means we both get an extra half hour in bed. I catch the train to work (no more endless traffic jams) so we're saving over £120 a month on petrol - on my way up the hill from the station I get a couple of slices of toast for breakfast if I haven't got time to make it. You're allowed to go for a pint at lunchtime if you want. I no longer have to work Saturdays and I even get free tea and coffee (no machines either - all the fair trade coffee you can drink!).
As you can see, I'm happy! (hope I've not bored you out there... but if you worked there after that ****ehole in Brighton, you'd be happy too!)
I can't believe it took me three years to get away from that paper...
the place I work now is a complete change in many directions...
The subjects I've worked on this week have been fascinating. It's not naff newspaper ads for cars or hookers (OK, they call them massage parlours these days, but what's changed?) and you're not dealing with a bint who shoved the tea trolley around one minute who then got promoted straight to telesales team leader the next! :eek:
My job is to pre-flight books and magazines before they go to press, making sure all the pictures and fonts are there before they go off to the printers.
The people I work with - including the three other blokes in my department - are nice. I am actually working with people - including my manager and creative director - who actually know what they are doing (especially with a mac) with stuff like Typography (making the words look good on the page) not like the morons at The Arsebuscuits (most places we've worked, me and Mrs R give them names depending on how we disliked liked working there). I am actually learning stuff!!!!
The guys in the Mac Room understand my jokes for one thing and have similar ideals and heroes (Oliver Reed, Dita Von Teese, Fred Dibnah :)) and we have conversations on a good level, not the usual grunts I got most days. OK, we might get a bit geeky sometimes, but at least we know what we're doing... so it's a small price to pay.
I no longer have to fight the system and blag a copy of Illustrator or Photoshop so I can get on with my work... Everything's there for me on my own machine. The IT department know how to fix macs (very important when there isn't a PC in the building - everyone from the receptionist to the boss uses macs - all sixty or so of us). What's more, once Adobe CS (creative suite) 3 comes out, the firm is buying us guys in the Mac Room top of the range Mac Pro's (as they like us! :D and everything the company produces goes through us). [Techie bit... we use PowerMac G5's running OS X - 10.4.8, Quark 7 and Adobe CS2 --- whereas the Arsebiscuits uses macs that fall over all the time, running OS 9.2 (last supported in 1998), Quark 4 (the journos have to use Quark 3.32 - last supported in 1995) and the RIPS can't cope with postscript 3 or decent fonts]
I'm able - for the first time in years - to let jobs ride over a weekend and not have to rush about like a headless chicken getting a million and one jobs out the same day. OK, there are deadlines (upcoming book fairs being the major ones) and I have to do a fair bit of work still (more mental than anything - remembering things that have been buried in my head since 2000), but there'll be overtime and it's nothing to be scared of - I was doing the same sort of thing before I met Mrs R and moved to Horsham.
I work in a most beautiful old building with a lovely huge wrought iron staircase going up the inside, right in one of the most lovely parts of the world - literally up the road from Harveys Brewery in Lewes.
I start at nine, which means we both get an extra half hour in bed. I catch the train to work (no more endless traffic jams) so we're saving over £120 a month on petrol - on my way up the hill from the station I get a couple of slices of toast for breakfast if I haven't got time to make it. You're allowed to go for a pint at lunchtime if you want. I no longer have to work Saturdays and I even get free tea and coffee (no machines either - all the fair trade coffee you can drink!).
As you can see, I'm happy! (hope I've not bored you out there... but if you worked there after that ****ehole in Brighton, you'd be happy too!)