but can't stand to see me walk out the dooor...
Song time! Added Matt Weddle (of the band Obadiah Parker)'s acoustic version of Hey Ya. This song is amazing, and it makes you pay attention to what are quite sad lyrics, which most of us have missed due to the catchy beat of the original.
Enjoy
Dumb and Dumber
Pope quotes Islam as violent religion, Muslims protest by firebombing churches.
Seriously, it's like some kind of giant sick joke, except a nun is dead and churches destroyed for it. I hope God has a sense of humour about such things, because I don't know how else to take this without having my complete faith in humanity destroyed. I mean, seriously - where were the thought processes behind this? "Did you hear what the Pope said? Islam is a violent religion that is inhuman and evil! - this makes me angry, lets go
burn down churches and kill nuns". Not that I'm on the Pope's side mind you. In an age where militant Islamism is on the rise, his comments are both remarkably culturally and religiously insensitive and deliberately incendiary. There is no way in hell a quote like that would not provoke such a violent backlash, and there's no way in hell that someone as politically savvy as the Pope would not know this would happen. Look at the reaction at the Mohammed cartoons for Christ's sake. Not that the Papacy has clean hands throughout its history, did anyone forget the Crusades? Islam and Catholicism has always had a strained relationship ever since then, and although great inroads were made during John Paul 2nd's papacy it looks like Ratzinger's set it back to square one. But I guess they don't call him 'God's Rottweiler' for nothing. And no, his apology didn't take.
It's forgivable if some firebrand clergyman spouts off his mouth, but the Pope, God's Representative and the Head of the Catholic Church? For shame.
We won't need legs to stand
Now in between my looking for funny pictures of fat people on the internet and seeing what comes up when I google "Lindsay Lohan sex tape" I've decided to blog a bit about what my new job. Essentially for those unaware, I recently left the BD lounge and started working at Synergy as a market analyst.
Essentially, I working in the Pricing and Analysis team , part of the (somewhat misleading title) Marketing Branch, which consists of Product, P&A, Sales and Brand, each with it's own supervisor and area of responsibility. Brand is the team most fitting hte Marketing title, and essentially does all the marketing duties such as advertising, branding and brand promotions, things like that. It's also exclusively female, with two fine looking women that I'll be sure to run into during the Christmas party, under the mistletoe. It's never an office christmas party if there isn't drunken kissing with a co-worker leading to an all too hilarious next day hangover and awkwardness. Product is the team that comes up with different products and what not. Sales obviously looks at revenue and other such matters, while P&A forms the foundation, working as support for Product and Sales, as well as a myriad of other teams in different branches.
Essentially P&A are go to guys for a whole bunch of different departments. We analyse things, and with every department there's always feasibility studies, cost-benefit analysis and things like that. P&A does all that. There are currently, from memory, 45 projects logged for P&A to do, and there's only 5 in the team, not including me. One is leaving in about a month though for maternity leave. In the team there's various sub roles too, and at the moment I'm going to be passed around the team (kinky) to learn as much as I can so in case someone has to leave, I can pick up where they left off. A fix-it guy so to speak.
Now, there are several things that struck me about my job when I first started. I am
way too young for what I'm doing. I am at least 4-5 years younger than everyone else on the level I'm working on. Not the Marketing branch, the
level. Adding to the fact that I look even younger than my ripe age of 22 (I still get carded in any establishment that serves alcohol) means that everyone is always surprised to see me around. I'm somewhat of a novelty to everyone, the analogy being I'm the little brother mom forces the older siblings to bring along with their friends, and kind of walks around all lost and confused. Hell, as far as I know, I'm the youngest person to do anything that
isn't data entry or tech support. While it means I'm lucky to have gotten the job that I have pretty much straight out of uni, it also means I doubt anyone will take me seriously for awhile. I'll have to go above and beyond to really be heard. Which is fair enough, I do relish a challenge.
My team members and manager is really great though. They've all been extremely friendly, but they're all a naturally quiet bunch of guys (and girls). My manager really empathises with me, to which I'm very grateful. He knows I know jack shit, and he's been extremely supportive, answering my questions, checking up on me and generally try to make sure I'm not freaking out over the information overload of the first week. While I've been quite the contrary and actually embracing all this information (unlike the complete boredom of my previous job), he's been telling me to relax, take it easy, etc. Because of a desk shortage (a contractor was finishing up the last week) I kind of spent the first couple of days just reading all the essential background information (best selling hits such as "
Power Systems Familiarisation for Non-technical Professionals" and "
Independent Market Operator and WA Energy Market Overview") and being a pain to Chris, a genuinely nice guy from Edinburgh who's tried to keep me interested by showing me his work, showing me around and putting up with me watching over his shoulder while he works, which we all know is annoying to say the least. I finally managed to get a computer and data access on wednesday, which meant they could throw me into a couple projects, overseen by Chris my pseudo mentor. Other than that I've been introduced to everyone in the Marketing Branch, show off the new whipping boy so to speak.
Essentially my job will be full of different little projects with different requirements. For example, they've got me helping on the Wholesale Transfer Price Engine/Price Calculator, which without going into the specifics of the energy market, is a pricing engine for wholesale electricity to which Sales can value add and sell retail. What I'm doing is that I'm looking through the backend of the engine and looking at the algorithms, assumptions and data to make sure the that its correct so that it's actually being priced correctly. So I have to look through the logs, check to see if the algorith they're using is correct, see if the assumptions are correct etc. I'm meeting with the programmer on monday to discuss why he's chosen the values he has etc. This is just an example, but essentially projects like that. It sounds tedious, but its really a lot of problem solving, data modeling and other such challenges. A lot of work though. I'm being roped into another project on tuesday too.
Other than that, its the standard Dilbert corporate culture, with middle management, office jokes, golf on the weekends and other such cliches. The meetings, the mass introductions, endless emails, all there. Despite the relaxed atmosphere and relaxed attitude of my boss however, it is a very busy place. The Energy Market opens on the 21st of September so everyone is rushing to get things ready by then, and it gets even busier in the next 12 months as the company tries to establish major market share before FRC (free retail competition).
Anyway, that's my job. I'm really enjoying what I'm doing, so I guess that's the best part of all. Let's just pray I don't get my ass fired for gross misconduct or incompetence :P
My email is in the previous post so feel free to drop me an email if bored!
P.S - I'm sponsoring a World Vision Child this thursday. I hope they let me rename him/her Yubjub.
P.P.S -
John Travolta is gay
