Monday 10 August 2015

Blaugust 10/31: A Technically Difficult Syzygy.

This post is for Blaugust 2015.

Today's post will have to be a mercifully short one for you, dear reader, as it seems like everything that could go wrong with Caligula (Caligula is the name of my laptop, just in case you were wondering) to interfere with the posting of blog posts has gone wrong tonight, short of a full reactor meltdown (yes, this computer is nuclear, what of it?).

We were supposed to be revelling in my eight-year old comic genius today, but since I'm not confident that these files will ever upload, let me instead tell you what I would have said had everything gone to plan, and hope that I can upload the picturesa little later on. The scanner is currently saying that it will take 23 microsoft minutes for a standard definition scan...which seems a little ridiculous, so we'll just have to see.



Anyway, when I finally did move into the office (in a little desk crammed in near the door), I found it a wonderful place to work in, if a little distracting. The people in it (we called ourselves the IT department though only half of us actually worked in IT, the rest just knew how a spreadsheet worked) were dangerously clever, irreverent, and a joy to work with. We must have terrified and bewildered the rest of the office, but it was a wonderful experience for me to learn that I could enjoy both work and the company of my co-workers, after my previous job had been complete drudgery in both departments. They had their quirks (we'll learn about the more PC ones as the comic goes on), but they made me feel at home in the work environment in a way that as a listless 18-year old I desperately needed, like I could really be an adult without shedding my own personality. It was a hectic, insane environment and it could never last, but I loved every minute of it.




The next two comics, as you'll see i they load in here eventually, really go well together, inasmuch that they show that I still didn't really understand how timing in cartoons was supposed to work. Working with the discipline of three set panels was an enjoyable challenge for me, but I'd really not worked out what I could and couldn't fit in three panels at this point. It was something I struggled with a lot, and still do, but the ham-handedness of these still make me wince. As to the content, well, there's always seemed to be a clear correlation between those people that are technically incompetent in the realm of computers but make some mean baked goods, so over the years I've learned to take the good with the bad and to fill my pockets with sweets when I get the chance. Which might go some way to explaining why I'm not the lithe, fit thing I was back when I drew these cartoons...

Interestingly, it seems that at this time I was still spelling my name 'Tom' without the prosthetic "h" that I use in modern times. I'm not sure exactly when I started doing it, but this seems to suggest that it was some date after 2008. In the copyright squiggle I drew on the bottom of the page I was "Dirk Fischmann", so that helps not at all.




Like I think I mentioned last week, I'd worked with the company before, as a high-schooler, doing administrative work and making the tea for the ladies in the office (they were all ladies then, and pretty much nothing has changed now, that's what happens when you work in healthcare, I guess) in exchange for a few dollars out of the petty-change tin. It was strange, working full-time, theoretically as an adult, somewhere where I'd previously worked as a kid, and very hard to get used to. Reconciling proper office etiquette, routines and lines of reporting with the people you've always considered as proxy parents and grandparents was very odd indeed, none of us really knew how to handle it. It would continue to be a tension right through until the time I lost my job, though I think we managed it better when I came back for the third time. All this is irrelevant to the comic, of course, but did you come here for the comic that may or may not have loaded in, or did you come here to listen to me ramble about them good ol' days?

Thanks for dropping by for story time with Uncle Owl. I'm gonna go slap Caligula a few times now and see what I can get working...wish me luck.

No comments: