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Tag Archives: work

Final round…FIGHT!

It has recently been brought to my attention that I may have actually been defeating all the stage bosses I’ve been encountering in my work life.

For those of you not in the know, I typically refer to my bosses by hierarchy of bosses you’d fight in a platformer…or maybe even a RPG (as I do feel that there is a lot of grinding in this game, which you wouldn’t typically find in a platform game).  So, my direct supervisor is typically referred to as the stage boss.  Then you have the level boss and final boss.  Level boss is generally the direct supervisor of the stage boss.  Final boss is obviously the final boss.

So then…I’ve never really considered it past this point until recently.

Me: [My boss] told me not to work too hard.
Me: And then when I gave him a weird look, he said that I should work hard only if I’m behind schedule.
Friend: sounds like a good boss
Friend: too bad you’ll have to defeat him eventually

Light bulb.

I’m supposed to defeat the bosses.  How could I have forgotten?  How can I advance in the game (of work? I guess?) if I don’t defeat any bosses?  I’m am absolutely remiss in my duties as a gamer.  Or something.  Anyway, that got me thinking, did I ever defeat any of my bosses?  It seems like I’ve defeated a slew of stage bosses, but never really progressed past that.

  • Stage boss #1: retired, and then unretired, and then retired again, only to come back as a contractor several times, but never as a stage boss. I’m pretty sure that means he was defeated.
  • Stage boss #2: stepped down after several years, gave up all his stage boss status immunity to my snark so I continue to beat him every time I talk to him.  Incidentally, he was my favorite boss in Company.
  • Stage boss #3: rerouted out of the department.
  • Stage boss #4: um, I left Company a few months after stage boss #4 came into play.  Does that mean he defeated me?  But it was a pre-emptive strike on my part.  I think I surprised him when I told him I was leaving Company.  I think I’ll count that as defeated as well.

Erm…it kind of looks like I have final boss syndrome even in real life.  Stage boss #4 was also level boss.  So I played all the way to the end and then didn’t play the final boss.  Like always.

So, I’ve stopped playing Company and now I’m playing THEM.  I think I like THEM better than I liked Company.  And I kind of like the stage boss I’m up against now, which is a problem if I’m supposed to defeat him.  I wonder if I can somehow skip playing against him.  But the problem with that is…I like the level boss too.

Quandary.

For the literal minded

As you know (or maybe you don’t), I am a fan of taking things literally. Perhaps too literally. It gives me much amusement.

Perhaps you do not understand why taking things literally is so amusing. Well, how about an example of live translation/transliteration? One time we had a meeting in which we needed live Chinese/English translation. Now then, I really respect people who are able to do live translation. It’s hard stuff. Big props to them.

Ok, fine, just one prop.

But some people are definitely better at it than others. Some people translate (or transliterate) things literally. This provides me with excessive amounts of amusement. Such as the time when someone translated the English name “Gary” into Chinese “咖哩” or “gālí.” Ok yes, they sound decently similar. But the translation of “gālí” is “curry.” The person who was translating basically told all the Chinese-speaking people in the meeting that the person’s name was Curry.

Hello, my name is Curry, and today I’ll be speaking to you about…

I found this SO. INCREDIBLY. FUNNY.

Is one example not enough? How about extremely literal interpretations of design drawings? How about cutting an angle into the stairs because there was a callout leader in the way?

Or how about cutting a revision cloud into the concrete?

Why would you drill a rev cloud into the floor?

Now then, cutting rev clouds into the concrete may be funny, but it could also cause massive amounts of damage. Like…here.

This rev cloud was cut into a water pipe and apparently caused a massive flood at a metro station in Helsinki.

I’m pretty sure that’s real. It seems like a respectable source. I don’t really know because I don’t understand Finnish. But in any case…it’s still EXTREMELY funny.

Why was I looking up rev clouds drilled into concrete? It was a byproduct of what I was really doing. Which was drawing rev clouds on some drawings I was modifying for a customer. I don’t remember what I was looking up exactly, but rev clouds in concrete apparently came up in my search.