my job sucks
<div class="IPBDescription">but....</div>Ok so I work for the Canadian govt and get paid a decent 16.50 an hour. But the job is chimp work. I scan old journal articles into PDF format so that they can be stored electronically in usb keys instead of giant file folders. There's tiny amounts of photoshop in there occasionally, but mostly it's me and my $1000 scanner having at it. That said I just sit on my ass while the scanner does its thing - I can sometimes feed hundreds of pages in a row into the automated feeder so I can have long waits before I actually have to format the PDF so that the pages are straight, numbered etc. During this time I have taken to watching anything and everything I can get my hands on. This means I've watched every futurama episode, hundreds of hours of movies, audiobooks, etc. I've watched all LOTR, star wars, indiana jones, back to the future, jurassic park, X-men movies (series movies) But 7 hours a day scanning means ~2.5-3 movies a day that play in the background while I "work" or actually work.
What I need from you is any video suggestions - mostly movies since they are long and help my mind from stagnating. TV shows that are worth watching wouldn't go a miss either.
Hit me people - Honestly I'm not even too concerned with whether or not they are of oscar quality I just want something entertaining; so b-movies are fine to list too if you honestly think they are worth a watch.
I can't check the NS forums at work because they've been blocked (wtf) but if you really want to brighten my day - spam my gov't email account with emails hayt@agr.gc.ca ok not literally spam, but you can say hi, ask me what I'm scanning, recommend a movie, send me a joke, a cool fact, honestly this is how much I want something to do while I waste my life at a desk. I have plenty of time to e-mail you back. Maybe you also have a boring job at a computer and want someone to email chat with. That's me!
entertain me people, I know you're good for it. Tell your friends..... I'm a charity case (sort of)
What I need from you is any video suggestions - mostly movies since they are long and help my mind from stagnating. TV shows that are worth watching wouldn't go a miss either.
Hit me people - Honestly I'm not even too concerned with whether or not they are of oscar quality I just want something entertaining; so b-movies are fine to list too if you honestly think they are worth a watch.
I can't check the NS forums at work because they've been blocked (wtf) but if you really want to brighten my day - spam my gov't email account with emails hayt@agr.gc.ca ok not literally spam, but you can say hi, ask me what I'm scanning, recommend a movie, send me a joke, a cool fact, honestly this is how much I want something to do while I waste my life at a desk. I have plenty of time to e-mail you back. Maybe you also have a boring job at a computer and want someone to email chat with. That's me!
entertain me people, I know you're good for it. Tell your friends..... I'm a charity case (sort of)
Comments
Where do you live?
Serenity (after Firefly. See: TV), Pirates of the Caribbean, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Saving Private Ryan, Jaws, Fight Club, Sin City, The Fifth Element, Blade Runner, Sunset Boulevard, Dr. Strangelove OR How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, Children of Men, Casino Royale, War Games, Shaun of the Dead, Time Bandits, Rush Hour, Blazing Saddles, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension!, Lord of War, Tron, The Hunt for Red October, Men in Black, Willow, Sleeper, Ratatouille, The Usual Suspects, The Third Man, American Graffiti, Harold and Maude, Young Frankenstein, Annie Hall, Hot Fuzz, Casablanca, The Graduate, Solaris (the Tarkovsky version), Beverly Hills Cop, 12 Monkeys, A Boy And His Dog, Superbad, A Clockwork Orange, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Iron Man, The Departed, Rear Window, This is Spinal Tap, Best of Show, Mystery Science Theater 3000 The Movie, Apocalypse Now, 3:10 to Yuma, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, The Bourne Trilogy
<b>TV:</b>
Firefly, Veronica Mars, Eureka, Scrubs, Arrested Development, Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Police Squad!, Band of Brothers, Dirty Jobs, Mythbusters, Flight of the Conchords, Clone Wars, Venture Brothers, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Futurama
And frankly it's a little sad to have so much free time and spend it watching movies and TV without even a second glance at a book or two. I mean honestly as much as I love movies and television, books are a thousand times better and I wouldn't hesitate for a second to give up anything with sound for the rest of my life just to have read the books I've already read, not to mention the ones that are still out there. Some suggestions for
<b>Books:</b>
Catch-22, Moby ######, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Snow Crash, All The King's Men, Invisible Man, The Devil's Dictionary, Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, The Mote in God's Eye, The Sun Also Rises, Julius Caesar, Sometimes a Great Notion, Atlas Shrugged, Variable Star, Closing Time, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, 1984, The Name of the Wind, Absurdistan, A Confederacy of Dunces, Going Postal, Night Watch, The Fountainhead, The Elements of Style, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Brave New World, Good Omens, The Great Shark Hunt, Discworld, Transmetropolitan, The Yiddish Policeman's Union, The Hero With A Thousand Faces, Stranger in a Strange Land, The Puppet Masters, Starship Troopers, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Spook Country, Treasure Island, Consider Phlebas, The Diamond Age, Love in the Time of Cholera, Pattern Recognition, American Gods, Anansi Boys, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, I Am America (And So Can You!), Gun with Occasional Music, Motherless Brooklyn, The Fortress of Solitude, Watchmen, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
So, enf0rcer, what sort of documents do you go through? I assume they're not very interesting, else you would just read those for entertainment ... nevertheless, I'm a little curious as to the inner workings of our glorious government. Also: how did you go about getting the job?
If you do books then Cory Doctorow has pretty much all his stuff available at the Gutenberg Project site or his own (craphound.com).
WHAT WERE YOU THINKING, MAN?!!
P.S. He also missed out Spaced (TV series).
If I had to pick one movie, one book and one film from Tycho's lists I wouldn't be able to, but with a little bit of leniency they would be:
- Blade Runner/Pulp Fiction/The Usual Suspects
- Star Trek: The Next Generation/Band of Brothers
- Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive (they're a trilogy)/1984 (I'm not as bookish as Tycho, so most of those I'll freely admit I haven't read)
Also, watch Memento (film).
Given that the last one is hard to get...
And perhaps Anime's called Cowboy Bebop and perhaps Trigun...
Also if your into Scy-fi, I guess this list will help
It's Dutch, but images/logos don't need no language!
<a href="http://www.sfseries.nl/content.php?id=33" target="_blank">http://www.sfseries.nl/content.php?id=33</a>
WHAT WERE YOU THINKING, MAN?!![...]<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Coherent, sensible thoughts.
To be perfectly honest I actually enjoyed much of Voyager (Tim Russ is awesome, Robert Picardo is fun, and I thought Kate Mulgrew as Janeway wasn't bad at all) but general consensus is that it wasn't so good and frankly it's mostly a retread of TNG with different actors. And DS9 is better either way.
I was one of the freaks who liked Voyager, too... it was kind of watered down I guess, but it was entertaining, and I liked the theme of them being isolated and cut off from home. ironically, I never got into DS9, though I did quite enjoy the episodes I did see...
...I guess switching from the nazi/jew cardasian thing to the dominion helped too >.>
Where do you live?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ottawa
<!--quoteo(post=1685381:date=Aug 7 2008, 12:13 AM:name=Shzar)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Shzar @ Aug 7 2008, 12:13 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1685381"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->So, enf0rcer, what sort of documents do you go through? I assume they're not very interesting, else you would just read those for entertainment ... nevertheless, I'm a little curious as to the inner workings of our glorious government. Also: how did you go about getting the job?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I've got my own office in an entomology lab, I'm scanning documents based on taxonomy related to tachinid flies. I've only read one interesting article and it wasn't to do with taxonomy - it was about one scientist, Dr. Townsend, who basically made up this fly that could travel 800 mph. His "research" has been reprinted and cited many many times since even though it's clearly impossible and basically disproven.
The rest of the articles serve no purpose to the reader unless they are studying taxonomy, so no I don't read them. Most pertain to the holotypes, paratypes, lectotypes etc of certain species and their type localities.
I got the job via FSWEP federal student work employment program I think it is. You make an account with all your info; field of study, years of school, employment history etc. Based on that you get phone calls from various people that want to interview you. I initially had the best job ever last year - a lot of field work just driving around collecting bugs from across ontario. This year I've been delegated less sunlit work.
I'm not seriously complaining, because the pay is good and the work is easy. I just need something to occupy the filler time.
Tycho - thanks for that list, I'm going to watch whatever I've not already. I would've posted this sooner but it's only just now that I'm coming to the ends of my current video stash.
The nature of the job is such that I'm mostly listening to the movies and occasionally watching during the few seconds it takes to scan a page. I could read a book and have, but it's too intrusive (since it requires my eyes not my ears) for me to work and read. Audiobooks are another story - and I've listened to some as well.
As for radio, This American Life is your best bet. It's all free on their website and I bet you've worked up a significant backlog by now.
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SpaceBalls
I too am a Canadian but in Montreal. My contract at IBM working at Bell Canada client ended on July-14th and I got hired on the same day. But the work is boring. I just follow a checklist of tasks to do through the 12 hours shift (yes 12 hours shifts all the times except on weekends) to do some process on the client's system with very little commands to remember. All I have to do is just go through the detailed steps of each tasks in the supplied procedures in binders. There is no creativity, almost never any problems, no one calls, I call no one, I am alone in the departement (except day time where my teamlead is here behind me), no windows. At night shift, I am totally alone in a 5 floor building !
Day time, clients can walk in at any moments wihout me knowing in advance. I occasionaly get 1-1.5 hours with nothing to do so I sometimes do Internet (when no one's around). At night time, I sometimes watch anims.
My salary as a permanent employee is about 20 cents more then what I used to have as a contractor but I now have benefits (except now with benefits I have less money in my pocket then before).
So there are alot of boring times. My teamlead and manager are not the kind I can simply walk up to them and tell them 'my job is boring, can I do something else ?'.
With Groundhog's Day. The inner context of the loop should make for bite sized chunks of entertainment (even if the movie as a whole is only so-so).
With F&L. It just doesn't matter when you pop in/out because of the general lack of linearity to most of the scenes. I mean to say that someone could probably randomly delete a different scene from that movie every time they watched it and have a hard time noticing it was missing.
And Groundhog's Day was not so-so. It was awesome.