BF2S Forums First World Problems

Dilbert, you appear to be drifting backwards in your spin at an increasing rate of decay re: what is ethnicity and race.

For your consideration:

1.) The Irish were not considered to be "white" until the late 1800s
2.) The Italians were not considered to be "white" until the mid 1950s
3.) In 2020, I took a work demographic survey which had separate ethnicity categories for "Caucasian" and "Portuguese". I expect this means I am not "white"

What am I telling you, Dilbert? That it's a moving target, and for a guy who thinks there are no facts, you really are setting up the concept of "whiteness" as an absolute. I suggest you think on it.

Pochsy wrote:

Dilbert, you appear to be drifting backwards in your spin at an increasing rate of decay re: what is ethnicity and race.

For your consideration:

1.) The Irish were not considered to be "white" until the late 1800s
2.) The Italians were not considered to be "white" until the mid 1950s
3.) In 2020, I took a work demographic survey which had separate ethnicity categories for "Caucasian" and "Portuguese". I expect this means I am not "white"

What am I telling you, Dilbert? That it's a moving target, and for a guy who thinks there are no facts, you really are setting up the concept of "whiteness" as an absolute. I suggest you think on it.

None of these nuances matter, if you're not black you're white.

Anyway, weren't the Portuguese pretty big in the slave trade? Reflect on your privilege.

arguing with dilbert on race is a sisyphusian task. like the rock he's round, dense, and prone to rolling downhill at the least opportune times. spare yourself this object of punishment.

I schedule time to do work and get in the grove of things until I remember I need to shovel more snow. After shoveling for an hour I totally lose any will to continue working when I get back to my desk. I am sick of this fluffy white shit everywhere. And that is what snow is. Snow is cloud poop.

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

No need. Someone talked some sense into the CFO and I was told that it was all a big misunderstanding.

I think they were worried because I threatened to quit, which after this I probably will.

I should be happy I got my way but this whole ordeal has made me very bitter about the way we are being treated.

I almost put my resignation letter in on Monday, but my better judgment stopped me. In this type of economic environment, I need to make sure I have at least one more offer before I quit. So I reached out to some former colleagues, and a guy that used to work for me sent me a great opportunity at his company. Said he is friends with the guy who would either be my direct report or the guy above him. I already passed the first round, so now it's on to the second and background checks etc. I'm trying not to get too excited about it before I nail the job down, but it would be a director position and almost double my current salary based on what my friend makes in a lower position. Plus based on the feedback from my former colleague (who knows me and my personality very well), I'd be a perfect fit for their work culture.

I should know more by early next week, but hopefully it works out.

I had the second round today with the hiring manager. Things went well (I think?) and she said she will recommend me to the person I would be reporting to, but that the process can take a few weeks. I found out that one of our vendor reps who I have built a personal friendship with over the last 5 or so years also used to work for this company and knows some of the executive management team very well. He called and put in a good word for me. I really think the position is mine if I want it. I may have been a little aggressive in the compensation requested, buttfuck it.

Wage negotiation is tricky, especially if friends have personally recommended you.
I usually ask for what is reasonable, plus 10% because I'm awesome.

I've noticed nerdzique has erased his digital history.

Not that I'm aware of.

You better have spoken to him in Korean or you'll have impinged his progress.

I've had something similar, also an attack of atrial fibrillation "an earthquake? but the local geology is all wrong", once caused by stress, once by drinking a bottle of champagne over a few hours.

Simple answer is to go to your doctor and get checked out, there can be lots of causes and triggers, excess sodium, heart defect, misfiring nerves etc.
Also you may want the right emergency medicine on hand.

Dilbert_X wrote:

I've noticed nerdzique has erased his digital history.

wtf does that even mean? by which, i take it, you tried to stalk my facebook or something? (which is deeply, deeply weird, by the way, considering we've never befriended one another on any digital platform).

i haven't changed any of my social media profiles or digital presence at all. i haven't had a facebook account in 5+ years. have you only just noticed this or something? i'm still on twitter, goodreads, last.fm ... pretty much all of the sites i've been using consistently for 15 years. i have not changed a single thing since clicking off bf2s for a short while ... 

i've only ever asked for one thing to be removed from my 'digital history' and that was getting ken to delete a single post. that's because, when you searched for my twitter handle on google, one of the top results was a post here, years ago, in which i was bragging about hanging out with radiohead and how i trended on twitter/tumblr for it, mentioning my username @ in the process. didn't really want to have that as one of the top hits under my name, but not exactly controversial or sensitive stuff. but you nurse your pet theories!

i'm flying friday, transiting via germany. going 2 weeks earlier than planned to beat any potential spike/problems after lunar new year. right now they're at ~250 new cases a day, the lowest it has been since last november, and safely on the other side of their 1200-a-day 'third wave' peak. things are re-opening, slowly but surely.

here's a walkabout of my new neighbourhood. you can see my apartment at 6:50.

cya!

in quarantine for another ~12 days or so. the organization here really is pretty incredible.

from touchdown processing through customs/immigration took almost 5 hours. an endless succession of desks, sit-down questioning, presenting of tests, checking of korean telephone contact (you need a 'guardian' they can call during quarantine if you are uncontactable), checking of desired accommodation (for long-term visa holders who are skipping the government hotel option, etc.).

rightaway they put a lanyard around my neck that marked me as an arrival from the UK. i was funnelled off to a different part of the immigration queue. included a police check with some pretty friendly korean police officers (average age seems to be mid-20s and they all look like k-pop boys, not scary officers).

due to being from an area with new virus strains, i had to spend 24 hours in a government quarantine facility. i was tested as soon as i arrived there, which was late on a sunday, given a free hotel room for the night, free dinner, etc, as well as the free test. results were ready immediately at 6 am the next morning, and i was placed back on a bus to the airport at 8 am. that was an incredibly long 30 hours or so, from leaving the UK, all in all.

about leaving the UK: almost piteously easy. despite constant statements from politicians that 'leaving home or going on holiday is now strictly illegal' - from which i was exempt, anyway, due to moving for work reasons - there was no disruption at heathrow departures at all. i wasn't questioned once by airport or airline staff for my reasons for leaving. nothing. the airport was full of people, british and europeans alike, queuing up to take a flight. there were zero checks. about the most hassle i encountered was during my transit in frankfurt, when a german immigration official on the security scanners made some smarmy-ass comment about 'better needing a visa to come into germany if i want to visit europe', some veiled brexit thing. as if i give a fuck, hans! i didn't vote for it, dipshit! but i digress.

from airport, a quarantine taxi was arranged for me, which brought me over the pictured incheon bridge. this driver/car will be the EXACT same driver/car i will use for all subsequent trips during quarantine, that is, to the nearest local health centre to be tested 2x more, including a final test before they will approve my release. exact same guy has to take me around for the entire duration. neat.

first morning in private quarantine, the health service officials turned up to give me lots of masks, thermometers, a huge bottle of hand lotion and a special disinfectant spray that was formulated for covid/sars/hepatitis (oddly). included was a giant orange hazardous waste bag. i am to put every bit of waste, food and otherwise, into this bag for the 2 weeks. i must spray the bag every single day with the disinfectant. in my final few days, i must call a special waste disposal agency who will take my waste to a secure incinerator. and that's for someone who has repeatedly tested covid NEGATIVE, FOUR times in the last week, i might add.

the level of tech involved in their test+trace is scarily good. for historical reasons, south korea has its own in-depth GPS and mapping software - they basically locked google maps out of the country for most of the 2000s on this score. as a result, the quarantine app i must use knows my location to a very high degree of accuracy. the maps app (naver) actually contains detailed room-size dimensions for almost every building; they know the exact floorplan and layout of my apartment, thus they know if i ever leave it. i have to self-report my symptoms twice a day on the app, morning and evening, and which app permanently uses the 'GPS track' feature of the phone (your phone has to be rigged to a charger almost permanently as a result, it's a bit of a battery burner).

moving to seoul at end of february. meantime there's excellent home delivery services for just about anything i could want. all the major supermarkets/department stores have same day, if not 'morning dawn' delivery services, most of them totally cold-chain. i ordered a full week's groceries at 4pm on my first day of getting in, and it was packed and waiting on my apartment doorstep at 6:15 next morning, in a thermal hamper.

the last 4 months have been insanely stressful to organize it all, and pretty costly. to get into the country and past those immigration checks to my desired private lodging involved a good amount of paperwork. i saw lots of people at the desks next to me run into serious trouble because either their airbnb host or in-country korean 'sponsor' wasn't available on the phone. the officials literally sat and redialled numbers 4-5+ times and shook their heads if nobody was available. i guess those people would be funnelled into the government hotels, instead. very costly mistake for whomever that happened to.

Last edited by uziq (2021-02-16 04:18:13)