And I said Hey-ey-ey-eyy, hey-ey-ey, I said Hey, what's going o-on?
Kyle & Tommy already know most of this, and it probably means nothing, but... life's kinda confusing right now.
A little over a week ago, there was an Email sent out from one of the new VPs denying any rumors of upcoming layoffs. While there hadn't been any rumors beforehand. This started them. Then after everyone realized they'd lost too much productivity to gossiping, we all switched to ten, twelve hours days to prove how useful we are. It almost seemed like, instead of a random slip-up, it was a subtle stroke of genius...
...Except, we don't have 60 hours of work to do a week. After 3 or 4 days of it, all the backlog was cleared, and we could only make less-than-eight hours of work a day. But we won't leave early, because that would prove we're less valuable. So... folk end up sitting around half the time, afraid to leave but with nothing to do. So we're costing more money than we're making, and everybody knows it, but we know that doing what's good for the company would only hurt us personally. Though, I've heard mention of people saying we should turn down raises and bonuses so it doesn't hurt them more.
On the plus side, this means I now know how our work is generated, roughly. 2.5 sources I know of: Someone gets an idea for a drug, develops the formulation, and tests it. We take the blood samples, tell them what's going on, and somewhere further down the road figure out how to mass-manufacture the drugs.
OR we have our own R & D division, that comes up with the idea. We do everything except contract lab work (think Novum, except it goes rats -> another mammal -> a primate -> humans, usually). The work is essentially the same. Except we manufacture & distribute our own drugs in this version. Most of the business.
OR we just get blood donations and test it for AIDS, Hepatitis, or other nasty things. This isn't too much overall, but it's the source of most of my work. I think.
Anyway... what I've realized, is that our working harder necessarily cannot produce more work. Yes, going through things faster might, in several months, lead to more people accepting our bids to test and manufacture. However, it doesn't make outsiders come up with more ideas for drugs, make more people volunteer to be test subjects, or make more people donate blood. So, uh... scary, eh?
Anyway, on to important stuff. TEVA, and Israeli pharmaceutical company, with the help of my pappy, got Copaxone® "Approved by the FDA for Patients with a First Clinical Event Suggestive of Multiple Sclerosis". This is a drug with a near-100% repression rate. That doesn't mean MS is cured, but that means it's beaten into a corner where most patients won't notice it if they start treatment when the signs of MS are nearly unnoticable. Think of it as "stops, but doesn't go back much"- not that accurate a description, but gets the right idea.
I went to a German restraunt in Cary today. They were... very unique. Cilantro on everything, which I don't like so much. However, they had meat & garlic on everything, which I do. I got the Matterhorn Schnitzel, which is essentially a Philly Cheese Steak using veal loaf in place of bread. Also, the beers were in .4L, .5L, and full Liter sizes. One .5L was massive and more filling than the meal. Overall, I think I liked it.
Finally, I've decided that there might be "killer apps" for me. I bought the SegaCD mostly for Popful Mail, and was pleasantly surprised when I discovered Working Designs had other work on it, and there were some other games worth mentioning. So, today, I thought "If any portable system, whatsoever, game out with a re-release of "Earthbound", I would buy it in a heartbeat for any price under $300. It's truly in the running for "greatest RPG of all time", and my SNES is beginning to get less reliable. Plus, I'd like to play it without sitting still- if a Wii could let me act it out, that'd be the greatest thing I could imagine... and if I could walk on the treadmill at my 24-hour gym while playing AND plugged into the wall... I might power through the whole game in one session.
And I'm considering using it as my prime example of "games as art" in that eventual "High culture Vs. Low culture" post.
A little over a week ago, there was an Email sent out from one of the new VPs denying any rumors of upcoming layoffs. While there hadn't been any rumors beforehand. This started them. Then after everyone realized they'd lost too much productivity to gossiping, we all switched to ten, twelve hours days to prove how useful we are. It almost seemed like, instead of a random slip-up, it was a subtle stroke of genius...
...Except, we don't have 60 hours of work to do a week. After 3 or 4 days of it, all the backlog was cleared, and we could only make less-than-eight hours of work a day. But we won't leave early, because that would prove we're less valuable. So... folk end up sitting around half the time, afraid to leave but with nothing to do. So we're costing more money than we're making, and everybody knows it, but we know that doing what's good for the company would only hurt us personally. Though, I've heard mention of people saying we should turn down raises and bonuses so it doesn't hurt them more.
On the plus side, this means I now know how our work is generated, roughly. 2.5 sources I know of: Someone gets an idea for a drug, develops the formulation, and tests it. We take the blood samples, tell them what's going on, and somewhere further down the road figure out how to mass-manufacture the drugs.
OR we have our own R & D division, that comes up with the idea. We do everything except contract lab work (think Novum, except it goes rats -> another mammal -> a primate -> humans, usually). The work is essentially the same. Except we manufacture & distribute our own drugs in this version. Most of the business.
OR we just get blood donations and test it for AIDS, Hepatitis, or other nasty things. This isn't too much overall, but it's the source of most of my work. I think.
Anyway... what I've realized, is that our working harder necessarily cannot produce more work. Yes, going through things faster might, in several months, lead to more people accepting our bids to test and manufacture. However, it doesn't make outsiders come up with more ideas for drugs, make more people volunteer to be test subjects, or make more people donate blood. So, uh... scary, eh?
Anyway, on to important stuff. TEVA, and Israeli pharmaceutical company, with the help of my pappy, got Copaxone® "Approved by the FDA for Patients with a First Clinical Event Suggestive of Multiple Sclerosis". This is a drug with a near-100% repression rate. That doesn't mean MS is cured, but that means it's beaten into a corner where most patients won't notice it if they start treatment when the signs of MS are nearly unnoticable. Think of it as "stops, but doesn't go back much"- not that accurate a description, but gets the right idea.
I went to a German restraunt in Cary today. They were... very unique. Cilantro on everything, which I don't like so much. However, they had meat & garlic on everything, which I do. I got the Matterhorn Schnitzel, which is essentially a Philly Cheese Steak using veal loaf in place of bread. Also, the beers were in .4L, .5L, and full Liter sizes. One .5L was massive and more filling than the meal. Overall, I think I liked it.
Finally, I've decided that there might be "killer apps" for me. I bought the SegaCD mostly for Popful Mail, and was pleasantly surprised when I discovered Working Designs had other work on it, and there were some other games worth mentioning. So, today, I thought "If any portable system, whatsoever, game out with a re-release of "Earthbound", I would buy it in a heartbeat for any price under $300. It's truly in the running for "greatest RPG of all time", and my SNES is beginning to get less reliable. Plus, I'd like to play it without sitting still- if a Wii could let me act it out, that'd be the greatest thing I could imagine... and if I could walk on the treadmill at my 24-hour gym while playing AND plugged into the wall... I might power through the whole game in one session.
And I'm considering using it as my prime example of "games as art" in that eventual "High culture Vs. Low culture" post.