Tag: cashmoney

Letterkenny S10 = Ocean’s Twelve

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Most people who’ve ever seen Ocean’s Twelve, the sequel to the remake of Ocean’s Eleven, starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt and a massive ensemble cast, might remember that it was kind of a stinker.  The plot was weak, it hardly had a fraction of the pace, charm and rhythm that made Eleven such a fun movie, and the general consensus was that it was about as good of a sequel as Super Mario 2 was to Super Mario Bros.

There was a popular theory that part of why it was such a stinker was that it was basically a working vacation for the cast.  George Clooney supposedly has some property out in Italy, and making a sequel to Eleven, and having it take place in Italy was basically a convenient way to have a big ass working vacation on someone else’s dime, while enjoying the sights of Lake Como in their downtime.

And in the grand spectrum of the trilogy, Twelve really didn’t need to exist.  It basically was an excuse to have an Italian vacation, and everyone in it got a generous payday out of it.

Well that’s how I felt after watching the, thankfully short, tenth season of Letterkenny.  Just a few months ago, I blew through the entire series, seasons 1-9, because it was everything I wanted in a show at the time.  Short episodes, clever writing, a little bit crass, a little bit of heart, and just easy to watch and entertaining.

After I caught up, I became one of those fans, who was excited to hear that there was already a tenth season in the works.  And I was very pleased to see when it had dropped right around Christmas, and I made it a priority to watch, which says a lot considering I have so little downtime as it is.

The first episode ties up the plot that season 9 left off on, but then Ocean’s Twelve basically began immediately after that.  Each episode left me scrunching my brow and wondering what the fuck was the point of what I had watched.  Even before I started discussing it with my friends and ultimately seeing what the geeks in the AVClub thought, I could feel this sense that each episode seemed to be almost checking off boxes in making sure all of the signature characters of the show got a little bit of screen time at varying points, and given the short nature of the season, and the limited amount of running minutes they had, it really did feel like a parade of cameos instead of any semblance of a coherent season.

But the agenda of the season becomes very apparent five episodes in, when it’s mentioned that Shoresy is headed out of town to go play hockey up north.  Of course, everyone knows that show creator, Jared Keeso, plays both Wayne and Shorsey, and it’s a little eye-rolling to know that he is just a smidge pulling a power play by using Letterkenny to promote another show, that just so happens to be starring, himself.

Not to mention, the truly DJ Tanner Wrestling-shark jumping moment where Wayne has a brief moment with Shoresy; I couldn’t help but cringe at the pinnacle of poor flexing done by Keeso in this very moment.

The aforementioned geeks in the AVClub applaud the season as going back to their roots, and to a degree I can understand the necessity of deconstruction so that more potential storylines can emerge from the roots, but I can’t help but feel that this entire season felt like one giant flex by Keeso, where he and all his cast mates could shit out a half-assed season get paid for it, and with the ultimate intent of it all being for the season to serve as a vehicle to promote a spin-off series.

I’m still a fan of the show as a whole, but if we’re being honest here, season 10 of Letterkenny, really doesn’t seem like it ever needed to exist in the first place at all.  Another one-off special, call it New Years or Boxing Day, could’ve sufficed fine to be Shoresy’s meal ticket to his spin-off, and saved viewers like me, the scrutiny of mediocrity.

Among the list of reasons why I’m leaving my job, continued

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I didn’t really intend on doing another post about this, but I had an idea of an analogy in mind, but I never actually got to it, because when I get into the writing zone my fingers take over, and before I knew it, I had blathered on about stocks and I didn’t feel like making some bloated mega post about it and adding this into it when I could separate it and boost my post count instead.

There’s this film on Netflix I saw a while back, called The Platform.  I believe it was a Mexican film, but it was a rather good film, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for something fresh and unique to rehashed American cinema and doesn’t mind reading subtitles or can understand Spanish.

The film is about this, for lack of a better term, prison, that is an indeterminate number of floors, where every single floor has two people occupying them.  In the center of every single floor is a big, square shaped hole.  Every single day, a large platform descends the hole, sequentially stopping on every single floor for like two minutes.  On the platform is a massive spread of a elaborate feast, and the people on the floors ravenously stuff their faces and eat what they can before the platform descends to the next level below.

Naturally, this means those at the top of the prison have the advantage of having the most available, and cream of the crop foods available to them, and as the platform sinks lower and lower into the prison, eventually runs out of food, leading to those in the lower levels to become violent and homicidal from hunger.

Spoiler alert, here’s the kicker: the amount of food on the platform could modestly feed every single person in the entire prison, if all the people could get on the same page and agree to only eat a set amount.  However, naturally that is an impossibility when you have so many different personalities, so it’s a system perfectly designed to ensure chaos is always maintained.

So, back to the analogy: at my job, every single department has a pool of money (the platform) in which employees typically get their seemingly given, annual 2.5% cost of living wage increase, at the very minimum.  There is a nominal amount more in the pool, for deserving employees to get a little bit than 2.5%, but for the most part, these pools are set so that pretty much everyone could get their, at the very least, their cost-of-living increase, because the world is always getting more expensive, and that 2.5% goes a long way with keeping up with society.

Over the last two years, I’ve received 1.68 and 2.2% wage increases, in spite of all the contributions I’ve made to my team.  I’m not trying to inflate my contributions to the team, but I did design the exact workflow and process that kept my entire fucking team afloat for the last three years, and steered the car steady despite it being a volatile and explosive Ford Pinto, so I think I would’ve at least, deserved my fucking 2.5%.

I’d like to blame my shitty bosses for these shitty raises, but to their credit, the problem is actually those within the prison that exist higher than all of us.  They’re basically wolfing down all of the food from the platform by giving themselves and their cliquey accomplices elevated raises, and by the time the platform gets down to my level, there’s barely anything left to give me, or my subordinates.

As shitty as my wage increases have been, I’ve had to go the last two years trying to explain to my reports why they’re now getting these sub-2% raises when they’ve all been getting 2.5%+ every year before the recent ones.

The difference is, in The Platform, floor assignments change randomly every single week, and pairs could be on floor 4 one week, and then be on floor 201 the next.  At my job, those who are at the bottom of the prison usually remain there, and short of some dignity-robbing ass-kissing and joining the cliques of the company, is usually impossible to get to a higher floor to where there might be some food left on the platform.

Aside from the shitty raises, my primary reason for leaving is simply the fact that I’ve identified that within my department exists something of an inner circle of people, to where pretty much every position of power within it, is occupied by someone in it, and those not in it, don’t seem to be able to climb the ladder.  I’ve watched people who came into the company at the same time or later than me, rocket past my position in the company, and it’s not difficult to see how, based on the people they fraternize with.

I actually tried to make a move within the department, during a re-org.  I identified a position under a boss I used to work under, and I thought it would be a good fit.  However, when I learned that the interviewing would be done by several people, among them being some inner circle people, I kind of knew that my chances were dust.

In essence, I should thank the experience, because it was upon getting that rejection did it dawn on me that I should probably consider that I should be the one who needed to leave the company.  The clarity gained has been invaluable, and fuck the stocks and the shitty raises, I have succeeded at getting the fuck out of a toxic environment, and hopefully the next chapter of my career will prove to be a successful upgrade.

Among the list of reasons why I’m leaving my job

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

As I wind down my tenure at *Fortune 50 company redacted* I’ve actually been feeling not nearly as sentimental as I thought I might.  The constant struggling of parenthood, living in the pandemic world where the exposure has actually succeeded at getting into my home, and the lack of general farewell tour that most long-time associates of my company get have put me in a position to where I’m burning down my candle very quietly and discreetly, while the rest of my team solders forward preparing for another year of likely tumult and aggravation.

It suits me fine though, because as I’m winding down my list of things I’m trying to accomplish before I leave, one of them was to resolve the matter of my company stock that I have.  I know very little about stocks, in spite of my general fascination with the culture from movies like Boiler Room and The Wolf of Wall Street, but I figured it would be a good idea to partake in the employee stock purchasing capabilities I was privy to once I was promoted into my managerial position. 

Additionally, employees in my position are awarded vesting shares on an annual basis, to which my understanding is kind of like a loaded gun to hold at your head that only pays out once you’ve been with the company for 24-36 months, with the maturation being full at 36, but still eligible for some payout at 24.  Seeing as how I’ve been with the company for a few years, I’ve received my cut of vesting shares, and since I’m on my way out, I wanted to see just how much I’d be able to cash out, and just how much I’ll be forfeiting.

Of course, this wouldn’t be a brog post if it wasn’t some tragic failure or example of irony, and there’s little better subject of a post than things fucking up in my life, and this is a prime example of it, and feeds to the general frustration and disenchantment and serves as a reminder at just why I’m leaving this job.

Continue reading “Among the list of reasons why I’m leaving my job” →

A long awaited two weeks notice

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

As much as I’d been waiting to do this and I had fantasized about it over the last year and change, I still found myself pretty anxious to have the talk with the boss of mine that I had grown to not particularly like over the last three years.  This is the longest stop I’ve ever had in my career, at just under six years, so no matter all the good that will come from moving on, there’s still the sheer, change, of everything that brought on a little bit of nerves.

And when the day was over, the conversation really was just about everything that I had predicted it would be.  Regardless of how important I feel that I am to my team, and all of the contributions and things that I do for the team and my reports, I knew that my boss would no-sell me giving my notice like Hercules vs. Sid, because I’ve felt that she’s been trying to get me to quit for the better part of the last two years, and me leaving, in spite of the workflow issues it may cause, would still be satisfactory for her, so that she could backfill my position with a spineless puppet. 

Which is pretty much what happened, not surprising to me at all.  But we also had a fairly civil conversation about how I didn’t really want to leave the company, and how I tried to make a move when there was a reorganization and an influx of open positions to move into, and when things didn’t work out in my favor, I realized that I had to leave.

Most importantly though, regardless of the greener pastures I may be headed to, what is the hardest part about ultimately leaving is the people.  As cliché as it sounds, I really did meet a lot of really good people, and I love all of my reports that I’ve had throughout the years, and leaving them, won’t ever not feel like I’m leaving them a little bit high and dry.

It’s funny, one of the things I said to my boss was that I was grateful for the guidance she gave me throughout the years.  As pleasant as it might sound, it probably isn’t for the reasons that she thinks they might be, because through her guidance, I really learned or affirmed a lot of the traits of leadership that I didn’t want to put onto my own subordinates.

And out of respect for my team, I pulled them aside separately to tell them the news personally, because I love and respect them, and I didn’t want them finding out soullessly from my boss.  How I was always one of them, and will always be one of them, graphic designers, regardless of what my title was, and that it was always important to be their advocates and defenders of bullets and shrapnel, and to protect them when I could.  Because without their contributions, the company wouldn’t have advertising, and how that they’re more important than all sorts of meaningless titles that are perceived to be above them.

Perhaps they were fluffing my ego or just being nice, but the general response from them was definitely mostly sad.  Two reached out independently to tell me that my departure will make it much easier for them to look elsewhere, and two others that I emailed in lieu of their absences, didn’t respond immediately, uncharacteristically of them, making me wonder if I’ve given them a little bit of a shock.

All the same, regardless of how sad I might be to be leaving the place where I’ve spent more time than anywhere else, when the day is over, good people and company loyalty don’t pay the bills, and child care if fucking ridiculous.  It was still a very easy choice to accept the new position that I was offered, and I’m sure as my start date gets closer I will become more excited about the new journey my career will be headed in.

But until then, it’ll be a tumultuous two weeks of tying up loose ends, trying to figure out all my financials from the old job, while my new equipment and orientation of the new one starts to queue up.  It’s going to be very important for me to get mentally prepared for the new job, because I definitely know what a muddy mindset can do to a job if you’re not mentally ready for it.

Spider-Man: No Way Home thoughts

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It goes without saying that there are going to be spoilers galore here.  Short of saying it was a fun movie and I enjoyed it a lot, it’s going to be difficult to really talk about the film without there being any spoilers.

So, it was a fun movie, and I did enjoy it a lot.  This was the first film that I saw in a movie theater in over two years, and I couldn’t have picked a better film to go out and feel like a human being, albeit masked one, for an evening again.

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#23: If it had come out sooner, it probably wouldn’t be #23

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Nearly three years after it debuted on television, it was finally released as a replica, and I managed to wait it out until it was nearly $120 off its retail cost to snag it at a price point that I could digest: an NXT UK Tag Team Championship replica blet.

I can finally put this chapter of my collection to rest finally, and go back to pondering on whether or not I’ll ever consider getting moar blets for my ridiculous collection.

The funny thing is that had the UK Tag blet come out sooner, there would probably have been a good chance that I wouldn’t be up to 23 replicas in my collection.  It’s because it was never available, that the itch for new blets was never sated over the last three years, and how I ended up with probably 4-5 more blets than I probably would have considered getting.

Seriously, I wasn’t really that interested in the NXT UK blet, but I ended up getting it anyway, because it was on a ridiculous Brack Friday sale price, and I bit on the sale price fallacy.  Plus, I had gotten really into the NXT UK scene, and wanted to have any blet to represent the brand in my collection.

Same goes for the WWE US Championship, the only reason I ended up buying it was that it was on a Wrestlemania sale price, and I wanted to spoil myself to a little retail therapy to soften the reality check that fatherhood was proving to be.

The NWA and WCW Television blets are prime examples of just wanting new blets for the sake of having new blets to add to the collection, and I probably never would’ve ever searched for them ever if my collection were in a state of satisfaction, but I gave them the old college tries and eventually tracked them down and plunked down for them.

And frankly, the Ring of Honor World Championship, I probably never would’ve made it a unicorn blet in the first place had I had gotten an NXT UK Tag replica to sate the itch earlier.  But once I found out that official replicas of it existed, I knew that I had to have one and some Pakistani knockoff would not suffice.

Lest it not go unmentioned, #22 was also recently acquired, being a white strap WWE Intercontinental championship, which has the dubious distinction of being the first time I’ve basically bought the same blet twice, seeing as how I already had a black strap WWF Intercontinental championship.  The plates are nearly identical in both, and for lack of better term, the only real difference is the strap color.  But it was yet another sale price fallacy, and seeing it nearly 45% off made it very easy to pull the trigger.

Which brings us to the long-awaited UK Tag blet that I’ve wanted for three years.  Now that I have it, in a previous life I would say that my collection is complete, but as I’d already mentioned before, with the gaudy John Cena US Spinner back on the market, I’m only a waiting game away from having #24.  But once that one is acquired, I actually really can say that I don’t know what I’d want afterward, however I won’t say that my collection is complete this time.  There’s always a blet, or an idea for a blet, to make it happen again, where I plunk down hundreds of dollars for these useless toys, no matter how cool I can make them look, all hanging from my wall.

But as it stands, my wall is pretty much full, and nothing short of a massive reconfiguration (a second row) is going to give me the room for expansion that I need to go beyond 23 blets.  Never say never, though.

R.I.P. Braves Minor Leagues

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Source: Endeavor Group Holdings purchases nine minor league baseball teams, among them the Atlanta Braves’ AAA, AA and High-A minor league affiliates in Georgia and Mississippi

Since few people other than me really gives two shits about Minor League Baseball, how it works is that scattered all across the country are minor league baseball teams, with wacky names, goofy promotions, and smaller ballparks, who affiliate themselves with the 30 Major League Baseball organizations, where the baseball players of tomorrow work on their game and hopefully grow into useful players for the parent Major League club.

However, in a number of exceptions, there are occasionally some minor league teams, that are outright owned by their parent clubs.  The Yankees, Cubs, Cardinals, Giants are examples of teams that one one or more of their affiliates.  The Braves, own four of their affiliates: Danville (rookie), Rome (High-A), Mississippi (AA) and Gwinnett (AAA).  Presumably, ownership of affiliates grants higher control and micromanagement of these clubs, and probably among the highest of priority is geographical lockdown of clubs, so that they never have to play musical chairs with their minor league clubs for when affiliation contracts expire.

But over the last two years, and most definitely not at all helped by the pandemic, minor league baseball has been in somewhat trouble, as far as its future is concerned.  Even before the pandemic, there was lots of discussion of cutting large swaths of teams from MLB affiliation, and even rejiggering the whole holistic organization of minor league systems.  If I had to guess, money is at the root of all this, considering the mass whistleblowing that had been occurring about how minor league players and personnel make less money than your average McDonald’s worker, and how cogs in a machine that earns billions annually, can allow this to happen. 

All the same though, it appears that the Braves and several other franchises have decided to cut their obligations, even at the potential expense of control, and sell off their minor league affiliates.  Make no mistake, these are entirely financial moves, and if I had to guess, the teams who have sold franchises probably all feel that the future of minor league baseball is too murky and uncertain for them to want to risk carrying the financial obligations of having their own minor league organizations.  By selling them off now, they are basically betting that these teams will more likely suffer mediocre earnings if not outright fail in business, than becoming the next Dayton Dragons and sell out every game for 18 straight years.

The perception is definitely cold and callous, and to a degree sad for baseball fans and purists alike.  No matter what, money controls everything in baseball as it unfortunately influences most everything else in everyday ordinary life.

However, there is very bright and silver lining to this.  I don’t know who Endeavor Group or their slave companies who will ultimately operate these teams are, but now that these minor league franchises are all cut free from their parent organizations, the world is now their oyster when it comes to promoting these squads.

Continue reading “R.I.P. Braves Minor Leagues” →