I’ve noticed the walls in office buildings are, as they say, paper-thin. I imagine it has to do with a cheap, low-grade drywall hung on barely-there metal studs, at least partly. That, and the plenum above the drop-ceilings generally is not separated between offices. I guess there’s not much you can do about that, except keep the evil cackling to a minimum.
I have two comics that are already up to color, and I have another to complete for Thursday. Lots of stuff is going on this week at work, and there’s projects around the home lying in pieces. I’m not proud of the work I did on this comic today, but I’m proud that I was able to shoehorn an update in to the time I had. It’s a real lesson in time-management, and accepting imperfection. I can see lots of things I’d like to fix, but if I had fixed them I would have had to skip an update. It’s a weird feeling, being happy with something with which I’m not happy.
My workplace is fortunately not so oppressive, though I do wonder about dress codes. I have some theories, which I may explore in the upcoming strips (depending on how my scripting and timing works out). I have often wondered what it would be like to work for an employer who cares only about the amount and quality of work you accomplish, and not whether or not your shirt has buttons. Well, that and the fact that you’re wearing a shirt of sorts. Gotta cover the naughty bits to avoid legal action.
I’ll admit it, I kinda phoned this one in. I really did try hard to make something you guys would enjoy, but I had a limited amount of time to work and thought you would prefer a so-so strip to none at all. I will need to color this later, maybe this weekend. I know that has been a recurring theme in my posts lately, but roof and food come first. If someone has a six-figure nine-to-five job with my name on it, perhaps things will change. Hint hint.
Notice the paranormal detective Mary is in the first three panels. I really like drawing that character, so I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to squeeze her in. I rushed to get ahead of myself tonight, so instead of getting this comic colored I set myself up for the next comic. I will come back and fill in the color as soon as possible, but I will be crazy-busy over the next few weeks and I’m trying my best to at least post updates.
That being said, would y’all prefer for me to post more comics, or post at the same rate but go through and color them? I can probably hack out three or possibly even four black and white comics a week, but I definitely can’t do more than two colors (and even that’s stretching it lately). Let me know what’s better: color or more comics.
This isn’t based on my work experience at all. A more accurate portrayal would be someone from HR telling my boss:
“No.”
I imagine there’s a reason they spell out time off in schedules based on pay grade and such, but it normalizes the entire population. There’s no more Bell curve, no more star employees. Every employee is the same, they get the same benefits, they’re equally valuable. That’s kind of depressing. Corporate America thinks you are simply a cog: a commodity part that is identical to every other and is easily replaceable.
Also, it seems like “we never had it before” is a terrible excuse to give to not move forward. I will explore this theme a bit more in the next comic. The schedule for the rest of the month will be regrettably “bumpy”, as things are crazy-busy around here. Crazy-busy. Do the kids still say that? Some kids used to, back when I was a young man and we kept dinosaurs as domesticated pets. Back when we grew trilobites instead of Sea Monkeys, and let me tell you, our trilobites could kick your Sea Monkeys’ asses.
Where was I? Oh, yes. I’m keeping crazy-busy with work and such, and the schedule may be bumpy for the next few weeks. Sorry, guys, I wish this were my day job (or even one of my night jobs) but roof and food are priorities.
I could rant for quite a while about how corporations in the U.S. have rearranged families, and how two weeks of vacation time is just enough to spend time with both sides of a family. I could keep going on about how the value of benefits in the U.S. has consistently decreased over the decades, and all the while corporations are patting themselves on the back for controlling costs and continuing to provide “greater cost-conscious employee programs”.
Fortunately, it’s not one of those nights. Also, I currently live near my family and actually get to use some of my vacation time for vacation. Some of it, at least. I also feel weird writing these workplace strips as it is. Since we’re in the middle of something that feels like a crushing recession to the average Joe, I feel like these stories aren’t really in touch with the current state of the U.S. (which is where I live and where I base my comic). I don’t want to go in to that in the comic, though, because I want it to be an escape from all that. I don’t want you to come to the comic and be reminded of how bad things are out there. Honestly, then I wouldn’t have much to separate me from, say, CNN.com. Well, that and the lack of celebrity gossip on my site.
This upcoming story, to me, is more about the general attitude of corporations in the U.S. towards their employees and how it has changed in the past six decades. I’ll see how it comes across to y’all, since I have to keep things very streamlined for the medium. Suffice it to say, this is not based on my real-life experience with vacation time but is more a piece of social commentary. It is my opinion that corporations despise their employees and would see them all fired if it weren’t for the fact that someone has to do the actual work that keeps a company afloat.
I’d also like to point out that it was a lot more fun to crack jokes at Canada’s expense when the Canadian dollar was well below the U.S. dollar. Now that we’re roughly at parity, and for a while were on the down side, I kind of feel that in some ways the U.S. has earned a spot as the Newfoundland of Canadian jokes.
