Reflections on the Future

So, I was reading a post by my buddy Jimmy over at the Jabberwocky Asylum called “My Life Changes: Everything Old is New Again!” this morning and it got me thinking and put me in a blogging mood. As you may have read in my last post, I was fired from my job at RadioShack. Day one afterwards was like having a day off. Day two was like a mini-vacation. By day four, I was about to go stir crazy from boredom despite having a couple dozen books to catch up on reading and my World of Warcraft addiction to keep my occupied. Thankfully, yesterday I got a call from my aunt's husband, who owns Wild Bill's Concealment, which makes holsters and belts and such for folks who are licensed for carry and concealment of handguns. In other words, he's a leather smith, and he offered me a job. Now, I know jack about leather working, but it seems like it'd be fun to learn a skill like that, plus it's an income while I decide what I want to be when I grow up (for the record, I'm 37). So, I'll enjoy the remainder of this week and I'll start working for Wild Bill on Monday.

Over this past week couple of weeks, both before and after my exodus from RadioShack, I've thought about a lot of things. I've watched my friend Rob go through the loss of his aunt to cancer. I've dealt with being unemployed (albeit for a very brief period) and what to do about finding an income and possibly returning to school in some capacity. Reading Jimmy's blog this morning was, well, eye opening to a degree. For starters, it made me realize that I'm not the only one who worries about what I'm supposed to be doing with my life, or if past choices were right or wrong. This whole past couple of weeks has made me rethink my beliefs, spiritually speaking, my mortality, my career (or rather, the lack thereof).

Truth be told told, I have no frakkin' idea what the future holds. Who does? I also have no plan (but, hey, it's only been a week since I lost my retail job). I do know, and still hold to my conviction that losing my job at RadioShack was decidedly not a bad thing. It needs to serve as a catalyst to propel me forward and light the proverbial fire under my ass to start living and seek my bliss and my true calling and career. And, no, I don't think my calling is to make leather holsters for the rest of my life (but, that doesn't mean that I wouldn't be open to it if it turns out that I really love doing it). I've always toyed with the idea of working in the computer field in some way. Years ago I started a programming degree, but never finished it. I've attempted to start my own computer repair business with some friends, but we floundered on it shortly after. I've interviewed with a company in Atlanta to be an IT guy, but at the time lacked the necessary skills to get the job. I've researched various certification programs at local community colleges, but never had the balls to go for it. So now is the time. Get busy living or get busy dying, as Andy said to Red in “The Shawshank Redemption.” Either I'll end up loving leather working and use that as a catalyst to doing my own thing with a crafting skill, or I'll end up back in school for IT and/or networking certification and finally get that high paying gig in the computer industry that I say I've always wanted. One thing is for sure, I'm not even the least bit interested in ever working in retail again! I've had enough of having my soul drained by corporate greed and asshole customers.

Oh, and with so many things running through my head these days, this blog will probably be reborn as well. I've never had designs on writing professionally, but I do enjoy writing. So even if no one reads it, I'll still write it.

~ Carlisle

Yes. I do still exist

Wow, it's been almost a full two months since I last blogged. Not much has changed, and yet so much has changed. On the “not much has changed” front, I still play World of Warcraft religiously and have switched to playing on a lower population PvP server and have also switched to playing a toon of the Horde faction (see my previous post “Ding of Dings” for details on what all that means). On the “so much has changed” front, I am now unemployed. Yep, I've become a statistic in the current “economic crisis” here in the United States. Lemme 'splain... no no, that take-a too long, lemme summup.

You see, my former employer, RadioShack, pays it's sales people hourly plus “commissions” (I put commissions in quotes because they don't call them that, but I won't bore you with all that; it's just easier to say commissions because everyone understands that concept). The big money maker for RadioShack (so the claim) is wireless (aka cellphones) and service plans. Simple really, when they sell a cellphone the get the retail cost of the phone (even if the customer paid less than retail under the whole “with 2yr agreement” pricing) plus other kickbacks and bonuses from the carrier based on what type of minute/text/data/etc plan the customer signs up for; all that equals tons of profit without much pay out for product. Service plans are pure profit because it's like getting the customer to pay for a sort of extended warranty on a product that they'll likely never file a claim on. So, if John Doe buys a LCD TV for $400 on sale RadioShack makes maybe a 10-20% profit because the markup on TV's is pretty low. But if you can get Mr. Doe to also buy a 2yr in home repair plan for an additional $130, then that service plan is pure profit because there's only any overhead on it if Mr. Doe actually has any issues with the TV and RadioShack has to have the TV repaired or replaced under the service plan (which doesn't happen that terribly often, because most people just plain forget the bought the service plan or just don't want to go through the hassle of making the phone call to file a claim against the service plan they bought, so RadioShack, Sears, BestBuy or whatever retail chain the whole thing was purchased at, never loses anything on the service plan).

So, I said all that to say this... I was fired for not selling enough wireless and/or service plans. Forget the fact that I was there for three years, never missed a day of work in all that time, had customers who asked for me personally because my customer service skills were that damn good, and the fact that even though I wasn't selling very many cellphones or service plans, I was regularly meeting or exceeding the $75 per hour sales quota to qualify for other “spiffs” and commissions. Nope, none of that shit mattered. Neither did the fact that I was, and I realize my touch of arrogance in this comment, one of the few truly competent employees in the entire district. Nope, the fact that I couldn't get people to spend extra cash on service plans (many of which were pointless) or get them to buy a cellphone other than the not so profitable prepaid variety is what got me fired. The only thing I'll miss about RadioShack is that Anna was the best damn manager I had ever worked for, and it sucked that she had to fire me when it wasn't her decision.

So now what, you ask? Simple. I'm going to go take classes in Networking and/or other various computer related certifications so I can get a job worthy of my intelligence level and ability to deal with technology and trouble shooting. Roxanne and I had already planned our vacation for the last week in April and the room in Myrtle Beach has already bee booked and essentially paid for, so I'm going to relax and enjoy life for awhile before hitting the grind of work again. There are online classes and work from home jobs I can do. Hell, if I get really squirrelly I may even look into government grant programs to start small businesses and work for my damn self for a change. Who knows? All I know is, I'm not that upset about losing my job at RadioShack. In fact, I feel like I've been set free! Hey, maybe I'll have more time to write for those of you who, for some odd reason, like reading my blog *grin*.

~ Carlisle

Ding of Dings

Ding is a common exclamation used by players to announce to their friends and guild members when they reach a new level. Because of this, ding has taken on several auxiliary meanings, such as the act of leveling up, the graphic associated with leveling up, etc. Originally, the sound effect when a character leveled in Everquest was a ding. – http://www.wowwiki.com/Ding

All these months of playing World of Warcraft paid off just a couple of weeks ago, on January 24^th to be exact, Rumplewort achieved the current pinnacle of WoW – Level 80. I call this the “Ding of Dings.” So now, you may ask, what's next? If you've reached the max level, why keep playing? Where's the challenge? Oh, but there's more gentle reader, much more. At level 80 I've taken to doing “dailies” which are quests that repeat on a daily basis and pay fairly good rewards in the form of gold or reputation. My buddy and I have also recently taken to entering battle grounds lately where we join other players of our faction to compete against players of the opposing faction. I also have a guild to support and several Alts (Alternate Characters) that I can begin leveling. The challenge of the game now is to make my main character (aka “toon”) as rich as possible so he can funnel gold to my Alts and also help support his guild. Of course, as those Alts reach epic levels, new ones will be created. There are two major factions in WoW (Alliance and Horde) with five races in each faction. There are also nine different classes (e.g., Warrior, Mage, Rogue, Hunter, etc.) and one “hero class” (Death Knight) in the game. When you take that into account, then it's pretty easy to see how one can keep the game fresh and fun – simply try playing a class or race you haven't played yet, or a class/race combination that's different than what you've played before. I've only been playing since August 2008, so the only toon I have any real experience playing is a Dwarf Warrior. I also have a Draenei Hunter, Human Death Knight and Tauren Hunter on the “Shadowsong” server, and just recently created an Orc Rogue and and Orc Death Knight on the “Blood Furnace” PvP server.

That brings me to another topic about WoW – PvP, which stands for Player vs Player. The aforementioned battle ground scenarios obviously would be a PvP situation, however there are other areas anc concepts that involve PvP. I've mentioned “servers” so I'll explain what that means. Or even better, I'll quote the definition from WoWWiki.com.

A realm is an instance of the World of Warcraft (WoW) game world. Realms are hosted on physical devices called servers (for this reason, the terms "realm" and "server" are often used interchangeably).

So, a server or “realm” is what a player logs onto to play the game. There are several dozen realms in the US with an identically named European realm as well. Think about it – if, at last known report, there are over 11.5 million subscribers to the game worldwide, there's no way in hell they can all log onto the same server at once – it would overload and crash in a matter of seconds, or it would run so slow that the game would be unplayable. Now, not only are there several dozen servers, but there are different types or styles of play depending on what type of server you log onto.

PvE (Player vs Environment) – also known as a “normal” server. Basically, you just do the quests, interact with other players and fight creatures and non-player characters as needed to gain experience points and rewards. PvP is voluntary on these types of realms so you can't be attacked (or “ganked”) by an enemy player without expressly putting yourself in that position on purpose.

PvP (Player vs Player) – as I mentioned above, there are battlegrounds and certain zones that are PvP even on the PvE realms, but on a PvP realm, anytime you enter territory controlled by the opposite faction or territory that is contested, you are automatically put in PvP mode. Your warning is the fact that you're on that type of server, so you've essentially volunteered for it by signing onto that server.

RP (Role Playing) – since WoW is supposed to be an RPG (Role Playing Game) these realms require that players speak in the chat channels as though they were their character and be descriptive when discussion their actions using speech similar to what you find in novels and the like. There are also tighter restrictions on character naming. Personally, if I'm going to role play, I'd better have dice, paper and pencils in front of me while sitting at a kitchen table with friends. But that's just my opinion. These servers are also a type of PvE realm as PvP is not forced in opposing or contested zones.

RP-PvP – If you've paid attention to the above descriptions, then you should be able to figure this one out I think :-P

So, even though I've achieved the “ding of dings” with my first, and main, character, there's still lots of war to craft ;-)

~ Carlisle

Triumphant Return (maybe)

The writing bug has bitten me again... well, at least for today. We'll see what 2009 holds for Carlisle's Chaotic Commentary, but for today I'll bring everyone up to speed.

WoW, This is Addictive
As my regular readers (assuming I still have any) know, I began playing World of Warcraft® back in August. I'll admit to a certain level of gaming addiction and that WoW has contributed to my not writing my blog every Sunday as I had been doing. I started playing the game at the long behest of a buddy of mine and even joined the guild he was a member of (“Sons of Gotrek”). No WoW guild is immune to drama and upheaval, and ours was no different. Back in November, Blizzard released Wrath of the Lich King, the 2^nd expansion pack to World of Warcraft. It seemed most of us were on board to level to 80 (the previous cap being 70) and creating the new and long awaited Death Knight (WoW's first hero class).

Well, the unexpected happened. Our Guild Master quit. I don't mean he quit the guild, I mean he completely quit the game a mere week or two after the expansion pack was released. One of my buddy's characters (also known as a “toon” as in cartoon) was promoted to Guild Master by the previous GM before he quit, so we thought everything would work itself out. Well, it didn't. Within the last two weeks we had a couple of other members move their main toons to a different guild saying they wanted a “more active guild.” I can respect that, but how about helping recruit people and make the one you're in more active? Oh, and I'm sorry that I have a life outside of WoW and don't play 24/7 like you guys are able to.

The icing on the cake was when my buddy, unannounced and without any fanfare or explanation, also dropped his main toon from the guild, leaving the alternate (Alt) toon that had been made guild master in place. At that point, I was done as was my other buddy who I regularly quested with. In fact, we had been pretty much a subset within the guild for months as we always seemed to be questing together separate from the rest of the guild. So, I am now a Guild Master. There was no coup or anything. Jere and I simply left “Sons of Gotrek” and collectively have spent almost 400 Gold of our toons' hard earned loot to create “Myth Inc” (the name is inspired by the Myth Adventures series of novels by Robert Asprin). I have to tell you, being a Guild Master is some work. First I had to buy a guild charter, then get nine other toons to sign it (that cost me about 40 gold in bribes at 5G a pop, with Jere's main being the first to sign leaving eight more to get). Then we had to establish a Guild Vault, which cost another 100 gold. Last night we spent another 250 gold to add more storage to the Guild Vault. And all this while trying to save enough gold to pay for training and new skills as we get closer to the goal of Level 80. Naturally, about half of the toons we bribed to sign our charter left the newly formed guild within about 24 hours (which was expected) and there's a couple that we may have to quietly remove since they don't really seem interested in actually participating. We did manage to luck up and get one guy who's pretty excited about being in a guild and has even already started helping to recruit others. He and his friends are still pretty new to the game, but I kind of dig the idea of helping to teach the “newbs.” I wouldn't have made it to Level 76 (the level my main is at at the time of this posting) with help from others (both friends and strangers), so I'm happy to pay back – plus, it's just good karma.

I wish I could Retire Early
So, everyone out there is aware of the current “economic crisis” here in the U.S. I assume. If not, pick up a fucking newspaper, turn on a TV to a news channel or generally take your head out of you ass and pay attention to what people are saying.

That being said, my work place is certainly not immune, especially being a retail chain in a town who's work force is probably 90% retail clerks or food service workers. You'd think, with the Christmas and Holiday gift giving season having just ended that we'd have been ok right? NOT! The week before Christmas I was cut down to about 28 hours. I got my normal 37ish hours in the week of Christmas, but then the two weeks after, I only worked around 24 each, and this coming week, I'm only scheduled for 20! WTF?! I am, as far as I know, still listed as full time status. The other thing is, our schedule is supposedly based on sales performance. Well, even with sales down across the board, I still had more sales than most of my co-workers. Oh, but that's right, RadioShack only cares about cellphone sales. Forget all the other shit I sold, I didn't sell as many phones as everyone else. So, I get fucked up the ass with a chainsaw without the courtesy of any lube. Loyalty (I've been there 3 years come March) means nothing anymore, not does the other work I do such as price tags, freight, planograms, etc. to help keep the store operational. Just sales.... sales, sales, sales. Oh, great you sold $1million of stuff.. sell some more, you can do better than that... blah blah blah.

I'm 37 years old. The prospect of trying to re-enter the job market isn't a very happy thought, and since the job market basically sucks right now, it's an even less happy thought than usual. Truth be told, I'm so sick of stupid people and assholes that I'd rather just retire. Of course, for that to happen I'd have to win the lottery or have some excruciatingly rich relative I don't know about suddenly die and leave me their estate. Not bloody likely I'd say.

That's My Girl!
While my hours at work dwindle, Roxanne, my fiancée, continues her work as the Operations Manager for the Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra. It's not a high paying job, but at least it builds her resume toward working in marketing and public relations. In fact, she just began the MBA program at Methodist University, which will make her future job prospects even greater. I'm very proud of her and will be supporting her anyway I can over the next year and a half (I even did the laundry today while she was at school).

Future Chaos
Sorry for this being such a long winded blog. I guess that's what happens when you take three months off from blogging – you end up with a lot to say at one time. I'm not promising that I'm going to go back to the weekly format. Perhaps I'll try monthly posts starting out to get back into a rhythm. Thanks for reading.

Until next time,
~ Carlisle

PS. Yes, I know my last post back in September said I wasn't going to continue posting the blog on both Blogger and MySPace, but since it's been three months since I've posted anything at all, I've kind of changed my mind about that.