Let's Talk About Our Jobs!

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Olax
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Re: Let's Talk About Our Jobs!

Post by Olax »

1) a. Business: I sit behind a computer and a telephone doing the paperwork. Taking reservations, promoting our shows, dealing with large amounts of money, logging onto the forum, trying to avoid being caught spending paid time on an internet forum... That kind of work.
b. Theatre: I clean up the theatre, fix up the coffee bar, sit behind the desk, assign people their seats, play the first part of the show, run to the coffee bar, sell coffee, tea (actual tea, that is) and lemonade, skip back to behind the scenes, play the second part of the show, personally say goodbye to 120 visitors, and drink one beer too much.
c. Playing outside the theatre: I get up at 6 am, curse wildly because I had to leave for work at 5.30, call my boss to tell him I'm late again due to a Skype conversation which lasted till 4 am, or something, and drive my bike as fast as possible to my boss's house. Together we head for the school/theatre/organisation which we'll play for, spent about 2.5 hours (or just 2, if I was really late) building up, play a show (about an hour) break up in about 1.5 hours, and drive back home.
It's pretty much work, actually. The part where it's better than any other job is that you make 15k children a year happy.

2) There's a foundation connected to the puppet theatre. People can donate to it, and we use that money to play for kids who don't usually can get access to such a thing. We have played in hospitals, at schools for special* kids, at child cancer camps and things like that. This spring we have played on a school for the deaf, with two translators next to the stage, and a couple of months later, we played for the visually challenged (there were two actual blind kids). Both these shows required a whole different approach to the audience, of course.
At that first show everything had to be slower, for the translators to have time to do their job. With seven characters, it was a pretty hard job for them, especially when one of them couldn't stop laughing at something one of the characters said.
Deaf kids make a lot of noises they don't hear themselves, but they didn't seem to respond to anything, of course. Normally, at the end of a show, we hear applause, and get out of the theatre to be applauded, but we hadn't expected that the deaf applaud by waving their hands (in a very silly manner, I might add) above their heads.
For the blind, we had them 'feel' the puppets before the show, and sampled their voices, so they would recognize the blurs they were watching. Every movement had to be slow and largely exaggerated.

But one of my best memories was when we played for a group of terminally ill kids (couple of shaved heads, walking next to expensive 'bing'-saying machines that reminded them of how terminally ill they were, all smiling hopelessly in a way that wants you to donate to cancer funds - or of course to our foundation). After the show, they looked so happy. Perhaps not because they really liked the way everybody lived happily ever after in the end, but from the looks of it probably more because they hadn't thought about their impending deaths for about an hour. I have never distracted anyone with greater pleasure.

3) No. Nothing funny ever happens. This is a very serious business.

Now tell me about your job, because I seriously took my sweet time to answer your questions.

*VERILY RETARDED
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Amerika
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Re: Let's Talk About Our Jobs!

Post by Amerika »

I win because I am unemployed.

But it was seriously nice to hear about your job. What kind of characters and shows do you do?

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Olax
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Re: Let's Talk About Our Jobs!

Post by Olax »

We do talking animals, and good versus evil, with either good winning in the end, or evil actually not being evil. Our kids shows are for the age of five and above.
One of the main characters, appearing in every show of Kooman Sr. (the one who started the theatre 50 years ago) is called 'IJsco de IJsbeer' (Poley the Polar Bear, I guess?) and his counterpart in the stories of Kooman Jr. (his son, my boss) is called 'Wasco de Wasbeer' (Rocky Raccoon? Dunno. He has never played in English.)

One of our most recent shows, for example, is 'Koeskoes'

In this story, Wasco meets Koeskoes, who is a cuscus. Because Wasco accidentally kicked the football of his best friend Max (the Mole) in the water, he wants to enter in a cooking contest, to buy a new football with the prize money. Koeskoes turns out to be a great chef, and is especially good at making couscous*. He will help Wasco.
There's also a nameless frog, who also enters the cook-off, but of course** he's the bad guy, so he's cheating. He rips off the posters, making sure no one knows about the contest, except for Wasco and Koeskoes. He cooks out of a can too, and tries to ruin Wasco and Koeskoes' delicious meal.
Then there's Guy de Lepelaer, who is a Flemish Spoonbill, and he's the head (and body) of the jury.

SPOILER WARNING: Guess who wins the prize money? That's right, bitches. Once again it is proven that raccoons are way better than frogs**!
The prize money turns out to be chocolate money, but Max finds his own ball washed ashore, and once the frog has been chased away by attributes used earlier in the kitchen (spoons, a dishcloth and a carpet-beater) there's a party in the kitchen.

Moral of the story: frogs are cheaters, and there should be more parties in kitchens.

*(get it? IT IS FUNNY BECAUSE TWO WORDS HAVE THE SAME PRONUNCIATION!)
**We actually emphasize on the fact that not all frogs are bad guys. During one scene, Wasco talks about other frogs who were much friendlier. Let it be said, WE DO NOT DISCRIMINATE FROGS!
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Astrogirl
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Re: Let's Talk About Our Jobs!

Post by Astrogirl »

Job, today.

Me, opens IT ticket (altered somewhat for brevity):
-------------------
Dear IT,
I can't add items to shopping carts. This is how to reproduce the problem:
1. Go to the purchasing area of our portal at http://...
2. Open the shopping cart with ID such and such
3. Click "add item"
4. Click here, here and here
5. Choose item from catalog
6. Click "add to shopping cart"
8. Return to the shopping cart - it's empty!
----------------

Answer from IT:
--------------------
Hello Coleague,

Could you have a try from WTS following below steps?

1. http://...
2. My WTS Portal (left margin)
3. Select the region
4. Select the gateway
5. Log with your credentials and check it.

Trying over WTS can verify if it is a local pc issue or server problem.
If the issue persists, please attach the screen shot.
--------------------

So my question is: If I shoot them, will the judge agree with me that this was self defense?
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Kimra
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Re: Let's Talk About Our Jobs!

Post by Kimra »

That was all gibberish to me. Just so you know.
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Olax
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Re: Let's Talk About Our Jobs!

Post by Olax »

I'm gonna work in IT next. This is way more impressive!
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Astrogirl
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Re: Let's Talk About Our Jobs!

Post by Astrogirl »

Kimra wrote:That was all gibberish to me. Just so you know.
Okay, a summary for the not-technically-inclined:

Q to IT: There is this problem in this web application, the shopping cart is suddenly empty! (It's obviously not a display error that could stem from problems with the browser.)

A from IT: Go check if it is a problem with you computer.
Microaggression? Microaggression!

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Edminster
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Re: Let's Talk About Our Jobs!

Post by Edminster »

It might be a problem with cookies. Check to make sure it's not your computer messing up first.

(i do not know if this particular (or any) shopping system uses cookies)
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Astrogirl
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Re: Let's Talk About Our Jobs!

Post by Astrogirl »

Some do (e.g. websites like Amazon), but this one doesn't.

I have also tried it on WTS, just to legally be able to say that I did.
Microaggression? Microaggression!

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Amerika
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Re: Let's Talk About Our Jobs!

Post by Amerika »

I agree with Olax, this IT business seems to be where all the cool cats are heading

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Re: Let's Talk About Our Jobs!

Post by Lethal Interjection »

Yeah, I'm really not understanding why this person is "stupid".

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Olax
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Re: Let's Talk About Our Jobs!

Post by Olax »

He's just getting paid for not doing anything, while his hot cousin Claire has invited him to help her with her computer problems the other night. So he's pretty happy with being an IT specialist. Especially if she's wearing that little white skirt...
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Re: Let's Talk About Our Jobs!

Post by DonRetrasado »

My job is smoking weed e'rryday, it's all I do, I don't give a FUCK. Wait no, I work in a library which involves a lot of sitting around and pretending to work. Today I watched Toy Story 3!
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Olax
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Re: Let's Talk About Our Jobs!

Post by Olax »

Were you wearing your white little skirt?
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Amerika
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Re: Let's Talk About Our Jobs!

Post by Amerika »

I hope not, because then he'd be the subject of fantasies of his cousin.

which I find queer.

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