Punkie

Layoffs are not bad press. Not to the shareholders, the only ones who matter to these types. I used to think “oh, layoffs mean the company isn’t doing so good,” but shareholders see “they reduced cost but lost no customers, thus increasing value of the company should it be sold.”

Zenni was a game changer. I could get their top-of-the-line titanium frames with glass and auto-tinting for like $130 from them, or get the most basic birth control plastic frames with acrylic from my optometrist for no less than $900. Most of my glasses from Zenni are $80 or less, and yes, I have to wait 4-6 weeks. The optometrists are super-upset about this, too. Like some refuse to give me my prescription or pupillary distance, with high-pressure sales tactics and dire warnings. I have been told I’d ruin my eyes with “toxic metals” and “frames that will burn sunlight into my face and retinas.”

Well. It’s been nearly 20 years, and none of that has happened.

I was out of sugar, so I tried to sweeten Kool-Aid with honey. Nope. Just god-awful.

Worked a job where I had to be a Linux admin for a variety of VMs. To access them, I needed an VPN that only worked inside the company LAN, and blocked internet access. it was a 30 day trial license on day 700somthing, so it had a max 5 simultaneous connection limit. Access was from my heavily locked down laptop. Windows 7 with 5 minutes locking Screensaver. The ssh software was an unknown brand, “ssh.exe” which only allowed one connection at a time in a 80 x 24 console window with no ability to copy and paste. This went to a bastion host, an HPUx box on an old csh shell with no write access to your home directory due to a 1.4mb disk quota per user. Only one login per user, ten login max, and the bastion host was the only way to connect to the Linux VMs. Default 5 minute logout for inactivity. No ssh keys allowed. No scripting allowed, was like typing over 9600 baud.

I quit that job. When asked why, I told them I was a Linux administrator and the job was not allowing me to administrate. I was told “a poor carpenter always blames his tools.” Yeah, fuck you.