Tag Archives: plea

So, I need help with my résumé.

Posted on by Standard 11

I rarely ever blog about or post on social media about work.  My work life is work, and my personal life is personal.  I’ve never felt the need to discuss, vent about, or provide detail about my job.  I’m going to go ahead and break with that for this post.

Unfortunately, the time has come where I need to update my resume.  About a year and a half ago, the company that I was working for was sold, shut down, & liquidated.  A core group of people decided to try to move on & start a company in the same industry, and I was invited to be a part of it.  I was honored to be asked to participate, and glad to be gainfully employed.  Sadly, things didn’t pan out as planned, and the company is also in the process of shutting down.  Basically, I’m no worse off than I was a year ago.

At that time, I had an updated resume, and went on my first job interview in a long time.  I was offered employment elsewhere.  It may have worked, but the pay wasn’t where it needed to be for me to comfortably continue to pay rent and put food on the table.  I went with the group I knew & salary I needed.  I have no regrets, I’m just illustrating that I don’t have much job interview experience, but it has mostly all been positive.

Basically, I’ve been at the same job for 10 or so years.  In 2002, I started at an a/v integration company as the shipping guy.  That company was purchased in 2005 and I was hired by the new company, which closed in 2011.  Then on to the newest one where I was doing all slight variations of the same thing.  I liked my work, it was a nice mix of desk/paperwork & physical warehouse work sometimes, it was always different & challenging.  I have learned many rules, processes, & things about the equipment over the years.  I was able to adapt to many changes, and survived them all (up until now).

I need help with my resume.  I think I first updated this format in 2005, when it looked like I may have needed to search for other employment.  (Luckily, I was able to work temporarily for the new company, proved my merit, and was hired full time.)  In 2012 this format may be stale.  I’m not big on titles.  I call myself a “shipping guy” but I do much more than that.  I have more skills than a simple shipping guy needs.  I hate phrases like “team player”.  I am, but it sounds goofy.  Who reads that & doesn’t roll their eyes?  I’m generally not boastful (other than in jest), but this is one time when you need to be.  There’s a lot riding on a resume.  It gets your foot in the door.

I’m confident in my writing (thanks to this blog), but thrown into a resume it looks braggadocios, fragmented, & boring.  I love bullet points, but breaking things down into them, I feel like I lose cohesion.

I need this to grab someone’s attention, highlight what I can do & what I can offer, and get me a job.

Eric AiXeLsyD with the Batmobile

I have a lot of skills in my utility belt.

What do I want to do?  I’m certainly qualified for shipping, warehousing, and inventory jobs… entry level or supervisory.  Sadly, entry level pay may no longer be acceptable.  I could certainly do something else though.  I’m a quick learner.  I’d love to get paid for this writing / blogging / insanity thing (I mean… show/album/food reviews, photos, humor, goofy letters? I can do a bunch of stuff there).  Unfortunately I don’t have a degree.  Can you get one in shipping?  Certainly 10 years experience in shipping I would have learned anything that I could in 2 or 4 years of school?  I do have some training in graphic design & commercial art, I have experience in drafting (by hand even… does anyone remember that?), some talents that have yet to get me paid like drawing mazes and photography, and I recently completed classes in Microsoft Project… so I could even fill a “Jr. Project Manager” type role where I can learn as I go.  I’m certainly adept with computers, know old school (& also useless) html coding, and can pick things up rather quickly with any kind of program.  I can promote things like my band, the blog, and Food Allergies like mad online.  I think I’d be a good PR person, I just lack formal training or experience.  Maybe it’s time for something different.

So, I need help with my resume.  What works, what doesn’t?  1 page?  2 pages?  If  so, how do I fit it all on one or to pages (I think it kicks into an atrocious 3 now)?  What do I need to express?  Do I need a cheesy cover letter?  Do letters of recommendation help?  References right on the resume, or “provided by request”?  3 Personal/3 professional?  3 total?  Cover letter?  No cover letter?  Cover paragraph?

I’m laying it all out here and asking for your help.  Take a look at this resume and tell me what you think?

Please help me with my resume!

Click to check it out at Google Docs…

Please excuse the format, it needs a new look… something anyway, and Google Docs may have messed with it a bit.  Other than that though… I ask you to be honest, brutal, constructive, and hopefully helpful.

Also… know anyone that’s hiring?  Are you hiring?  Point me in the right direction here.  I’m confident in my in-person interviews, and with anyone that already knows me or has worked with me.

Thanks in advance for your help.  I need to start hitting up InDeed, PA Career Link, etc. with my resume.  I know I have a lot of friends, family & readers that can help me out here.  It would be crazy to not use all of the resources at my disposal, right?

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Someone, please, make a good Nightfall movie.

Posted on by Standard 3

If you’re not familiar with Nightfall, it was first a short story by Isaac Asimov later developed into a novel by Asimov & Robert Silverberg.  It’s one of my favorite pieces of fiction.  Handled well, it could be like Indiana Jones meets Star Trek or Avatar and The Da Vinci Code.

Overall the movie could have an Apocalyptic kind of feel… with new beginnings and a b’ak’tun-like cycle.  It would be great if the movie were released this year, with the 2012 hype reaching full fervor soon.  Tie into that some epic sci-fi stuff, archeological mystery, journalism, psychology experiments, a little humor, religious and government conspiracies, disproving long-standing scientific theories (like “hey, we revolve around the sun!”) and blowing peoples’ minds, and even a great philosophical message.  I’d say you can’t go wrong with it as long as you try to stick to the original story as much as possible.

Nightfall (Asimov short story and novel)

Nightfall

It has apparently been made into a movie twice.  I have seen one of them, and I just remember it not only betraying the story but just being crap.  One was made in 1988 and one in 2000.  I looked on Netflix and can only see the one from 2000 and it can only be “saved”, it’s apparently not on DVD in their collection.  So maybe I watched this way back, from a video store or even on a VHS tape.  The 1988 one, I can only find used VHS copies on Amazon, so perhaps it doesn’t exist on DVD.  I just remember it being an inexplicably different planet & having different characters, or perhaps being another “cycle” than the one depicted in the book.  I may have to track them both down for the fun of it.

The book starts out with a little preface saying basically that it’s an alien world, with alien things … but in order to convey the story well, they were going to use the word “boot” instead of making up an alien word to cover whatever appendage the alien did the equivalent of its walking on.  So, while it would need to be an alien world… it wouldn’t need to be too alien.  It would have to be easily related to.

A successful movie would really need to make use of the suns & colors at the times of day & days of the week.  Much like The Crow had bleached overall look or 300 looked like a painting in every frame, the colors of the sky would need to change ever so subtly from red hues to yellow hues as noted in the book.  They could certainly relate to the mood of each scene.

Dr. Isaac Asimov, head-and-shoulders portrait,...

Asimov wrote a great story. Don't screw it up.

Also… don’t alter the damn story.  It’s great how everything’s revealed.  Don’t rename the characters.  Don’t rename the planet.  Don’t get rid of their numbers.  Don’t change their occupations.  Don’t add any characters.  Don’t take the premise & build another story around it.

In a time where Hollywood is making movies that are remakes or reboots of movies only  a few years old… why not tap into some other sources, especially ones from (arguably) one of the best science fiction writers of all time?  From Wikipedia:

The Science Fiction Writers of America voted “Nightfall” the best science fiction short story written prior to the 1965 establishment of the Nebula Awards, in 1968, and included it in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume One, 1929-1964.

Do you really need any more proof that this would make a great film if handled properly?  I mean, even this would make a great poster tagline if condensed somehow:

According to Asimov’s autobiography, Campbell asked Asimov to write the story after discussing with him a quotation from Ralph Waldo Emerson:

If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore, and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown!

Campbell’s opinion to the contrary was: “I think men would go mad.”

So studio execs, casting directors, effects teams, directors, & producers… get on this.  Please?

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If it’s too loud, you’re too old!

Posted on by Standard 2

☢ BOOM! ☢

Phallic-Atomic Wall Art

That’s what I used to think, anyway.  Over the years I’ve come to appreciate things like volume & tone… and dialing in a bit of control to the chaos.  Recently the following open letter/plea to local & touring musicians was posted in a semi-private Facebook group for the bands that rock out at the Fallout Shelter.  I asked permission to re-post, as it seems like a cool discussion starter.  As a dude in a band, I’m always up for talking about such things.  Permission was granted, and so we’ve arrived at:

PLEASE READ – An open letter to the bands in our musical community from Rick at the Fallout Shelter –

July 27, 2011:

The Fallout Shelter in Aliquippa is well into its fourth year of providing local bands in Beaver County with a venue where they can hone their skills, develop a following, and join a sincere and optimistic musical community. We are very proud of that. We also are committed to bringing excellent quality sound and professionalism to the music patrons who attend our shows. And we strive to help the bands that perform become more professional and polished as they gain experience in front of the crowds. With all of that in mind, I feel compelled to write this letter to everyone who has contributed so much to our journey.

Rock music is traditionally expected to be performed at loud volumes. Although we welcome all musical genres at the Shelter, we have tended to present rock, punk and metal acts more regularly. As such, volume frequently reaches levels that would severely damage the sensitive ears of small animals. So, the question becomes, can “loud” be too loud? Despite your inner rock god’s rabid denials, the truth is that, yes, it can be too loud. On more than a few occasions, I have witnessed young rock fans leave the Shelter shaking their heads and declaring that “it is too loud down there!” How can loud be too loud?

The Fallout Shelter ☢

The Fallout Shelter ☢

As an old rock musician and former fine arts major who grew up in the 70’s listening to bands such as Zeppelin and the Who, let me offer my view on the matter: When the individual sounds of the instruments become too loud, they tend to meld together into what can essentially be described as a “mush” of sound emanating from the stage. As the on-stage musician, you no longer are providing the sustenance of musical nectar to the fans, but are instead dumping the digested excrement of the combined sounds upon them. Individual sounds are completely lost and thus, so are individual expression and critical accents of each musician which can significantly enhance the musical presentation. Some of you might argue that certain genres are intended to be presented as musical mush – and I cannot disagree because musical taste is indeed individual. But musical mush is not what we desire to showcase. The occasional unusual act that uses noise or volume for musical or artistic effect is welcome, but we do not wish to bombard our patrons with unnecessary volume. By beginning your performance at maximum volume, you lose nuance and dynamics, which eliminates your flexibility in making your performance so much more powerful. Being able to increase volume for that soaring lead, or for that key phrase, and using those skills, will make you better musicians and more polished performers. Dynamics is a natural emotional expression of the music, and its importance cannot be over-emphasized.

As a young bassist, I recall performing many times and falling into the same bad habit of turning up during performances – or leaning over to place my ear near my speaker so I can hear my bass. The sound was essentially blowing past my legs so I could not hear myself well enough. The temptation to turn up in such a case is inescapable. This problem can be solved by either asking the sound man to increase your instrument volume through the monitors, or by raising the speaker to be closer to your ear level. We provide one amp stand that leans back to direct the amp speaker to the performer for this purpose. We also intend to build crates to keep on stage which all amp speakers must be placed on to raise them up. Hopefully, this will solve some of the volume problems. We also provide a drum shield for those drummers who play very loudly. When our sound man asks you to use it, it is because he is trying to make you all, as a band, sound the best that you can. Please do not refuse to use it. Trust our sound man – he is working in a very small venue with a powerful sound system. If you maintain the volume that he requests, he will make you sound spectacular. Doing a sound check to establish an excellent level, and then turning up, just creates a cascade of each musician turning up, one after another, and destroys the effort that went into doing the sound check. When you turn up, he has to fight the instrument and drum volumes to bring vocals up to be heard and the result is often feedback and “mush” coming from the stage.

Please help us present the best local performances to your fans and experiment with volume for maximum effect, not just maximum levels. We will not continue to book bands at the Shelter who cannot realize that learning to use volume properly is as important as learning to master their instruments. Personally, I feel that such bands are either incapable of learning what it takes to perform meaningfully, or are simply fulfilling some narcissistic rock star fantasy.

Once again, thank you to all of the fine musicians and people who make the Shelter such a special venue. Let’s continue to work together to make it, and our bands, the best that they can be.

Rick

Ernie and one of the Berts

Ernie and one of the Berts...

You can pick up on the frustration in Rick’s message.  I get it.  There’s a good discussion already going if you’re part of the group.  Rick, Randy, & everyone at the Fallout Shelter have always been really cool to us.  The sound guys have been great…  I’m absolutely terrible with names or I’d mention them here.

My focus/attention span has been crazy lately, so I think the best way to organize my thoughts on this is a completely random bulleted list.

  • I used to want a wall of Marshall cabinets…  I don’t anymore.  In a stadium?  Sure!  But, the reality is that I play mostly bars…  Bars that are small, and sometimes too small to host bands but do it anyway.  Lately I have been digging using Erin’s little Fender Hot Rod Deluxe amp or Dave’s killer Egnater Rebel head with my 4×12 Mesa Boogie cabinet.  (My Crate Power Block is oddly “OK” live, but absolutely terrible when being recorded.)  Not only do we have to provide entertainment, but we have to carry our own crap in & out.  An amp that’s a quarter of the size & has twice the balls of most other amps?  It’s a win every time in my book.  Try it out!  (Especially if you’re playing a place downstairs like the Fallout Shelter or upstairs at the Smiling Moose.)
  • Let the sound guy do his job.  The sound guy at any given venue has been hired to make you sound good.  Don’t piss him (or her) off.  Don’t insist on turning your stage volume up until you hear the mix from the monitors, or go sit in the house yourself to hear the mix.  Want to have the most rock n’ roll attitude in the room?  Just play, and don’t give a crap what it sounds like.
  • Suck it up.  Shit happens.  Monitors screech, cut out, blow up, sound like mud, or are entirely non-exsitant at times.  There are still people sitting there waiting for you to play.  Play!  Don’t ask the sound guy to adjust a different level after every song.  Once one or two songs in?  No problem.  All night long?  Just deal with it.
  • Use the drum shield.  I think I’ve only ever played at one place where the drummer sits behind a shield.  They asked, so we did it.  I even put a sign on it that says something like “don’t tap on glass” that I think is still there.  It gives the sound guy further control over the room… and the monitors.  As long as you have a monitor in there for the drummer, it shouldn’t be a huge issue.  It might feel & look weird, but if Dave Grohl can do it, you can do it.
Please don't feed the drummer.

Please don't feed the drummer.

That’s all that comes to mind right now.  I’m sure there will be more.  For their part, it looks like the Fallout Shelter is open to suggestions in improving their monitoring system & the overall sound for the room.  I’d suggest some kind of acoustic wall tiles to keep already loud noises from reverberating, but that’s just me.

I’d like this to start a discussion about sound at smaller venues all around Pittsburgh, & well… everywhere.  In the comments section below, post your thoughts!

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