Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Nightmare


I had a nightmare. Actually I had 3. All very similar. 2 Short dreams leading up to one long, very vividly coherent one. 
Dream 1: It seemed like Modern Medieval times. Our current state of knowledge wrapped in a dungeon/castle dwelling. I was “in” none of my dreams, only seeing things play out like a movie. There was a man –old, white, wearing long dress robes like a pope. He was the “leader” of this pseudo religious group who had not only revived a Racist Regime against black people but had turned society back on its head with regard to their beliefs. They weren’t “in hiding”, they were out and proud about their stance.
The leader was walking through his castle of stone and gray brick when another man came up to him and handed him a letter. The letter was from the “Voldemort” of another racist group –more like a very powerful and frightening underground cult. This cult was known for killing not just blacks, but also anyone they suspected of supporting them. The leader wanted the support of this cult and also wanted to make sure to respect its leader so he wasn’t at risk of being killed.
He opened the letter. The stationary it was written on was beautiful, in a dark sort of way. It was stained deep blue with metallic silver symbols faded on it. The text itself was written with symbols that resembled letters. You could read them together as words, but the individual “letters” were actually images. The letter itself stated that the “Voldemort” leader had received an invitation from the Mr. Pope wannabe and decided to demand some things. Usually someone demands things “in order to”, like “if you want me to come to your party, you have to do this and this…”. But this letter stated: Get 6 white men who work closely with you. Make each hold $100,000 worth of gold brick. Give these men over to me to work for me from now on. Basically he demanded $600,000 right off the bat.
One of the men glanced at the letter and turned to “Mr. Pope” and asked him what they should do. Without hesitation he said, “Gather some gold from the vault and gather 6 of our best men.” Mr. Pope really wanted Voldy to like him.
Then the letter said, “I will visit your congregation and if I find it appealing I may decide to attend your event…” What seemed like 5 minutes later, Voldy showed up with his crew. Voldy looked more like Darth Vader actually. He had a black mask on and a black cloak. He greeted Mr. Pope and then took off his helmet. He did not wear the helmet to disguise his face, but mostly because he liked the dramatic entrance it created when he was meeting someone new.
Voldy was actually a man in his 40s who seemed slightly ragged and tired. He looked distant and kind of depressed. Bored. Mr. Pope turned to go get something and Voldy was left alone leaning against a bench. Then he looked over and noticed a man in his mid 30s. He seemed brave, but not necessarily commanding. Voldy and this man made eye contact and Voldy recognized him. He gave a glance of respect and admiration towards the man who didn’t really care ultimately but also didn’t want to piss Voldy off. Then the man’s 10 year old daughter was playing and came near Voldy. The daughter of Mr. Pope saw her and yelled at her and started to pick on her. Immediately a guard came over and grabbed the man’s daughter from behind and started dragging her away. The girl’s father went to free her from the guards and the guards then grabbed him and started carrying him away. Voldy was just about to protest when Mr. Pope came by and explained to Voldy that the man in his 30s had recently been found to be a supporter of black people.
Voldy in that moment felt dismayed in the fact that someone he admired had been treated so poorly and slightly disappointed that the man he admired also had differing views than him. He secretly wished that men could be treated fairly even if they “sympathize” with black people, but if Voldy even thought about suggesting it his followers would turn on him and kill him.
Dream 2: Dream 2 began with the man in his 30s escaping a “prison/dungeon”. He ran through the castle with a dark blue cloak sailing behind. He was kind of like Zorro at this point. He swerved into a room in the castle, and there lying in a bed was a naked woman he had been looking for. She seemed Russian in temper –kind of hard and cold in some ways and sarcastic and longing in others. She and the 30 year old had had a past love affair –they still had feelings for each other. But she had recently been taken by a “lord of the manner” and had decided it was better to develop feelings for him so she could manipulate him into giving her some level of freedom back. She sort of liked him, but not really. At this moment he had her arms in chains tied to each side of the bed.
When she saw the 30 year old she thought he was going to kill her. Instead he freed her from the chains and asked her to come with him. Since they still had feelings for each other and he had just sort of freed her and there was a bed and she was naked… some things occurred. Afterwards they heard the “lord of the manner” coming and were instantly dressed which was pretty shocking for me to see as a viewer –kind of a “how did that happen?” moment.
The 30 year old decided to jump out the balcony and scale his way across the side wall back to the front of the room where he had entered. The lord of the manner seeing him flee turned to go out the front door and meet him there. Instead the 30 year old swung from a rope and knocked the lord of the manner in the face with his boot. He then grabbed the woman and they quickly stole a horse and road off together.
Dream 3:
The time: “Present day” because there were cars.
The location: Seemed like L.A. or Britain, it was hard to tell since so many of the buildings were run down or in ruins. It was summer, sun was out, it was warm. Some streets had pavement, most were just dirt roads. There had been a war that was either still going on somewhere in another country or had just ended. They were in a recession.
The dream started with 3 orphans. One girl and 2 boys ages 8-10. The girl wasn’t related to the two boys, but they loved her like a sister and looked out for her. The orphans had escaped the orphanage about 2 years earlier and continuously fled from the authorities. They had been running when the two boys accidently got separated from the blonde little girl.
She was a fast runner in a faded pink dress. 2 men were after her –one we will call Van Helsing. The Van Helsing man was a Sherriff specifically put in charge of finding the two boys and to a lesser extent the girl. The man who was running after her with him was another police officer who had been in the area when the kids were spotted. The girl was weaving in and out of restaurants and at one point a horse stable, climbing over walls and shooting past workers. The cop turned to Van Helsing and asked why the girl was running 0genuinely confused why a child would run away from people trying to send her to an orphanage where she would be looked after and taken care of. Van said that he had done a brief background check on the girl and found out he man who had previously adopted her had raped her and she was therefore not a big fan of men or being “readopted”.
The two boys had gotten close to being caught when they spotted a hole in a rocky mountain side. The hole was big enough for them to slide down into a tight cavern. That opened up deeper in. The boys then spotted some benches and seats that looked like they had been on a bus or train at one point then discarded. They decided that the benches would be a good place to sleep on for the night. As they continued on, the cavern opened completely and led out to a shaded area where trees had grown over like a half-roof. The cave ended and the open space led into a park where people were picnicking and wandering around. The people could not see the cavern from around the corner of some rocks blocking its view, but the boys could peer out and see the people clearly.
The boys decided to make a run for it when they thought no one was looking and headed out towards a restaurant to steal some food. When they got to the restaurant there was an event going on. Some woman was speaking about the “orphan situation” and how kids needed to be rounded up and sent to holding centers. The boys got angry and started destroying and tearing down posted pictures of “missing kids” who were being hunted down for running away.
One of the adults saw what the boys were doing and ordered a 12 year old boy to grab them and bring them to the man. The boys looked at the 12 year old and stopped him by showing him a picture of a boy who had gotten some sort of mouth disease due to malnutrition. They said, “After the boy was adopted his mouth healed, but when you throw salt on the sides of his mouth it burns as if the disease never left.” The boys then quickly threw salt on the side of the 12 year olds mouth and it started to burn him. One boys said, “See, I thought you had the disease. Wait, you must have been sold at an auction and bought as an ‘orphan’, You’re an orphan too. You should join us.”
After about a couple seconds of reflection the 12 year old agreed and decided to run away with them. Thus began the “revolution”. Kids at this time had lost many parents in the war and “orphans” were then being sold in the form of adoption. These bought children would then be treated as slaves and were often abused or used as living tools by their “parents”.
These 2 boys started to become very well known for starting the movement for kids to run away from authorities to remain free and push for their own civil rights. This is why the Sheriff was so focused on capturing them.
At one point the Sheriff was resting outside of the home of a middle income household. He looked and noticed a group of 6 boys walking together about 20 feet away. He then spotted one of the 2 boys he was looking for. This boy was the “Batman” and the other boy who wasn’t there was more like his wing-man “Robin”. When he saw the boy he decided the best thing to do would be to frighten him into submission. He aimed his gun at the boys who had no clue he was even in the area and the shot fired struck one of the boys in the back. When the boy fell bleeding, the kids screamed and quickly scattered in all directions.
The sheriff chased after the “Batman” leader of the boys. The boy ran down side streets and weaved in and out of stores. He finally came to a wealthy Victorian house, white and beautiful behind a black gate. He climbed into the window of the house and was eating some food in the kitchen when the 2 women living there saw him and screamed. The boy jumped back out of the window and headed back towards the gate to jump it. From behind the sheriff finally got a hold of his tattered shirt midway over the gate. The shirt ripped and the sheriff was left holding what was left of it while the boy looked back at him from the other side of the gate.
Frustrated and lost to anger, the sheriff raised his gun to the boy who was just starting to run from him. He shot and the boy fell to the ground. Immediately the sheriff panicked –knowing he was NOT supposed to kill the boy. He quickly grabbed up the boy and ran to his friend’s house to figure out what to do.
The sheriff’s friend was calm. Staring down at the dead body of the boy he said, “Just say that you never found the boy. You should retire; you’ve been sheriff for over 15 years now. If you retire they’ll give you a nice position and a better salary than you have now. You’ll be named a town hero and no one will ever find out about this. Just burry the body”. 
Eventually word reached “Robin” that his best friend and the leader of the movement had been killed. For a while the kids had secretly taken “missing kid” photos that had been posted of him and passed them around like baseball cards so each kid would know what the leader of the movement looked like. After they all found out he died these images were duplicated and passed out on a mass scale. Even some adults who supported the movement got hold of some to secretly continue on the hope that the kids could be treated better.
At one point the boy came across the Sheriff. As usual he was resting on a hammock outside someone else’s house. The boy walked up to him and took the gun out of his holster. The boy debated shooting the sheriff in the face, but couldn’t bring himself to take the man’s life. Instead he pointed the gun at the sheriff’s foot and decided to “maim” him instead. The boy couldn’t figure out how to work the gun though and the sheriff woke up and just started laughing at the boy for his failed attempt at shooting him. The sheriff grabbed the gun and the boy started running away. He managed to find a house to hide in. He climbed up through the window and hid under a table.
Shortly after he was spotted by two women living there. They chased him out of the house and tried to catch him to hand him over to the authorities. As they were chasing him, they lost sight and he got away. As they continued their search for him they spotted a group of kids dressed in dirty clothes walking down a street. The headed over to the kids, thinking the boy was probably with them.
Then a man walking towards the group of kids picked up a gun and told the kids to get down on the ground. The kids kneeled to the ground and 10 seconds later all but one was blown away. Left crouching with her shaking hands covering her head was the only girl in the group. The man quickly grabbed her arm and dragged her to her feet. He started yelling at her saying, “You thought you could get away from me…” He raised his gun as if to slap her across the face with it, when he spotted the two women frozen and staring. He lowered his gun, grabbed the girl, and walked away.
The last scene I saw was a little blonde girl being taken to an orphanage. The head of the orphanage was a man who had a huge scathe in place of his right hand like Captain Hook. The kids were terrified of him and he ruled with strict deliverance.
He scheduled everything the kids did. You ate when he told you it was time. You read when he told you it was time. You got up when he told you to get up. Any suggestion of an activity not previously permitted by the man was quickly put down.
But this little girl was new. For some reason she was not afraid of him. She got up and walked over to him when he came to check on the kids (who were silently reading at the time). “I need a nap”, the girl said. The man rejected her request. The girl tried to explain that she had a sleeping disorder and could not sleep at night and therefore needed to sleep now or she would pass out. He took what she said into consideration, but then rejected her again.
Then she turned and started walking over to the bed. He yelled at her, “Where are you going.” She looked plainly back at him and said she was going to sleep. He demanded she come back over to him. She did. He yelled her a warning of what he would do if she didn’t listen to him. She looked him in the eye and said she didn’t care what he said. He then grabbed her and put his scathe around her throat. He was whispering more threats in her ear when two women walked in.
The two women were there to pick up a boy they were adopting. When they saw what the man was doing they yelled to their new boy to quickly come with them and told the man they were going to report him to the authorities. The little girl seemed calm and knowing at that point –like justice had been served. He let the girl go.
Then I woke up. The dream was very coherent and vivid. It was weird.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Email To Me


Email to me: 

“I’m going to use this experience as an opportunity to learn, since what happened with the preparation of today’s email blast is something that I’ve seen happening at other times.  I noticed that the corrections that Laura made to the landing page, which were really the bulk of her corrections, were things that we had already worked on when I provided feedback to the email.   We had talked about the links for the 7” Starter Kits not going to the right landing page, and of the $100 off discount being a left over from a previous promo, the formatting and fonts, putting the distributors in alphabetical order to avoid being accused of favoritism, among other things.    As the person in charge of this promotion, you should have realized that the corrections needed to be made throughout, and not just on the email.   Laura should be getting something much closer to final than what she got yesterday.  

I know that I should have looked at the landing page again before giving you the final green-light to send the email to Laura, however I ask you that in the future, when a correction is made please take a step back and think of the impact this correction may have in other areas.  A past example of what I’m talking about is the capacitive datasheet correction.  I received a request from a customer saying that the drawing for the capacitive datasheet was blurry and hard to read, so I asked you to please recreate the drawing and fix the datasheet.  You are very diligent, so you did it right away, but you didn’t “step back” to think of any additional steps, so the updated datasheet wasn’t uploaded to the website until another customer asked.   I know that you have the skills to think globally.  Evidence of this is how you proactively provided ideas to help ease the customers’ experience with our help guide.   I trust that as we work on more projects together, you will become more and more able to think of the overall impact of each activity and go beyond the immediate steps.  The goal of our department ultimately is to increase our customers’ awareness of our products and to give them such favorable impression that they’ll inquire and buy, increasing our leads and our sales.   Let’s keep that in mind always, so that every detail is in line with this goal and we can succeed as the marketing team.

Thanks for the hard work that you do.  I trust that this feedback will be useful to you and that it will help you grow professionally.”
-Alex V.

What I want to respond with but won’t because I like my job and don’t want to lose it:
“Alex, I’m still getting use to the concept that I’m heading the Newsletter, Press Releases, and Promotions –especially since I’ve only put out 2 each now and this was my first promotional. 

Unlike the Press Release –which is a singular document whose text is comprised by you and sent out by me on the PR Website and our Website- the Promo has multiple facets:

1.     Email to Distributors explaining the Promotion
2.     Special email to specific distributors who want that email to look more like a partnership between our two companies
3.     The Landing Page –which you had approved of before Laura suggested the changes
4.     The email in Constant Contact
5.     The Links to the Distributors going to the actual individual product pages
6.     The Links to the Press Release
7.     The Interlinking  of the Landing Page and the Constant Contact Email
8.     Any adjustments to the images, and texts that will inevitably be made throughout
9.     The release day for the Promotion –which you changed about 5 times. It was August 1st at one point. Then it was a Tuesday. Then Tuesday didn’t work so it was a Thursday. Then Thursday didn’t work so it was a Monday. Then Tuesday sounded better so it went out ONE DAY before the actual promotion started because that’s what you wanted.

In conclusion, there will inevitably be issues during initial promotions and press releases and other things that are new to me in which TEXT is heavily dependent on what YOU choose it to be. It’s hard to say I’m LEADING a book publication when you’re the one writing the story. 

As for the DATA SHEETS… I’m not an engineer –which is who those sheets are designed for. When you asked me to step in the engineer’s ring for our product software I did and found those issues based on my unique, graphic design, non-engineer perspective. You want a data sheet I can understand and put out to have nice graphics –It’s called the PRODUCT FLYER… which are beautiful by the way. Not to mention the fact that I’m still waiting on the TEXT for the 4.3 Resistive Product Flyer from you by the way…
Fred is responsible for sending me the images I then put into the Data Sheet. He is responsible for the content. It’s his baby that I deliver. Which sounds weird but whatever… 

I think YOU need to acknowledge your inability to delineate clearly to me what I am responsible for and what YOU are responsible for. If you are naming me Queen of Promotia I will lead that country valiantly, but I need to know I’m the one holding the scepter. You also need to work on your overly perfectionistic traits and procrastinator tendencies because those two are NOT a good combo.  

I hope this email will encourage you to become a greater professional and move you to river dance over the land in magical synergy with your surrounding environment.” 

~Jessica