Tag: furlough

Wednesday August 5th, 2020

I set the alarm for 7:00am and was downstairs closer to 7:20 am. I did exercises, then rushed to be at a dentist appointment by 8:00 am. Upon returning home, I had time to stretch, clear dishes and write in my journal before clocking into work by 10:00 am.

At work, we had a “good-bye” lunch for our head of technology over Zoom. He’s really good, and my coworkers and I are all sorry to see him leave.

Yesterday, I called V, a work friend currently furloughed. (Actually I have posted pictures of her kumquats on this blog.) We discussed the departure of our supervisor. She speculated about the usual work politics issues, particularly given the current re-structuring our company is experiencing. She told me something I had no idea about, however. From an artist friend, she heard one of our business units is requiring digital artists to show up in person and work in the building. Actually, another work friend said he’d been offered a job at this business unit. He debated whether or not to take it for that reason. Moreover, she’d heard that the digital artists were given letters claiming they are “essential workers” that must be on-site. Given that our business unit is a rather large team of digital artists working from home, that’s simply not true.

According to V, the client who hired this particular unit pressured them into keeping the artists on-site for “security” reasons. Basically, they value the secrecy of their story, or the look of their characters, etc., above any risks working on-site poses to the health of artists and their families.

I don’t know what to say about the skewed values and lack of ethics at play there. From my perspective, it’s “bully” behavior. The effects house could refuse to work that way, and then the client would have to find someplace else to go. And if others are equally firm and ethical, there would be no where to go. That is one of the lessons of karate: you have to stand up to bullies. If you don’t, they’ll keep bullying.

Spider Lilies

Okay, on a less sad note, last night’s story from “Zen Flesh, Zen Bones” was a good one. An emperor convinces a Zen monk, Kakua, known for being elusive and shy, to preach at his court. The monk appears before the emperor and his court. He takes out a flute, plays a single, brief note, and disappears. All the more reason to insist we do what we can to preserve life: it is over too soon.

Thursday May 14th, 2020

It’s Virtual Friday, since we are on four day weeks at work. Starting this Monday, the company will furlough half our team in character effects. Only our lead, and two of us who write a lot of tools, will be kept for now. Without work, however, we are unsure how long the company can keep any of us.

Yesterday I ran for twenty minutes while listening to the Two Dope Queens podcast. After work, on the balcony, I got in my evening exercises. Push-ups, even outdoors, were still difficult. I did notice that our lemon tree, which has been less productive lately, did have two lemons.

During lunch today, I will need to do list collating for the Temple. Well, that will make relaxing this evening all the more fun. I do need to think about the fact that this will be an extra hour of sitting at the computer. Sitting on an exercise ball instead of in a chair should help me stay a bit more fit and comfortable.

I will miss taking a walk and calling a friend or relative. I usually do that during my free lunch periods. Between my new lunchtime run, and kids borrowing my cell for school assignments, and chores, I have walked around our neighborhood less in the past couple weeks. Funny, I cannot remember any longer what I did during my lunch break on Tuesday.

Well, this is turning into a giant dump of all the little things on my “to-do” list. Sensei said what needs to be done, will be done. He’s right.

Last night, I put up a back log day from April. On that day, I wrote about my sister not having health insurance, but still being asked by her employer to come into the office. That’s not a small worry. That’s a big worry. I should talk to her again about health insurance.

Friday May 1st, 2020

At work yesterday, we had a “town hall” over Zoom. Around May 18th, the company will start furloughs. My department lead believes we will all go on hiatus, for a number of reasons. First, our department competes for work with a second, newer department begun by our equally new head of digital. This does not bode well for us. Second, since most of us are older, seasoned artists, furloughing us sooner rather than later will be good for the bottom-line. Finally, our company simply does not have a lot of work left. The younger artists can certainly handle the handful of shots left to do.

This announcement was no surprise. A month ago, our top visual effects supervisor estimated that we had roughly a month’s work. Because we are dependent upon live action production, and these have been deemed unsafe, we have no new work in the near future.

Hannah, a coworker, stopped by with kumquats. We gossiped a bit, each of us in our fancy patterned face masks. My husband opened the door and chastised us for hanging out too long, too closely. She drove to Target, and I picked loquats from our tree for her. While she waited to go in, I arrived with the loquats. She said she planned to give some to her mother. The prolific kumquat tree belongs to her mother. So we had a “quat exchange.

We have three refrigerators: one in the garage, one in the kitchen, and a college dorm-room sized small one on the back patio. The one in the garage stopped cooling the food, and we had about four gallons of milk sour. Before you judge, remember we are actually six persons, two of whom are growing teens with big appetites, and three cats.

D and I defrosted the refrigerator in the garage, but only the freezer has really reached a usable temperature. The main body has only reached about 55 degrees, not cold enough for milk. It needs to be repaired. We had this problem roughly a year ago, and at that time, a repairman cleaned out one of the parts and got it working again. We do not want to call a repairman now but would rather wait until it is safe to have contact with strangers.

D rescued much of the milk: he made yogurt with the slightly sour milk, mint-flavored whey and fresh cheese from the milk that had separated. Chilled, the whey with mint was quite refreshing. The mint leaves came from our flowerbed. We ate fried, spiced cheese with dinner two nights in a row. On the second night, F prepared dinner, and provided fresh cheese with salt and dill along with the fried cheese, and two varieties of store-bought cheese. So we had a private cheese-tasting inspired by spoiled milk.