Almost Sequestered

Well... it's been a year. Or maybe it was just last year. Something like that. I was originally going to start with a story about how I disassembled and reassembled my broken laptop three times only to find out it was the AC adapter, but something else came up when I got to work this morning...


Which Room?
So... I wasn't laid off today! Hurray!

I work at a mapping/engineering/surveying company, and one of our clients is the massive acronym generation machine that is the United States Government. You may or may have for sure heard about the Sequester, which is where one part of the Government fucks over the other parts as inelegantly as possible. Unfortunately, the other parts are who my company often works for...

So I walk into work today at our shift change meeting, where morning shift glares at the night shift for making them stay late and the night shift stares blankly at our supervisors waiting for them to stop talking so they can go get coffee. One of the corporate VP's is there, not too unusual, but then he we walks up to my former model co-worker and furtively whispers something about a meeting after our usual shift change one. Oh shit. While he's doing that, I politely walk off to talk to my friend from school I just recently helped get hired on. VP-man appears shortly thereafter and tells me to go to the Training Room after shift change and my friend to go to the Conference Room. That awkward moment where you realize one of you is moments away from being fired... happened.

So VP-man begins the shift change meeting, by which time appropriately solemn-looking HR people have showed up with suspiciously bulging envelopes. He thanks us all (Shit.) and to his credit does a very heartfelt job of telling us that some of us will have to be let go, and tells us that we'll learn more in the meetings after shift change and that the second they get more contracts they'll be in touch with us. Then our group leader guy, our direct supervisor, in what I'm sure he thinks is a hopeful tone delves into the alphabet soup that our maybe future contracts might be (...maybe?) while making sure to discuss contract details that have zero effect on most of us and drop names of people who we don't know (I should note other than his overly long meetings, he is an all-around good guy).

Of course, while he's rambling on, everyone is respectfully staring at the floor wondering about the same question: which room is which? I heard she's going to the Training Room so I should be safe but wait didn't she get yelled at about that thing last week? Fuck. But I think I heard he's going to the Conference Room, he kind of sucks though so it that one the death chamber? But the Conference Room is way smaller... could it for just the core group who's staying? The new girl is going to the Training Room, would they really keep her over him? He's been here for years... But maybe they're getting rid of everybody and neither room is safe! Shitshitshitshit.

Of course, after all that, our supervisor is still babbling about how "Pete" had some work he is "looking at," so we all get to ponder our looming fate some more. I personally chose the following subjects:

• How to tell my girlfriend I got fired
• How to tell my parents I might have to move back with them
• If unemployment benefits will cover the rest of my lease or if I should just break it
• Should I go back to school? Is there any time left to apply? I should have looked this up earlier
• Maybe I can get a job at where my brother works... I should call him
• I guess I'll have a lot more time to draw, maybe I can finally put those sprite packs together?

Finally, our supervisor wraps up whatever words he was flinging at we the most inattentive audience ever, and we break. The whole process in italics above was repeated as people start filtering themselves into the two rooms, maintaining absolute gut-wrenching silence. Once I get to my room, I look pretty safe save for one guy that I would fire if I were King of the Company, but could figure out reasons for letting stay. Another corporate VP makes us wait another minute for a couple stragglers, who are that moment the worst people ever for making us wait. Finally, this VP tells us that we're the core group and that we're staying. Words probably came after that, but no one heard them. The tone was still pretty somber though, since about half our group did get laid off (Whooo... we're in the top 50%) and it turns out we might get furloughed for unspecified amounts of time later anyway depending on what work we get- but...

I wasn't laid off today! Hurray!

And they then sent everyone home. I played Pokemon.

 

Sprite Pack

Despite being behind even my own ludicrously loose schedule, I am still slowly churning out finished sprites for my sprite pack. Currently I have these folders, which gives you some idea of what I'm working with now:


I only have a couple fighters left to finalize. They're already animated but from when I was just testing out my animation techniques, so I dread looking at them again and finding things to change or re-do. This last weekend I avoided that and just worked on a couple "accessory" texture sets to go with the airplanes, missiles and chunks. Missiles are self-explanatory and chunks are what happen when a missile hits an airplane:





Yeah, so slight progress...

Thanks for reading!

-Mark S