Month: March 2021

Only the second week of blogging, and I’m already off schedule. Guess these will just come out when they come out at this rate, whenever life allows.

Welcome back to Bottom of the Deck, my weekly blog about life, the universe and everything. Last week I had a bit of a rant about making mistakes and taking responsibility for them, because I felt a bit slighted over being blamed for something despite following procedure to the letter.

It’s been a week, and whatever consequences that should have arisen from said mistake have yet to appear; I don’t think I’ve been vindicated, but I’m not in a hurry to remind anyone of it. Instead, I’d rather focus on things that make me happy.

My latest viewing trend on YouTube has been watching reaction videos, which have not been my preferred videos in the past, but these specific ones have been people watching movies for the first time; the ones I intentionally seek out are Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. There’s a whole new generation out there discovering the things that shaped my childhood, my adolescence, and now my adulthood respectively. It’s simultaneously heart-warming and fascinating to listen to a fresh perspective on movies I have watched dozens of times, and see people’s eyes light up at all the moments that made my own eyes do the same years ago. It’s like a ride-along nostalgia trip; when a reactor chokes back tears at an emotional scene, I can feel myself doing the same, no matter how many times I’ve seen it.

Something else that has been keeping me looking forward every week for the past couple of months has been WandaVision (spoilers ahead, you have been warned), and now that it’s over, I can only say that Falcon and the Winter Soldier has a lot to live up to. WandaVision was a remarkably dark and psychologically disturbing series for something that embraces the sitcom format so lovingly; the underlying wrongness of what was going on behind the scenes of this idealized suburban environment kept me guessing from beginning to end. It was a tragic analysis of the effects of grief and the consequences of not properly treating it, set against the dual backdrop of Wanda’s private sitcom and Monica Rambeau’s efforts to reach her from the real world. The inclusion of Agatha Harkness was predicted long ago, but that didn’t make her reveal any less amazing, and her theme song is just so catchy; it’s been an earworm for me, as it has for many others.

As far as my own comics go, my schedule slipped a little on that front too earlier in the week; as a result of that incident at work, my motivation took a momentary blow, but I’ve been able to push through it. This coming week is going to be super busy with regards to that; I already have the next five pages pencilled ahead of time, so if I go all out, I can get the entire thing done by next week Saturday. In fact, I want everything wrapped up and complete by Friday night if I can, because I’m going on vacation after next week, and I’d rather not spend my time away working again. In a pinch, if I haven’t finished all the colours for all the pages, that I can still get done while I’m away, but I want to appreciate my days off, and spend some time with my parents, whom I haven’t seen in person for over a year. It wasn’t even due to the pandemic, we just haven’t had the funds to go and visit one another; I’m so keen to spend my birthday with them, you have no idea.

Speaking of birthdays, I’m going to be 32 years old a week from Wednesday. I’ve never liked my birthday all that much; in the past, it’s been a reminder of what I’ve failed to accomplish in my life, all my missed opportunities, and how little progress I’ve made. This year is going to be different, I think. Sure, I may not be exactly where I was hoping to be, but I’ve come a long way since this time last year. With the pandemic striking, I was being flung back down into a pit of depression that my therapist had spent months helping me crawl out of; I had just gotten new job, but between my bad living situation and then being forced to stay stuck in it thanks to worldwide panic, I was not feeling good about myself. But since then, I’ve maintained a living wage, I’ve moved into a new place with my partner, I have a pet cat, I have my new website, I have my comics, I have my health; I’ve come such a long way in a year, and I’m so grateful for everything and everyone that helped me make it this far.

Okay, time to call it, hopefully I’ll stay on schedule next week.

Peace, out.

So, it’s been a while.

Welcome back to Bottom of the Deck, my weekly blog about life, the universe and everything ie, my life, my local universe, and everything that’s been happening in it. It’s been several years since I last blogged on a regular basis, but I think I’ve finally reached a point where I’m keen to share my thoughts, feelings and opinions again, if only in my own little corner of the Internet. This week, a musing on the nature of mistakes and responsibility.

I used to do this on Fridays, and I had been thinking of doing Thursday uploads instead, but something happened this past week that made me put it off until Saturday. While I fully intend to vent about it now, doing so on Thursday would have been a bad idea; my head-space at the time was frustrated, angry, and downright hostile. Having brought the boil down to a simmer, I’m more inclined to talk about it in a civilized manner.

To make a very long story short, I’m getting an official verbal warning from work; a mistake is being placed exclusively on me that cost the company a significant amount of cash. While I’m not going to deny, I did have something to do with it, I still followed company procedure to the letter, and if the client involved had bothered follow it as well, we might not have ended up in this situation.

I initially wrote a 700 word treatise to properly explain the whole situation, but looking back on the full page of venting made me feel even more exhausted; it would have been me just shouting my case to the wind when the final decision has already been made, so there’s not much point.

So I will take the verbal warning; I will accept responsibility for my mistake, despite my adherence to the structure of the work-flow where it was otherwise ignored, and I will hope for a harmonious work environment in the future. Though I know that the others in the studio have my back and HR fought to make my case, I have a feeling there’s going to be a stink-eye peering down at me from up on high for a while.

In the past, I would have been on the verge of an anxious breakdown because of my mistake costing the company money; today, it’s just one more check-mark on the tally of daily frustrations in the workplace. I could fill a dozen blog posts with that kind of thing, although I feel like most people could; that doesn’t mean I’m not still looking for a less toxic workplace.

Point is, I feel like I’m dealing with the situation a lot better than I would have before. Yes, I was angry in the moment, I’m still frustrated now, but by the time they give me that warning tomorrow, I’m going to likely be mostly indifferent. I know what I did right, I know what I did wrong, and I know that other people are just as much to blame as I am; I just have to make peace with the fact that not everyone is going to see it that way. Trying to argue a case when the decision has already been made is just going to be extra frustrating, and there are far more important things happening than stressing over something I can’t change i.e. other people’s minds.

I was going to try and segue this into something about the WandaVision finale, but I’ll save that for next week once everyone’s had a chance to see it or have it spoiled for them; if you’re still dodging spoilers by this time next week, then I can’t guarantee your safety.

That’s all for this week, I’m calling it here.

Peace, out.