Just another manic-depressive Monday
Apr. 19th, 2004 10:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwynJust for the hell of it, since I had a little bit of space that probably wouldn't be used until after Vividcon, I put up a couple of old vids on my vids page. Turning them digital was a bit of a challenge, because the tape masters have gone wonky in a couple spots, and one I don't have the master copy of, which has gone very bad anyway, so I had to resort to a washed-out copy from our Media Cannibals tape 4. Anyway, I decided on digitizing these because they're really the only two vids that ever seem to get requests.
The first one is a multimedia vid to David Gilmour's "There's No Way Out of Here" done with Buffy, Scully, and Nikita (some people erroneously identify this as by Pink Floyd, but you won't find it on their albums). It was the first vid I ever made alone (back in the day, most people learned to vid by hooking up with someone and learning to drive from them), and we were just the shit because we had access to Katharine's super cool editing machine that allowed us to do the dissolves at the beginning and end -- something you couldn't do with VCRs. I never thought the vid would turn out to be so popular; it's always wigged me out that it was the first real vid I made on my own and that nothing I ever do will likely top it. People tell me that it was the first serious multimedia vid (most of them are usually pretty light and fun), but I don't really know if that's true or not. It's a huge file -- a QT file of 26.6 MB -- because it's a pretty hefty size vid: the song clocks in over five minutes, and there's a title credit that also adds to the file size. It was made after Buffy and Nikita season 2s had just ended, and XF season 4 had just finished. Some days, I think it would be lovely to recut it with all the nifty digital source, but the capture time alone for so many clips fills me with dread, so it's not gonna happen in this lifetime, when there are so many vids yet to make.
The Firefly vid isn't up just yet -- I keep losing my connection and I don't have high speed access, so I'll try again tonight; check back later. It was made just after the pilot had finally aired, and there's a zappy glitch on the tape, so that's come through in the webifying process. This one looks soooo much nicer on the shiny DVDs I keep offering people (free for a postage-paid envelope!). Boy, was timing the music for these tough, too. It took forever for me to get the song matched up to the video -- tape stretch, age, wear and tear... a girl could tear her hair out. Anyways, you'll need the password to access them; if you've already requested it, it's the same, and if you haven't, there's info on the page.
Speaking of tearing hair out. I didn't end up doing a usage post because I felt so demoralized and stupid and worthless after the test I took Friday that it's hard for me to get my head up. I've never in my life seen anything like this, and I've taken a lot of tests (and I suck at the editing tests, but I still think I'm a good editor). It was like every nightmare test put together, and then exponentially made worse. It was clearly designed by committee -- I've created editing tests before, so I can spot these a mile away -- and the committee was made up of snottier-than-thou little dorks who think that by creating something terrible, they're finding the perfect candidate. The first of nine pages was a spelling test, and somehow as if by magic they'd managed to find all of my bad words -- words I can never ever spell right, and so I always, always double check them with the spelling tool or a dictionary if I see them in copy. And my brain was in total spazz mode because I had no warning about the test -- found out about it late at night, had to go in in the morning -- so I did dumb things like fix marshall law to be marshal, as in US, not martial, as in court martial military. I mean, I know this, but I'm sitting there staring at my bad words all laid out in front of me, and something that in a thousand years would never get past my eagle eye... I just fuck it right up. Because I hate tests so much I go tharn.
So then the next page turns out to be three pages -- of this weird two column text thing of gibberish that you're supposed to edit to match the other column. Essentially both of these tests are pattern matching: you get a list of misspelled or correctly spelled words out of context, and you have to mentally match the patterns in your head with what you know, and the other one you're matching nonsense text that almost kind makes sense, so it's a totally visual exercise. Did I mention I suck at pattern matching? I can spot even my bad words when they're in copy, but I often can't when they're outside, on their own. Then the next page was this list of historical events and you're supposed to tell them the date. Some stuff I know, like when men landed on the moon, and all that. But some of them were there just to make you look like an ass -- the landmark desegregation decision Brown v. Board of Education, the founding of Microsoft. I mean, who the hell carries around that kind of crap in their head? Who *wants* to? On an average job day in all the... oh, 20 years I've been doing this, I've never needed to know off the top of my head when a Supreme Court decision was made, and if I did need to know it, I WOULD LOOK IT UP. That's what I hate most about these tests -- no references, when to me, the sign of a good copyeditor is a person who knows what they're good at and what they're not, and looks stuff up. Knows where and how to verify any facts. Beneath that part of the test were... get this: math story problems. I just wrote "Sorry, math not a strong suit." I felt like freakin' Dr. McCoy -- "I'm a copyeditor, dammit, not a math teacher!"
So then the next page was a list of famous people and you had to tell who they were. I left four of them blank, because not only did I not know, I could not possibly care less, especially when you're asking me to ID different members of the Gates family. I would, you know, look that up in the references. The next page, because this isn't enough wanking and intimidation, is a page of places, and you're supposed to tell what they are and where. I left some of these blank, because I'm just not familiar on a daily basis with what I came home to find out was the lower houses of the Russian parlaiment. There were trick questions, too, and the oh so aren't we clever trick of adding in the islands of Langerhans (which I at least could say was in the human body, though I didn't know it was specifically the pancreas). Then the last pages were these three little stories I was supposd to edit for AP style and write headlines for. Problem, though, was that I had no idea what they were taken from, so it's kinda hard to write a headline when you don't know what you're looking at -- book review? Opinion piece? Makes a difference. I could only remember about half my AP style stuff -- I've been using MSTP (manual of style for tech pubs) with Chicago as a backup for about five years pretty exclusively, and they didn't give me time for a refresher, so I'm sure I missed a lot of the stuff that's peculiar to AP. And I didn't know how Monica Lewinsky's name was spelled (I think I spelled it wrong), because... you know, I don't care, so I just wrote in the margins on the names that I would verify all names and spellings if I HAD REFERENCES AVAILABLE. In the past five years, I've needed to keep room in my head for things like whether Visual C++ is a circle R trademark, or a TM trademark, and such like. I haven't cleared out space in my mind for worthless bimbos or morons in Bush's cabinet. You know -- I'd take a few days to readjust, empty the cache, and start collecting new data.
It was two hours, and by the time I left I knew I'd made so many mistakes they would not call for an interview. So now I'm pretty much stuck with the fact that even for stuff I can do, I won't qualify or get through the process over there. My feelings about the evil empire won't matter, because I won't be able to get even the contract jobs where they're desperate for a body, because they think these tests are cool. Everyone at dinner the other night poo-poohed my experience, saying that's always what MS does on the interviews, but first, it was a stupid test, not an interview, and it was up at the agency -- which is why I had four people constantly talking and shouting and coming in and out of the room -- and so I haven't even had the horrible interview. I've interviewed there twice before, and both of them were weird but not horrible and hostile. This test was horrible and hostile and I'm convinced it's what one person said, a stress test to see how long I'd last before I'd crack. I cracked right away, when I saw all my bad words there on the page and knew I was fucked. Not even any questions about dangling modifiers! I could really show my stuff then... but unfortunately, that's not going to happen.
So needless to say, I'm not feeling very competent editory. I spent most of the weekend trying not to cry (I waver between misery and anger), and now as I write this I'm getting all sniffly. I feel like my future just sucks -- it's going to be test after test, which I hate and am lousy at, and I'll run out of unemployment, and go to work at Wendy's, and write nasty notes to fanfic writers to take out my editorly misery on them. I really don't think I'm a bad copyeditor, but I am a terrible test taker, especially when the tests have been designed by lunatics with too much time on their hands, but there's no way I can convince people of this when the gateway is always a test.
The first one is a multimedia vid to David Gilmour's "There's No Way Out of Here" done with Buffy, Scully, and Nikita (some people erroneously identify this as by Pink Floyd, but you won't find it on their albums). It was the first vid I ever made alone (back in the day, most people learned to vid by hooking up with someone and learning to drive from them), and we were just the shit because we had access to Katharine's super cool editing machine that allowed us to do the dissolves at the beginning and end -- something you couldn't do with VCRs. I never thought the vid would turn out to be so popular; it's always wigged me out that it was the first real vid I made on my own and that nothing I ever do will likely top it. People tell me that it was the first serious multimedia vid (most of them are usually pretty light and fun), but I don't really know if that's true or not. It's a huge file -- a QT file of 26.6 MB -- because it's a pretty hefty size vid: the song clocks in over five minutes, and there's a title credit that also adds to the file size. It was made after Buffy and Nikita season 2s had just ended, and XF season 4 had just finished. Some days, I think it would be lovely to recut it with all the nifty digital source, but the capture time alone for so many clips fills me with dread, so it's not gonna happen in this lifetime, when there are so many vids yet to make.
The Firefly vid isn't up just yet -- I keep losing my connection and I don't have high speed access, so I'll try again tonight; check back later. It was made just after the pilot had finally aired, and there's a zappy glitch on the tape, so that's come through in the webifying process. This one looks soooo much nicer on the shiny DVDs I keep offering people (free for a postage-paid envelope!). Boy, was timing the music for these tough, too. It took forever for me to get the song matched up to the video -- tape stretch, age, wear and tear... a girl could tear her hair out. Anyways, you'll need the password to access them; if you've already requested it, it's the same, and if you haven't, there's info on the page.
Speaking of tearing hair out. I didn't end up doing a usage post because I felt so demoralized and stupid and worthless after the test I took Friday that it's hard for me to get my head up. I've never in my life seen anything like this, and I've taken a lot of tests (and I suck at the editing tests, but I still think I'm a good editor). It was like every nightmare test put together, and then exponentially made worse. It was clearly designed by committee -- I've created editing tests before, so I can spot these a mile away -- and the committee was made up of snottier-than-thou little dorks who think that by creating something terrible, they're finding the perfect candidate. The first of nine pages was a spelling test, and somehow as if by magic they'd managed to find all of my bad words -- words I can never ever spell right, and so I always, always double check them with the spelling tool or a dictionary if I see them in copy. And my brain was in total spazz mode because I had no warning about the test -- found out about it late at night, had to go in in the morning -- so I did dumb things like fix marshall law to be marshal, as in US, not martial, as in court martial military. I mean, I know this, but I'm sitting there staring at my bad words all laid out in front of me, and something that in a thousand years would never get past my eagle eye... I just fuck it right up. Because I hate tests so much I go tharn.
So then the next page turns out to be three pages -- of this weird two column text thing of gibberish that you're supposed to edit to match the other column. Essentially both of these tests are pattern matching: you get a list of misspelled or correctly spelled words out of context, and you have to mentally match the patterns in your head with what you know, and the other one you're matching nonsense text that almost kind makes sense, so it's a totally visual exercise. Did I mention I suck at pattern matching? I can spot even my bad words when they're in copy, but I often can't when they're outside, on their own. Then the next page was this list of historical events and you're supposed to tell them the date. Some stuff I know, like when men landed on the moon, and all that. But some of them were there just to make you look like an ass -- the landmark desegregation decision Brown v. Board of Education, the founding of Microsoft. I mean, who the hell carries around that kind of crap in their head? Who *wants* to? On an average job day in all the... oh, 20 years I've been doing this, I've never needed to know off the top of my head when a Supreme Court decision was made, and if I did need to know it, I WOULD LOOK IT UP. That's what I hate most about these tests -- no references, when to me, the sign of a good copyeditor is a person who knows what they're good at and what they're not, and looks stuff up. Knows where and how to verify any facts. Beneath that part of the test were... get this: math story problems. I just wrote "Sorry, math not a strong suit." I felt like freakin' Dr. McCoy -- "I'm a copyeditor, dammit, not a math teacher!"
So then the next page was a list of famous people and you had to tell who they were. I left four of them blank, because not only did I not know, I could not possibly care less, especially when you're asking me to ID different members of the Gates family. I would, you know, look that up in the references. The next page, because this isn't enough wanking and intimidation, is a page of places, and you're supposed to tell what they are and where. I left some of these blank, because I'm just not familiar on a daily basis with what I came home to find out was the lower houses of the Russian parlaiment. There were trick questions, too, and the oh so aren't we clever trick of adding in the islands of Langerhans (which I at least could say was in the human body, though I didn't know it was specifically the pancreas). Then the last pages were these three little stories I was supposd to edit for AP style and write headlines for. Problem, though, was that I had no idea what they were taken from, so it's kinda hard to write a headline when you don't know what you're looking at -- book review? Opinion piece? Makes a difference. I could only remember about half my AP style stuff -- I've been using MSTP (manual of style for tech pubs) with Chicago as a backup for about five years pretty exclusively, and they didn't give me time for a refresher, so I'm sure I missed a lot of the stuff that's peculiar to AP. And I didn't know how Monica Lewinsky's name was spelled (I think I spelled it wrong), because... you know, I don't care, so I just wrote in the margins on the names that I would verify all names and spellings if I HAD REFERENCES AVAILABLE. In the past five years, I've needed to keep room in my head for things like whether Visual C++ is a circle R trademark, or a TM trademark, and such like. I haven't cleared out space in my mind for worthless bimbos or morons in Bush's cabinet. You know -- I'd take a few days to readjust, empty the cache, and start collecting new data.
It was two hours, and by the time I left I knew I'd made so many mistakes they would not call for an interview. So now I'm pretty much stuck with the fact that even for stuff I can do, I won't qualify or get through the process over there. My feelings about the evil empire won't matter, because I won't be able to get even the contract jobs where they're desperate for a body, because they think these tests are cool. Everyone at dinner the other night poo-poohed my experience, saying that's always what MS does on the interviews, but first, it was a stupid test, not an interview, and it was up at the agency -- which is why I had four people constantly talking and shouting and coming in and out of the room -- and so I haven't even had the horrible interview. I've interviewed there twice before, and both of them were weird but not horrible and hostile. This test was horrible and hostile and I'm convinced it's what one person said, a stress test to see how long I'd last before I'd crack. I cracked right away, when I saw all my bad words there on the page and knew I was fucked. Not even any questions about dangling modifiers! I could really show my stuff then... but unfortunately, that's not going to happen.
So needless to say, I'm not feeling very competent editory. I spent most of the weekend trying not to cry (I waver between misery and anger), and now as I write this I'm getting all sniffly. I feel like my future just sucks -- it's going to be test after test, which I hate and am lousy at, and I'll run out of unemployment, and go to work at Wendy's, and write nasty notes to fanfic writers to take out my editorly misery on them. I really don't think I'm a bad copyeditor, but I am a terrible test taker, especially when the tests have been designed by lunatics with too much time on their hands, but there's no way I can convince people of this when the gateway is always a test.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-04-19 12:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-19 10:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-19 12:57 pm (UTC)so sorry about such a sucky experience!!!
just emailed you about passwd, b/c the one i had didn't work and i'm looking fwd to seeing the not-pink floyd vid :-)
no subject
Date: 2004-04-19 01:16 pm (UTC)I know I'm probably the last person you want to hear this from, but you will *never* end up at Wendy's, or doing crappy, menial jobs, because you're too smart, and you're too good a writer and editor. I really do think the job market is looking up (in the past few weeks, two friends have commented to me how they've had several options, where a year, or even a few months ago, they had none), and though it'll take some time, I know you'll find something good in your field.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-19 10:04 pm (UTC)I know people say stuff is picking up, but... I don't see it much in my field, and if these types of tests are going to be a regular thing, i may never get the few opportunities that are out there. It's hard... at least I can work, though, and no one is telling me I'm crazy... yet. ;-)
no subject
Date: 2004-04-20 07:36 pm (UTC)Heh. Good one.
Oh, so it was a geography test, too? Geez!
And other responses like that. Probably didn't help me.
I don't blame you. Honestly, I fail to see the significance of most of the questions you mentioned. What do they have to do with *anything*?
Keeping my fingers crossed for you, hoping for a lot more job possibilities and *no more idiotic tests*.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-19 01:42 pm (UTC)Eventually the trend moved more to sending texts to be translated at home, at one's leisure (or at most by a set deadline, just like a regular job assignment). Are there no places that administer editing tests this way? It would make a lot more sense, and give them a much more accurate idea of your true skill and style. Someone who truly doesn't know what they're doing isn't going to do spectacularly well even under those kinds of conditions, and someone who does know what they're doing can really show what they've got.
I'm terribly frustrated on your behalf. (Which I realize isn't worth much, but it's all I've got at the moment.)
no subject
Date: 2004-04-19 10:10 pm (UTC)The person who took over my newspaper after I left did very well on the test that everyone else took from me and made worse after my departure. She turned out to be a bad managing editor, and no one liked working with her and she didn't know how to really manage the publication. But hey! Did great on the test!
Book publishers usually send you a test and expect you to take it at home, within a certain amount of time. But... for regular job jobs, I've never yet met a person who didn't slap some stupid test in front of me and expect that to be a magic 8-ball.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-19 02:51 pm (UTC)*big, big hugs*
no subject
Date: 2004-04-19 03:34 pm (UTC)(Also, I read your 100 Things About You in your memories and was taken aback at how many sounded like me - like the ear scarring from childhood infections and weird hearing resulting as an adult. I have so much trouble clearing my ears out that I actually am unable to go SCUBA diving because of it.)
no subject
Date: 2004-04-19 10:12 pm (UTC)They do always want people who are experienced and who can handle pressure and deadlines and fast paced environments. That's almost always part of the description -- and then they give you a test and that's supposed to be your defining thing, I guess. I hate it!
no subject
Date: 2004-04-19 03:46 pm (UTC)Any way you could send them a note thanking (::cough::) them for the test thing (the way you'd send one for an interview), but adding that you're not a good test-taker but have edited for X-years, something like that? Seems like it couldn't make things worse. It's a known phenomenon that many smart people don't do their best at timed tests. I mean, yeah, editors don't KNOW all that stuff (though they know some of it), they just know where to look it up!
STORY PROBLEMS?!
no subject
Date: 2004-04-19 10:18 pm (UTC)I spent all weekend and all today agonizing about whether I should say anything to the recruiter who's been dealing with me. I mean, if she can't place people for these openings, she won't get paid, so it behooves her to help her clients, because then it keeps her people in the contract jobs. And I couldn't figure out what to say that wouldn't sound lame, but I ended up just sending a note a few minutes ago saying it was a pleasure to meet her in person, and that I realized how badly I did on the test and so wasn't really expecting an interview after all (this thing went from "interview right away" to "test right away" and I figured that no call for interview today was a bad sign), but that I appreciated the chance. I said I'm a good editor, but a terrible test-taker, and that I wasn't mentally prepared as I should have been -- and that I hadn't taken a test quite like that in my 15+ years of editing. I don't know if it will turn out to be a mistake, or not, but... I felt like I had to say something, if for no other reason than that I don't want her to give up on me before I've started!
no subject
Date: 2004-04-19 04:12 pm (UTC)I don't think employers focus on the results of those tests, seriously. It's your experience and potential that count -- and you have tons in those areas. You'd be an asset anywhere and smart companies will see that right away.
::puts on Miss Cleo's turban and beads::
I don't see Wendy's in your future, so don't worry ;-)
no subject
Date: 2004-04-19 10:21 pm (UTC)Next time you play Miss Cleo, ask about any handsome men, too, okay? ;-)
no subject
Date: 2004-04-19 06:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-19 06:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-19 10:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-20 01:45 am (UTC)It's some sort of malaise of small minds, I think. The worst thing is that I think it's going to get us a terrible candidate.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-20 02:50 am (UTC)