Recession coming Home

For the last few months, I have taken an interest in the Recession.  Sure, I’ve been alive for about two other recessions, but I wasn’t a working member of society then.  I was a loser who made his lunch every morning and dragged it to school.  

Last week I had a dream that my boss called a staff meeting.  We all sat down in the conference room drinking our coffee.  My boss quietly entered the room, and she sat alone on one side.  She told us the situation with intense precision and with little emotion.  

“I’m sorry to say that starting May 1st, the organization will have run out of funding.  We will need to close our doors.  I’m sorry I have failed all of you.”

I woke up and immediately thought… shit, it’s 6:45.  I should get dressed and go for a run. I tell everyone at lunch my dream, and we all have a good laugh.  That is until, my boss calls a meeting of the entire staff to discuss our finances.  I immediately thought… shit, am I mystic?  The meeting was for Monday morning at 11:30am.

Mondays in general are cruel days.  After a long weekend with late mornings, Mondays are an intense kick in the face.  11:30am was especially slow in coming.  Once the time came around, I was the first one in the conference room.  People slowly filed in and sat around the tables.  My boss enters and takes a seat at the very far end… where I had dreamed.

We are told the following:

1 – there will most likely be no lay-offs this fiscal year

2 – the organization will need to make more drastic cuts

3 – we will see a change in our payroll… a decrease for most – if not all – this would mean a reduction in pay (furlough)

4 – we need to alter our priorities as organization.

5 – there will be lay-offs in the next fiscal year (starting August) – so get your resumes ready

The realities of the recession have never been so real.  I’ll assume that dream was some form of manifestation of my subconscious stress.  It was a stress of which I was barely aware.  Previously, I lived my life as if nothing was wrong with the world – granted I shaved my spending and placed some of it away.  I’ll be lucky if I can make it through on that alone when the axe falls.  I feel the chances of my position being terminated is high.  It’s a luxury position. Man, what a time to be alive!

The bad economy is finally knocking at my door.  It is asking me for 20% of my salary, and I may have to give it to him.  It is not through my own volition of course. Perhaps I should listen to Rashida Jones.

JJRC

Photos from a Moving Car

NJTP Toll Ticket

Towards Philadelphia

 

Entering Philadelphia

Driving into Downtown Philadelphia

Zooming at what was a red light - now green

 

Philadelphia Aquarium

NJTP Turnaround

JJRC

Death Cab in Concert

I have never attended a formal concert.  That is not to say I have not seen performances.  We traveled to Philadelphia, PA  to check out Death Cab for Cutie in concert at the Tower Theater.  We confused the time and arrived around 7pm for the 8pm show.  So, we did what any respectable pair does, we feasted on beers and nachos.  By a quarter to 8, we were seated, beer in hand, and waiting for the show to start.  The Ra Ra Riot opened for the Cold War Kids. I wasn’t aware there was an opening band for the opening band.

The Ra Ra Riot didn’t really get the proper sound check.  It was very apparent since they could not be understood at all.  The only thing that was clearly audible was the strings (violin and chelo).  The vocals were drowned out by it’s own echo.  They were entertaining and the audience cheered and hollered as the ran off stage.  I checked them out at the hotel, they are much better than the acoustics would lead me to believe.  I’ll have to acquire more of their stuff.

The Cold War Kids took the stage after an extensive sound check.  There was a man there checking the makes.  He tied a string of “HEY, Hey, HeeeeY, Hey HEEEY!”’s together seamlessly as if it was morse code.  I knew precious little about them, and I vocals  were interchangeable within the band. I’ll attribute it to improper sound checking.  Once they played their final song, it was time for Death Cab.

With soundcheck over after a long 40 minutes, Ben Gibbard steps on stage and says “Hello.”  The crowd roared.  He played “I will Follow You Into the Dark”.  As my first real American band in concert, I was expecting a little more than I got.  That is not saying that the vocals were off (I attribute most shitty sounds to the technicians).   The band was surely entertaining and played the best of their songs (in my opinion), but I was very aware of the long introduction to “I will Possess your Heart.”  When I first heard this song, I hated the first 4 minutes, but I slowly grew to enjoy it. It is rare that I listen to the radio edits these days, but at the concert, it was as if I was hearing it for the first time – half-hoping the ending to the intro would come swiftly. Mind you, only half-hoping.

Ben Gibbard wasn’t very engaging.  In other occassions, the band spoke to the crowd.  Gibbard continuously said it was a pleasure to be there and thanked us for coming out to see the band.  His one foray into a story involved a question. “I was sitting in the back room one day, and I thought to myself.  Is there a quality tester for Jagermeister?  Is someone’s job to sit there and savor Jager and say, ‘no, this batch is shit.’”  The crowd roared with laughter.  I fell deeper into my disappointment.  Another band member piped in and they had a conversation about Jager and how it’s checked for quality.  It came off as scripted and a little forced… they slipped into another song without a segue.

I first heard Death Cab as a sophomore in college, and I associate Transatlanticism with my last two years at Cornell.  I think I built a fictional relationship with the songs as the years moved on, and as I watched Death Cab play, I noticed that they were not the band I imagined them to be.  Gibbard swayed violently to every song in the same manner.  The only time he broke out of the trance was when he threw his guitar to the ground to play “I will Possess your Hear” on the piano, and the song went on.

Perhaps I have never grown to appreciate the concert experience, and it is something that had to be learned as a younger person.  Perhaps it’s that the band actually has a bad muted stage presence when not singing.  Perhaps it was an off night.  I’ll have to see them again in concert next time they’re in New York, but I will definitely not travel two hours to see them again.  Even with a good performance but eh quiet personalities, I liked the concert, think the band is talented and will definitely continue to follow them.

Since the concert hall was so indifferent to photographs, I decided to photograph my concert experience.  Here it is:

CWK – this was before I up-ed the resolution

Ben Gibbard – First Song

I was pretty far back on the balcony

Zoom

The lights were actually very well done

This woman’s head periodically obstructed my view

Final Song

JJRC

P.S. – I made some poor adjective choices above.  I’ve also added some extra lines in regards to the performance.  (04092009)

Dear Verizon

To Whom it May Concern,

I am incredibly upset at the terrible service I have received during this entire New Every Two Ordeal. It is not enough that i have 6 loyal years with Verizon – which includes internet. It is not enough that I have paid Asurion monthly for the entirety of those six years (Totaling more than $400). You will still require more and more money out of my pocket.

It is a given that companies must overcharge for their services. If that were not the case, you cannot pay a store employee to feed me misinformation and gratuitous amounts of apathy in regards to my “new” phone. It covers the young man that has called me about 5 times in the past 3 weeks during work hours about my plan – even after being told to leave me alone. It covers the manager that tells me that the break inside my phone is my fault. It also covers those phenomenally tired commercials with the “Can You Here Now?” man, and, of course, the service I get.

I have received a certified new phone the turns on by itself every 5 minutes – essentially draining the battery – for $50. This “new” phone is to replace my other new phone that proved defective after a mere three weeks of use. I truely appreciate the wonderful woman at Verizon who all told me this was a quality, durable phone. This was a phone that would not give me problem. Apparently, I cannot ask for a better phone. A lesser phone would have liquified in my pocket. This phone simply cracks when it is alone in my pocket on the subway.

I’m glad I had this phone (Nokia 6205). If I didn’t have this phone on that day, I would have been scooping pieces of a much crappier phone out of my pocket for hours. I am also ecstatic that it came with a rebate. With the money i “saved” getting this year-old phone (I purchased it in January 2009, and it came with materials that expired in July 2008), i can pay Asurion to cover the cost of my new “like new” phone.

After thousands of dollars to Verizon for their service, after hundreds of dollars to Asurion for their subpar devices, it has become apparent that $175 to break this contract is no small off of my back. The least it do is prevent me from feeling this way again (towards Verizon Wireless).

If another thing happens to go wrong (an overcharge, a dead battery, a phone call suggesting I change my plan), I will leave this company with my dignity and possibly with my phone number. I would much rather not deal with your “service” than have the $175 in this rough economy. That’s how annoyed I am.

Sincerely,

JJRC