Published on Sep. 29, 2005
in General.
This morning, I went to the Blenz on West Hastings to drop off my application with the manager. He was impressed because I’ve actually tried to see him twice before I finally caught him today. Conveniently enough, it turns out that his kids play piano and clarinet and he wanted to send one of his sons to the Templeton Mini School! I think he liked me a lot because he asked me to come back on Tuesday for training. Yes!
I resigned from my fundraising job because I just don’t think that I can take the stress. I’m not good at talking on the phone and I find it awkward asking people for donations. Also, my probationary period is ending in about two weeks, so I could possibly get fired for not being good enough. I may as well preemptively quit before I get fired. I feel really cowardly though. I didn’t even phone in to quit - I emailed the manager and told her that it wasn’t working out for me. She was really nice about it all though. But right now, I’m being told that “that’s like ending a relationship through an email”. Which is true …
Although I know that you shouldn’t write about what goes on at work on the Internet, here’s one of the more interesting conversations I had in my brief stint as a fundraiser.
Woman: Hello?
Me: Hi, could I please speak to Mr. ___ ___?
Woman: Yes, this is she.
Me: …
Woman: Hello?
Me: Um, hi, my name is Stewart and I’m a UBC student calling on behalf of the Faculty of ____. How are you doing this eve-
Woman: If this is about money, the answer is no. And this isn’t a good time because I have company over right now.
Me: Oh good–I mean–sorry, sorry for interrupting. Have a nice day.
Published on Sep. 26, 2005
in Tech.
Last week, I bought a Nikon Coolpix 4800 through eBay. Boo Amazon for not having electronics in their Canadian store. I won the bid at USD $175, but after shipping costs, I ended up paying CAD $250. I’d still say it’s a good price though, because London Drugs sells it for $420. It’s a refurb, but I haven’t experienced any problems with it so far. The body has some minor scuff marks, but they aren’t very apparent unless you look really closely. I’m really liking the 8.3x optical zoom, although it doesn’t work well on objects within a few feet of the camera.
Next stop - Futureshop, for a sweet 1GB SD memory card.
Published on Sep. 24, 2005
in General.
Never in my life have I contemplated quitting my job before my first day. Never have I felt so dejected and defeated after my first shift. It was definitely the worst first day I’ve ever had. The strange thing about it all is that after this shift, I almost don’t want to quit anymore. Maybe it’s my pride - maybe I can’t stand failing. I wish I could do this.
I was assigned to call female SYBUNTs, meaning female alumni who donated Some Years But Unfortunately Not This. Throughout the shift, I got a lot of no answers, answering machines and not homes, which were fine. But when I actually got to speak with the alumni, they all said no. I don’t blame them - I wasn’t exactly eloquent while speaking with them.
This job is really highlighting many of my personality flaws: my lack of confidence, assertiveness, communication skills, negotiation abilities, etc. I don’t know why I agreed to do this in the first place. I’m not a good talker - I stutter, stammer and fumble with words. I’m nervous when on the phone and I’m not good at explaining things.
It seems like I’m so wrong for this, but at the same time, maybe that’s exactly why I should continue with this job. If I stick with it, my communication skills will improve and I’ll learn how to negotiate with people. Though, I will have to endure my ceaseless anxiety and the constant rejection from prospects. Maybe it’s worth it; maybe it’s not. Maybe I’ll get fired if I don’t improve quickly enough.
I have another shift tomorrow. After that, I’ll decide whether or not I should continue on with this. Wish me luck.
Published on Sep. 22, 2005
in Tech.
I’m taking Computer Science 221 this semester, in which I’m required to code in C++, a language I’ve had no experience with before. Unfortunately, the first lab deals with recursion, at which I’m hopeless. I understand recursion when I’m looking at solutions to problems, but it takes me forever to actually write a recursive function on my own. While I began working on the lab, I just drew out the general flow of the problem, since I’m so terrible at recursion. Just now, I hacked together a bit of corresponding code to test out my ideas.
Being an extremely crafty Computer Science student, I didn’t buy the required C++ textbook, so I had to look up a few C++ tutorials online to figure out how to make my program compile. I’m so edgy that I didn’t even bother writing a “Hello World!” program. Anyways, after working out my compile-time errors, I ran my program.
And it worked.
Flawlessly.
I checked it over and over, but it just works. I was seriously expecting to put much more time into this, since I’ve had little experience with C++ and recursion, but it looks like I’m nearly done. I have an edge case to deal with, but I’ll work on it later.
Published on Sep. 19, 2005
in General.
Another startling revelation made today: Music students don’t know how to logout.
After eating lunch in the Music lounge, I made my way to the computer lab to check my eBay bids. Upon arriving at eBay.ca, I was warmly greeted, “Hello, ____! (Not ____? Sign in)” I stared, dumbfounded at this person’s complete lack of Internet security. For a second, I was tempted to use his account to bid $1000 on the $300 item that I’ve been eyeing, but of course, I didn’t. I logged him out for his protection.
Then, I went to Gmail to check for new messages, but lo and behold, someone else’s inbox pops up onto the screen! I just couldn’t believe it. Without even trying, I was able to access two people’s private accounts without even making an attempt to crack their passwords. Feeling mischievous, I clicked “Compose Mail” and sent an email to that person, saying, “You should really make sure you logout after using a public computer. :)”
After that, I thought about checking other sites, like Yahoo!, Flickr, LiveJournal, Xanga, etc. but ultimately decided against it. I didn’t want to see if anyone else had forgotten to sign out of their accounts, since it would just scare me how ignorant people can be about Internet privacy. It’s no wonder that so many people have problems with online security - no matter what a Web site does to protect its users, there will always be some who are basically asking for trouble.
