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Perspective

With the looming winter there just aren’t as many projects to undertake (and to write about), but rather than make yet another video game post I thought I’d ramble a bit about economic and workplace observations.  I’m sure that sounds riveting, but I’m not one to mislead with a false premise.  If you prefer, simply rename this post’s title to: Ten Things You Need to Know About the Millennial Worforce (in the typical clickbait list fashion).

Although, I still don’t consider myself a Millennial.  I fit somewhere into that forgotten Generation-Y group, before Millennials but too young to be a Gen-Xer.  And like everyone else, I feel that my generation had it worse, and I will explain why.

I will do so by mentioning two movies that I consider to be flagships of this Lost Generation, Gen-X: Fight Club and Office Space.  Media serves as an excellent historical record of a society.

Taken at face value, they’re comedies.  Looking deeper, however, I became irritated at the protagonists’ complaints.  In Fight Club, for example, a young professional becomes disillusioned with the consumerist society in which he lives, abandons it all, recruits followers, and then uses domestic terrorism to try and topple the financial sector.

I’m so angry and brooding. Look how cool I am though. In a later scene I take off my shirt.

Here’s another look: a young professional has more money than he knows what to do with, struggles to find meaning in his life, becomes an asshole at work, foregoes finding a meaningful relationship because he’s a misogynist and opts for a friend with benefits (to whom he’s also an asshole), then creates a gang to commit large-scale vandalism.

I’m so sad because I’m a cubicle jockey. Fucker–I had to work 9 YEARS to get my OWN cubicle.

In Office Space, a young professional becomes disillusioned with the lack of meaningful employment, struggles with having a relationship, then snarkily finds ways to strike back against his evil corporate overlords.  Or, a young professional doesn’t like his job and girlfriend, so he grabs the hottest girl he can find (obvious because it’s Jennifer Aniston–who’s always playing the part of hot chick), shamelessly ceases to do any work (but doesn’t quit his job–just pulls a paycheck while sitting around), then convinces a couple of his colleagues to commit computer crime and steal a lot of money, culminating in some vague message that these actions were maybe not justified, but permissible, since his boss/employer was terrible.

If I extrapolate a line of reasoning akin to the hierarchy of needs, then I would conclude that the Gen-Xers, not having to work as hard for economic sustenance, invented problems, or possibly focused too much on more minor problems, and as a result have a much greater expectation of their effort/reward ratio.

I mention all this because I work with this older generation.  As a whole, I’ve been reasonably content in my current role and department, feeling as though I’ve finally achieved a satisfying level of accomplishment and respect (see above: my own cubicle).  At least I don’t feel like killing myself anymore, so I was a little surprised that when we took our usual round of company surveys, the overall scores for the department were rather low.

I was not the only one who wanted to know why, as committees were soon formed with the intent of identifying the factors that were lowering the scores.  As I was conscripted, I had little say in my involvement.  So I just listened.  Common complaints were: inconsistencies regarding using benefit time, lack of established policies, perceived lack of trust, and a general feeling of being treated like a child.  I found little merit in these claims, seeing them as superficial interpretations of inevitable inconsistencies.

But I suppose the surveys did what they intended: measured the level of employee contentment; and the committees identified specifics.  Still, I can’t help but feel that the prior generation had it a little too easy.  I suppose, in time, the Millennials will consider me a big whiner with unreasonable demands too.

–Simon

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Game Relationships

There’s a human cost, in NPCs, when trying to simulate groups of interacting individuals.  Too often are AIs reduced to two interactions: be hostile or don’t be hostile.  Yes, that’s a ubiquitous human paradigm, but there’s one that’s even more common–humans forming relationships–which is rarely explored to any convincing degree.  And so, the NPCs with which we share our virtual worlds never deviate from their proscribed emotional state…unless we need to kill them.

But all that’s beginning to change, and looking back on earlier games, I find my in-game actions to differ drastically based on the lack of meaningful NPC relationships.  Is that an over-analysis of a recreational pastime?  Yes, yes it is.  But here we go.

Of the Bethesda games I’ve played, Skyrim was the first to introduce marriage, which then carried over (sort of) into Fallout 4.  In the latter, you can technically form romantic relationships with a variety of characters, who will then dutifully follow you everywhere.  While doing so, they’ll kill enemies, make snarky comments, judge you on morally ambiguous decisions, and…have sex with you every time you take a nap.  This includes improvised bedrolls found in dingy subway maintenance rooms–wedged between the shelves of industrial solvent and derelict generators.  There isn’t even an option to say no–it just happens automatically every time.

Skyrim was a little different, limiting sex to your home and rented hotel rooms.  It also limited these entanglements to a single person–who must be your spouse.  And no, you can only have one spouse at a time (in fact, I’m not even certain if there’s a divorce option).  I guess these were more civilized times.  And once married, a spouse will faithfully fight alongside the player character, giving greater meaning to in-game marriage beyond someone who simply shares your house.

Apparently Frank Frazetta designed her armor

Prior to Skyrim, Fallout 3 limited romance to a prostitute and some teenager who kind of had a thing for all the boys in town (your character included, upon visiting).  Then again, Fallout 3 was about the bleakest game I’ve every played, and even when stumbling across remnants of what might have been a happy relationship between two NPCs, it generally only served as a plot device, as the outcome was always bad, to introduce more despair (e.g. the embracing skeletal remains of a couple on the couch–incinerated where they sat).

Fallout 4 introduced the ability to pick out a spouse’s outfit–in this case, a kevlar-underweave summer dress–nothing but the best for my postapocalyptic wife

Of course, “sex” in these games is limited to triggering a sleep cycle, having the screen fade to black, then waking up with a temporary experience buff and an on-screen vague inference to having slept in proximity to your lover.

But before this, Oblivion hardly touched on the concept of romance at all.  Some NPCs had spouses, but except for two instances I can think of offhand, the married characters only complained about said spouses.  And you as the main character cannot find a girlfriend/spouse.  Maybe Bethesda didn’t feel that would fit well into the game, and I know they were really trying to keep a teen rating on the game (ultimately unsuccessfully), so perhaps it was best to exclude sex and all innuendos completely.

The result is that I always feel like a bit of a Clint Eastwood character in Oblivion.  I show up, do some generally good deeds–some questionable–then I ride out of a town to unknown parts.  And for the most part, I’m always alone.  There are some characters that will follow you, but there’s no personal connection to them, and I tend to just enjoy watching them take beatings again and again at the hands of wolves and bandits.

Such is the fate of heroes–after crises, they cease to serve a purpose.  Fallout 3 recognized this by killing the main character.  Skyrim and Fallout 4 gave meaning to the post-crisis character by giving them a family.  But Oblivion offered no such purpose.

So my Oblivion character wanders eternally.

Were I to have no wife, would I wander eternally in search of purpose like my Oblivion character?  In games with no endgame, the fate of heroes might uncannily parallel the player’s deeper sense of purpose.  I even built a retirement home on the beach in Fallout 4, after completing the main campaign.

An identity crisis from video games.  Who would have thought?

–Simon

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Tori

Whippets: one of the goofiest breeds of dogs.  Their dopey intellect combined with their lanky builds, incredible speed, laziness, and absolute demand that they snuggle and not sleep on the floor–gives them such a darned endearing personality.  It’s so endearing, that rarely can you find a whippet owner who only has one.

So it was that we acquired Tori–the whippet addendum.  Liz thought that Faye needed a whippet sister, but in reality I think that was just a response to this universal need to collect them.  After extensive searching, she found a vet who breeds, shows, and rescues whippets.  One of these rescues, Tori, was so nervous and scared that she was ill-suited for showing.  She sat around the vet’s office for a time, until she was sold to us.

Always a mama’s dog

When we picked her up, Tori was wearing a green handkerchief.  She was terrified of the change, and especially afraid of men–a fear which never fully dissipated.  She took cookies from Liz but not me.  We bought her her own cage, but she refused to used it–preferring to accompany Faye.  She quickly adapted to nights on the bed, however, but bit me once in fear when I came to join late one night.

That’s the dopey whippet look

She never outgrew her wariness of people, but time made her less cautious, and while it was a rare moment to see her play like a dog should, she would still bark when she wanted something, give paw incessantly when she was feeling especially whippety, and took cookies from anyone who offered.  She was a regal whippet, and never reduced herself to fighting with the rabble.  When Faye overstepped her boundaries, Tori would either push her aside, or growl; and that was enough.  The rest of the time she spent sitting in her chair in the bedroom–her throne–far from the noise and chaos of the world.

One of the few men she took a liking to was my dad

Yet she had her less-endearing peculiarities.  I never figured out why she loved bread so much, but she would steal it out of the trash and off the counter, making a giant mess of crumbs in the process.  And she stole bones.  In fact, she had a predilection for systematically removing every item from the trash, irrespective of its classification as food, and arranging the debris on the carpet.  But ultimately, she found her niche in the family.

Like all whippets, she loved the sun

Then she started losing weight.  Until this point, she had had her share of medical problems.  She had tumors, arthritis, and nerve pain; but she was strong and rarely complained about her ailments, and until now she had fought through them.  But her weight loss accelerated, so upon the vet’s recommendation, we started feeding her soft dog chow.  She scarfed that stinky stuff down and it helped for a time, but a couple weeks ago, she stopped eating this too, and began showing more overt signs of digestive problems.

One of her last lucid moments, before she stopped responding

She leaked blood, stopped moving, and became completely emaciated within days.  Suspecting the worst, we made a vet trip.  The diagnosis pointed to a ruptured ulcer, and lacking practical treatment options, we proceeded with euthanasia.  With all the stoicism I could conjure, I watched as the vet injected Tori, and within seconds, she stopped breathing.  The receptionist handed us tissues.  My composure failed.

I spent the day digging her grave.  I buried her with a can of that stinky chow and some cookies.  Liz adorned the site with daffodil and crocus bulbs.

Bye, Tori

I want my dog back, but I’d rather she didn’t hurt anymore.  I hope she has the comfiest chair and stinkiest chow, wherever she is.  I miss you, Tori.

–Simon

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Eye of Newt

As a species, we’re obsessed with the metaphysical–a concept that has long predated the scientific method and its analysis of the empirical…and of course the two have always been at odds.  The latter offers explanations based on irrefutable perception, while the former is more supposition.  Perhaps it’s because the scientific method has and always will probably fail to answer every question that could ever be conceived by the powers of runaway brain growth and abstract cognition.

But historically, the greater unease has been the possibility that a mortal might tap into the metaphysical to produce very physical consequences.  It’s easy to be understanding of a deity, who presumably has the knowledge and intellect to manipulate the metaphysical in a responsible manner, but were a human to dabble in the occult and gain unearthly power over the physical, well then the conclusion could only be that this power will corrupt and the practitioner would become evil.

That’s one guess anyway, although I think the greatest influence on changing the public perception has been Christianity.  Alchemists and shamen became witches and heretics.  Then again, so too were prominent scientists in their day.  Maybe the greatest fear then was threatening the status quo and the balance of power.

Despite the lengthy introduction, this is not a post aimed to tackle these questions.  No, this is a post of inquisition, though not in the scary torture type of religious context.

I went out to split some firewood, and saw these:

Naturally curious at what appeared to be a magic circle, potion, and wand; I asked my daughter for an explanation.  Her simple answer: “It’s a spell.”  Unlike what some of her more distant relatives might have, I did not start splashing her in holy water and waving a rosary.  Rather, I was curious where she had learned about these things.  The color of the markings even resembled woad.  Interesting.  I wondered what she was conjuring.  Maybe she was trying to cure herself of the virus that had been plaguing her respiratory system for the last two weeks.

But upon further questioning, it was apparent that I had misheard.  A child’s soft palate had lended a lisp to her words.  It was not a spell.  It was a stove.  She had drawn a range and was cooking stew.  It was no attempt to bridge the material and metaphysical, no, it was a simple emulation of the culinary arts.

I admit, I was a little disappointed.  Then again, learning to cook is probably a more valuable life skill than making love potions.

–Simon