It is so incredibly hot in my office...

So let me tell you a bit about my job. I am, for the lack of a better term, a graphic designer. I refuse to call myself a graphic "artist" like many in my line of work do simply because what I do is not art. I work for a sign company. I'm not so much talking street signs as I am big monstrosities of metal and electronics. You know those big school and church signs with the LED message boards and all that in them? Yeah, I design those. Not exactly where I pictured myself at this point in my life but the bills have to be paid.

So in addition to designing these ginormous (Holy crap! Ginormous is a word? I fully expected spell check to tell me I was stupid. But it didn't. That's pretty awesome.) signs we also do a full line of graphics and printing. You know, car wraps and murals and stuff like that. Our machine prints directly onto vinyl that has an adhesive backing. This material must be kept in a climate-controlled area with a consistent temperature and humidity level or else all sorts of havoc will be played on it.

So, I told you all this to tell you this:

It's fucking hot in my office...

I always leave the A/C set to 78 degrees when I leave the office. When I get here in the morning I turn it down to 72. As hot as it gets here the A/C runs pretty much all day and keeps my office around 76 degrees. This is comfortable to me and is a good temperature range for the vinyl. But apparently someone decided to turn the A/C in my office completely off after I left yesterday.

I hate everyone and everything right now.

Backorder Blues

As mentioned in my previous post, I recently ordered a computer to replace one here at the office that shat itself. I thought all was well... I got an order confirmation, a shipping notification, and have even been tracking the shipment in anticipation of its arrival.

I get to the office this morning and am greeted by this message (Bold/Italics indicates my edits):

Hi You Poor Bastard,

On checking your order from Friday … I note that the above part shows a back order status because God hates you … I am checking into this and will get back to you with an update or I'll just let you sit there and stare at your monitor helplessly while waiting for an update that will never come … 

Messenger of Satan

So, yeah... Later today I will have a big box of parts with nothing to connect them to. I hope you're all having a better day than I am.

Co-worker's computer crashes, epic frustration ensues.

So I got to work Tuesday looking forward to a short week due to the long holiday weekend. My optimism was short lived though. Shortly after arriving at the office I was informed that one of our design computers had shat itself over the weekend. When I tried to boot it up I was greeted with this:

Reboot and Select proper Boot device

Now, first let me explain why I am the one who was informed of this problem. While I am merely the lowly graphic designer here, I spent over 10 years as an IT Manager/Computer Tech/Network Administrator for various companies.

Tech Support

I mistakenly included this information on my resume. So now I get to take care of all of the little computer issues that come up around here.

I get to work around 8am every morning. The guy who the troubled computer belongs to gets here around 7am. So I ask him what happened. He said he had shut down his computer Friday afternoon and when he got there Tuesday morning and tried to boot it up, the Boot device message came up. It was a little something like this:

Right. Ok, so I go through the various troubleshooting steps. Popped into the Bios to see what was up. The drive was being detected. Kinda. It was showing the wrong capacity and the name of the drive was "@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@". Pretty awesome, huh?

I went through a few trial and error routines and was getting the same result each time. So, not wanting to spend more time on it than necessary I just chalked it up to a dead hard drive and decided to order another one. If I was wrong? I've got an extra hard drive. No harm, no foul. So I order a Solid State Drive, a 2.5"-3.5" adapter, and new cables. Yesterday morning it finally came in so I popped in the new drive, got everything connected, tossed in the Windows XP CD, fired it up and got everything installed and it was running like a champ.

So I get to work this morning and am told to go check out the same computer again. I get upstairs and see this:

...

Ok, so it turns out it wasn't the drive. After more intensive tests I chalked it up to a dying motherboard. Yes, this is the generic tech diagnosis when we have no fucking clue what is wrong. But you know what? Fuck that computer. I hated it anyway. It was too old and too slow. Besides, I have my suspicions that there were more serious and threatening issues here anyway.

Anyway. So today I ordered a new barebones system to put together as a replacement.

It has an Intel i7-2600K processor, 16GB RAM, 120GB SSD hard drive, etc. etc. Compared to what it is replacing it is a fucking beast. When I told dude he was FINALLY getting a new computer, he reacted just as I thought he would.

So, yeah, that has pretty much been my week.

Font & Typeface Humor

We all have that font or fonts that absolutely drive us crazy. As a designer, my list is probably longer than most. The usual suspects to be included on a most hated list are Arial, Helvetica, Comic Sans, Hobo, Brush Script, Papyrus, etc. Some of these are hated more for their abusive usage than any qualms about their quality. Except for Comic Sans. Fuck that font. Fuck. It.

Helvetica is an incredibly well made font and is extremely useful in a lot of design situations. Because of that fact EVERYONE uses it. Everyone. Every. One. Hence the inclusion on many "Most Hated" lists.

I just had a client request to use Comic Sans on his business cards. On his BUSINESS CARDS! A business card is, in most cases, the first impression that a potential customer will get about your company. You want it to be as professional as possible. Or, at the very least, you don't want it to look like it was done in Crayon by your 3-year-old niece.

In honor of my current twitchiness, I thought I would share a bit of font and typeface humor that I have collected over the years.

Hey, can you use comic sans instead?" - Client

Helvetica Makes Me Sick.

This is for using Comic Sans, you bastard! 

Arial.

Papyrus, Comic Sans, Times New Roman.

Comic Sans

Comic Sans is no joke.

Papyrus is the worst font.

Comic Sans

Comic Sans

Comic Sans

I think you are more perfect than Helvetica.

I shot the serif.

Comic Sans.

Comic Sans.

Hobo, Comic Sans, Papyrus.

Franklin Gothic.