Viggo talks and talks... and so do I ;)
Dec. 7th, 2011 09:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
floatingleafSo there's this new lovely Viggo article in the New York Times Style magazine. Called Viggo Talks and Talks.:D With quite a few nice photos, I might add. You can view the whole thing here (someone kindly provided the link on ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
viggo_daily):
http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/02/viggo-talks-and-talks/
My favorite part:
Mortensen’s combination of cheekbones and limpid-eyed sincerity has tended to inspire a slightly awestruck tone in journalists over the years. Some of their more breathless accounts of his chilled-out, barefoot demeanor have come perilously close to making him sound a bit of a pill: a parody of the soulful gypsy artiste, all flared nostrils and rippling Kant quotations. Happily, he is not really as oppressively soulful or as grandiose as such reports might suggest. He is earnest, God knows, and his pronouncements on life and art verge, occasionally, on the sententious. But he’s not a preening nostril-flarer. What he brings to mind, more than anything, is your older brother’s hippie friend from childhood — the one who played you your first Velvet Underground album and instructed you in Trotskyist politics.
Yep. That's our Viggo. The one we all know and love. *sporfle*
Now, I think I need to rant a bit about the new time off policy at my workplace. Up until last year, we used to have separate vacation days and sick days, like at most other places that offer paid time off to employees. Vacation days had to be planned and approved by the manager in advance, but sick days could be taken at short notice when needed. The number of vacation days available to an employee depended on the length of service, but the number of sick days was equal for everyone. That made sense. You could plan your vacation without worrying about what would happen if you get sick later, because the time used for each purpose came from a different pool, so to speak. Then it changed. Vacation time and sick time were combined into a single entity, called PTO (paid time off). Which means you're somehow supposed to know in advance how many sick days you are going to need any given year, so that you don't use them all up for vacation and then end up coming to work with the flu, or not getting paid. And you DO have to use them all by the end of the year (otherwise, the company would have to pay you for the unused ones - but they obviously don't want to do that, so they will remind you to use them). Around the middle of November, your boss will ask you to "submit" all your remaining PTO days for approval. Meaning, if you do need unplanned time off later, for whatever reason, you will have to cancel your vacation plans (or Christmas shopping plans, or whatever). Of course, that effectively prevents people from using sick time they don't really need. It also prevents people from using all their vacation time early in the year. But it totally disregards the fact that some people get sick more often than others, and as a result those unlucky individuals get less vacation. Last year, I had 15 available vacation days - so, together with 10 sick days, the total was 25. I don't think I used all my sick days - I may have left one or two "in store" for end-of-the-year emergencies and then ended up not using them at all - but I was comfortable in the knowledge that they were "there" in case I needed them. This year, my total number of available PTO days is 21. I wanted to leave two days "in reserve" when the boss asked me to submit my time off plans for the rest of the year in November - but she said I couldn't do that, so I scheduled those remaining two days for Thursday & Friday this week. Last month, my period had laid me up on a Thursday, so I hoped the same thing would happen this month. But of course it didn't. I "went down" with it last night, which was Tuesday, and couldn't make myself get up and go to work this morning (Wednesday). Which means I have to ask my boss to cancel one of the already scheduled PTO days and approve one for today instead - or I don't get a full paycheck. I know she has also taken tomorrow and Friday off - but she was supposed to be in the office today, and I must have called her like five times, leaving messages both on the office phone and on her cell... and she never got back to me. Which is really unlike her. So I don't know what's going on. I also called HER boss - the department head - and left a message, but she hasn't called me back either. So I don't know if anybody actually KNOWS that I called in to say I wasn't coming to work, or that I need my timecard fixed by a manager by the end of the week. Hopefully SOME manager will be there when I show up on Friday. And hopefully nothing bad happened to my boss (she is very busy, but she does return calls, and she normally picks up her cell, so something unusual must have come up). Anyway... if not for the stupid PTO thing, this wouldn't be a problem, because I wouldn't have scheduled those two days in advance. I would have waited for my period to actually start and THEN called in sick - and I would have used only one day, saving the other one for later. But we're not allowed to do that anymore. Stupid, stupid, stupid.:/ I mean, we're supposed to get bad weather pretty soon - harsh cold and lots of snow. What if some public transportation mishap happens and I am unable to get to work?... I have no more spare time off to cover that. I will have to cancel the vacation hours I scheduled around the holidays (like the Friday before Christmas etc.). And let's not even think about coming down with a cold/flu before January. That is simply not an option.:/
Of course, I do realize that a lot of people don't have the luxury of paid time off at all - even if they do have a job in the first place. But I can't help noticing how the corporations gradually try to squeeze more and more out of their employees. My workplace is pretty luxurious on the US scale when it comes to employee benefits - and yet, even here, those uncomfortable little changes have been happening. The hours are less and less flexible, the pay raises less and less frequent - while the duties/responsibilites for each person seem to mount. It's subtle and gradual enough to not alarm you all of a sudden - but after a few years, you notice a difference. Still, you don't really want to complain, because you also notice that it is much worse elsewhere. And there would be a long line of people ready to replace you if you so much as dreamed of quitting...
Anyway... I'm still feeling a bit icky, so that's it for now. I think I'm gonna get comfortable with the heating pad and a movie. Or maybe go back to bed and read some of Viggo's poems. The "oppressively soulful" ones that sound more like "rippling Kant quotations"... *gigglesnort*
viggo_daily):http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/02/viggo-talks-and-talks/
My favorite part:
Mortensen’s combination of cheekbones and limpid-eyed sincerity has tended to inspire a slightly awestruck tone in journalists over the years. Some of their more breathless accounts of his chilled-out, barefoot demeanor have come perilously close to making him sound a bit of a pill: a parody of the soulful gypsy artiste, all flared nostrils and rippling Kant quotations. Happily, he is not really as oppressively soulful or as grandiose as such reports might suggest. He is earnest, God knows, and his pronouncements on life and art verge, occasionally, on the sententious. But he’s not a preening nostril-flarer. What he brings to mind, more than anything, is your older brother’s hippie friend from childhood — the one who played you your first Velvet Underground album and instructed you in Trotskyist politics.
Yep. That's our Viggo. The one we all know and love. *sporfle*
Now, I think I need to rant a bit about the new time off policy at my workplace. Up until last year, we used to have separate vacation days and sick days, like at most other places that offer paid time off to employees. Vacation days had to be planned and approved by the manager in advance, but sick days could be taken at short notice when needed. The number of vacation days available to an employee depended on the length of service, but the number of sick days was equal for everyone. That made sense. You could plan your vacation without worrying about what would happen if you get sick later, because the time used for each purpose came from a different pool, so to speak. Then it changed. Vacation time and sick time were combined into a single entity, called PTO (paid time off). Which means you're somehow supposed to know in advance how many sick days you are going to need any given year, so that you don't use them all up for vacation and then end up coming to work with the flu, or not getting paid. And you DO have to use them all by the end of the year (otherwise, the company would have to pay you for the unused ones - but they obviously don't want to do that, so they will remind you to use them). Around the middle of November, your boss will ask you to "submit" all your remaining PTO days for approval. Meaning, if you do need unplanned time off later, for whatever reason, you will have to cancel your vacation plans (or Christmas shopping plans, or whatever). Of course, that effectively prevents people from using sick time they don't really need. It also prevents people from using all their vacation time early in the year. But it totally disregards the fact that some people get sick more often than others, and as a result those unlucky individuals get less vacation. Last year, I had 15 available vacation days - so, together with 10 sick days, the total was 25. I don't think I used all my sick days - I may have left one or two "in store" for end-of-the-year emergencies and then ended up not using them at all - but I was comfortable in the knowledge that they were "there" in case I needed them. This year, my total number of available PTO days is 21. I wanted to leave two days "in reserve" when the boss asked me to submit my time off plans for the rest of the year in November - but she said I couldn't do that, so I scheduled those remaining two days for Thursday & Friday this week. Last month, my period had laid me up on a Thursday, so I hoped the same thing would happen this month. But of course it didn't. I "went down" with it last night, which was Tuesday, and couldn't make myself get up and go to work this morning (Wednesday). Which means I have to ask my boss to cancel one of the already scheduled PTO days and approve one for today instead - or I don't get a full paycheck. I know she has also taken tomorrow and Friday off - but she was supposed to be in the office today, and I must have called her like five times, leaving messages both on the office phone and on her cell... and she never got back to me. Which is really unlike her. So I don't know what's going on. I also called HER boss - the department head - and left a message, but she hasn't called me back either. So I don't know if anybody actually KNOWS that I called in to say I wasn't coming to work, or that I need my timecard fixed by a manager by the end of the week. Hopefully SOME manager will be there when I show up on Friday. And hopefully nothing bad happened to my boss (she is very busy, but she does return calls, and she normally picks up her cell, so something unusual must have come up). Anyway... if not for the stupid PTO thing, this wouldn't be a problem, because I wouldn't have scheduled those two days in advance. I would have waited for my period to actually start and THEN called in sick - and I would have used only one day, saving the other one for later. But we're not allowed to do that anymore. Stupid, stupid, stupid.:/ I mean, we're supposed to get bad weather pretty soon - harsh cold and lots of snow. What if some public transportation mishap happens and I am unable to get to work?... I have no more spare time off to cover that. I will have to cancel the vacation hours I scheduled around the holidays (like the Friday before Christmas etc.). And let's not even think about coming down with a cold/flu before January. That is simply not an option.:/
Of course, I do realize that a lot of people don't have the luxury of paid time off at all - even if they do have a job in the first place. But I can't help noticing how the corporations gradually try to squeeze more and more out of their employees. My workplace is pretty luxurious on the US scale when it comes to employee benefits - and yet, even here, those uncomfortable little changes have been happening. The hours are less and less flexible, the pay raises less and less frequent - while the duties/responsibilites for each person seem to mount. It's subtle and gradual enough to not alarm you all of a sudden - but after a few years, you notice a difference. Still, you don't really want to complain, because you also notice that it is much worse elsewhere. And there would be a long line of people ready to replace you if you so much as dreamed of quitting...
Anyway... I'm still feeling a bit icky, so that's it for now. I think I'm gonna get comfortable with the heating pad and a movie. Or maybe go back to bed and read some of Viggo's poems. The "oppressively soulful" ones that sound more like "rippling Kant quotations"... *gigglesnort*
