Out of Work

When I was hired at Yahoo! back in January, it was a temporary contractor position ending on May 31st. They hired me to fill in for one of the Brazilian agents while she was away on maternity leave, but she actually returned several weeks ahead of schedule, giving our Brazil team some much-needed extra manpower. Normally our policy is to respond to customers' emails within 48 hours, but for much of the time I've been working here we've been in such a serious backlog that it was literally taking us 2-3 weeks before we got around to returning some emails. In a lot of those cases we'd find that by the time we got around to their email they had already figured out how to solve their problem on their own, or worse - out of frustration they cancelled their Yahoo! account.

For most of the last month they have been asking us to do as much overtime as possible to help us clear out the backlog. As of this morning we officially hit zero. As in, zero emails waiting for a response. So, to keep us busy they have enlisted us to help the US Mail team with a major backlog problem they are having, but it turns out that I have to be granted permission from IT to be able to access the US Mail server, so I literally cannot do any work until that request is granted. And given my track record with requests from IT, that could take anywhere from 2 hours to 2-3 days. So I am out of work to do right now.

Thankfully, when this contract of mine expires, I will not be out of work.* After a few weeks of working here my boss told me that he was actively looking for a longer-term position for me on other teams outside of Latam (the name of my team - Latin America) that would have staffing vacancies around the end of May. He said that he wanted to help me out by keeping me working longer, but he also had a somewhat selfish interest in keeping me around. Just as today I am being temporarily pulled over to help the US Mail Team with their backlog, around here the different departments will sometimes loan out their employees to other departments if they have a serious need. However, the Brazil team currently doesn't have the option to pull in any extra help because no one outside of the team knows how to read and write in Portuguese. So by keeping me around in a different department he'll be able to pull me over to help with Brazilian emails whenever there is a need.

So effective June 1, I will start working full-time on the aforementioned US Mail Team. For the last few days I've spent a few hours a day shadowing team members over there, and it seems like it should be a fairly easy transition - it's the same work I've been doing all along, but now I'll just be doing it in English instead of Portuguese. I'm bummed that I won't get to stay immersed in Portuguese all day anymore, but in some ways it is kind of a relief. My supervisors have told me that they have been really impressed with my writing and that in some was it even surpasses my native Brazilian counterparts, but I can't escape that Portuguese is not my native language. It will always take me more time and effort to do the same amount of work as them.

But I'm really going to miss my Latam buddies. Our team is really small compared to other teams - 8 people total, 4 Portuguese speakers (3 Brazilians and I) and 4 Spanish speakers (a Mexican, a Cuban, a Peruvian, and a Puerto Rican**) - and we're really tight. We have outings all the time (my favorite was bowling - bowling is not really a Latin American thing so it was amusing to watch them figuring it out), and unlike any other team here we all go to lunch together every single day. But if I have too many saudades*** I can always just walk over to their area for a visit or head off to lunch with them.

Suggestion time: One difference on the US Mail Team is that each agent picks out an alias that they include in the footer of every message they send out. Picking out a new name for myself is not something that I take lightly, so I would love your suggestions and feedback. Speaking of bowling, the name I always enter in the computer when I bowl is "Quinn the Eskimo," so maybe Quinn would be a good name. Or maybe a name that would reflect my origins on the Brazil team, such as Paulo or Marcelo. Or something wacky like Cletus or Hercules (my apologies to any Cletuses or Herculeses - Cleti? Herculi? - that may be among my readership).

Leave your name suggestions in the comments below!

*If you were misled by the title of the post, then I am pleased because that was my intention.
** Just add "walked into a bar" at the end of that and you've got a good setup for a joke.
*** "Saudade" is a very common Portuguese word that doesn't translate very well into English. A close approximation would be "longing" or "yearning," but it's more like a noun version of "to miss" - "I have missings for you."

Update: Still no access to the US server, so I still can't work on anything (although I did do some brief translation work). While composing this post one (1) Brazilian email came in, but someone else on the team snatched it up before I could get to it.

Second update: I have spent the last few hours shadowing US Mail Team agents and though both of them were male, they both used female aliases. They explained that after a customer receives support from us they can fill out a customer satisfaction survey. The scores from those surveys factor into our performance reviews and bonuses. Apparently there is data to suggest that customers give higher scores to female names, so take that into consideration when suggesting names.

Oh Joy! Oh Rapture!

This morning I woke up to a story on NPR about how many believe that today, May 21, 2011, is the day of the Rapture. It caught me totally by surprise (although I would have been prepared if I had been keeping up on my friends' blogs), but then I remembered that I had been alerted about the impending Judgement Day last fall in the parking lot of the Clackamas, Oregon Wal-Mart:

Of course I was a little bit skeptical about this - how could I not be after getting burned before when the doomsday prediction from the opening titles of the 1990 Nintendo game Crystalis failed to come to pass?



P.S. - I really love the word "rapture" because my beloved operetta composing team of Gilbert & Sullivan worked that word into nearly every one of their 14 collaborations, often rhyming it with "capture":

From The Pirates of Penzance:

MAJOR-GENERAL STANLEY:
Frederic here! Oh joy! Oh rapture!
Summon your men and effect their capture!

From The Gondoliers:

GIUSEPPE:
I've at length achieved a capture!
This is Tessa! Rapture, rapture!

C HORUS:
Rapture, rapture!

From The Yeomen of the Guard:

DAME CARRUTHERS:
Rapture, rapture
When love's votary,
Flushed with capture,
Seeks the notary,
Joy and jollity
Then is polity;
Reigns frivolity!
Rapture, rapture!

(That last excerpt was perfectly understandable, right?)

And finally, my favorite use of "rapture," from this fantastic bit of dialogue in The Mikado:

NANKI-POO:
But you do not love him?
YUM-YUM:
Alas, no!
NANKI-POO:
Modified rapture!

SST: Dog Paddle Song

SESAME STREET TUESDAY

Last weekend my friends Amy and Jess came to visit me here in Portland (as I am the last to blog about it, you can read their accounts here and here). It was a really great time and by far the Portlandiest weekend I've ever had since moving here in November. We basically went through the Portland checklist: foodwise we hit McMenamins and Voodoo Donuts, we did some hipster-watching at a traveling artistic miniature golf installation called Smash Putt: Miniature Golf Apocalypse (here's a video for you to get an idea, except this video was taken in a well-lit building in Seattle - for it's sojourn in Portland they found a dank and dimly lit old building/bar that felt more like a haunted house), we went to the Saturday Market along the Willamette River and caught some local musicians playing, we went to Powell's (the world's largest independent bookstore - 1.6 acres of retail space!), we visited locations where Twilight was filmed and reenacted scenes, and we did much hiking/waterfall looking at-ing in the Columbia Gorge.

While hiking up to Punchbowl Falls we somehow ended up talking about this Sesame Street clip:



Happy Sesame Street Tuesday!

Year of Songs: April After All

April is such an inspirational month for songwriters that it took me all month to compile this list. There were so many choices that I was able to divide the list into thematic subcategories.



I. Overture:

Avery Island/April 1st - Neutral Milk Hotel
Neutral Milk Hotel is one of those bands that I just discovered within the past few months and wondered, "How come it took me so long to discover this?" Their 1998 album In the Aeroplane Over the Sea sounds like it could have been made today and so can hear its influence over current indie rockers. The band is quite fond of instrumentals such as "Avery Island/April 1st", none of which is cooler than this untitled instrumental off the aforementioned album, featuring the rockingest uilleann pipes solo ever:



II. April Holidays:

April Fools - Rufus Wainwright
This April Fool's Day was extra special in that it was my grandpa's 95th birthday. No foolin'!

It was also fun because I showed up at work that day rocking this suave look:

My boss did a legitimate triple take when she saw me. I had never seen a triple take outside of a Cary Grant movie.

Like Ron Sexsmith below, I discovered Rufus Wainwright through Elvis Costello's fantastic interview/concert show "Spectacle" on the Sundance Channel.

Start - The Jam
I wanted to include The Beatles' "Taxman" for Tax Day...



...but unfortunately Grooveshark has no Beatles tracks. So we'll have to settle for "Start!", the Jam's blatant ripoff of "Taxman." The Jam are one of those "huge in Britain, never really broke through in America" bands (think Arctic Monkeys or Robbie Williams) and they have plenty of great tunes that aren't direct ripoffs. Apparently the British public had no qualms about the overt plagiarism because this was a #1 hit in 1980.

Easter Parade - Judy Garland and Fred Astaire
I am the Family Home Evening co-chair for my ward and last week for FHE I pulled a gutsy move and did a Brian Presents:-style showing the 1948 Fred Astaire/Judy Garland classic Easter Parade. I knew that we would lose tons of people after the lesson, but I imagined that we might have 10-12 stick around. Wrong. Just 4. And two of them were me and my co-chair. And another one only stayed because her ride left and I had to take her home afterward.

III. April Tragedies:

Pride (In the Name of Love) - U2
MLK - The King's Singers
Bono has a huge Martin Luther King fixation that comes out in "Pride (In the Name of Love)" and "MLK." It always bugged me how Bono rewrites history in this song, unless Bono's definition of "early morning, April 4" is liberal enough to include 6:01 p.m. I actually prefer the King's Singers cover of MLK to U2's original, probably because I sang this arrangement in my high school choir and have an emotional attachment to it.

April 14th, Part I - Gillian Welch
Draws connections between the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the sinking of the Titanic. Thanks to Amy J. for the recommendation.

IV. April in Paris:

April in Paris - Billie Holiday
April in Paris - Count Basie Orchestra
Two versions of this tune that totally different. The Count Basie version for its "string of self-initiated encores"* and for Count Basie and his Orchestra's cameo in Blazing Saddles.

*Source: Musicologist Peter Shirts

Une Américaine à Paris - Rupa & the April Fishes
A fun musical discovery at the suggestion of Amy J.

V. April Showers:

April Showers - Al Jolson
This song was requested both by my aunt Barbara and my friend Peter. Though it has been performed by dozens of popular singers of that era, I went with the Al Jolson (best known for his blackface performance in the first-ever "talkie," The Jazz Singer) at Peter's suggestion.

Little April Showers (from Bambi) - Disney Chorus and Orchestra
This was actually the first thing that came to mind when I thought about April songs.



April After All - Ron Sexsmith
Canadian singer/songwriter that I discovered through Elvis Costello's "Spectacle" show on Sundance Channel.

My Own Way - Duran Duran
Thorn of Crowns - Echo and the Bunnymen
Sometimes it Snows in April - Prince
Within this "April Showers" category there's a little '80s sub-genre. Prince raises the stakes though and elevates the showers to snow, which unfortunately happens sometimes.

VI. Apocalyptic April:

Country Disappeared - Wilco
April Skies - The Jesus and Mary Chain
Mad About You - Sting
Most songs about April are about rebirth and spring, but for those of you who like a little bit of apocalyptic imagery in the mix, here are three songs that you might enjoy. Peter Shirts recommended many songs for this list, but surprisingly he did not recommend the Sting song, since he is the man who has written the entry on String for the new edition of Grove's Dictionary of American Music (trust me, it's a big deal).

VII. April and Beyond:

Both of these songs start with April and progress through the coming months.

April, Come She Will - Simon & Garfunkel
Another Peter suggestion.** This was used recently in a very sweet scene on the show Parks and Recreation. (Mild spoiler alert if you're a few weeks behind on your Parks and Rec)

That´s Life - Frank Sinatra
Sinatra, Count Basie, Judy Garland, Fred Astaire, Billie Holiday, Al Jolson - this playlist has got a lot of old-school legends on it. They must all like April or something.

**Maybe you're noticing a pattern at this point - if you suggest songs to me I will most likely put them on the playlist. So, if you've got suggestions for May song, and there's a lot of them out there, or have any April songs to add to this playlist (even if they don't fit neatly in the predetermined categories), please leave a comment below.

Terrible Life Choice

My life as a graduate student may be over, but I will still reap the benefits this tax season. Turns out that if you are a doctoral candidate who makes almost no money, the government likes to give you lots of money at tax time. For the record, I did make more than $600 last year, but not that much more (I made more money in my first 6 weeks at Yahoo! than I did all of last year), and my tax refund is equal to about 30% of my total income from last year. I'll take it!

SST: Captain Vegetable

SESAME STREET TUESDAY

It was my nephew Braden's birthday yesterday and I remember singing this song around him recently, so I thought I'd put it up for him.



Happy Sesame Street Tuesday!

My New Axe

I finally got a new guitar. Up until now the only guitar I had ever owned was the old nylon-string classical guitar my brother-in-law Lance gave me when I was 13 or 14. It has been a perfectly serviceable instrument for all these years and it's great for certain styles of music so I'm definitely planning to hold on to it.

However, during my final year in Ann Arbor I had a guitar affair with my roommate Peter's steel-sting acoustic (with his permission, of course). I would take it out of his room every morning, mess around on it all day, and then stick it back in his room at night (he's an early sleeper so most of the time I just put it back in its case and leaned it up against his door after just before I went to bed). It was much more suitable for the type of stuff I typically play and it had a great feel, but when I left Ann Arbor, I had to say goodbye to it (as seen here).

Ever since then I've been shopping around for a guitar. It turned out that my first paycheck from Yahoo! coincided with a big sale at Guitar Center, and as Homer Simpson's brain once taught us, money can be exchanged for goods and services.

I had four criteria when looking for a new guitar: 1) steel strings (as opposed to nylon like my old guitar), 2) acoustic/electric (meaning you can play it like a normal acoustic guitar but also plug it in), 3) cutaway (a notch cut out of the body to allow greater access to the highest frets), and 4) not a piece of crap (since I conceivably could go another decade or so without buying another guitar and I don't want to bemoan my choice every time I pick it up).

So say hello to my new guitar. I really like the grain of the wood on it. When I first showed it to my nephews one of them called it a tiger guitar, so I've decided to name it"Tigrão" (pronounced "chee-grau(n)"), which has three meanings in Portuguese:

1) Literally, "Big Tiger" - Tigre (tiger) + -ão (big) = Tigrão
2) It's the Portuguese name for Tigger (as in Winnie the Pooh - I suppose you can call my guitar Tigger if you wanted to)
3) It was the name of this awesomely lame, Macarena-style dance craze that swept across Brazil while I was on my mission (Here's a demonstration. Sample lyrics: "Want to dance? Want to dance? Tigrão will teach you... Hammer that hammer, like this, like this," which is of course accompanied by a hammer action.) I started singing it at work one day and all the Brazilians cringed in horror. It was awesome.

A few days after I bought it I had my first chance to bust it out* at the Portland Area LDS Performer's Concert. Here I am playing "If I Loved You" from Carousel by Rodgers and Hammerstein and "The Girl from Ipanema" by Antônio Carlos Jobim (which some of you may remember as the encore of my all-Brazilian dissertation recital at Michigan):



*If while watching that video you thought to yourself, "Wait a minute, that's not Tigrão! That's an impostor!" well, then you're right. That was the guitar I actually purchased, but after a few days I noticed this faint buzzing sound emanating from the A and low E strings. I took it back and traded it for a much stripier guitar of the same model.