[TRENCHES] Thursday, September 20, 2012 - Observation
LegionPerseus VeilRegistered User, Moderator, Penny Arcade Staff, Vanilla Staff vanilla
Observation
http://trenchescomic.com/comic/post/observation
Just a little demoralizing.
AnonymousFor the sake of this story let’s say my name is Antonio. And, hypothetically, we’ll say I was working for a video game “documentation” company that created ancillary products deemed necessary by many developers and customers (but not all of them).
I spent 9 months on a project, and every day I would have a series of e-mails or a phone call with my contact at the game publisher. And because my contact would not let me have direct interaction with the developer (it might be a “distraction”) the ONLY person I talked to about this project was him. One guy. And we communicated every day, minus a few weekends… for 9 months straight.
We battled on a few issues. Nothing crazy, but I pushed on some things and he’d push back and more often than not he’d win and I’d do more crazy hours to make it work since he was an important person in a billion dollar gaming company and my employer was a leech-industry that depended on the goodwill of billion dollar gaming companies to survive.
I gave him just about everything he asked for, on time, on budget, and to the great satisfaction of the developer (I found that out later when I finally got to talk to them).
After 9 months of constant, daily communication, I got a final message from my contact - an email to me that had my name in the actual email address and which was a response to a message that had my name at the bottom and in my signature.
This message read:
“Well, it took a long time but good job Andrew.”
Posts
Space Bunny for the win!
I dunno. I guess it's a little surprising, but I don't think I'd really care.
Despite working with some of our customers for about 4 years now, some of them still think my name(which is included at the bottom of every email in my signature) is Jack.
My name is definitely not Jack.
3DS: 1289-8447-4695
I also thought the rabbit in the comic was hilarious.
(I get called the wrong name all the time. Boo hoo.)
Back after a three year hiatus!
What did Jerry say about Mr. Toots?
Just curious - what do people think the balance of the creation of The Trenches is between Mike, Jerry and Scott? I'm starting to feel it has shifted very much towards the stuff Scott enjoys in terms of humor as well as art style. It feels like the Penny Arcade guys take great pride in developing and establishing visual styles for their comic and their side projects but the Trenches just doesn't feel as well developed that way. I don't mean to be critical, but aside from the obvious orange noses - the characters just don't have that much expression to them, there's never a real break from a straight three panel design, and just overall most of the comics are talking heads in plain backdrops.
I don't want to be too critical, occasionally it makes me chuckle - the Kelly Clarkson one for some reason really struck me funny - but I just feel it lacks much of the style and polish that most of the other stuff PA has.
The amusing thing to me is that the writer probably thinks the exec on the other end of line spends as much time thinking about him as he spends thinking about the exec. I imagine that's not true at all. The exec puts in 5 minutes of time a day on that topic, if that, while his whole job is to make that guy happy.
As for the humor style I don't see what you're saying. What are the sorts of things Scott enjoys that Mike and Jerry don't, which are showing up in the comic? I like PvP's humor just as much as Penny Arcade's humor, and I think PvP is much more consistently funny (although not as often is it hilariously funny compared to PA) but the writing in The Trenches really seems to have a lot of Jerry's cadence in the dialog, for instance.
Yet still I'm here, so there must be something.
I guess I'm just here for the rabbit.
PSN: SirGrinchX
Oculus Rift: Sir_Grinch
Are we going to get back to the point of the story, y'know Cora being a horrible person, or what?
I hate it when people say "I'm terrible with names and faces" then describe an ability to recall names and faces that far surpasses my own. It suggests that they expect me to do about as well as them even if I do terribly. And as someone who can't remember the names of people he has spoken to multiple times a week over a period of multiple months, that makes me unhappy.
Not a horrible (occurrence) story, but I can understand the person's frustration.
From the receiver's perspective it's quite insulting and disrespectful; makes them feel rather unappreciated for all the effort they've put in.
However, I would say that, instead of murmuring about it, he should've just mailed the guy saying "Thanks Mister, but my name's not Andrew.
Would've likely gotten a due correction and an apology, rather than having carried it on his shoulder for all those years.
When working with many people at once it can, and does, happen rather often than you'd like.
People had mistook my name. But not once have I relented on making sure to correct them until they get it right.
And likewise, I myself at times misplace names, but again I made sure to quickly correct myself and apologize.
It's all to do with going about things the right way rather than the wrong way and acting with professional courtesy.
Something along the lines of, "He's a rabbit. What can I say. I was outvoted."
I guess my problem is that when you have "from the creators of PA" underneath something I sort of expect the writing and art to be as tight as their other side projects even if they aren't the ones actually holding the pencil (or electronic stylus, etc) and The Trenches simply isn't.
At least he didn't call you Emily.