During my ten or so years in the corporate world I had the distinctive pleasure of observing and occasionally meeting some fantastic creatures. Being part of IT companies it would be very easy to single out the “geek” persona. These and other corporate characters (suck-ups, rebels, smellers) you already know pretty well. I’m going to direct your attention to other types you might already know, but didn’t quite figure out how to name, let alone understand their behavior. Hopefully my musings here will help you deal with these creatures when you next encounter them.

Corporate Copycats

Suck-ups are a dime a dozen in any company. It’s safe to say wherever there’s a boss, someone’s face is attached to his ass. The copycat is a different creature. You might say copycats are enhanced versions of suck-ups. Their utmost desire is to become a person other than themselves, so they pick their target (usually his / her boss or a member of upper management) and basically copy their behavior to the extent of their possibilities.

I’ve come across these creatures in more than one occasion. They not only back-up whatever their bosses say, no matter how stupid or unreasonable it might be, they usually adopt it with a passion and blind eagerness to obey more suited to the military than to a business environment.

It is a very dangerous thing to follow rules without thinking, that’s why copycats are potentially dangerous individuals. In case you encounter one and you happen to disagree on a particular subject, be mindful that since copycats have no mind of their own their mind cannot be changed. You will never succeed unless you manage to convince their object of desire (i.e. the person they emulate) of changing his mind instead. This strategy could mean jumping the chain of command, so it must be used wisely.

The Un-feedback-able

I’ve spent half of my professional life as a manager, and as such delivering periodical feedback has always been one of my duties. In all of my teams without exception there has always been a person that no matter how much I tried to explain things to, would always wind up not listening or not caring and ultimately doing whatever they wanted to. Also, they would rebut every single piece of negative feedback, finding a very reasonable justification for every single thing you dare consider a flaw in their performance. These are the un-feedback-able.

Coincidentally or not, in my teams, these were always brilliant people with authority issues and stubborn to the bone. I remember dreading the moment in which I had to deliver them feedback and in more than one occasion I would purposely schedule the appointment at the end of the day because I knew my mind would not be good for much after it.

Finally (after a few years) I came up with the formula to deal with the un-feedback-able: pulling rank. If you know me or have read my previous post on management you’ll know that I discourage this type of method unless necessary. This is one such occasion.

I found that time and brain cells could be saved by using phrases such as: “I can see you are not in agreement with my position, but I’m your manager and I will be evaluating you according to what I just told you.”

Sadly, most times they carried on doing exactly what they wanted to, but at least, if on their next evaluation I had to shave points off their final score I could do so without so much as an “I told you to do things in a different way”.

Showoffs

In a recent comment to one of my posts, one of you inspired the species I’m about to describe. The comment described those developers that just can’t do something in a straightforward fashion and wind up unnecessarily complicating things in order to prove to others their vast knowledge. These are the tech showoffs you can find in almost all development teams.

The behavior of these creatures is clearly derived of insecurity. Not long ago men resorted to their cars to make up for their shortcomings elsewhere. Later, cars were replaced (or accompanied) by gadgets such as laptop computers, cell phones or smart-phones. Nowadays, for developers, penis size can be measured by the amount of unnecessary frameworks they are able to pile up in order to create a single “Hello World” application.

It doesn’t matter if something that could be done in fifteen minutes took five months to build, or that it has the hardware requirements of an electric power plant; showing off to your peers justifies almost anything.

When confronted with one of these creatures you need to know this is almost always a sin of youth and will eventually fade away. Anything you can do to speed up the learning process could help, but remember no matter how much you try to teach life experience, there is nothing like experiencing by one-self. Working a five-day rush will teach any showoff that sometimes a smart architectural or design choice will pay off big at a later stage.

Self Promoter 2.0

I know self promoters are no novelty, but social networking has helped engineer a completely new breed of this fascinating species. They don’t just brag about their accomplishments (whether real or invented) in office halls anymore. They have expanded their domain and now spend most of their time building their 2.0 personas to be the very reflection of the perfect professional, something of course they could accomplish by doing some actual work once in a while, but… why bother?

This creature is cunning, let’s face it, there is no way a person with no smarts can pull this off. However, they tend to build as much enemies as fans, since subordinates or peers of these individuals often feel social self promoters are full of it and take credit when they don’t deserve it or just plain don’t do the job they are supposed to and more work falls on their laps.

I have yet to figure out a way of dealing with social self promoters. I can’t say I have had direct interaction with any of them, but I keep hearing about them from acquaintances. Boy, do they sound pissed off. I eagerly await to see what happens when one of these individuals falls from grace. I believe that given their exposure they could immediately become pariahs. The bigger they are…

Flavor Combination

Any one person could simultaneously be more than one of the creatures described above. Surely a showoff has some traits of an un-feedback-able individual, and a traditional suck-up or self promoter could easily have the characteristics of both a copycat or a social self-promoter.

If you see a person that combines the four, please send a picture to both me and National Geographic. You could have an amazing discovery on your hands.

Shuje

On my next post I will explain why you should not feed developers after midnight. In the meantime, I would very much like to hear about the fauna in your workplace. Any creatures I should know of? Comment below or e-mail me at shuje@holoom.com

Copycat: 2010 Kia Forte vs 2009 Honda Civic

Features

www.autorivals.net

I apologize if this post doesn’t seem in good taste. I don’t know what it is about cats. When I visit a certain friend, their cat always must climb on my chest and then turn around, and gives me a case of ‘cat butt’ right in my face. Now when I ran across this pic, imagine my horror…

Copycat: 2005 Pontiac G6 vs 2005 Scion tC

Features

www.autorivals.net

Copycat: 2011 Volvo S60 vs 2010 Honda Civic

Features

www.autorivals.net

I have no qualms with admitting I’m a copycat.  But I’d like to think that this copycatting is for a good reason.

I’m copying this, sort of.

Because I need blog topics.

I want fourteen of them, because if I do fourteen more posts, I’ll get to 200.

If I get to my 200th post, I’m planning a giveaway.  It should be a pretty good one too.

Care to help?  I’ll just take the first fourteen comments.  I won’t promise the posts will be deep or lengthy or genius.  As a matter of fact, I don’t promise that for any posts.  But especially these. 

While you’re thinking about it, can I just tell you that I think the YSL Parisienne Fragrance commercial should have a parental advisory before it?!  And the new Kay Jewelers ad, for Christmas I think, with the couple in a cabin during a storm?  I keep thinking the guy is going to strangle the girl.  He gives me the creepies!

Go.  (Please?)

New image in the misleading names photoshop contest

…
copycat photoshop picture

Para começar é importante realçar que eu moro numa daquelas cidades corruptas do interior, onde os dois extremos estao sempre muito proximos: os playboyzinhos e os faveladosrs, nao que a populaçao seja composta só por eles, mas digamos q ocupam 90% da cidade.

O mais interessante sobre esses grupos é a necessidade de tirar onda de ser aquilo que nao é. Um bom lugar pra demonstrar isso sao as festinhas que rolam funk. Enquanto os filhos de papai que sao deixados na porta do lugar com carroes dirigidos pelos pais [ou pelas maes velhas frustadas por seus maridos darem mais importancia ao trabalho e nao serem tao sexualmente ativos como eram e que descontam isso em plasticas, alisando e pintando o cabelo de loiro e se entupindo de maquiagem a fim de arranjarem garotoes que as satizfaçam] entram ao som do funk com os joelhos meio dobrados, apontando com o dedo indicador para cima como se fossem destruir tudo com armas que nunca tocaram antes e falando “E ai mermao?!”; osfavelas entram na deles, quietinhos para que nao assustem suas presas e acabando com aquela frase “playboy filhadaputa”, sem esquecer de que eles estao vestindo blusa da Ecko, casaco e tenis da Nike, bermuda da Osklen e bone da BillaBong tudo importado do Saara.

minha cidade é composta por:

Como se só isso ja nao bastasse, meus pais fizeram questao de construir a casa num bairro que eles julgam o mais tranquilo da cidade, que como se pode ver, tem crianças descalças jogando futebol na rua de lama depois daquela tempestade, na pracinha soltando pipa e traficando dorgas.

Sem duvida um dos melhores bairros, tem ate um despertador natural. Todos os dias as 3 e 5 horas da manha o galo do vizinho de tras começa a cantar, pena q eu NUNCA vo acordar a essa hora a nao ser nos dias q eu nao consigo dormir e ainda tem isso pra atrapalhar.

Alem disso tem o cachorro do vizinho ao lado que todo o dia as 4:30 da manha começa a latir e chorar e ninguem sabe pq. Ate q um dia ele apareceu morto e eu dei graças a deus q tomaram uma atitude antes de mim, pena q depois descobriram q era pq ele tinha cancer ): desculpae. Insatizfeitos com a perca do cachorro, os vizinhos colocaram uma puddle q só nao late as 4:30 como no dia todo.

E para finalizar nos fins de semana, quando eu acho que posso dormir ate mais tarde, tem a droga da vizinha do outro lado gritando cantando Daniel.

Como eu amo minha cidade ):

Quem descobrir a fonte, só leitores ok, ganha um brind VALENDO!

UM BRIND DE SUCO PRA GALERE AEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Over the past 2 weeks, I’ve manually (and individually) updated all 470 pages on my site. I ran into a lot of unexpected problems & I had to fix issues that I’ve been delaying/unaware of since February 2008.  That’s when my web host stopped supporting Frontpage & I needed to convert to Dreamweaver wayyyyy faster than I was comfortable with.  TurtleKiss.com isn’t perfect, but considering it’s functional and built on a foundation of questionable online tutorials, it’s decent. I’m thankful I was able to take the time to make the design more consistent and professional in appearance.  Can’t wait to see how long it takes for the code to become a mess again.

I plan to transfer & organize all of the photos from my old computers (five hard drives!!!!) to one external drive.  I’ve set up my 4-computer network and reconfigured my firewall & router to play nice with the new computer.  I’ve got all computers sharing files with each other, as well as the with the printer, Xbox360 and the PS3.  Even the Nintendo DS is picking up the Wi-Fi signal again.  I had forgotten how nice it is when things run smoothly (it’s been a while.)  I’m not a fan of Vista, but I’ll be upgrading to Windows 7 as soon as Dell decides to send to me.  I had the same exact situation with Windows Millenium before XP was released.

My break from eBay was fantastic – I did NOT miss the tedium of listing auctions!  However, I have many (30+) full-sized paintings to list before the Christmas shopping frenzy begins.

Just a reminder: My breast art will be featured in the December 2009 issue of MAXIM magazine, available November 17.  Please don’t hesitate to reserve your session for a commissioned “New Hope” breast painting.  These are great personalized gifts for investors, collectors of original art, creative individuals, and the person who has everything.  Requests will be scheduled on a first-come, first served basis.

The “UGH” section starts here.

You will no longer be seeing “similar items” from other sellers in any of my listings.  These “similar items” too often lead directly to the auctions of scumbag parasites. I am DONE helping plagiarists market their unoriginal, copycat GARBAGE.  I was recently told I “might enjoy” a gilded breast painting from another seller today!  Are people seriously incapable of thinking for themselves? I haven’t even listed a single piece from my “Gilded Hope” series yet ( or “Gilded Insomnia,” “Gilded Entropy,” & their respective ACEO crossover equivalents.)  Stealing ideas from an honest person must be a “unique” and “unorthodox” feeling.

I was not surprised by this revelation:

The last bit of this post’s title refers to that “artist” who’s been profiting off my ideas in a seemingly symbiotic, amicable, & harmless manner for quite some time.  I’ll save the screen captures, fun webcrawler tags, and details for another entry, but if you can figure out who I’m referring to (it’s not too hard)…view her feedback & see if you can spot a very suspicious ending price (on a painting that’s gone unsold since February.)  The painting in question allegedly sold for about 60 times the seller’s average selling price.  Yes, sixty.  That exact same painting (identical photo/title) is currently listed as “unsold” on a 3rd-party gallery site linked directly from another of the seller’s sites.  The Buy-it-Now price there is about 1/10th of the fake final “sale price” on eBay.

Did I mention that this painting more than DOUBLED in SIZE since it was originally listed on eBay and the other site?  That would certainly account for the increase in price – I wish I knew where to get these magical expanding canvases – even the depth increases!  Note to seller – you forgot to change the size in eBay’s Item Specifics from “medium” to “large.”  Also, it’s painfully obvious (visually) that this painting was done in the smaller (pre-magic spell) dimensions.  Keep that day job.

For those of you who haven’t seen this a million times like I have: This is called shill bidding.  The seller is trying to artificially increase the perceived value of her worthless junk by having a friend bid an unrealistic amount on it. She can then just give the painting away as a gift or something.  She and the “winning bidder” both pretend it was an in-person cash transaction, they leave each other positive feedback, and hope no one like me notices how damn shady the whole situation is.  In return, the seller gets undeserved Powerseller status, discounts for being a fraudulent “Top Seller” and an ego trip associated with deception of unsuspecting buyers who believe her lies.  Can you tell I’m a little miffed?  I worked my way up from the bottom, and it took a long time because I didn’t take dishonest shortcuts.  Shill bidding is unethical to honest sellers, it’s against eBay’s Terms of Service, it’s illegal in some places, and it’s just plain greedy to think anyone would pay that much for a painting by someone who charges for COAs and only profits from the loosely modified ideas of other artists and outright theft of Trademarked logos and images. I’ve already filed a report, but I also plan on following through with eBay Powerseller support because I’ve got way more time-stamped/dated evidence than their little form allows.  This could not be more obvious, clear-cut shill bidding, and I will make sure eBay gets all of the pertinent info.

I gave her the benefit of the doubt & I’ve been letting her subtle rip-off  ”pity art” slide for a long time.  That’s coming to an abrupt end, and I’m fully prepared to support my statements with facts.  I’m used to being a victim…and unfortunately I’ve gotten good at handling it in ways that are both professional and fair.  People like this don’t go away, they don’t get punished, and they never stop coming out of the woodwork.  Why do you think I’ve got 5 hard drives worth of screen captures and documentation of my ORIGINAL ideas?  Yes – partially due to insanity, but there’s a little common sense & self-protection thrown in.  I’m also dealing with a ridiculous amount of non-paying bidders lately.  I think that someone is trying to make me look suspicious by having random people open eBay accounts, bid on ONE of my pieces and nothing else, then win the auction and NOT PAY.  I report all NPB’s to eBay and now need to actively cancel bids from ZERO feedback bidders who don’t contact me prior to bidding. Legitimate bidders – thank you for your support & understanding.  I’m prepared to defend myself & confront anyone who thinks they can manufacture success out of thin air and lies.  I have no cushy job to fall back on – I’ve been a full-time Internet-based artist since 2003 and making ends meet has been ROUGH enough without these pesky little wannabes mirroring every little move I make.   Will someone please tell me what I did to deserve this?  Is there a sign on my back that says “Steal My Ideas & Betray Me While Discrediting Yourself in the Process?”  I’m annoyed, not flattered.

On a brighter note:

My husband and I celebrated our 1 year wedding anniversary earlier this week.  I’m so fortunate to have snagged myself such an honest and hardworking studmuffin!

I love you NES – my density! <3

I donated 3 paintings to some great fundraisers this month:

Medicalodges Bike Show – breast cancer awareness (Eudora, Kansas)
CT Children’s Medical Center Storybook Gala (Hartford, CT)
HRC Annual Dinner, Gala & Silent Auction (San Antonio, TX)

So, that’s what I’ve been up to – sorry it hasn’t been too exciting.  My next post will have photos!  This was just meant to be a quick recap.  Here’s my currently available artwork:

Sorry, no magical expanding canvases here.

]]> http://spottedbynormanncopenhagen.com/2009/10/22/design-chamber-of-horrors/ Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:20:39 +0000 SpottedByNormannCopenhagen http://spottedbynormanncopenhagen.com/2009/10/22/design-chamber-of-horrors/

Unfortunately it is not unusual that our design is copied somewhere in the world. Going after the design-pirates is often a long, costly and difficult process. Instead, we thought you would like to see some of the design-freaks we sometimes spot and then make the judgement yourself!

Click below to enter the Design Champer of Horrors.

Interesting interpretation of the Swing vase spotted in the Czech Republic.

A chinese upside-down copy “inspired” by the Norm 06 lamp designed by Simon Karkov. Urf!

The original (red) strainer is designed by Boje Estermann and was introduced by Normann Copenhagen in august 2005. The other version is a copy made by the company Sagaform – we found the pictures in their 2009 catalogue.

More freaky stuff – head for our WE HATE category.

Borrowed this video from this youtuber

and this one from this youtuber

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.1. Pete Shelley….Homosapien (Dance Mix) 4min.17secs…..  download HERE

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2. Pete Shelley Vs. ABBA….Homosapien Vs. Does Your Mother Know? (Copycat Mashup Mix)….. download HERE

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and if you’re interested in Copycat find him on Twitter here

They say that copying is the sincerest form of flattery, but I disagree. I actually find it extremely annoying. Now I’m not talking about little kids mimicking you (which obviously gets on everyone’s nerves, unless of course you can trick the kid into saying/doing something stupid… and yes, I can be that immature in dealing with children sometimes) – I’m talking about when a grown ass woman (men may do this to each other too, but I haven’t seen it) takes it upon herself to go out and buy something that one of her friends/acquaintances/frenemies already has that she thought was cute. I’m a firm believer in having your own style, and one will never find this by buying things that people they know already have in their closet. Not surprisingly, this happens to me a lot more than I’d like. I mean, I know I have cute clothes/shoes, but damn people!

But this particular copycat incident is even more annoying than most. So yesterday I go to a football game, and I see this bitch/acquaintance/frenemy of mine (my boyfriend and her husband work together) AKA “Skeletor” wearing this coat that I bought last year. Before I jump into the story, I know you can’t give someone a nickname like that without an explanation, so here it goes. This woman is probably 5′10″ or 5′11″ and weighs 114 pounds – you may be wondering, how do I know her exact weight? Well, that’s because she called me once all hysterical that she gained four pounds and was up to a “disgusting” 118, to which I responded that she must think that I’m extremely disgusting (I’m 5′3 1/2″ and on average, weigh a very healthy 125, give or take a few pounds on any given day) and that I didn’t want her to call me with that mess again. Before anyone freaks out, I know that by no means am I “disgusting”, and I am very comfortable with my size. I do have a few curves (well, not so much curves as a disproportionately big chest on my small frame), some that I could do without in an ideal world – like the little love handles that have developed over the last few years – but by no means do I think I’m overweight. Anyway, not only is she disgustingly thin (… like a skeleton… Skeletor… get it?), but she’s also one of those 40 year old women that still thinks she’s 20 – she has totally damaged, bleached blonde hair and leather skin from years of overexposure to the “sun” (it’s clearly from the tanning bed, but she’ll have you believe she “barely ever goes” and is “so pale”).  As if these didn’t give anyone reason enough to be irritated by her (OK – this will make you hate her with me – she says she wants liposuction! Unbelievable, right?), she thinks she’s hot shit and is better than everyone for no legitimate reason… probably because she “doesn’t drink” though she absolutely will and then run her mouth too much when her husband isn’t around… but that’s another story all together.

Back to what I was saying… the coat is really cute (I just tried to find a link for it online, but since it’s from last fall/winter season, I can’t find it anywhere to show you) – it’s by AB Studio, is royal blue, has 3/4 bell sleeves, hits about mid-thigh, has a cute six button closure at the chest – but it’s pretty unique and isn’t something most people would have in their closet, which is why I like it so much. Anyway, I wore it to the last game of the season in 2008, and got a ton of compliments on it, including a back-handed one from Skeletor. She said something along the lines of that the jacket was cute, and she asked where was it from, etc… but then that it wasn’t functional because it only had 3/4 sleeves which defeated the purpose of helping you stay warm. So you can just imagine how surprised/perplexed/irritated (/wanted to spit on/slap her in the mouth) I was when I saw her wearing it yesterday. I mean really, who does that? Some people, I swear…

On the upside, at least we won yesterday!

I was at the L&H’s god debate last night, where the motion put was “That this house believes it is rational to believe in god” (well, according to some of the speakers anyway). I got home to find an e-mail in my inbox (well, several, but one of particular interest). Evidently Herself had found a Boards.ie thread about Jesus, the man himself. So, without further delay, I give you a list of characters who appears before Christianity and the common characteristics -

Gautama Buddha: born of the virgin Maya around 600 BC

Dionysus: Greek god, born of a virgin in a stable, turned water into wine.

Quirrnus: An early Roman saviour, born of a virgin

Attis: born of a virgin Nama in Phrygia around 200 BC

Indra: born of a virgin in Tibet around 700 BC

Adonis: Babylonian god, born of the virgin Ishtar

Krishna: Hindu deity, born of a virgin Devaki in around 1200 BC

Zoroaster: born of a virgin 1500-1200 BC

Mithra: born of a virgin in a stable on the 25th of December around 600 BC. His resurrection was celebrated at Easter.

Y’know, if I were writing a story about a guy I knew and wanted to make him seem like a kick-ass super-deity, I reckon I’d steal loads of these characteristics too.

So, just like we’ve seen a stack of vampire movies aimed at teenagers since Twilight came out, we also see a copycat effect of all those “deities” that preceded the character of Jesus. Dude, what a cheat! I mean, if you’re going to copy stuff from your predecessors, at least a) Don’t get caught and b) Make it something deadly that you steal! I mean, he could’ve chosen to shoot fireballs out of his ears or throw lightening bolts… but a virgin birth? Ok, turning water into wine is a fantastic party trick, but not very good at getting you out of stick situations.

So, what I’m saying is, this Jesus guy (or the guys who made up a story about some poor shmuck, who just had a couple of good ideas about being nice to each other, then turned it into an all-controlling tyrannical organisation) really should’ve made some better career moves. Out with the virgin birth, in with the fireballs.

Kimbotz / Co-Founder

Despite our hardwork and best wishes, not all of us can be celebrity/trust fund kid rich. It has always been known that lesser brands are inspired aka knock off ideas/designs from big name designers. Fashion and style does not have to break the bank for trendy pieces and thus I have compiled a couple alternate, affordable suggestions to fashion house designs.

Balmain Spring 09 Studded Heels VS Jeffrey Campbell Posh
Now I know the Balmain heels are crystal studded while the Jeffrey Campbell ones are mostly chain-embellished. There were also many knock-offs for the Balmain shoe including a pair from Zara which I bought and returned (too big) but I chose to share this Jeffrey Campbell shoe because it’s similar yet different.  At $152 USD this is definitely more in my price range.

Jeremy Scott VS Aritzia
I do not know how much this Jeremy Scott outfit from his “Let Them Eat Gas” collection costs nor would I want to. Let’s break down two key aspects of the Scott outfit which are the leggings and lace top. From what you can see here of the Aritzia Fall/Winter 09 Lookbook, it looks like some ideas MAY have been inspired by Jeremy Scott.  I’m just saying. That lace dress is pretty hot though!

After accidentally locking myself into to my BF’s apt this Saturday, I spent the first hour with my face pressed up to the window living vicariously though all the ppl enjoying the most. amazing. fall day ever, and the next 5 min weeping into his pillow. After getting that out of my system, I decided to get productive, my solution: Photoshoot!  Camera on top of a makeshift tripod, lights pointed on me, auto timer set, watch stolen from BF… TA DA… perfect time waster.

Shirt: Men section at Target $5
Skirt: Target $4 and hemmed
Watch: Fossil, stolen from my guy
Boots: $12

Oh, I did it again. Remember when I unknowingly wore the same outfit as Vanessa Hudgens here…click below to see who copied me this time…

June 5, 2008
Google Faces Louis Vuitton Trademark Case in Europe’s Highest Court
Read whole article.

Now L’s point is:

This british girl in SL™ is very clever or very dumb. Either she knows it will take a while until the Courts of Justice will decide and she can make a lot of L$ now.. or she just didn’t make her research about using trademarks.

Using original logos of high end brands will definitively bring her into discussion. L will observe how this will end up. But who knows, maybe we all didn’t know she is a certified reseller of the displayed RL brands? L will observe who will lead the opinions about this matter in Second Life ® . Who dares this experiment?

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Cheri/87/111/402