What excuse do I have to tell for not updating this blog at least once a week? Should it be the old and trusty "writer's block syndrome" or should I just say my ass is overly lousy these past few days.
Anyway, up to this point I have no idea what to blog. I guess having too many things running around your head is not really a blessing at all. It just makes you procrastinate more because you think that you have so many things you can write about. I don't want this blog to be like some scripted discussion that's why I don't really care to make a list of things to blog. I want this to be more spontaneous and straight from my (wicked) heart hehehe.
Oh and before I forget, I've always wanted to write a novel at par with Stephen King's. The number of pages, that is. I liked his stories and all but I don't think I'll go for horror stories. What I do have in mind for quite some time now is to write a non-fiction book about how deceptions. Not that it's fun to deceive people (yes it is) but more of an informative tome. Another Derren Brown copycat? Hell, no! His craft runs around debunking psychics and his shit about using psychology blah blah for his magic shows. Mine will be about real life situations focused on the ploys here in the Philippines. I want this book to be out before I'm fifty years old so yeah, still a lot of time for me. Hopefully this blog will be my scratch pad for the ideas I will include in my book. MY BOOK. Did I sound smug there? As if I'll get published.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
How Can I Improve Being a Magician
It's a nice thing to know that people are concerned about improving themselves as magicians. The moment that we go beyond doing "tricks" and focusing our thoughts on making magic, we should be proud of ourselves because we are starting to cross the line that separates the tricksters from the magicians.
Well it shouldn't be a surprise that this question pops up in any magic forum once in a while, for starters and even pros alike, because I think doing magic is a life-long process of improving your craft. You and your role being a magician should always be a work in progress. It's just a little bit sad though that you won't get detailed answers from those who should be "in the know". What you will often get in return is either "read books", or "experience will be your teacher", or to be more "engaging" in your performances. But I think there is more to just saying such things. I expect to hear more from those people who are frequently looked up upon than just mere one liners to sum up what they think is the way to improving your magic. Is it just that they are too lazy to expand on their words or is it that they too don't really know the meaning of what they are trying to convey?
I don't want to think that there is anything magical about making your performance in magic quite, well, magical. I believe that there is a formula for this. I have always thought that magic, beyond the sleights and props, beyond smoke and mirrors and the skimpy clad assistants, require a lot of thinking. Enough amount of thinking that perhaps daunts most skilled workers in magic to stop and re-evaluate for a while what they think is working for them. I feel that many magicians are in a dilemma of being in a state of denial. Magicians always talk about doing moves that "people will never notice" or "bigger actions that hide the smaller one", and so on. But who are we fooling? Most often than not, it's ourselves. We accept some de facto information we read or hear somewhere and stick to it thinking that it will work miracles for us. What we are quite missing though is that we are performing for people who could be more intelligent than us, people who can be clever in ways we don't know, people who can actually "think" despite what we want to believe in that audience are merely audience who will gasp upon our invisible pass, or spectators who are often "fooled" by the simplest of sleights. I think the very first step in improving ourselves as magicians is to be honest in a way that we accept the fact that some things will not work, and that there is always room for improvement. Once we are over our self-centered thoughts of being "pros", then we can go into the nitty-gritty details of understanding what can work for us.
I am not a professional in magic. I cannot even claim that I've been doing magic that is truly revolutionary or highly original. Anyone reading this is free to question and challenge what I've written here. What I want to share with everyone is not a recipe for complete success in magic, but the things that I try to ponder whenever I am not in front of my audience, the thoughts I've been playing with when I'm not holding a deck of cards or practising my billet switch, the things that make me think.
THE EFFECT
Let me say here first that what I will write may have some bias towards mentalism effects, primarily because I'm more inclined to be interested in mentalism effects than others, but I think there is a common demoninator when it comes to effect selection that can be applied generally. Effect selection in itself can spell the success or failure of our performance. There are literally thousands of effects in the market today and it presents a bit of a problem for magicians. We most of the time tend to be on the lookout for new effects and believe it or not we are looking for effects that fool us more than our audience members. We have to eliminate that factor first. We are not doing things to impress ourselves. Forget about performing for fellow magicians if that is not your ultimate goal in magic. Well if that is, then one can simply master knuckle busting sleights and perform the lousiest tricks utilizing those sleights in front of your magician friends and you will still get amazing reactions. In the end what we want are effects that will work for us. We have to be choosy in this regard because effects are the very tools we use to get things done, therefore we have to choose the right tools to do the right job.
Choose an effect within your skill level
When I say within your skill level it means two things - skill in sleights and performing style. Unless you are using bulky props that are almost no-brainers, then you should consider the sleights involved for every effect you choose. It's not enough that you can do the sleight, it's imperative that you can do it flawlessly. Sloppy sleights lead to sloppy performances. It doesn't mean that you should avoid complex or advanced sleights, it's just that you should focus first on what you can really do so you'll be able to pull it off in front of people while you are still working on your pass or palming during your practice time. There is also this consideration of working with a sleight that you haven't used for quite a time. Don't ever think that once you have a move down then it will always be like that forever. You still have to re-evaluate your moves especially if you had some time off with the same. Even a simple glide will give you away if you are too confident about its simplicity and perform it without practising. By the time you notice that there is more to a glide it may be too late and the negative effects its sloppy execution may be irreversible.
Choosing an effect to match your performing style means choosing effects that will suit your personality at the time being. This is quite hard to explain really because it requires evaluation of how you perform and what persona you are presenting. Consider this, if you were a starting mentalist and you just happen to use Banachek's stronger routines, it may be perplexing to your audience but not quite as psychic as Banachek would have presented it. The same thing applies if you look like a geeky high school student doing Tudor's heckler routine. It takes more than just the sleights, it's the attitude and persona that you have to consider when choosing effects in this regard. I'm afraid that there is no clear-cut formula for this one and that you have to rely on sound judgment for this to work (or you can ask other people to evaluate if your effect suits your style). You can use the persona of the magician who did this trick as a basis or you can alter the effect to make it more suitable for your performing style. As with practice and experience we are bound to grow and improve (hopefully) so then we can better gauge an effect to match our style.
Avoid convoluted effects
You will often hear magicians say that most effective effects are the simplest. Not always true. There are some quite complicated magic out there and are as good or even better than the simplest ones. What does it mean though when it is said that a trick is simple? This means that the trick is simple in plot, while the moves or performance may be on the other hand utterly complex. Choose an effect with a simple plot so that the audience won't have to figure out the story of your trick. How do you know when the trick has a simple plot? If you can describe the whole effect in about three sentences or less then you can say that the plot is simple enough. "A selected card is lost in the deck and later found inside the magician's zipped wallet which is in the pocket of a spectator at all times", "the spectator merely though of a word and the mentalist revealed it", "the two objects which are several feet apart changed places without the magician touching them" are just few samples of simple plots. The way you will execute those is a different story. Try to avoid effects that are too complicated and has so many muddled-up things going in-between that people are merely confused and not amazed. If you are going to lose a selected card in the deck then be direct about it. You don't have to ask the spectator to insert the card into the deck and go into a frenzy of card manipulations just to show that the card is actually lost. In mentalism avoid choosing effects that are too "restrictive". There are mentalism effects I've seen that should be done in some strict sequential order for it to work. The bad part is, it is quite obvious to the audience that the trick won't work if done another way (or have them questioning behind the back of their minds) and that there is something fishy going on with those instructions that were given by the magician (mentalists usually say "quite fair" when they actually mean quite stiff conditions). Steer clear of effects that employ more than at most two "basic effects" in magic (technically the basic effect is a vanish, or a production, or transposition, etc) unless it really goes into the flow of the whole thing smoothly and very important, logically.
Another pitfall of some effects are kicker endings that mean nothing to the whole plot. I read an email on my inbox recently describing a card through window effect but with the added kicker of having the card change at the end of the trick. What's the point with the last part, that I don't know. A card through window should be a card through window. The effect may be made stronger by introducing conditions that will make the trick "seem" to be more impossible. Notice that the word I used is seem because the conditions we introduce in a trick can actually mean nothing technically yet add levels of complexity in terms of the audience's perception. But when you go the extra mile of changing the card once it has penetrated the window is just detracting from the strong premise of CTW and should be avoided because it may even be an anti-climax. For the record I haven't seen the actual performance of the effect nor plan on buying it, but the description itself just turned me off. I may be wrong though.
That's it for the meantime. I have other things to do today and so I will talk more on future posts.
Well it shouldn't be a surprise that this question pops up in any magic forum once in a while, for starters and even pros alike, because I think doing magic is a life-long process of improving your craft. You and your role being a magician should always be a work in progress. It's just a little bit sad though that you won't get detailed answers from those who should be "in the know". What you will often get in return is either "read books", or "experience will be your teacher", or to be more "engaging" in your performances. But I think there is more to just saying such things. I expect to hear more from those people who are frequently looked up upon than just mere one liners to sum up what they think is the way to improving your magic. Is it just that they are too lazy to expand on their words or is it that they too don't really know the meaning of what they are trying to convey?
I don't want to think that there is anything magical about making your performance in magic quite, well, magical. I believe that there is a formula for this. I have always thought that magic, beyond the sleights and props, beyond smoke and mirrors and the skimpy clad assistants, require a lot of thinking. Enough amount of thinking that perhaps daunts most skilled workers in magic to stop and re-evaluate for a while what they think is working for them. I feel that many magicians are in a dilemma of being in a state of denial. Magicians always talk about doing moves that "people will never notice" or "bigger actions that hide the smaller one", and so on. But who are we fooling? Most often than not, it's ourselves. We accept some de facto information we read or hear somewhere and stick to it thinking that it will work miracles for us. What we are quite missing though is that we are performing for people who could be more intelligent than us, people who can be clever in ways we don't know, people who can actually "think" despite what we want to believe in that audience are merely audience who will gasp upon our invisible pass, or spectators who are often "fooled" by the simplest of sleights. I think the very first step in improving ourselves as magicians is to be honest in a way that we accept the fact that some things will not work, and that there is always room for improvement. Once we are over our self-centered thoughts of being "pros", then we can go into the nitty-gritty details of understanding what can work for us.
I am not a professional in magic. I cannot even claim that I've been doing magic that is truly revolutionary or highly original. Anyone reading this is free to question and challenge what I've written here. What I want to share with everyone is not a recipe for complete success in magic, but the things that I try to ponder whenever I am not in front of my audience, the thoughts I've been playing with when I'm not holding a deck of cards or practising my billet switch, the things that make me think.
THE EFFECT
Let me say here first that what I will write may have some bias towards mentalism effects, primarily because I'm more inclined to be interested in mentalism effects than others, but I think there is a common demoninator when it comes to effect selection that can be applied generally. Effect selection in itself can spell the success or failure of our performance. There are literally thousands of effects in the market today and it presents a bit of a problem for magicians. We most of the time tend to be on the lookout for new effects and believe it or not we are looking for effects that fool us more than our audience members. We have to eliminate that factor first. We are not doing things to impress ourselves. Forget about performing for fellow magicians if that is not your ultimate goal in magic. Well if that is, then one can simply master knuckle busting sleights and perform the lousiest tricks utilizing those sleights in front of your magician friends and you will still get amazing reactions. In the end what we want are effects that will work for us. We have to be choosy in this regard because effects are the very tools we use to get things done, therefore we have to choose the right tools to do the right job.
Choose an effect within your skill level
When I say within your skill level it means two things - skill in sleights and performing style. Unless you are using bulky props that are almost no-brainers, then you should consider the sleights involved for every effect you choose. It's not enough that you can do the sleight, it's imperative that you can do it flawlessly. Sloppy sleights lead to sloppy performances. It doesn't mean that you should avoid complex or advanced sleights, it's just that you should focus first on what you can really do so you'll be able to pull it off in front of people while you are still working on your pass or palming during your practice time. There is also this consideration of working with a sleight that you haven't used for quite a time. Don't ever think that once you have a move down then it will always be like that forever. You still have to re-evaluate your moves especially if you had some time off with the same. Even a simple glide will give you away if you are too confident about its simplicity and perform it without practising. By the time you notice that there is more to a glide it may be too late and the negative effects its sloppy execution may be irreversible.
Choosing an effect to match your performing style means choosing effects that will suit your personality at the time being. This is quite hard to explain really because it requires evaluation of how you perform and what persona you are presenting. Consider this, if you were a starting mentalist and you just happen to use Banachek's stronger routines, it may be perplexing to your audience but not quite as psychic as Banachek would have presented it. The same thing applies if you look like a geeky high school student doing Tudor's heckler routine. It takes more than just the sleights, it's the attitude and persona that you have to consider when choosing effects in this regard. I'm afraid that there is no clear-cut formula for this one and that you have to rely on sound judgment for this to work (or you can ask other people to evaluate if your effect suits your style). You can use the persona of the magician who did this trick as a basis or you can alter the effect to make it more suitable for your performing style. As with practice and experience we are bound to grow and improve (hopefully) so then we can better gauge an effect to match our style.
Avoid convoluted effects
You will often hear magicians say that most effective effects are the simplest. Not always true. There are some quite complicated magic out there and are as good or even better than the simplest ones. What does it mean though when it is said that a trick is simple? This means that the trick is simple in plot, while the moves or performance may be on the other hand utterly complex. Choose an effect with a simple plot so that the audience won't have to figure out the story of your trick. How do you know when the trick has a simple plot? If you can describe the whole effect in about three sentences or less then you can say that the plot is simple enough. "A selected card is lost in the deck and later found inside the magician's zipped wallet which is in the pocket of a spectator at all times", "the spectator merely though of a word and the mentalist revealed it", "the two objects which are several feet apart changed places without the magician touching them" are just few samples of simple plots. The way you will execute those is a different story. Try to avoid effects that are too complicated and has so many muddled-up things going in-between that people are merely confused and not amazed. If you are going to lose a selected card in the deck then be direct about it. You don't have to ask the spectator to insert the card into the deck and go into a frenzy of card manipulations just to show that the card is actually lost. In mentalism avoid choosing effects that are too "restrictive". There are mentalism effects I've seen that should be done in some strict sequential order for it to work. The bad part is, it is quite obvious to the audience that the trick won't work if done another way (or have them questioning behind the back of their minds) and that there is something fishy going on with those instructions that were given by the magician (mentalists usually say "quite fair" when they actually mean quite stiff conditions). Steer clear of effects that employ more than at most two "basic effects" in magic (technically the basic effect is a vanish, or a production, or transposition, etc) unless it really goes into the flow of the whole thing smoothly and very important, logically.
Another pitfall of some effects are kicker endings that mean nothing to the whole plot. I read an email on my inbox recently describing a card through window effect but with the added kicker of having the card change at the end of the trick. What's the point with the last part, that I don't know. A card through window should be a card through window. The effect may be made stronger by introducing conditions that will make the trick "seem" to be more impossible. Notice that the word I used is seem because the conditions we introduce in a trick can actually mean nothing technically yet add levels of complexity in terms of the audience's perception. But when you go the extra mile of changing the card once it has penetrated the window is just detracting from the strong premise of CTW and should be avoided because it may even be an anti-climax. For the record I haven't seen the actual performance of the effect nor plan on buying it, but the description itself just turned me off. I may be wrong though.
That's it for the meantime. I have other things to do today and so I will talk more on future posts.
Monday, March 29, 2010
RE: Through Fading Colors
I just found out that my coloring book is missing. I was planning to create my own coloring book and create a new routine based on what I've been researching recently. Now I have to buy a new coloring book just to use it to create a new one. I'm too lazy to experiment with how to make one and I can't find an online guide. Bummer.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Digressions
I don't have much to do today. I can't pretend either to be doing anything really useful so to keep myself from sleeping I browsed the Amazing Jonathan's website and read some really sick jokes. The bits that made me really laugh are here.
Two morticians were talking and one says, "You HAVE to come into the back room. There's a female corpse back there that has a prawn sticking out of her vagina." The other says," WHAT! You're crazy!" So he goes in the back room and looks. "That's not a Prawn, you idiot! That's her clitoris!" "Gosh, it sure tasted like a prawn!" The other relied.
A guy's screwing this girl and she says, "Excuse me, but isn't it a presumptuous to assume you can screw me on our first date? "Well, yeah" the man replies, "But isn't PRESUMPTUOUS a big word for a first grader to be using?"
A man call into work sick. This is the conversation.
Man: "Boss, I can't come into today. I'm really sick. I've been in bed all day."
Boss: "WHAT! Are you crazy? This is the day we are meeting with our most important account!!"
Man: "Sorry boss, I'm REALLY sick."
Boss: "Just HOW sick can one man be?"
Man: "Well for starters, right now I'm fucking my 5 year old daughter."
An eighteen year old is sucking on the breast of a 90 year old woman when he notices a white milky substance coming from her breast. He says to her, "Hey, aren't you a bit old to have milk in your breasts?" She replies, "Yeah Sonny, but I'm not to old for breasts cancer!"
"Don't you hate it when you're kissing your Grandma and suddenly the coffin lid falls and hits you in the head? Ouch!"
A man comes home drunk one night and so he doesn't get into too much trouble he decides to orally satisfy his wife. He goes under the covers and does the deed. Afterwards, he decides to wash the unpleasant taste from his mouth and goes to the bathroom. Sitting on the toilet seat is his wife. "How the hell did you beat me into the bathroom?" He asks amazed. "SHHHH!" She replied "Quiet, you'll wake mother. She's spending the night!"
Three gay men died, and were going to be cremated. Their lovers happened to be at the funeral home at the same time, and were discussing what they planned to do with the ashes. The first man said, "My Benny loved to fly, so I'm going up in a plane and scatter his ashes in the sky." The second man said, "My Carl was a fisherman, so I'm going to scatter his ashes in our favorite lake. "The third man said, "My Jim was such a good lover, I think I'm going to dump his ashes in a pot of chili, so he can tear my ass up just one more time."
Q: How do you get a dog to stop humping your leg?
A: Pick him up and suck his dick.
A girl is at her rape trial and is asked by the judge, "Can you describe for the jury just exactly what the defended did to you Miss?" "Well, your Honor" she replied in a hushed tone, "First he ripped off my blouse and fucked me between my titties. Then he forced me to take off my panties and he fucked me twice in my vagina. Then he ordered me to roll over and he fucked me hard in my ass. Then he came all over my face and my hair!" "And then what'd he do, Miss Smith?" The judge asked. "That's all your Honor." she sobbed. "NO!" cried the judge as he stood up with his hard cock in his hand, "Make SOMETHING UP QUICK!!!!"
I actually saved these jokes to my local pc but I just decided to blog it here lest some moronic network guys also had nothing to do and inspect my pc for stuff like this. :P
Two morticians were talking and one says, "You HAVE to come into the back room. There's a female corpse back there that has a prawn sticking out of her vagina." The other says," WHAT! You're crazy!" So he goes in the back room and looks. "That's not a Prawn, you idiot! That's her clitoris!" "Gosh, it sure tasted like a prawn!" The other relied.
A guy's screwing this girl and she says, "Excuse me, but isn't it a presumptuous to assume you can screw me on our first date? "Well, yeah" the man replies, "But isn't PRESUMPTUOUS a big word for a first grader to be using?"
A man call into work sick. This is the conversation.
Man: "Boss, I can't come into today. I'm really sick. I've been in bed all day."
Boss: "WHAT! Are you crazy? This is the day we are meeting with our most important account!!"
Man: "Sorry boss, I'm REALLY sick."
Boss: "Just HOW sick can one man be?"
Man: "Well for starters, right now I'm fucking my 5 year old daughter."
An eighteen year old is sucking on the breast of a 90 year old woman when he notices a white milky substance coming from her breast. He says to her, "Hey, aren't you a bit old to have milk in your breasts?" She replies, "Yeah Sonny, but I'm not to old for breasts cancer!"
"Don't you hate it when you're kissing your Grandma and suddenly the coffin lid falls and hits you in the head? Ouch!"
A man comes home drunk one night and so he doesn't get into too much trouble he decides to orally satisfy his wife. He goes under the covers and does the deed. Afterwards, he decides to wash the unpleasant taste from his mouth and goes to the bathroom. Sitting on the toilet seat is his wife. "How the hell did you beat me into the bathroom?" He asks amazed. "SHHHH!" She replied "Quiet, you'll wake mother. She's spending the night!"
Three gay men died, and were going to be cremated. Their lovers happened to be at the funeral home at the same time, and were discussing what they planned to do with the ashes. The first man said, "My Benny loved to fly, so I'm going up in a plane and scatter his ashes in the sky." The second man said, "My Carl was a fisherman, so I'm going to scatter his ashes in our favorite lake. "The third man said, "My Jim was such a good lover, I think I'm going to dump his ashes in a pot of chili, so he can tear my ass up just one more time."
Q: How do you get a dog to stop humping your leg?
A: Pick him up and suck his dick.
A girl is at her rape trial and is asked by the judge, "Can you describe for the jury just exactly what the defended did to you Miss?" "Well, your Honor" she replied in a hushed tone, "First he ripped off my blouse and fucked me between my titties. Then he forced me to take off my panties and he fucked me twice in my vagina. Then he ordered me to roll over and he fucked me hard in my ass. Then he came all over my face and my hair!" "And then what'd he do, Miss Smith?" The judge asked. "That's all your Honor." she sobbed. "NO!" cried the judge as he stood up with his hard cock in his hand, "Make SOMETHING UP QUICK!!!!"
I actually saved these jokes to my local pc but I just decided to blog it here lest some moronic network guys also had nothing to do and inspect my pc for stuff like this. :P
Dumbass dummy
Do we really need more Wanlu's on TV? It seems that people who call themselves magicians can't get over Wanlu's spotlight, thanks to Talentadong Pinoy, that everyone wants to duplicate his success through a ventriloquism routine. Result: some half-baked act, with a half-witted script for a half-brained performer trying to be another Wanlu in the making.
Come on guys! Wanlu made it this far not because he can hold a puppet and make it appear like his puppet is talking. His routine was a hit because a) not so many vent acts are seen on TV today, b) he has the right attitude for the act he does, and c) his script was quite good. I turn my TV on and see another vent act on channel 2, then change channel and see yet another vent act on 7. Is this becoming a fad for local magicians then? Much like the craze that pearl shake made. I just hope that next time I see another brain fart ventriloquism act on TV, it would be more than like seeing Glenn Quagmire and his larger than life sex doll.
Come on guys! Wanlu made it this far not because he can hold a puppet and make it appear like his puppet is talking. His routine was a hit because a) not so many vent acts are seen on TV today, b) he has the right attitude for the act he does, and c) his script was quite good. I turn my TV on and see another vent act on channel 2, then change channel and see yet another vent act on 7. Is this becoming a fad for local magicians then? Much like the craze that pearl shake made. I just hope that next time I see another brain fart ventriloquism act on TV, it would be more than like seeing Glenn Quagmire and his larger than life sex doll.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Through Fading Colors
It's alreay mid-March and I haven't got a concrete outline yet for my magic show on April 24. Yes for those of you who don't know, I am, or used to be, a magician doing magic shows for kids and psychological illusions for more mature audience.
I'll base my routine mostly on the one I've been doing since time immemorial. I'm just concerned that the coloring book act is getting a bit old and tiring. Not that it's a bad trick. It's just that it seems that everyone (magician) has been doing this and the routine itself has exhausted most of its fun factor because of its wide use. My whole act will sorely miss this part of the routine. Not to mention the fact that buying a prop can sometimes cost an arm and a leg so it's really wise to utilize what you already have.
Or maybe I can breathe new life into this dying trick. I'll give myself a few days to really think of giving new twists and turns to the usual coloring book act. The same way with old songs, I think a cute revival is what I need here. I'll keep my fingers crossed for the meantime.
I'll base my routine mostly on the one I've been doing since time immemorial. I'm just concerned that the coloring book act is getting a bit old and tiring. Not that it's a bad trick. It's just that it seems that everyone (magician) has been doing this and the routine itself has exhausted most of its fun factor because of its wide use. My whole act will sorely miss this part of the routine. Not to mention the fact that buying a prop can sometimes cost an arm and a leg so it's really wise to utilize what you already have.
Or maybe I can breathe new life into this dying trick. I'll give myself a few days to really think of giving new twists and turns to the usual coloring book act. The same way with old songs, I think a cute revival is what I need here. I'll keep my fingers crossed for the meantime.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
The need to feed
I just had a short conversation today with a friend of mine. It's kinda not the nicest exchange of words between supposedly friends so for his benefit and anonymity let's just call him Paul for the sake of this post.
You see Paul recently resigned from his work and may be gagging over the fact that he may be (well at least according to him) sent to the land of opportunity to meet uncle sam (and all those obese americans out there) by his new employer. Not that he is punctual at all with his work hours but so that there will be some sort of intro, I open my daily conversation with him about his being terribly late for the day. I asked him how come he can go to work that late and if he is on a super flexi schedule. He said that "he is already resigned". Me being tactless at times (may be an understatement) told him that he is an ingrate and that he should consider that some companies do background checks on your previous employment. To which he answered "a big so what? I don't need them".
I thought that there was something wrong with his answer and told him that if he doesn't need his new employer then how come he applied and landed a job there. To which he answered "there are many other companies out there and I am not running after them". I wanted to continue the discussion to hear more of his "witty" retorts and so I said to him that companies are not running after him as well. People come and go and it's all about business at the end of the day.
I wanted to discuss more of his reasonings but then I noticed that the conversation is slowly becoming an nonsense argument so I just said to him that he is immature and had some more out of topic sarcasms before he finally went offline for a while and I just thought that we had enough of that topic for the day.
The moment I pointed out that his negative ways, he bacame defensive at once and started deliberating about how he doesn't need his new employer. But the fact remains that he needed that job otherwise he doesn't earn his monthly disposable income. I understand the way he answered "so what" but what turned me off was the way he mentioned that he doesn't need his new employer (which implies he doesn't need his new job as well). I think that was way too misinformed of him to say that. He needs a job. I need a job. Everybody needs a job. That's a simple fact of life he failed to take into account when he blurted "so what". I think it's plain immature of him or for anyone else to be ungrateful to your current employer just because "you have tendered your resignation anyway". Unless of course your employment is mounting with issues after issues. That may be another legal story.
I don't have the perfect employment history but then if I am doing my job, I try my best to do it really well. I wanted a smart exchange of thoughts with him but all I got was his lousy overconfidence. I wanted to remind him that no one is indispensable and all but I don't think he is mature enough to realize that. I am not trying to project myself as the good guy here but I thought his reasoning was really off. Anyway, I just hope that he reads between the lines and realizes that all I was after was to tell him to grow up a little, especially that he is not getting any younger. He is still a friend after all.
You see Paul recently resigned from his work and may be gagging over the fact that he may be (well at least according to him) sent to the land of opportunity to meet uncle sam (and all those obese americans out there) by his new employer. Not that he is punctual at all with his work hours but so that there will be some sort of intro, I open my daily conversation with him about his being terribly late for the day. I asked him how come he can go to work that late and if he is on a super flexi schedule. He said that "he is already resigned". Me being tactless at times (may be an understatement) told him that he is an ingrate and that he should consider that some companies do background checks on your previous employment. To which he answered "a big so what? I don't need them".
I thought that there was something wrong with his answer and told him that if he doesn't need his new employer then how come he applied and landed a job there. To which he answered "there are many other companies out there and I am not running after them". I wanted to continue the discussion to hear more of his "witty" retorts and so I said to him that companies are not running after him as well. People come and go and it's all about business at the end of the day.
I wanted to discuss more of his reasonings but then I noticed that the conversation is slowly becoming an nonsense argument so I just said to him that he is immature and had some more out of topic sarcasms before he finally went offline for a while and I just thought that we had enough of that topic for the day.
The moment I pointed out that his negative ways, he bacame defensive at once and started deliberating about how he doesn't need his new employer. But the fact remains that he needed that job otherwise he doesn't earn his monthly disposable income. I understand the way he answered "so what" but what turned me off was the way he mentioned that he doesn't need his new employer (which implies he doesn't need his new job as well). I think that was way too misinformed of him to say that. He needs a job. I need a job. Everybody needs a job. That's a simple fact of life he failed to take into account when he blurted "so what". I think it's plain immature of him or for anyone else to be ungrateful to your current employer just because "you have tendered your resignation anyway". Unless of course your employment is mounting with issues after issues. That may be another legal story.
I don't have the perfect employment history but then if I am doing my job, I try my best to do it really well. I wanted a smart exchange of thoughts with him but all I got was his lousy overconfidence. I wanted to remind him that no one is indispensable and all but I don't think he is mature enough to realize that. I am not trying to project myself as the good guy here but I thought his reasoning was really off. Anyway, I just hope that he reads between the lines and realizes that all I was after was to tell him to grow up a little, especially that he is not getting any younger. He is still a friend after all.
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