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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

A slightly disappointing thing, though. A few "bosses" I have talked to do not exactly feel that way. For example, a friend works for a "dot.com" company (which admittedly are in tough times now.) There was a problem with a customer's web page, and the HTML guy called my friend and talked to him for about 1/2 hour while he was seeing a film at my theater.

Now, my friend didn't want to leave work 1/2 hour early the next day or any other compensation. (In fact, their staff is so "cut to the bone" no one can take any time.) He simply wanted his boss to acknowledge that he gave something extra, so the boss knows he is working hard and doing the best he can.

The boss felt that my friend's inconveince was "trivial"; not even worth mentioning. After all, the company pays for the cell phone (he said.) And he wasn't doing anything important, like being at a wedding or something.
 

Although my job (as a film archivist) is theoretically office hours, as with everyone else theory is never practice and I'm almost always catching up on work at home (5-10 hours weekday evenings across the week and about the same over the weekend, on average). Occasionally I have to go into work in an emergency, for example if regional TV news needs footage urgently. To deal with such situations I give my mobile number to anyone and everyone, but no-one is given my home land line number except friends and relatives. In the event that I don't want to be pestered (e.g. when on leave), I switch the mobile off - it's as simple as that.

Because calling a mobile 'phone is so expensive (I'd guess about the equivalent of a dollar per minute during peak time, falling to 70 cents off-peak and weekends), I find that people don't do it unless they have to, especially now that many 'phone systems in large office buildings are configured not to allow outgoing calls to mobiles without permission from a manager. So by only giving people a mobile number (and I pay for the 'phone so no-one can tell me when I can and can't switch it off) I am still easily contactable if there's a good reason, but the cost discourages people from ringing me if there isn't.

Ken, welcome to 'rip-off Britain'. Not only does it cost extra to call a cell phone, it depends what time of day and which particular network you are calling from / to. The only saving grace is that we do not pay for incoming calls, but that's countered by the inflated line rental. Why are we paying for 'line' rental?? There are no blasted lines! OK there are cellular base stations, but nothing on the scale of the fixed network that forms our PSTN. My own cell phone (well the companys one that I carry) costs three times what a land line would in line rental, PLUS the calls!
To send a message to a pager is expensive too, but only for the sender, most pager networks do not charge any connection or rental fee.
I could go on endlessly about the ways in which we in the UK are being ripped off, but I won't

When they give you a room and say "make it go", you could have your hands full. One booth I did in 1984 (maybe 1985) was like that.

The only thing that was on the wall was individual projection station power panels. I had to take it from there, which included mounting of the raceways, dimmers, sound equipment racks, etc. I had to build up all the sound racks, and all the projection and film transport equipment, and do all the wiring to interface all that crap.

Once I got that done with that, I had to hang surround speakers, and wire the masking motors, strap and shelve the stage speakers, and anything else that needed to be done in order to make it go. Then, naturally, I had to equalize the auditoriums.

It took about 16 hours per station to mount all the crap and wire it in. That did not include the auditorium work I had to do.

I might add that it all passed electrical inspection.

Then, in July, I helped one of my friends build a carbon-arc manually operated booth. This took a while, as the weather in that area he lives was just too hot for me, and I had a very difficult time adapting to it. That weather slowed me down to a snail's pace. But it finally came together.

Building a booth can be lots of fun, but is also being capable of just the opposite.

When you do it, you might as well plan for lots of working. It is easier now, as most states require a electrical contractor to do all the work for you. In 1984-1985 when I put that booth together, all that was required of me was that I was an employee of that company, I knew what I was doing, and make sure it meets code.

Times have changed in the last 17 years. Now I can finally sit on my butt and "Dictate".

When you guys are through bombing the Taliban, please could you get the B52s to drop the last few on the European Commission in Brussels on their way back? And if there are any bombs left after that please drop them on Tony Blair and that useless bunch he calls a cabinet.