The timing of the escape from the day job was both fortunate and depressing; I quit about two weeks after I'd officially worked there a decade. I'd vowed that no matter what I'd get out of there before the ten year mark, so I didn't quite make that deadline, but I did get to collect the ten year service award, which is a clear block of Lucite and $200 in gift certificates.
To give you a little taste for how the company I worked for rolled, the clear Lucite block was so that you could go on the intranet, find the page with images of various service award certificates, print the appropriate one, then cut it out and insert it in the Lucite block, and proudly display it on your desk. Seriously. I'm not making that up.
The gift certificates, though, were cool enough (if you ignored the annoying exchange rate that intentionally bends you over, as if you chose to trade them in for Amazon gift certificates the $200 in money you're awarded comes up just shy of being worth a $200 Amazon gift certificate, so it effectively was only $175 in Amazon gift certificates as you had to get one $100 gift certificate and three $25 ones), and mostly paid for a new 4th generation iPod Touch.
It's the first touch-screen new-fangled gadget I've owned, having sat out iPhone and other assorted smartphone mania. Truth be told, the main reason I bought it was to amuse myself with Angry Birds on cross-Atlantic flights, but I've found myself using it way more than I expected in general, especially for checking email and Facebook around the house.
It's also pretty crazy just how good the camera/video quality is as well, especially for something that's, you know, not primarily a camera of a video recorder. It just blows me away as far as what you can get these days to snap photos and take videos, as opposed to what you'd have gotten (much crappier) even just five years ago for 10x the amount of money.
Plus you can play Angry Birds on it. I mean, sweet Jebus...
Monday, October 25, 2010
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Affiliate Fail
Bill Rini has touched on this in the past, but it still amazes me that so many online gambling operators STILL have absolutely no fucking clue when it comes to efficiently managing an affiliate channel.
Case in point: yesterday I signed up for a handful of poker and casino affiliate programs, including one that manages the affiliate operations for a group of four reasonably well-known online casinos. Not a major name but also not some shady operation.
The signup process was easy enough, and they auto-approve new accounts, so as soon as you sign up you can log in and start grabbing link codes and marketing material. It was getting late so I shut things down for the evening and, the next morning, had the following email in my inbox:
"Hi, my name is Jimbob Schwartz and I'm your affiliate contact here at Midsized Affiliate Program That's Been Around for Five Years or So and Should Know Better. Please advise as to why you haven't yet added our links to your website.
Best regards,
Jimbob Schwartz"
I mean, sure, personal point of contact, quick response, yada yada yada, kudos kudos kudos, but in what strange universe is that a positive experience for a new affiliate who has been a member of your program for a grand total of 12 hours? Maybe I'm not the best example, but that's enough in and of itself to convince me to NEVER advertise your program, especially when there are literally dozens of similar casinos and programs that I can instead add a link to.
And, sadly, that's just a minor fail in the larger scheme of things, when you have major operators like bwin trying to roll out cataclysmically bad changes for affiliates that impact past players acquired under very different terms.
I get that many online sites have a love-hate relationship with affiliates (or more accurately hate-hate for most), and that's understandable, as the majority of affiliates don't necessarily "deserve" the revenue they're ultimately paid out (in the sense that they're not always doing any filtering or winnowing out of low-value referred players). But there's also an obvious reliance and need, as it'd be the easiest thing in the world for sites to wind down their affiliate programs over time if there truly was no value there.
If you're resigned to offering an affiliate program, is it really that hard to do it competently? I mean, for the majority of affiliates (who advertise a lot of programs and have a lot of experience), just get the hell out of the way. Give me a quick and dirty page with basic text links and the most popular ad formats. It shouldn't take eight clicks just to get a simple text link. Don't send me email; if I have a question or need something I'll contact you. If I need hand-holding and emails and prompts, well, odds are I'm going to be a pretty sucky affiliate for you, as it's not hard to add text links and banners (unless you make it needlessly hard, that is.)
Case in point: yesterday I signed up for a handful of poker and casino affiliate programs, including one that manages the affiliate operations for a group of four reasonably well-known online casinos. Not a major name but also not some shady operation.
The signup process was easy enough, and they auto-approve new accounts, so as soon as you sign up you can log in and start grabbing link codes and marketing material. It was getting late so I shut things down for the evening and, the next morning, had the following email in my inbox:
"Hi, my name is Jimbob Schwartz and I'm your affiliate contact here at Midsized Affiliate Program That's Been Around for Five Years or So and Should Know Better. Please advise as to why you haven't yet added our links to your website.
Best regards,
Jimbob Schwartz"
I mean, sure, personal point of contact, quick response, yada yada yada, kudos kudos kudos, but in what strange universe is that a positive experience for a new affiliate who has been a member of your program for a grand total of 12 hours? Maybe I'm not the best example, but that's enough in and of itself to convince me to NEVER advertise your program, especially when there are literally dozens of similar casinos and programs that I can instead add a link to.
And, sadly, that's just a minor fail in the larger scheme of things, when you have major operators like bwin trying to roll out cataclysmically bad changes for affiliates that impact past players acquired under very different terms.
I get that many online sites have a love-hate relationship with affiliates (or more accurately hate-hate for most), and that's understandable, as the majority of affiliates don't necessarily "deserve" the revenue they're ultimately paid out (in the sense that they're not always doing any filtering or winnowing out of low-value referred players). But there's also an obvious reliance and need, as it'd be the easiest thing in the world for sites to wind down their affiliate programs over time if there truly was no value there.
If you're resigned to offering an affiliate program, is it really that hard to do it competently? I mean, for the majority of affiliates (who advertise a lot of programs and have a lot of experience), just get the hell out of the way. Give me a quick and dirty page with basic text links and the most popular ad formats. It shouldn't take eight clicks just to get a simple text link. Don't send me email; if I have a question or need something I'll contact you. If I need hand-holding and emails and prompts, well, odds are I'm going to be a pretty sucky affiliate for you, as it's not hard to add text links and banners (unless you make it needlessly hard, that is.)
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Returning to the Old Homestead
Boo!
Yes, indeed, this is an actual posts of sorts, and not just an excuse to post for a paid review or to get entered into some sort of blogger freeroll or another that I'll inevitably go down in flames after outlasting about 80% of the field.
The archived post total over there on the right tells a pretty sad little tale:
▼ 2010 (5)
► 2009 (6)
► 2008 (43)
► 2007 (102)
► 2006 (290)
► 2005 (295)
► 2004 (123)
On the bright side, I actually have some things to post about. And they're about poker! And they might just lead to more regular posting in the future!
(Yeah, we'll see about that last one.)
But as of October 1st, 2010 I actually followed through on the threat of quitting my day job, threats I'd been making for so many years that they had about as much potency as a wrinkly, withered old man penis.
It was a combination of a lot of factors but I just finally reached the point where I couldn't do it any more, common sense be damned. I'd just gotten back from Cannes from working for the bwin poker blog at the Partouche Poker Tour Final, with a pile of TPS reports awaiting me and reminders about the necessity of wearing the proper lanyard around our neck to be compliant with the employee badge policy, and, you know, snap. Just. could. not. do. it. anymore.
It also helped that I'd been offered the chance to work three more poker tournaments in the near future (GSOP Live Riga, WPT Amneville, and GSOP Live Malta), plus finally (finally!) finishing the rehab of the last house I bought during the Great House Buying Spree of Aught Nine. I've also been freelancing a good bit for Pokerlistings and a few other clients in the poker world, with all the irons in the fire basically adding up to as much as I was making at the cube farm.
The travel side of it is still cool and new, but we'll see how long that lasts, as the flights to Europe and back for shorter events are kind of a drag. But there's a lot to be said for getting paid to see places like Riga and Cannes, and bit by bit the corporate stupor is slipping away. The big unknown is if I can keep scaring up enough work to make this a viable long-term option; even if the answer is no it'll be a good break at least from the grind for awhile.
Cannes was pretty amazing, but, as the joke goes, too bad it's in France. Riga I liked more, but that's just the perverse side of me that daydreams of being some sort of shady importer of rubies and Soviet military surplus and amassing mountains of money and everyone leaving you the hell alone as long as you paid off the right people. Not exactly stoked about WPT Amneville in northern France but we'll be staying in Luxembourg, which should be fun.
Other than a brief three day stretch after the Cannes trip when I got raped at the poker tables in every way imaginable, I haven't actually played much poker at all since the 2010 WSOP. I've been tempted of late but I really want to buckle down on the work side, and I never have time on the poker trips to do much other than work and sleep.
Yes, indeed, this is an actual posts of sorts, and not just an excuse to post for a paid review or to get entered into some sort of blogger freeroll or another that I'll inevitably go down in flames after outlasting about 80% of the field.
The archived post total over there on the right tells a pretty sad little tale:
▼ 2010 (5)
► 2009 (6)
► 2008 (43)
► 2007 (102)
► 2006 (290)
► 2005 (295)
► 2004 (123)
On the bright side, I actually have some things to post about. And they're about poker! And they might just lead to more regular posting in the future!
(Yeah, we'll see about that last one.)
But as of October 1st, 2010 I actually followed through on the threat of quitting my day job, threats I'd been making for so many years that they had about as much potency as a wrinkly, withered old man penis.
It was a combination of a lot of factors but I just finally reached the point where I couldn't do it any more, common sense be damned. I'd just gotten back from Cannes from working for the bwin poker blog at the Partouche Poker Tour Final, with a pile of TPS reports awaiting me and reminders about the necessity of wearing the proper lanyard around our neck to be compliant with the employee badge policy, and, you know, snap. Just. could. not. do. it. anymore.
It also helped that I'd been offered the chance to work three more poker tournaments in the near future (GSOP Live Riga, WPT Amneville, and GSOP Live Malta), plus finally (finally!) finishing the rehab of the last house I bought during the Great House Buying Spree of Aught Nine. I've also been freelancing a good bit for Pokerlistings and a few other clients in the poker world, with all the irons in the fire basically adding up to as much as I was making at the cube farm.
The travel side of it is still cool and new, but we'll see how long that lasts, as the flights to Europe and back for shorter events are kind of a drag. But there's a lot to be said for getting paid to see places like Riga and Cannes, and bit by bit the corporate stupor is slipping away. The big unknown is if I can keep scaring up enough work to make this a viable long-term option; even if the answer is no it'll be a good break at least from the grind for awhile.
Cannes was pretty amazing, but, as the joke goes, too bad it's in France. Riga I liked more, but that's just the perverse side of me that daydreams of being some sort of shady importer of rubies and Soviet military surplus and amassing mountains of money and everyone leaving you the hell alone as long as you paid off the right people. Not exactly stoked about WPT Amneville in northern France but we'll be staying in Luxembourg, which should be fun.
Other than a brief three day stretch after the Cannes trip when I got raped at the poker tables in every way imaginable, I haven't actually played much poker at all since the 2010 WSOP. I've been tempted of late but I really want to buckle down on the work side, and I never have time on the poker trips to do much other than work and sleep.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
BBT5: It Lives Again
Many thanks to Al and Full Tilt for once again offering bloggers the chance to grab $50,000 in WSOP packages for the low, low price of free.And thank Jebus for a format that doesn't handicap you if you can't play in 163 different weekly tournaments, nearly all of which start too late for most of us working stiffs. Great to see the invitational format, too, and some of the old-school names taking part in that. With a little luck, some of us schmucks in the live poker tournament reporting circles may be covering some old-school blogger names at the WSOP.
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