My protest at work over a movie 為看電影在公司的抗爭
I like watching movies, but the cheapskate in me isn’t always willing to spend money on the tickets. When I was still in England, I found a free movie preview scheme which is right up my street. 我蠻喜歡看電影，但又不太捨得花錢購票。在英國，長期有個免費看電影的活動，就最適合我這些無聊的小氣鬼。
I don’t know who organises this, but every now and then somebody will post a code on a certain website with the movie details, like this one from last week. 我不知這活動是誰舉辦的，但有人會不定時在討論區發放代碼，列出影片名稱，播放日期和地點，像這個上星期發的代碼。
Getting tickets is fairly simple, but you have to be quick particularly if you’re in London. Once you see the code, you then need to go to another website and enter the code there. 換票方法很簡單，但一定要快，所以我說這最適合無聊閒著沒事做的人。看到代碼後，你要馬上到這個網站輸入代碼。
Then you can choose which cinema you want to go to. Its only been less than a week but all the tickets in London are gone already. If I want say, Edinburgh tickets are available. 然後選你要那一家電影院的票。你看，只是四天而已，已有三家電影院沒票，而且這三家全都在倫敦。如果我選其他地點如愛丁堡，就馬上有票。
This always used to be the case, London tickets always goes like hot cakes. I don’t know if it’s because London has a lot of cheapskates like me, or because the standard of living in London is so high that a lot of people don’t have surplus money to go out. Anyway, the main point is that these aren’t old movies, but new ones that haven’t been released yet. Like this particular one “Victoria and Abdul” is a real story about Queen Victoria and her servant from India. The preview is on 9th Sept but formal release is 15th Sept in England. 這情況以前也一樣，倫敦的票永遠是最快換完的，不知是倫敦像我這樣的小氣鬼特別多，還是倫敦生活水平太高，很多人沒多餘錢看電影。活動重點，是電影全都是新片還未正式上畫，而不是二輪，三輪電影。像這次代碼的電影，Victoria and Abdul 今年剛在威尼斯電影展參展，講述英國維多利亞女皇與一位印度傭人的真實故事，九月七日免費播放，九月中才在英國正式上畫。
When I used to work in London, there was a period of time where I had plenty of time on my hands so I could constantly check out the website for new codes. In fact that period of three months was the darkest period in my working life. At work, I was responsible for determining the tender price for new projects, then I was moved to another department, doing a similar kind role but working out quotes for an existing client. However the value of the projects were a lot lower, from multi million £ projects to less than £1000 quotes. Everyday, I had to catch two different trains from my home in south west London to the office in north London, then another shuttle bus to get to the office. Each journey took me 1.5 hours, that’s 3 hours travelling time every day. 我以前在英國上班有一段時間工作非常無聊，可以說是我工作生涯中最黑暗的三個月，所以有很多時間無聊留意這個討論區動態。那時我的工作是負責計算新項目投標價格，後來被調派到另外一個部門，工作沒甚麼差，但從計算新項目變成計算現有顧客的報價單價格，所以價格也低很多，從數百萬英鎊變成低於一千英鎊。我每天從倫敦西南部家到北部辦公室要花1.5小時，坐兩班火車再轉接駁專車，一天來回就要花三小時。
My new role was pretty easy ~ the value of the orders were low, which meant the risks for the company were low, hence the factors I had to consider in the quotes were fairly simple. The team here was fairly new, they were set up about two years ago to serve a single client, and most of them had never worked in any other part of the company before. Therefore, they had developed a culture that was quite unique, and different to the one I was used to when I was based at London HQ. To top that, my manager was a nightmare. For example, as I’ve mentioned already, our quotes were all under £1000, so I quoted £XXX.xx. But she insisted that I quote in £XXX.xxxx and had me redo all the quotes. Christ! In my old role, we didn’t even bother with the last three or four digits, yet here she wanted up to four decimal points, which is around 1 US cent! She and I didn’t see eye to eye on some other issues, so working there wasn’t the most enjoyable time of my life. 新工作其實蠻輕鬆，因為報價單價格低，公司風險也低，所以我計算價格要考慮的因素也比較少。這部門的團隊成立大概兩年，只是負責單一大客戶，而且大部份同事從沒在公司其他部門工作過，所以我覺得他們已建立了獨特的工作氛圍，跟我之前在倫敦總公司很不同，比較難適應。我尤其覺得經理有點無理。例如我們一般的報價單只是幾百英鎊，我就報 £XXX.xx。但經理卻要求我報£XXX.xxxx。要我把所有的報價單再做一次。天噢！我們以前部門連英鎊小數點前三，四個數位也懶得去計算呀！小數點後第三，四個位不足台幣四分錢噢！ 還有其他一點小事情大家的看法不一致，所以我與經理的關係是不太好，我也開始非常討厭在這工作。
Since my work was pretty simple, as long as I remembered to work to four decimal places, it didn’t take me long to finish my work, hence I had plenty of spare time to surf the net, and check for new movie preview codes. My record was 8 free movies a month! That was a February, around the pre Oscars season when they were pushing out a lot of previews. One of them was a movie called Precious, and I got tickets for two days later in the afternoon, which occasionally happens. Anyway, I told my manager I needed to take the afternoon off and assured her that I could arrange for all my work to be completed on time. Unfortunately she refused but didn’t give me a specific reason. At this stage I was very fed up with my job, and although I wasn’t desperate to see the film, I decided to hold a protest, and was adamant I needed the afternoon off to attend to some private matters (what I did during my time off was none of her business!). We had a “healthy debate” over this issue where I absolutely refused to budge, and in the end she reluctantly gave in. Success✌️! 回正題!! 因為工作簡單，只要記得計算到小數點後四個數位，就很快把手上工作做完了。所以我在辦公室其實蠻無聊，有很多時間上網，經常去看有沒有發放免費電影新代碼。記得最高峰，我一個月看了八套免費電影! 那時是二月份，剛好奧斯卡季節來臨，推很多新電影。其中一部是”天生不是寶貝(Precious)”，少有的在平日下午放映。我拿了隔兩天的票，然後跟經理請假。誰不知她有意為難我，明明我可以安排好自己的工作，卻很無理的不讓我放假。我當然沒跟她說放假是去看電影(我放假是自己事，幹甚麼與她何關?!!)，只是說有點私事，一定需要放假。其實電影不看是沒所謂，但我當時想，反正工作不爽，她又不能因為這樣解僱我，所以決定絕不讓步，作一個小小抗爭! “討論”完一回兒，她終於拿我沒辦法，批我放假✌️!
Well, it turned out Precious was a very good movie, my protest effort did not go to waste. In particular the lead actress Gabourey Sidebe, who was around 17 or 18 at that time did a brilliant job in her debut role and even got nominated for an Oscars best actress award. Although she didn’t win in the end, her performance as an illiterate teenager who was abused by her father and bore two children was exceptionally well received. In fact most of the cast did a fantastic job including Mariah Carey. Who would have thought a diva could turn into a social worker? I highly recommend this movie. 結果天生不是寶貝這部戲真不錯呀，沒浪費我抗爭的努力。女主角當年不足 20歲，第一次拍戲就憑這部電影拿了奧斯卡最佳女主角提名。雖然她沒有勝出，但她的表演現相當特出~演 一個有嚴重學習障礙，身型肥胖，自少就常被霸凌的少女，而且因被父親性侵犯，還生了兩個孩子。片中所有演員都演出精湛，其中的一個亮點是歌星瑪麗亞.凱莉Mariah Carey客串社工一角，很難想像她的素顏演出是那麼出色，絕對值得推薦。
Credit : http://www.rogerebert.com