Bob’s Revenge

Posted on January 28, 2013 by

Trustus Pharmaceuticals Episode #39

I decided Bob needed revenge following the staff meeting in the last video. In this video, Bob provides a brutally honest itinerary of the staff meeting that is about to begin. It’s pretty realistic, in my opinion. Yes, 5-minute “varia” sessions inevitably turn into bitch-fests. Yes, people present slides crammed full of impossible to read data as a way of saying “Look at all the shit I’ve done!” And yes, people love to text during meetings, complaining about the asshole who just won’t shut the fuck up.

The video is alternatively titled “The [Standard] Process Development Staff Meeting.” My preferred title is “Bob’s Revenge,” but that title won’t really get any hits on Youtube unless someone is actually looking for the video.

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Who’s Up First?

Posted on January 21, 2013 by

Trustus Pharmaceuticals Episode #38

I’ve been toying with the idea of doing this for some time.  I began with the transcript of the original Abbott and Costello routine. It is very long, however, and although the length  wasn’t a problem in the original routine, it gets very tedious and boring in the Xtranormal animation. I cut it down a fair amount, but still I think I could have reduced it a bit more for greater impact. It’s tough to say.

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Fly Shit In The Pepper

Posted on January 13, 2013 by

Trustus Pharmaceuticals Episode #37

This was a fun video to do and it is already one of my personal favorites.  It originally came to me as a script from a former employee of “The Company.” I’ve modified it quite a bit, reducing the size and changing the dialog to better accomodate the synthetic voice accents, and things like that.

In the video, Oliver overhears a conversation in the break room and immediately runs to Heidi to tell her what he heard. Heidi freaks and calls for a “For-Cause Audit” to investigate. The audit turns up nothing, but that doesn’t dampen Heidi’s enthusiasm for the investigation. When you commit a lot of the company’s time, money, and resources to an investigation, it had better as Hell turn something up!

This video marks the first (and likely last) appearance of an HR character named John, who is moving on to greener pastures. Farewell John! :-P

On a somewhat unrelated note, this week (January 15) marks the one year anniversary of the Trustus Pharmaceuticals Youtube channel. Woo Hoo! :-P

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Silence Is Acceptance

Posted on January 6, 2013 by

Trustus Pharmaceuticals Episode #36

This video picks on QA a bit. There’s no particular reason for that, however: The intended targets are bureaucracy, red tape, and zealots of micromanagement. In the video, Bob reports to Heidi that his staff are unable to issue reports because they cannot obtain the required approvals from QA. Heidi offers him a solution, but her solution does not yield the expected result.

The video I was previously working on that involved the intern wasn’t going so well (it sucked) so I shelved it for now. However, I have been given a very juicy script from a former employee that I plan to use for the next video. It’s gonna be awesome! :-P

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Ditto for December

Posted on December 31, 2012 by

I’ve let a second month slip by without a video. So much for my plan to do a video per week!

On the plus side, I have at least two videos planned for January. One of these I was hoping to put out before the end of 2012, but I got caught up in other things … nothing particularly useful or productive.

Looking at the Youtube channel, I have 68,645 video views and 180 subscribers. That’s not bad, considering the channel was only started in January of this year. There are additional subscribers to this blog. These numbers aren’t quite so spectacular, but that’s to be expected given that the blog was only started in September and that I’ve been fairly sporadic with updates.

At any rate, for the people who have been complaining that I haven’t done a video in awhile: Hang in there, because there are some juicy ones on the way. :-)

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So much for November!

Posted on November 30, 2012 by

Well shit! I let the entire month of November slip by without a single video. Obviously, I’m much more sporadic with the videos than I would prefer.

Hopefully, I’ll get a few videos out in December. I’m still working on the latest intern video, although I haven’t touched it in weeks. Sometimes, it seems like the videos come easily. Other times, it feels like every video I try to do just goes to complete shit. That has been happening a bit with the intern video, and ultimately what will happen is I will either revamp it completely or just put it on the back burner and do another one instead.

Anyway, there are a number of subscribers / followers to this blog now, so I thought I should at least make one post in the final hours of November to say that … yeah, I’m still alive. And there will be more videos in the near future. I’ve just been in a dry spell.

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What’s Her Face

Posted on October 21, 2012 by

I’m working on a new video featuring the intern, but I’m a little late with it. I’ve been trying to pace these things so that I release one a week, on Sunday night. This next one won’t be released until later in the week though.

So far, there have been three videos featuring the intern:

  1. The New Intern (Episode #8)
  2. The New Intern : Day Two (Episode #11)
  3. We Have Silage! (Episode #17)

Of those, I think my favorite was Episode #11, which I renamed on the Youtube channel to “Pharma Industry Acronym Hell” in an effort to better describe it and try to drum up more hits. None of these three ever really received much attention, but I always thought Episode #11 was especially good and deserving of more hits. I would personally rate the other two as “okay” at best. They aren’t bad, in my opinion, but they aren’t great either.

I’ll try to get the next video out within a few days. In the meantime, the three previous intern videos are embedded below. Enjoy!



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Master Chefs & Suicide Nets

Posted on October 14, 2012 by

Trustus Pharmaceuticals Episode #35

This episode is a sequel to Episode #30 (It’s A Tumor!) and it may not make a whole lot of sense unless you’ve seen that episode. It’s got a bit of a surprise that I don’t want to give away, but the basic story is that Lydia, the branding consultant, discovers Thimma in the conference room staring in dismay at the picture of a tumor that Lydia hung on the wall. Lydia and Thimma then get into a bit of a discussion on some of the cultural differences between the company’s satellite manufacturing sites and the US corporate headquarters.

I discovered a few things while making this video.  I discovered, for example, that I really really really hate the “Queen Elizabeth” voice that I use for Lydia. It’s like fingernails on a blackboard. Hopefully, it’s at least tolerable if you’re just watching a quick video. But when you’re actually producing one of these things, and listening to excerpts again and again and again … it’s like being water-boarded. Fortunately, Lydia is just a transitional character. If I bring in a branding consultant as a permanent character at some point in the future, I sure as Hell won’t be using Queen Elizabeth for the voice.

I also discovered that I like having a message or lesson in these videos, rather than pure snark and cynicism. I’d like to think there is a message here. But then again, maybe I’m just totally full of shit. It’s up to you to decide.

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Training Thursdays

Posted on October 7, 2012 by

Trustus Pharmaceuticals Episode #34

I’ve thought about doing a Trustus training video for some time. In Episode #34, Bob complains to his group that they are not in compliance with their training. His group retorts that new training is added to their templates faster than they can complete what’s already there. One possible solution: Set aside one day of the week to focus solely on training. Unfortunately, they already have days set aside for Kaizen Events and 5S related activities, so the amount of time they have to spend on genuinely productive activities is shrinking rapidly.

This episode references a few items from previous episodes.  The “Monday Blues” was first mentioned in The Paradigm of AWESOME! (Episode #15). In addition, there were two previous “5S Friday” videos:  5S Friday (Episode #4) and Not Another 5S Friday! (Episode #25).

Although not entirely related to the above video, Ramu and Gary filmed a training exercise in one of my earliest videos: Does It Move? (Episode #5). That one was a hoot!  :-)

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What’s Up Heidi’s Pipeline?

Posted on October 2, 2012 by

Trustus Pharmaceuticals Episode #33

I was reminded by a few people that Oliver and Heidi have not had an “Up Heidi’s Pipeline” sitewide announcement in a little while, so I thought I would do one of those. This one is a little special!

This is actually the third episode based on the “Up Heidi’s Pipeline” monthly addresses, and the fourth episode featuring a joint announcement by Heidi and her ever present lap dog Oliver. The previous episodes of this genre were:

I don’t think I’ll be receiving an invitation to the Christmas party this year.  :-P

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