Posts Tagged Change

Unter den Hut geschaut: Change of Generations

Posted by soulwarrior in releases on 17 June 2011

This year’s German Nationals will go down in history as the largest German Nationals ever! With more than 1060 participants, it raised the bar tremendously and all future German Nationals will be compared to this event.

Markus Wichmann took down more than 1060 opponents and won the whole thing! Veterans like Michel Grüner and Vittorio Wiktor made it to the top 32, but got elimited there. It’s a change of generations and that’s what I’m talking about in this weeks column: Unter den Hut geschaut: Change of Generations.

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Unter den Hut geschaut: How much change is enough?

Posted by soulwarrior in releases on 26 February 2011

The hot news are still coming for the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG. The latest surprise was Konami’s announcement of the next European Yu-Gi-Oh! Championship Series (YCS), which will be held in April in Paris, France. Still, I felt there’s a big unanswered question that’s worth looking into: How much change is enough?

With the game always evolving and a big change already on the horizon (the rulings change about Ignition Effects that won’t be able to be used immediately after the summon of a monster) as well as the upcoming Exceed Monsters, Yu-Gi-Oh! seems to enter yet another level. Here’s my take on the subject: Unter den Hut geschaut: How much change is enough?

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200!

Posted by soulwarrior in News on 23 February 2011

I think the last time an anniversary for this website came round, I simply missed it. Only more reason to make up for it this time and announce the 201st post in a big way! That’s right, 201st, as the sad story about Warcraft-TCG.de’s downtime marked the 200th post. Anyway, this website is live since April 2009 and that means I managed to write more than 100 posts per year, which doesn’t sound too bad.

Let’s reminisce a bit; if you take a closer look at the archive of April ’09, you’ll see some similarities between my situation back then and what’s happening with my life just now. April ’09 marked a big change for me as I left Upper Deck, my first real employer (as a result, my weekly column Unter den Hut geschaut took a pretty long break and I’m glad it’s back). Now, I’m still in the process of setting up my own business which is a little like looking for jobs (as you’re constantly looking for clients).

In the past (almost) 2 years, I went through 2 different jobs and learned quite a lot (not only work-wise, but also about myself and life in general). My website was supposed to be taken down at some point last year, but I made sure it survived. It’s one of the many channels I like to use to express myself and became very dear to me. I’m sorry for having neglected it a little – some sections could certainly need a make-over.

At the moment, I’m still fighting the good fight with state agencies that seem to be reluctant when it comes to supporting my business. I’m trying to be patient, waiting for a friend to join my business and take over acquisition of new possible clients, something I don’t quite excel in. Word of mouth has less of an effect compared to what I hoped for, so I’ll need to get familiar with more techniques to acquire new possible customers. Something that annoys me to no end as I “just want to work”.

Don’t get me wrong, there are also a number of upsides to this whole thing. I found the time to go on an amazing weekend trip the past Friday to Sunday and I’ll head off to Leipzig the upcoming Friday to prepare for the World of Warcraft TCG World Cup (a team event). I’m happy that I won’t have to ask for days off and can just “go for it” when I feel like it. Then again, I’ll need to make a living somehow and my 1337 WoW TCG skills don’t really pay for the bills. If you have some fancy ideas that seem right for me and maybe know a few magazines or websites that could need a crazy writer, by all means please let me know.

Words of encouragement sent my way are also appreciated and while you’re at it, you could also send some more customers my way. Sometimes it’s hard to not forget that this is the path I have chosen and that there are a number of worse situations one could imagine. After all, I do make a living with a lot of things I love. It’s just that I feel I’ve got infinite potential and at the moment, I’m accessing a mere 50% of it (at best). I still need to finish writing a novel (something else I started in 2009, but haven’t had the time to continue lately – “lately” as in “the past 10 months”), a stand up comedy and a rap song. I guess these are some good goals to set for myself before I’ll publish a “300!” post (it will most likely come with some sort of “Sparta” reference).

Until then, I hope you’ll all continue to follow my website, provide me with some feedback (by the way, this website counts 199 comments at this very moment, so you can be the 200th to comment!) or stay in touch via Facebook / Twitter and on the various message boards I’m active on.

P.S.: Speaking of other sites I’m active on, go check out the BootcampLE.de website that I’ve set up the past few days and let me know what you think!

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Unter den Hut geschaut: Advertisements on eTCG.de

Posted by soulwarrior in releases on 9 September 2010

This week’s article isn’t so much about the Yu-Gi-Oh! community as it is about eTCG.de – the place where the German speaking community comes together. I’m bringing you the latest news of the upcoming changes on eTCG.de. We’ll be reducing the advertisements on some spots, but add some in other spaces. It’s worth looking into it, so head over: Unter den Hut geschaut: Advertisements on eTCG.de.

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Judge Comeback

Posted by soulwarrior in News on 10 April 2010

These days, there’s not that much I can or want to share on my blog, however, I got a cool announcement to make: I’ll be judging at a Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG tournament tomorrow. I expect it to be fun; heck, if I’ll be overly enjoying myself, I might even set a new goal for myself like head judging next year’s German Nationals. You should be able to learn a little bit more of what’s going on tomorrow in my Twitter feed as part of a mini live coverage.

Speaking of events, I’ll also be part of this year’s German Nationals’ team. I applied for the coverage team, so I hope I’ll be able to give all the great people that can’t make it to the event a good impression of what’s going on.

Alright, that’s pretty much it for the time being. Don’t worry if the blog updates aren’t coming in that regularly, I’m doing great.

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Ethics in business

Posted by soulwarrior in Blog on 8 January 2010

Today, I couldn’t help but ask myself what happened to ethics in the business world. Surely, we’re all facing difficult times with a global economic crisis and whatnot, but I was always under the impression that this doesn’t necessarily lead to a cutthroat world. While I’m aware of the fact that “speaking bad about your former employer” could result in me not getting hired by possible future employers, I also believe in honesty and integrity. As both of these values have been treated like shit, I have to speak up – even if it means that it could be taken against me. It’s just that I have to get this out of my system.

As most of you know, I’ve been hired by a Berlin based company a few months ago. I got along very well with most people there, especially with the head of the company that always struck me as a nice and honest person. During my first week in the company, he asked me if I would know someone who were able to work as a programer at the company. I told him that a good friend of mine would definitely be interested in this opportunity, however, he has been unemployed for quite a while. Nevertheless, he’s a top notch programer and he would certainly be up to the task.

One interview later, my good friend had the job. It seemed to good to be true; Heck, being able to work together with one of my best friends at a nice enough company felt like a dream come true.

My bubble burst 4 months later when I was made redundant. Despite the fact that I had been promised I would be kept even after the project I was assigned to ended for me, which didn’t happen in the end, I never complained. Further, I got told that I would receive a call once the contracts with some important new business partners were signed and get a new job then. As far as I know, these contracts were signed recently, you may guess if I ever received a call…

Still, I kept quiet. My friend finally had a job after years of unemployment, so even though I was treated like shit, this whole thing had some positive side effect…

Today, my friend was made redundant. Two weeks before the end of his probation period. Surely, if you only read the few lines I wrote just now and if you had no insight into the whole thing, you might come to the conclusion that this was “bound to happen”. However, no one saw that coming; at least not someone who had listened to my friend recently who could go on and on about the work he had already finished and what still needed to be done.

As it turns out, he was only needed to develop the necessary classes, documentation and some more stuff for an upcoming software project. The implementation, the “easy part”, can now be done by some intern or student or some other cheap employee. I can’t help but get mad. Certainly, budgets are always tight, but here we had a man who had done an excellent job. Who LIKED his job. Who got along very well with his co-workers and especially his boss. Who was paid a ridiculous amount considering his experience and qualification, but didn’t complain. Heck, he even moved for this job. And all he got out of it was some months of experience and some money (which doesn’t help if you recently moved).

Is this really what the business world turned into? Is there no place for ethics anymore and can only companies survive that treat their employees like shit? Can you share your experiences as I’m dying to know if we just got very unlucky or if these are the new rules that everyone needs to adapt to now?!

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What a year!

Posted by soulwarrior in Blog, News on 24 December 2009

First things first: Merry Christmas to everyone!

It’s been quite a year – yeah, this might sound a little weird as there’s still another week to go, but I want to get this blog post done now as it’s highly unlikely that I’ll find the time next week. The most obvious new development (looking at things from the perspective of the webmaster of this page) is that I got my own homepage. Yay! It’s been a project I wanted to start quite a while ago and I’m glad I eventually did in April. While I haven’t really taken (I want to avoid the term “found”) the time to keep this blog as up to date as I wanted it to be, I hope it was still able to entertain you from time to time and give you some updates about what’s happening in my life.

Speaking of which… back in April, when this whole thing went online, I was still employed by Upper Deck. After more than 4 years, this relationship came to an end in June and I had to look for a new job. It’s been the first time I had to look for a job and I want to thank all the great people who helped me writing applications, making connections, etc. Without all your help, this would not only have been infinitely harder, I think I would have also been a lot less successful.

Eventually, I was hired by Station54, a Berlin based company doing Community Management; mainly for Electronic Arts. At first, this had been an amazing job, but it eventually came to a close at the end of October (I blogged about this: 4 Months with BattleForge). Well, I learned a lot regardless and my CV looked a little better as I could then claim I had been working as an Event Manager, Community Manager, Translator, Author, Customer Service Rep and some more stuff. Seems like life turned into a hunt for fancy job titles…

In the past 2 months, I was looking for a job again and I’m glad that I can now tell you that I’ve found an awesome new opportunity! Starting January the 4th, I’ll be doing Online Marketing for smava. It’s the market leader in a pretty new field; it allows you to get a credit financed by other people rather than by a bank (in case you’re interested, you should check out the homepage: smava.de). As this is quite new for me as well, the employment is only of limited duration. However, if I do good, I can turn this into something permanent, so wish me luck (any tips are welcome!). I have to say this is quite an amazing Christmas present.

Fortunately, life’s not all about work. I’m more than happy that I spent the whole year with the same girl and I couldn’t be asking for more. In case you weren’t lucky enough to meet Wincy so far, stop by whenever you’re in Berlin and I’ll be glad to introduce her to you.

What else? Well, I not only kept up my work for the Card Master and the Kartefakt, I’m recently writing for an English magazine, the Yu-Gi-Oh! World, too! On top of that, I’m still writing weekly columns. While my Yu-Gi-Oh! column Unter den Hut geschaut ended (thanks to Upper Deck’s loss of the Yu-Gi-Oh! licence), I started a new World of Warcraft TCG column on Warcraft-TCG.de: Suppe für den soul. I also stepped in for another author and continued the column for players new to the WoW TCG: Der Versammlungsstein. So even when I was without a “real” job, I was rather busy.

All in all, it has been quite a year. I’m glad I was able to make new friends, spend so much time with my existing friends, have a blast playing the WoW TCG and that things turned out the way they did. I’m more than certain that 2010 will be even more exciting!

I’ll celebrate the turn of the years in Leipzig with my best friends and I hope you’ll also have a blast partying into the new year!

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