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jai Mundi
Jun 17, 2005

Kiss my shiny metal heinie

Robot Hobo posted:

At Earthlink we had a "Health Fair" one day. Really, it was just a few people from our health insurance provider there trying to talk us into going with the more expensive versions of the policy. To entice us into coming to this fair, they put out cookies, had balloons, hung up cheap decorations... and had management make attendance mandatory. There was also a free raffle to win fabulous prizes. (also mandatory) I won the raffle. The health insurance people gave me, as my prize:

A big book of holistic & folk remedies.

My professional health insurance company was giving me a book on how to cure any and all illnesses using folk medicine and old-wives' tales. I asked about this, looking for any hint of irony from them, but no. In fact, the insurance-shill I talked to said she personally loved that book and used it whenever she had any problems. Yep, that made me feel confident about my health benefits.

That's because it's cheaper for those bastards to have you drink 16 cups of green tea to try to heal the lump in your breast than have a mammogram.

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CHRISTS FOR SALE
Jan 14, 2005

"fuck you and die"

Robot Hobo posted:

At Earthlink we had a "Health Fair" one day. Really, it was just a few people from our health insurance provider there trying to talk us into going with the more expensive versions of the policy. To entice us into coming to this fair, they put out cookies, had balloons, hung up cheap decorations... and had management make attendance mandatory. There was also a free raffle to win fabulous prizes. (also mandatory) I won the raffle. The health insurance people gave me, as my prize:

A big book of holistic & folk remedies.

My professional health insurance company was giving me a book on how to cure any and all illnesses using folk medicine and old-wives' tales. I asked about this, looking for any hint of irony from them, but no. In fact, the insurance-shill I talked to said she personally loved that book and used it whenever she had any problems. Yep, that made me feel confident about my health benefits.
Somebody at your HMO just got a big raise for that idea. :rolleyes:

Miss-Bomarc
Aug 1, 2009
I can't help but think there's a lot of playground bullshit in this thread, though. "We only get two weeks off!" "Oh yeah? Well, we only get one week off!" "Oh YEAH? Well, WE don't get ANY weeks off!" "That's nothing, WE don't even get SATURDAYS off!" "You think THAT'S bad? Wait till you hear what WE have to put up with..."

*******

Content: We have a CAD system that is used by maybe four companies in the entire world. This makes it very difficult to work with machine shops, since we can't just send them our CAD file; we have to translate it into some weird format first.

So the bigshots (egged on by the CAD firm who really would like to sell us their latest'n'greatest) decide that it's time to Upgrade. We go to training, we get everything ready, all files checked in, all data backed up, hatches battened down and every man at quarters. But then...the production-approval team says "wait, hold on, we just figured out that our procedures for drawing release are based on specific menus and file transfers and button-clicks in the CAD system. If you change to a different program then we have to rewrite our procedures. And our government customer requires that changing procedures is subject to customer review."

Rather than educate a bunch of USAF second lieutenants in how to use our CAD system--a process which we'd have to repeat in about six months as they all cycled out to their new duty stations--we just shitcanned the whole thing, and are now even further behind the rest of the industry.

The upside is that the CAD system we're using is actually pretty decent, and after fifteen-some years of experience we've figured out how to work around its limitations. It's just that everyone we talk to is all "what? You guys aren't using CATIA? I thought everyone used CATIA!"

acejackson42
Mar 27, 2005

You didn't say what I think you said...
Here's a goddamn annoyance - passwords.

Passwords on every loving thing imaginable, sometimes in multiple layers - as in put in the first password, get to where you need to be and then enter ANOTHER password. Then to use the printer you have to get up and manually enter a password for that, too.

This is a newspaper I work for, not the department of defence. And there's always someone in the building anyway, if someone was going to come in and try and espionage poo poo, they can deal with the T-ball bat I keep by my desk (my deadline stick for reporters who can't get their poo poo filed in time. "Is that story done yet" as I reach for the bat).

I guess some hobo might sneak in some night and, I don't know, sneak a peek at what the next day's articles are. Crap.

I've only run into this problem twice in the six papers I've worked for, both times they had a dedicated IT person. I guess that line of work attracts control freaks and they have to get their rocks off somehow.

GoofyLM
Aug 3, 2007

Anal sex is teh sex of teh future

Miss-Bomarc posted:

I can't help but think there's a lot of playground bullshit in this thread, though. "We only get two weeks off!" "Oh yeah? Well, we only get one week off!" "Oh YEAH? Well, WE don't get ANY weeks off!" "That's nothing, WE don't even get SATURDAYS off!" "You think THAT'S bad? Wait till you hear what WE have to put up with..."
I literally get no vacation days, sick days or PTO of any sort. Most weeks I work 6 days for the company (I have a side business, so I technically work 7 days anyways) and they think I don't notice the lack of overtime on my paycheck. I know that's illegal but honestly - it's so far the least of my problems with that job that I don't even give a poo poo anymore.

I started working there as a favor to a good family friend, continued working there as a favor, and am now getting to the point where it's obvious they think they're better off with people from their church group and I think I'm better off getting paid what I'm worth.

This is the type of job that makes me romanticize manual labor.

EDIT:
Today I was asked to build a function my manager had just thought of for our ecommerce cart. A brilliant suggestion, he says. A way to circumvent the MAP (Minimum Advertised Price) policies of our distributors, he says. I thought of it this morning, he says. He then showed me Best Buy's web site with the "Add to cart to see price" label instead of a price. His brilliant idea was something already in place by another company and, more importantly, something I built years ago for our store and have in writing been denied for implementation no less than three times over the years (including once by the current manager, no more than a year ago).

I told him it'd take about a week and he should clear it with the owner while I worked.

GoofyLM fucked around with this message at 04:51 on May 7, 2010

Astro7x
Aug 4, 2004
Thinks It's All Real

Miss-Bomarc posted:

I can't help but think there's a lot of playground bullshit in this thread, though. "We only get two weeks off!" "Oh yeah? Well, we only get one week off!" "Oh YEAH? Well, WE don't get ANY weeks off!" "That's nothing, WE don't even get SATURDAYS off!" "You think THAT'S bad? Wait till you hear what WE have to put up with..."

Well when I was a teenager I was forced into the family business and a paycheck was a roof over my head at night and food on the table :colbert:

My parents actually paid me decently... not being able to quit was the sucky part when your 'boss' yells at you for no good reason.

volkadav
Jan 1, 2008

Guillotine / Gulag 2020
Oh god, passwords. My current employer has not one but three different centralized password mechanisms (I say that with full knowledge of the irony inherent). Each has not only different but directly conflicting password validity rules (for example one requires special characters, one allows, and one forbids). They each cycle at different rates so having to come up with new bullshit passwords is just regular enough to be annoying and just random enough to be extra annoying.

And that doesn't even get into the score or so of systems that I have to deal with that aren't part of any of the three mentioned centralized password systems.

Tired of coming up with suitably random nonsense, I've resorted to using slightly altered profanities and obscenities in all of my passwords like "fuck8yourmother!" and "shit0nyourTITS". Oddly it makes me feel slightly better to type something really beyond the pale before dealing with some tedium like filing my daily TPS report or weekly time sheet.

Astro7x
Aug 4, 2004
Thinks It's All Real

volkadav posted:

Oh god, passwords. My current employer has not one but three different centralized password mechanisms (I say that with full knowledge of the irony inherent). Each has not only different but directly conflicting password validity rules (for example one requires special characters, one allows, and one forbids). They each cycle at different rates so having to come up with new bullshit passwords is just regular enough to be annoying and just random enough to be extra annoying.

I love how the purpose of resetting passwords and forcing weird characters in them is to make them safe, but then half the office has their password on a post-it note on their monitor because they can't remember it.

Wagoneer
Jul 16, 2006

hay there!
Anyone else have a Cinco de Mayo lunch on Wed? Get your party hat on! We're going to a Mexican restaurant! Party time.

Sounds like fun.

Maybe we can have some tacos and talk about how much we're trying to go on a diet, but today we are going to break the rules.

We'll break the ice by giving the people who showed up 1 or 2 minutes late a hard time.

"Sorry, Susan, we already ordered! Hahaaaa! I'm kidding!"
She then plays along and says: "It's okay, I'll just eat these delicious chips!" As she picks up a large triangular tortilla chip and bites half of it.

We order only something that costs less than what the manager orders. Let's make a "funny" comment about how the budget doesn't support this...

... Oh, I get it... because it does support it. I got that joke.

We'll talk about work - how did those reports go, John? Got them done? Fantastic.

Hey, I'm interested in hearing about your family's medical problems. Your life is so much more difficult than mine. Let me try to one-up you anyways and we can agree how our lives both suck.

Now we'll make a joke about the bill: "Bob said he would get it! Hahahaha!"

Everyone's so exciting, I wish I had gone.

The Puppet Master
Apr 9, 2005

Would you fuck me? I'd fuck me. I'd fuck me hard.



Wagoneer posted:

Anyone else have a Cinco de Mayo lunch on Wed? Get your party hat on! We're going to a Mexican restaurant! Party time.

Sounds like fun.

Maybe we can have some tacos and talk about how much we're trying to go on a diet, but today we are going to break the rules.

We'll break the ice by giving the people who showed up 1 or 2 minutes late a hard time.

"Sorry, Susan, we already ordered! Hahaaaa! I'm kidding!"
She then plays along and says: "It's okay, I'll just eat these delicious chips!" As she picks up a large triangular tortilla chip and bites half of it.

We order only something that costs less than what the manager orders. Let's make a "funny" comment about how the budget doesn't support this...

... Oh, I get it... because it does support it. I got that joke.

We'll talk about work - how did those reports go, John? Got them done? Fantastic.

Hey, I'm interested in hearing about your family's medical problems. Your life is so much more difficult than mine. Let me try to one-up you anyways and we can agree how our lives both suck.

Now we'll make a joke about the bill: "Bob said he would get it! Hahahaha!"

Everyone's so exciting, I wish I had gone.

Reads like a pictures for sad children comic.

Solkanar512
Dec 28, 2006

by the sex ghost

GoofyLM posted:

I literally get no vacation days, sick days or PTO of any sort. Most weeks I work 6 days for the company (I have a side business, so I technically work 7 days anyways) and they think I don't notice the lack of overtime on my paycheck. I know that's illegal but honestly - it's so far the least of my problems with that job that I don't even give a poo poo anymore.

If you don't give a poo poo, turn the rear end in a top hat in. Who knows, an audit from the state might turn up all sorts of goodies.

GoofyLM
Aug 3, 2007

Anal sex is teh sex of teh future

Solkanar512 posted:

If you don't give a poo poo, turn the rear end in a top hat in. Who knows, an audit from the state might turn up all sorts of goodies.

You missed the part where he's a family friend. I am fully aware of my rights and the laws regarding this and am actively not giving a poo poo.

Honestly, while the back pay of OT for seven years would be a hell of a check it's just not worth the trouble. As I said before: everything else is what bothers me about the job. The piddly amount of OT I am missing any given pay period? Not really a problem, especially considering I haven't worked much OT in years (a Saturday or Sunday here or there) and I can pretty much make my own schedule the rest of the week.

There are small perks, like being senior to everyone but the owner means I can come in when I want, leave when I want and take days off without notice other than the email I decide to write once I wake up and realize I'm "30 minutes late". I get my shop work done free, rentals free and serious discounts on any products I decide to buy (these are not perks of the other employees, or even the current manager).

If it's late and he knows I haven't taken lunch he'll sometimes bring me in a deli sandwich and cup of soup, if he stops at a fresh fruit stand on the side of the road he always makes sure to bring me a basket. He's even called handy men to my house to fix things I didn't know how to fix and didn't have time to gently caress with because I was at work.

These are all little things that I consider to be "unofficial OT", and in general he's actually a nice guy. It's the new manager that's making the place real hell (the new manager and his church group employees are jealous of my "perks").

As I said: the OT isn't that important to me.

Verloc
Feb 15, 2001

Note to self: Posting 'lulz' is not a good idea.
I got a shitload of super-important post launch bugfixes done this week. Like, JeffK-esque ghosts of dead h4x0rz flying from my fingers fixing poo poo in hours that it would take anyone else in the department days to fix. Big Important Client will go a big rubbery one in their collective trousers and think that we're beyond competent, that we inhabit that grey area between men and gods when we announce we're rolling out the bugfix package a week ahead of schedule. Criminally expensive lunches will be bought, back room favor will be curried, perhaps even bonus checks cut for some higher on the totem pole. And of course, all that prosperity and goodwill will eventually trickle down to the guy who made it all possible. My reward for doing the grunt work that created what will be a feather in our department's cap for months to come? Well, if everything passes the QA workup on Friday, I get to come in on Sunday and work unpaid overtime to deploy those fixes I worked so hard on! YAY ME!
:smithicide:

The Rokstar
Aug 19, 2002

by FactsAreUseless
For those of you entering the corporate world, here is a handy 3-step guide to getting ahead:

1) Above all else, suck up to your bosses as much as possible.

2) Find out what the minimum amount of work is that you must do to get by. Hint: Much like sex, it's lower than you think it is. :goonsay:

3) Do EXACTLY that amount of work. No more (don't want to be a doormat because you'll never get ahead that way!), no less (don't want people talking about how you don't care about the team because you'll never get ahead that way!).

The Rokstar fucked around with this message at 07:26 on May 7, 2010

E the Shaggy
Mar 29, 2010

Astro7x posted:

I love how the purpose of resetting passwords and forcing weird characters in them is to make them safe, but then half the office has their password on a post-it note on their monitor because they can't remember it.

On my last day of my previous job last week, I had to list all of my passwords for the ten thousand things that I was part of before I left the company, this included association memberships, online publications, etc etc. There were at least 20 of these things.

I look through the long list of these things that I put into a word document.

My boss/office administrator came in last Thursday, my last day was supposed to be the following day, and says, "You know, we'd like to encourage you to use one of your vacation days for tomorrow so that you can be rested up for your new position."

I saw through this poo poo in a second as "I'd like to save the firm money by convincing you to use one of your vacation days so we can pay you less and I'll get credit for it with the partners."

I agreed since I was totally fine with having an extra day off before starting my new job.

In the afternoon, two hours before I was ready to leave the firm forever, I was saying my goodbyes and our crazy IT guy comes in to look over all of my passwords and change them to new passwords for the firm to use. Fair enough. Funny that he chose to do this kind of important task with so little time left before I walked out the door.

So he shoves me away from my computer and begins typing in these passwords into each website, the first couple work, but he has some problems changing my name to his name. He calls one of the places, and since he has a thick accent and English is his second language, the person on the other end of the phone gets his name wrong in the system and he has to call back repeatedly to change everything.

He then proceeds to call the woman on the phone, "A stupid loving bitch" and immediately says, "gently caress my life!" I'm kind of taken aback by this but with only 30 minutes left (Yes, this had been going on for nearly 2 hours), I shrug it off.

"When is your exit interview?" He says.
"Whenever we finish up I guess, but I'm leaving at 5 regardless."
"No....no your not. Your here for as long as I say your here."

I have never gotten pissed off to the point where I was shouting at someone in the office before, but I had 30 minutes left in a job where there were literally no repercussions for my actions at this point, so I start raising my voice.

"Oh yes I am! You can't dictate how long I stay here."
"No, you're not! And if you don't agree to it, I'll call Boss #1/#2 and have them talk to you!"

I rip the phone off the receiver and just wave it in his face.

"GOOD! I'LL loving DO IT FOR YOU!"

He backed down, didn't call them and let me go at that point. Christ, what a nightmare.

Sir Spaniard
Nov 9, 2009

The Rokstar posted:

For those of you entering the corporate world, here is a handy 3-step guide to getting ahead:

1) Above all else, suck up to your bosses as much as possible.

2) Find out what the minimum amount of work is that you must do to get by. Hint: Much like sex, it's lower than you think it is. :goonsay:

3) Do EXACTLY that amount of work. No more (don't want to be a doormat because you'll never get ahead that way!), no less (don't want people talking about how you don't care about the team because you'll never get ahead that way!).



I agree with not being a doormat, but how does your first point flow into your other two points? Wouldn't sucking up to bosses mean doing whatever work they push onto you, and smiling while they do it?

kissekatt
Apr 20, 2005

I have tasted the fruit.

GoofyLM posted:

He then showed me Best Buy's web site with the "Add to cart to see price" label instead of a price.
That just sounds obnoxious.

EricFate
Aug 31, 2001

Crumpets. Glorious Crumpets.

The Rokstar posted:

For those of you entering the corporate world, here is a handy 3-step guide to getting ahead:

Here are a couple more.

4) Approach every task like you know exactly what you are doing -- then find the last person who did it, ask who they delegated the task to in order to successfully complete it, and get a ballpark idea of what kind of bribe they had to offer.

5) Always be evasive when someone wants to know when a project will be complete, but never be afraid to bury people in updates that detail every bit of mundane progress that you have made on said project.

6) When in doubt, transfer to a new department.

7) Never, under any circumstances, train a new hire as your backup. 'Backup' is a code-phrase for 'your replacement'. If you need a backup, cross-train someone who is already more busy than you are. Preferably, someone that already makes more money than you and is non-salaried.

8) If you work in a capacity that is prone to bursts of overtime work due to market forces, never promote into a salaried position unless you think you may soon be rendered obsolete due to upgrades or outsourcing.

adrenaline_junket
May 29, 2005
gotta get a rush!
Just to undo some of the poo poo in the last 5 pages. Here is some stories of awesomeness in my last few jobs:

1) my grandfather died late one night in hospital. I emailed my boss at 11:30am the next day and told him, he just wrote back "come back when youre ready". After a week and a half off, he took me out to lunch for some chat time so I could get stuff of my chest about the whole thing.

2) i moved states and my employer let me take 2 hour lunchtimes for the first 3 weeks in order to go apartment hunting. They even gave references and contacted realtors for me. I also got an hour at the end of the day to go to inspections.
Thats ok, because I got flexible hours. I started at 10 and left at 6.30. I got 4 weeks holidays and 12 sick days. Salary advances when needed, I had a work supplied MacBook Pro and they gave me two chargers (one for work, one for home). We also had a fridge full of fizz that is free for the taking.

3) I started my own company and we have 10 developers. We have 8 week holidays, 20 sick days and unlimited paid compassionate leave, this is on top of wages 20% above industry. We also have plasmas around the office playing music or movies from cable TV channels. Every month we go out on a friday for a muck around in town. We have treasure hunts, scavenger days and prizes for dress up comps. Lunches are ordered and delivered for those who want them and we do 20% time for personal projects (as long as they relate to our products) and have daily standups to talk about progress. Every person's ideas are valid and no stone goes unturned.

Remarkably we have no dissent, no depression and productivity is huge. There is also no abuse. We use Agile development processes, so no one is ever left without work. Oh yeah, we also work 35 hour weeks. If you work longer, come in later the next day.

If management spent more time giving workers what they wanted, then problems in this thread wouldnt exist. I guess its the result of old bully management reminiscent of the 80s era, of companies built on fear. Im 25 and have a very different attitude, and if you look at the CEOs/founders of the new age companies, you will see they are all around the same age. Atlassian (CEOs are ~28), Google (founders are ~30), Facebook (CEO is 26).

Roosevelt
Jul 18, 2009

I'm looking for the man who shot my paw.

Wagoneer posted:

Cinco de fiesta lunch

Hey that all sounds about right! At my place we just got some lovely enchiladas catered and then we all stood around in the meeting room and looked at each other in silence while we ate. Occasionally somebody would say something about a customer and a nervous chuckle permeated the room. Then the owner stopped by and asked us what the gently caress are we taking the rest of the day off or what and said some stuff about playing racquetball that afternoon. Then he and two of his manager friends took off.
One by one we slunk back to our cubicles.

Weatherman
Jul 30, 2003

WARBLEKLONK

adrenaline_junket posted:

Just to undo some of the poo poo in the last 5 pages. Here is some stories of awesomeness in my last few jobs:

1) my grandfather died late one night in hospital. I emailed my boss at 11:30am the next day and told him, he just wrote back "come back when youre ready". After a week and a half off, he took me out to lunch for some chat time so I could get stuff of my chest about the whole thing.

2) i moved states and my employer let me take 2 hour lunchtimes for the first 3 weeks in order to go apartment hunting. They even gave references and contacted realtors for me. I also got an hour at the end of the day to go to inspections.
Thats ok, because I got flexible hours. I started at 10 and left at 6.30. I got 4 weeks holidays and 12 sick days. Salary advances when needed, I had a work supplied MacBook Pro and they gave me two chargers (one for work, one for home). We also had a fridge full of fizz that is free for the taking.

3) I started my own company and we have 10 developers. We have 8 week holidays, 20 sick days and unlimited paid compassionate leave, this is on top of wages 20% above industry. We also have plasmas around the office playing music or movies from cable TV channels. Every month we go out on a friday for a muck around in town. We have treasure hunts, scavenger days and prizes for dress up comps. Lunches are ordered and delivered for those who want them and we do 20% time for personal projects (as long as they relate to our products) and have daily standups to talk about progress. Every person's ideas are valid and no stone goes unturned.

Remarkably we have no dissent, no depression and productivity is huge. There is also no abuse. We use Agile development processes, so no one is ever left without work. Oh yeah, we also work 35 hour weeks. If you work longer, come in later the next day.

If management spent more time giving workers what they wanted, then problems in this thread wouldnt exist. I guess its the result of old bully management reminiscent of the 80s era, of companies built on fear. Im 25 and have a very different attitude, and if you look at the CEOs/founders of the new age companies, you will see they are all around the same age. Atlassian (CEOs are ~28), Google (founders are ~30), Facebook (CEO is 26).

And forty thousand other companies started by 20-somethings with big dreams end in broken promises, burned bridges and bankruptcy. What's your point?

spog
Aug 7, 2004

It's your own bloody fault.

The Rokstar posted:

For those of you entering the corporate world, here is a handy 3-step guide to getting ahead:

1) Above all else, suck up to your bosses's secretaries as much as possible.

Just a small amendment, based on my own experiences.

FogHelmut
Dec 18, 2003

Anyone notice that when these threads get moved, you lose your bookmark?




Anyway, I do Sharepoint Wiki pages to document everything that was changed in our monthly builds. I started working on it yesterday, and you know when you work on things in Sharepoint it shows up on the main page as recent/new documents. So obviously I have been working on it as anyone can see.

I get an email from a manager (sent at 7pm last night by the way) asking me to create the build documentation.

Pixelante
Mar 16, 2006

You people will by God act like a team, or at least like people who know each other, or I'll incinerate the bunch of you here and now.

spog posted:

Just a small amendment, based on my own experiences.

As a former secretary who had quite a lot of power that no one ever noticed (scheduling may be scut work, but it was me deciding which doctors were oncall for which stat holiday) this is truth. So many people treat you like you're unimportant or dim if you're in clerical, so it takes a depressingly small amount of effort to make an unhappy secretary put in a little extra effort to make your life easier, up to an including facilitating your requests, putting your timesheets through faster, mentioning how helpful you are in front of senior management, and swapping your name out with people who are less pleasant for incidental stuff in the department.

There were about four doctors who bothered to learn my name and didn't act like I was a retard. Not a one of them had to work Christmas or Thanksgiving ER on-call because of it. I don't think they even knew it was because of me.

Lukano
Apr 28, 2003

Pixelante posted:

As a former secretary who had quite a lot of power that no one ever noticed (scheduling may be scut work, but it was me deciding which doctors were oncall for which stat holiday) this is truth. So many people treat you like you're unimportant or dim if you're in clerical, so it takes a depressingly small amount of effort to make an unhappy secretary put in a little extra effort to make your life easier, up to an including facilitating your requests, putting your timesheets through faster, mentioning how helpful you are in front of senior management, and swapping your name out with people who are less pleasant for incidental stuff in the department.

There were about four doctors who bothered to learn my name and didn't act like I was a retard. Not a one of them had to work Christmas or Thanksgiving ER on-call because of it. I don't think they even knew it was because of me.

This is why I do my best to be cheerful and chipper with our secretaries, and always couch my requests with plenty of pleases and thankyou's. They could make my work life significantly harder than it is, should I get on their bad side.

jai Mundi
Jun 17, 2005

Kiss my shiny metal heinie

Lukano posted:

This is why I do my best to be cheerful and chipper with our secretaries, and always couch my requests with plenty of pleases and thankyou's. They could make my work life significantly harder than it is, should I get on their bad side.

Seconding this. When I was an EA, I could bury your request, or I could hunt down the President and ask him your question. Just being nice was the difference.

I am OK
Mar 9, 2009

LAWL
As with waiting staff, you can tell a lot about a person from how they treat a secretary.

The Macaroni
Dec 20, 2002
...it does nothing.
Crossposting from a recent post in another thread--I hate underinformed management decisions and cronyism--together, they're deadly.

1. My office just canned our database guy because a lightning strike took out our webserver for a week (by disabling the ancient Oracle database server that is due for replacement in 6 months), and the brass were like "The problem involved a database! Must be H's fault! Away he goes!"

2. Meanwhile, our "graphic design" person who does nothing but sit on her rear end and outsource every last loving thing she's asked to do--at 2-4 times the cost and half the quality of the resources I've found just through SA forums--has survived three rounds of layoffs. :wtf:

This scenario has played out about a half-dozen times in the 2 years I've been here:

:mad: - me, :downs: - graphic artist

:mad:: Hey, I've got a fairly simple project. 2 months lead time, even, so no big hurry. Just need you to make this brochure/postcard/flyer look pretty. I've got all the copy, all the images, and I've even got a mockup of the layout here for you, so all you have to do is put it together in Quark and get it off to the publisher.
:downs:: OK, got it. I'll get back to you with the cost and delivery date.
6 weeks pass
:downs:: Update: it'll be done 1 month after you asked for it, at double your budget, and the proof doesn't look anything like your mockup. Could you sign the proof please?
:mad:: :what:

But she's friends with the powers that be and is therefore untouchable.

volkadav
Jan 1, 2008

Guillotine / Gulag 2020
I just discovered that our self-service HR portal lets me change my physical address, phone number, email address and ethnic group (:wtf: "Today I'm rolls dice Asian/Pacific-Islander!!") but not marital status. Surely people change marital status more often than ethnic group?

Bah. Time to call the apathetic jerkasses at the central HR call-center somewhere in BFE, Virginia.

Solkanar512
Dec 28, 2006

by the sex ghost

volkadav posted:

I just discovered that our self-service HR portal lets me change my physical address, phone number, email address and ethnic group (:wtf: "Today I'm rolls dice Asian/Pacific-Islander!!") but not marital status. Surely people change marital status more often than ethnic group?

Bah. Time to call the apathetic jerkasses at the central HR call-center somewhere in BFE, Virginia.

Can you write in your own choice, or are the choices predetermined?

Pixelante
Mar 16, 2006

You people will by God act like a team, or at least like people who know each other, or I'll incinerate the bunch of you here and now.

Solkanar512 posted:

Can you write in your own choice, or are the choices predetermined?

Time to claim your true heritage as a na'vi.

Indolent Bastard
Oct 26, 2007

I WON THIS AMAZING AVATAR! I'M A WINNER! WOOOOO!

The Rokstar posted:

For those of you entering the corporate world, here is a handy 3-step guide to getting ahead:

1) Above all else, suck up to your bosses as much as possible.

2) Find out what the minimum amount of work is that you must do to get by. Hint: Much like sex, it's lower than you think it is. :goonsay:

3) Do EXACTLY that amount of work. No more (don't want to be a doormat because you'll never get ahead that way!), no less (don't want people talking about how you don't care about the team because you'll never get ahead that way!).

Don't forget 3a) While only doing the minimum amount of work, show up a little earlier than your boss and stay very late. Don't actually do anything productive, but look like you are.

Swink
Apr 18, 2006
Left Side <--- Many Whelps
We have a system that takes incoming faxes, turns them into PDF and emails them to the receptionist who then forwards them on to the appropriate people.

In one of our branch offices, instead of using the scanner to scan documents, the staff have learned that its easier to fax whatever they want scanned to our head office fax machine, and within a few minutes the receptionist there will send the newly PDF'd document straight to their inbox.

Ingenious.

Miss-Bomarc
Aug 1, 2009
Just in case you didn't feel bad enough about your job as the Chief Assistant Deputy Server Rebooter And Cable Plugger-Inner:

The Strategic Imperative Not To Hire Anybody

Harvard Business Review posted:

"But boy, I don't see employment coming back, not for years. My clients were amazed by how much productivity they could squeeze out of their people in the downturn. They're not going to start hiring again — well, maybe temps or contract workers, but not regular, full-time employees." As if to punctuate the thought he added, chillingly, "In fact, the CEOs are mad at their middle managers for not having eliminated more jobs earlier."

less than three
Aug 9, 2007



Fallen Rib

Swink posted:

We have a system that takes incoming faxes, turns them into PDF and emails them to the receptionist who then forwards them on to the appropriate people.

In one of our branch offices, instead of using the scanner to scan documents, the staff have learned that its easier to fax whatever they want scanned to our head office fax machine, and within a few minutes the receptionist there will send the newly PDF'd document straight to their inbox.

Ingenious.
bahaha. We have this system too and I've never thought of that.

Mind you our fax machine/copier/scanner has the ability to send a PDF to e-mail already, so maybe that's why.

Solkanar512
Dec 28, 2006

by the sex ghost

Miss-Bomarc posted:

Just in case you didn't feel bad enough about your job as the Chief Assistant Deputy Server Rebooter And Cable Plugger-Inner:

The Strategic Imperative Not To Hire Anybody

I honestly wasn't expecting that link to turn into a defense of labor.

Miss-Bomarc
Aug 1, 2009

Solkanar512 posted:

I honestly wasn't expecting that link to turn into a defense of labor.
Economists will often cite Ricardo's Law of Comparative Advantage like it was some kind of slam-dunk unblockable finishing move. While they're correct that in the aggregate more money is created when everyone specializes and the most work is done by the cheapest labor, the distribution is significantly worse. The societal benefits of low unemployment, even at the cost of some structural inefficiency, are something that economists just don't seem to ever take into account.

Of course, most of our production inefficiencies are things we've chosen to have--as the article points out, six layers of management doing gently caress-all isn't a benefit to anybody.

Solkanar512
Dec 28, 2006

by the sex ghost

Miss-Bomarc posted:

Of course, most of our production inefficiencies are things we've chosen to have--as the article points out, six layers of management doing gently caress-all isn't a benefit to anybody.

What ever it takes to make sure those covers appear on the TPS reports, right?

Mister Squishy
Nov 15, 2000
I'm halfway through a contract with a Big Four bank with several hundred thousand employees. My department has a six-to-one ratio of contractors to full-time, and in fact contractors did my phone screen, interview and hiring and I never met any of these full-time people until I started.

Yesterday I was poking around in Outlook and I realized that Every Single full-time employee in my department is a "Vice President". Every one!

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GWBBQ
Jan 2, 2005


I got a call from our director of operations a few minutes ago asking me if I could attend a training session and take notes for her this afternoon. I agreed since I have nothing else to do. It's a training session on how to use the new copier/printers :doh:

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