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Rhymenoserous posted:Oh. Well good luck with that poo poo. Every time someone gets a e-mail from a file sharing service around here from a known customer who they know uses that service they automatically forward it to me and ask "Should I open this". I don't mind that, it's easy to reply with "Yep" and at least they are asking instead of opening everything.
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Oct 25, 2013 20:45
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Renegret posted:I got told off by a supervisor when I re-wrote and distributed new search macros for the department without "consulting a supervisor first so they can make sure it won't break the database". I set up a series of queries to turn it into less than an hour of work for just me, with perfect accurate results. The "IT lady" tried to get me fired, and a bunch of executives considered me a liability and were generally skeptical. Luckily my immediate supervisor (after an hour or so of explaining, with diagrams) understood what I was doing and went to bat for me. That set up my exit from the company though. I'd already had issues with IT blocking every attempt I had at suggesting/implementing the smallest tools improving efficiency. But the fact that the company wouldn't acknowledge how much time and money I saved them, on a product that was already late and overbudget, infuriated me. At some point I said, "look, I could probably find a lot more ways to speed this stuff up, would the company consider buying me a $35 book on Access macros?" and got refused. So I found a new job.
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Oct 25, 2013 20:58
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teethgrinder posted:That set up my exit from the company though. I'd already had issues with IT blocking every attempt I had at suggesting/implementing the smallest tools improving efficiency. But the fact that the company wouldn't acknowledge how much time and money I saved them, on a product that was already late and overbudget, infuriated me. At some point I said, "look, I could probably find a lot more ways to speed this stuff up, would the company consider buying me a $35 book on Access macros?" and got refused. So I found a new job. I can understand why IT were resistant. Once you're gone, nobody there will know what the gently caress your macros do, but the users will become reliant on it. When it breaks they will look to IT to fix it and them some poor sod has to go and debug your code, figuring out what it's supposed to do and trying to sort it, or just tell the users they don't support fixing the macros and then everyone is hosed. Access is particularly bad for creating this sort of situation to the point that many IT folk have a blanket ban on user-created Access databases.
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Oct 25, 2013 21:15
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anthonypants posted:This program was built by pharamacists, for pharmacists: My GF saw the thumbnail of this over my shoulder and asked if I was posting about SAP again.
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Oct 25, 2013 21:27
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Whales posted:So that mess took a day or so to clean up and then everyone had to read a paper about email headers, what a file extension is and when to not open an attachment. It's now in our company handbook that opening a file ending in .exe constitues an act of gross misconduct and may be subject to immediate dismissal. I assume it's implied that this doesn't apply to, y'know, all the programs that we use. Opening an dodgy attachment is nowhere near gross misconduct and actually firing someone for it will get you laughed out of court pretty much anywhere that isn't the more terrible parts of the US. This is just blaming the employees for the employer's mistakes.
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Oct 25, 2013 21:28
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Lum posted:I can understand why IT were resistant. The main thing is that there was barely any code to debug -- it was so retardedly simple, and thoroughly documented, such as it was. I mean, I see what you're saying, but this is the kind of poo poo they should have been doing regardless. Anyone with the most basic understanding of programming, like a grade 10 course, should have been able to do this. It was probably less complicated than most Excel formulas. They were literally having people comb over 100000+ records, look for keywords, and check off boxes on those lines. The most complicated thing I did was notate when there were multiple records that needed to be deleted -- that was where the hour of human effort came in. teethgrinder fucked around with this message at 21:34 on Oct 25, 2013 |
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Oct 25, 2013 21:31
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teethgrinder posted:I mean, I see what you're saying, but this is the kind of poo poo they should have been doing regardless. Anyone with the most basic understanding of programming, like a grade 10 course, should have been able to do this. It was probably less complicated than most Excel formulas. Edit: I know this sounds like a slippery slope, but development is perceived as being unnecessarily slow in most businesses (since they often want actual requirements), and when the unit secretary next to you sees your VBA abomination and asks you to do her a favor without going through all the approval and paperwork, and... All of a sudden you're the go-to for office drones who "need" an application that IT hasn't gotten around to, and it quickly becomes a mess. evol262 fucked around with this message at 21:47 on Oct 25, 2013 |
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Oct 25, 2013 21:40
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teethgrinder posted:I had a similarish situation at my first "real job". It had to do with programming Access macros, and holy poo poo I couldn't believe the shitstorm I caused. Part of it came from the fact that I wasn't in the IS department. Part because I was younger than most staff. Most of it is that the vast majority of office workers don't comprehend general-use computing. Like why just use Access as an electronic filing system ... when you can programme it to automate tasks. They literally had a team of 6 people combing records for 6 weeks for certain criteria and cleaning up contact lists. I poo poo you not. It's office politics like this is what makes me wish I paid more attention to the drama that went on in High School. Said supervisor who is out to get me told me one day that my generation is lazy and doesn't deserve social security, but of course his generation works hard and deserves it. I didn't even know how to respond to that so I opted for a blank stare. One of the other supervisors confirmed that he's hates me but nobody can figure out why. Hell, one day he complained that I was typing too fast into a god drat Word document on a time sensitive issue. This is my first real job as well, before this I was working retail. I'm by far the youngest person in my department by about seven years. My 18-24 year old retail co-workers were by far more mature and easier to work with than the 30-something married-with-kids in an office environment. I feel like in 10 years I'm going to have a similar story as teethgrinder. Renegret fucked around with this message at 22:09 on Oct 25, 2013 |
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Oct 25, 2013 22:06
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Renegret posted:One of the other supervisors confirmed that he's hates me but nobody can figure out why. Renegret posted:Hell, one day he complained that I was typing too fast into a god drat Word document on a time sensitive issue. Renegret posted:I'm by far the youngest person in my department by about seven years. My 18-24 year old retail co-workers were by far more mature and easier to work with than the 30-something married-with-kids in an office environment. Renegret posted:I feel like in 10 years I'm going to have a similar story as teethgrinder. To be blunt, this post reads like "I'm a special snowflake who doesn't understand how people interact in an office." Instead of pretending like you know exactly how things are supposed to work in your first office job, try letting go of your preconceived notions about what you should and shouldn't be allowed to do and how your supervisor should and shouldn't treat you and just go with the flow.
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Oct 25, 2013 22:24
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Renegret posted:This is my first real job as well, before this I was working retail. I'm by far the youngest person in my department by about seven years. My 18-24 year old retail co-workers were by far more mature and easier to work with than the 30-something married-with-kids in an office environment. I feel like in 10 years I'm going to have a similar story as teethgrinder.  Wait until you run into a 55-65 year-old executive assistant who refuses to give a gently caress about learning the tools to do her own job yet still thinks she's The Greatest Generation or whateverthefuck and has worked harder her entire life than you could possibly imagine and also I can't print out these excel sheets legibly and I have to have them ready for a big executive meeting in 5 minutes! 
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Oct 25, 2013 22:27
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evol262 posted:To be blunt, this post reads like "I'm a special snowflake who doesn't understand how people interact in an office." Instead of pretending like you know exactly how things are supposed to work in your first office job, try letting go of your preconceived notions about what you should and shouldn't be allowed to do and how your supervisor should and shouldn't treat you and just go with the flow. It really wasn't intended like that, sorry. The truth is I keep my mouth shut at work, it only sounds like I'm trying to run the place because I'm venting right now. I'm intentionally omitting the wordy and uninteresting office politics stories. Also the time sensitive issue really was "get this done as fast as possible" situation, typed in word for the spell check before going through a process that had two additional people proofread it for errors before it became official. Telling someone they type too fast is nothing more than nit picking at a non-issue, especially if you're going to complain about a five minute delay.
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Oct 25, 2013 23:17
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evol262 posted:It sounds like there's more to this story. Most "time sensitive issues" aren't "complete as quickly as possible", and he may have been concerned about your accuracy or tone. It's not always cut and dry. Not sure where you've worked, but I've been in plenty of situations where things are a last minute scramble to implement something and having my manager saying "Who cares, just get it up and running before *time/date*, we'll work out the kinks later". I've also had higher ups do some petty poo poo to people because they didn't care for them. At the last place I was at, the CEO had me let go first when the hospital was getting ready to close. The reason he gave was that I was lazy and didn't do anything (which was completely baffling to everyone else since I was hands down the hardest worker there). It later came out that he had been trying for over a year to have me fired. That seems to coincide with me refusing to work on his family's personal systems a year or so prior, since the rear end in a top hat wouldn't even so much as give me a Thank You, let alone pay me. Coyo7e posted:Wait until you run into a 55-65 year-old executive assistant who refuses to give a gently caress about learning the tools to do her own job...
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Oct 25, 2013 23:48
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evol262 posted:The idea that you have a supervisor who's "out to get you" is indicative of that, really. In "office politics", supervisors who are "out to get you" find reasons to write you up and fire you, and they're only "out to get you" if you make problems for them. Management is not vindictive. Management in an organization is not designed to be vindictive. Individual managers, however, absolutely can be; I've been the target of such myself, and I'm certain the only reason my boss didn't fire me was that I was the only one who could do the job on which he had staked his reputation. And being a narcissist, his problem with me took a backseat to his pet project getting out the door so he could look good. It could be that in Renegret's case, the supervisor isn't out to get him specifically, but is more disgruntled with the younger generation in general. The "your generation doesn't deserve social security" remark supports that, though that could just be your run of the mill conservative hypocrisy that you can find anywhere. The advice to keep your head down and go with the flow, doing only your own job, doesn't sit very well with me, though. If you want stability and you are content with your position in a company, sure. If you want to advance and get noticed, I like Teethgrinder's approach better (though it would have been appropriate to make a proposal first, if this was outside his normal duties). Yeah, when you make waves, it's going to piss some people off, but it may impress the important ones. Or in his case, he found out that nobody in the company with any power gave a poo poo, at which point he moved to a (presumably) better company.
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Oct 26, 2013 00:47
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Che Delilas posted:The advice to keep your head down and go with the flow, doing only your own job, doesn't sit very well with me, though. If you want stability and you are content with your position in a company, sure. If you want to advance and get noticed, I like Teethgrinder's approach better (though it would have been appropriate to make a proposal first, if this was outside his normal duties). Yeah, when you make waves, it's going to piss some people off, but it may impress the important ones. Or in his case, he found out that nobody in the company with any power gave a poo poo, at which point he moved to a (presumably) better company.
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Oct 26, 2013 01:15
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Renegret posted:This is my first real job as well, before this I was working retail. I'm by far the youngest person in my department by about seven years. My 18-24 year old retail co-workers were by far more mature and easier to work with than the 30-something married-with-kids in an office environment. I feel like in 10 years I'm going to have a similar story as teethgrinder. Take my advice and move now. Politics and "you should stay in a job a year" be dammed. You're doing nobody any favours staying on a course that makes you bitter.
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Oct 26, 2013 02:05
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Che Delilas posted:The advice to keep your head down and go with the flow, doing only your own job, doesn't sit very well with me, though. If you want stability and you are content with your position in a company, sure. If you want to advance and get noticed, I like Teethgrinder's approach better (though it would have been appropriate to make a proposal first, if this was outside his normal duties). Yeah, when you make waves, it's going to piss some people off, but it may impress the important ones. Or in his case, he found out that nobody in the company with any power gave a poo poo, at which point he moved to a (presumably) better company.
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Oct 26, 2013 04:16
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teethgrinder posted:I've been telling the story badly because ... I didn't expect this to blow up, and it was a while ago. I absolutely did make a proposal first before applying this to the active project. I figured out how to do it, documented it, demonstrated how quickly the work could be done to a variety of people at different levels. And the only reason I could go through with it, was because my immediate supervisor "got it". I sewed distrust and/or anger with everyone else for showing initiative. Yeah, sounds like you made the right choice to leave then. People like us who want to learn and grow and improve are anathema in an office full of people who just want to show up, put in their 8 hours, and go home to drink. After a point it becomes clear that there's no working within that system unless you want to become one of those people.
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Oct 26, 2013 04:35
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This thread is giving me flashbacks to my network support days. And for anyone who's in the know about this, I'm curious: When you have, say, pirated OS software on your work machines(as my company did) and it gets reported to the publisher, what happens to the company?
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Oct 26, 2013 05:14
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The Oncoming Storm posted:This thread is giving me flashbacks to my network support days.
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Oct 26, 2013 05:58
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TheHitman21 posted:They get the proverbial proctology exam and massive fines. And what happens if you tell them where they can shove their proverbial finger and say "no, you can't look at my computers."
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Oct 26, 2013 07:04
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stubblyhead posted:And what happens if you tell them where they can shove their proverbial finger and say "no, you can't look at my computers." They then find the squirrel route into your network with lots of lawyers you'll be paying for. Ever buy an MSDN subscription? Guess what, if that's linked to your business you just gave permission for an audit.
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Oct 26, 2013 07:26
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So at work we've managed to make a self-feeding cycle of despair that would be entertaining if we weren't in the middle of it. It is actually incredible how resilient it is. I think we are finally starting to reach the point where upper management is starting to figure out that saving money by keeping staff levels low will eventually bite you in the rear end.
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Oct 26, 2013 07:40
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Paladine_PSoT posted:They then find the squirrel route into your network with lots of lawyers you'll be paying for. Ever buy an MSDN subscription? Guess what, if that's linked to your business you just gave permission for an audit. You may have done, but I still don't see how Microsoft can compel a business to allow their representatives into the building. A civil contract doesn't override criminal law, so if they force their way in then it's still breaking and entering + trespassing.
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Oct 26, 2013 10:05
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rolleyes posted:You may have done, but I still don't see how Microsoft can compel a business to allow their representatives into the building. A civil contract doesn't override criminal law, so if they force their way in then it's still breaking and entering + trespassing. Might still be able to get a judge to issue an injunction to allow the reps into the building for an audit?
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Oct 26, 2013 12:29
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Also saying no to an audit is pretty much a red reg to a bull and will make whoever's behind it more determined to gently caress you over somehow.
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Oct 26, 2013 12:42
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And it will also open up the C levels and the board of directors for legal action too. Because everybody is used at people occasionally breaking laws in business, it just comes with the territory and as long as you aren't particularly malicious about it and accept your fine companies are usually let off with a slap on the wrist. But if you try to block investigations the lawyers will quickly throw accusations of intent at you and what may have once been cleared with a week's profit worth of fines now leads to jail sentences.
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Oct 26, 2013 12:52
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Also Microsoft is effectively a loving mafia in mamy regards (not literally) but will guaranteed bully the absolute poo poo out of your company to press for the audit. Historically from a legal perspective Microsoft will only mess with a company with the deck extremely stacked in their favor. So no, you don't have to allow their employees on your property but boy are they going to run up your company's bills intentionally through lawsuits or otherwise just to send the message of "get hosed".
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Oct 26, 2013 14:15
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Got an email around midnight that one of our managers was staying at an airbnb and his briefcase was stolen. Had his laptop in it. This person refuses to put his critical files on the network and when Syncback fails never lets me work on it. I've been warning him for three years that if he doesn't protect his files he'll be boned if his HD dies or he loses his laptop. Ah well. He made sure to copy in my old boss, the head of Ops when he sent the email, because of... reasons. Anyway I'm at work this fine Saturday morning prepping a replacement and this fuckhead refuses to reply to my emails, won't answer his cell and his mobile VM box is full. A slob in real life and in the virtual world. This is looking less and less like an urgent matter. I don't even know what city this shitbird is in to send him the laptop.
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Oct 26, 2013 18:03
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rolleyes posted:You may have done, but I still don't see how Microsoft can compel a business to allow their representatives into the building. A civil contract doesn't override criminal law, so if they force their way in then it's still breaking and entering + trespassing. I did not literally mean hacking, I meant that there are legal options available to compel because noone reads EULAs or contacts.
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Oct 26, 2013 22:40
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Got woken up by a text this morning from my manager to send an email about an event that hadn't even triggered an alert. I'm now calling these emails "apologizing for the rain" after this article http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2013/10/want-people-to-trust-you-try.html.
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Oct 26, 2013 23:27
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madsushi posted:CF, how is it that you are the architect of all of these complex enterprise systems, but you don't have enough autonomy to check a user's PC when you think there's a virus without asking your boss? I was recently told that I "Fix too many things myself" and "don't communicate to my other peers enough" So since my boss complained I need to route thing through him... It's great being told by the VP "Dilbert, you and $person$ hold more vmware/net/storage knowledge than anyone in the company, mind being a jack of all trades?" Side rant: It is great that people refuse any IP storage even if you prove them wrong. "well X was told to me by sales rep from intel so I will back that!" I really try to be more "here is the problem, here is what fixes it" but poo poo even students I teach are more receptive than some of my coworkers... Dilbert As FUCK fucked around with this message at 01:32 on Oct 27, 2013 |
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Oct 27, 2013 01:29
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evol262 posted:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. No really, tell me another one. Not all management is vindictive, but to blanket statement say that any management is not vindictive is bullshit.
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Oct 27, 2013 02:19
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Dick Trauma posted:He made sure to copy in my old boss, the head of Ops when he sent the email, because of... reasons. Anyway I'm at work this fine Saturday morning prepping a replacement and this fuckhead refuses to reply to my emails, won't answer his cell and his mobile VM box is full. A slob in real life and in the virtual world.
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Oct 27, 2013 04:30
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Yes! I spent a few hours prepping things, installing the special stuff the manager needs and getting his email and files synced up. I left around 11:30 and that's when he finally decided to start replying. I went home, came back around 2:30p and finished things up in time to get it all shipped off to him for Monday morning. I guess I'll leave work early Monday to balance things out. Shitbird aside he got drat good service from me, probably better than he'd have received at most places.
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Oct 27, 2013 04:46
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Gunjin posted:HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. No really, tell me another one. Not all management is vindictive, but to blanket statement say that any management is not vindictive is bullshit. Not all generalizations are equal. "Management is not vindictive" is a generalized statement which means "the interests of management align with the company more often than they're about having pissing matches with their subordinates". Some people, and hence some managers, are certainly vindictive people. "Management" as a whole doesn't refer to individual people. It refers to an organizational distinction.
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Oct 27, 2013 05:19
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evol262 posted:Not all generalizations are equal. "Management is not vindictive" is a generalized statement which means "the interests of management align with the company more often than they're about having pissing matches with their subordinates". Some people, and hence some managers, are certainly vindictive people. "Management" as a whole doesn't refer to individual people. It refers to an organizational distinction. I still agree with the people who have said that you can't expect that generalisation to be true, even when you're referring to "management, the process" rather than "management, the people". There are organisations out there which are outright hostile by policy to any of their staff below a certain level. These are usually minimum wage, unskilled jobs where they know that for every one of you there are two more waiting to be hired when they fire you, so they can hang the threat of losing your job over minor infractions over your head for the entire duration of your employment with them. Basically, call centres.
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Oct 27, 2013 11:15
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rolleyes posted:I still agree with the people who have said that you can't expect that generalisation to be true, even when you're referring to "management, the process" rather than "management, the people". rolleyes posted:There are organisations out there which are outright hostile by policy to any of their staff below a certain level. These are usually minimum wage, unskilled jobs where they know that for every one of you there are two more waiting to be hired when they fire you, so they can hang the threat of losing your job over minor infractions over your head for the entire duration of your employment with them. This is an entirely different argument. Vindictive isn't hostile, and hostile isn't vindictive, though there's overlap. "You're replaceable and we have no hesitation firing you" is not at all the same as "my boss is out to get me".
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Oct 27, 2013 17:33
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I've always operated on the assumption that my boss is out to get me, and if it turns out to not be true, well, then, it's a pleasant surprise. Paranoia has served me well over the last couple decades, so I see no reason to change how I operate.
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Oct 27, 2013 18:13
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evol262 posted:but good organizations And that's why the generalisation can't be taken as 100% true.
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Oct 27, 2013 18:25
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rolleyes posted:And that's why the generalisation can't be taken as 100% true. It's like you didn't even read the second half of the post. And generalizations are generally true. They are not tautologies. Please don't take generalized career/how to survive and advance in an office on environment advice as "he says bosses are nice in 100% of cases and mine wasn't!" evol262 fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Oct 27, 2013 |
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Oct 27, 2013 18:48
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