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I'm almost done with my 2 weeks training as a computer hardware field technician. I service warranties on laptop and desktop computers at customers' homes and places of business. Prior to this, I was doing Android/iPhone/WP8/Blackberry tier 2 tech support for a call center. Today, we had a service request for a laptop needing a motherboard replacement whose notes said it had a 'damaged USB port'. Got onsite and looked at the laptop; the USB ports were fine, but the eSATA port wasn't. The user had jammed USB into the eSATA port. Yesterday we had a laptop with a broken LCD right where the lid hinge is located. Looked like someone had yanked real hard on the lid of the laptop without unlatching it first. There's this private school that we go to pretty much every day. Do not underestimate an elementary school child's ability to utterly trash a laptop. This job seems pretty fun so far. I think I'm going to enjoy it.
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Feb 20, 2014 08:30
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Lacrosse posted:I'm almost done with my 2 weeks training as a computer hardware field technician. I service warranties on laptop and desktop computers at customers' homes and places of business. Prior to this, I was doing Android/iPhone/WP8/Blackberry tier 2 tech support for a call center. Most laptop eSATA ports are also USB ports these days. We supported elementary schools where the laptops the students were supplied had accidental damage support. Laptop used for soccer target practice? No problem, have a new one!
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Feb 20, 2014 09:25
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Che Delilas posted:A really goddamn smart and progressive company full of educated, skilled employees who use their brains really hard all day, that's what kind. If a nap in the middle of the day helps them get their work done, they should be allowed and encouraged to take one. (Note: this assumes they don't need to cover a shift or something - I'm coming at this from a developer's perspective here) What do you do if your most productive developer is in the habit of taking a half-hour long nap in the middle of the day? Buy him a pillow.
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Feb 20, 2014 09:27
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Lacrosse posted:Do not underestimate an elementary school child's ability to utterly trash a laptop. Or middle schooler, high schooler, college student, graduate, or professional's. Everyone can trash laptops equal opportunity.
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Feb 20, 2014 09:28
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Che Delilas posted:Quiet room stuff My previous employer had a Quiet Room, and I've used it to nap. It was never indicated what it was to be used for. It was ~400 square feet, with lounge chairs, tables, and two sofas. I figured it was exactly that, a quiet room to relax and calm yourself for a bit after some particularly stressful or other lovely time. Some days where I wasn't particularly hungry, but wanted to use my lunch for a 30 minute nap, it was great. If that's what the purpose of the Quiet Room was, either it needs to be explained to employees or more explicitly labelled on the room. Though I worked there for 3 years and knew of nobody in the office who had a baby/was breast feeding.
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Feb 20, 2014 09:49
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Lord Dudeguy posted:Ok, I'll bite. What's wrong with this practice?
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Feb 20, 2014 09:54
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I couldn't figure out what the quiet room was for either, never come across that term for that purpose before and I'm female (though admittedly not American and don't have kids). If I had to come up with a specific purpose for a room named like that, I'd assume it was for people with autism to go and get away from loud and obnoxious co-workers for a bit. Would make sense in, say, a male-dominated dev shop.
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Feb 20, 2014 11:22
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Lum posted:I couldn't figure out what the quiet room was for either, never come across that term for that purpose before and I'm female (though admittedly not American and don't have kids). University's in the UK have quiet rooms - they tend to be used for the various requirements of differing religions, I'd never have thought of breast feeding, but then the UK has semi decent maternity leave. Edit just looked into it: "The University has identified a number of quiet rooms / spaces that can be used for individual prayer and reflection, meditation, contemplation or being quiet. The rooms have been made available in various buildings on both the xxxxx and xxxxxx Campuses." seadweller fucked around with this message at 12:27 on Feb 20, 2014 |
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Feb 20, 2014 12:25
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Yeah, my uni had a few quiet rooms. They were literally for use if you need a space to relax though.
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Feb 20, 2014 12:34
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To sum up, quiet room is a terrible terrible term for a place for new mothers to lactate in privacy. I wouldn't blame the chap who refused to leave the room unless the mother explicity said what the purpose of the room (Or what she wanted to do) is for. In other news, my company's received the third printer in a row that's DOA - NIC inside is bust and needs to be replaced. Argh.
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Feb 20, 2014 12:36
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DrAlexanderTobacco posted:To sum up, quiet room is a terrible terrible term for a place for new mothers to lactate in privacy. I wouldn't blame the chap who refused to leave the room unless the mother explicity said what the purpose of the room (Or what she wanted to do) is for. On the plus side, the idea of a 'quiet room' in the absolute face-value definition is a great one. When I am running the world, my MegaCorp will have empty rooms on every floor so that staff can get a break from the phones, and incessant chattering of colleagues.
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Feb 20, 2014 14:29
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Our quiet room is the bathroom stall.
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Feb 20, 2014 14:36
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GreenNight posted:Our quiet room is the bathroom stall. Our bathroom has a musical instrument customer testing room right next door. You can't even escape on the can. 
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Feb 20, 2014 14:44
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Re : Quiet Rooms, Etc. I was screamed at and sent away for daring to enter a classroom in an Elementary school that had a small sign that said "Occupied". Occupied. No poo poo, people are in classrooms sometimes. I'm coming in to do my job. The job that the building principal asked to have done. Apparently, "occupied" means breast pumping, now. Who knew? On top of that, it wasn't extremely prominent on the door front, because teachers love to decorate their loving doors of their classrooms. Should I now stop before entering any classroom I need to work in and read every magazine cutout, newspaper headline, kids' projects, etc. to confirm that there's not something that might imply the presence of an exposed titty? Edit : bonus points : the room was dark, and it was after school had let out. Go the gently caress home and do that. Nerdrock fucked around with this message at 15:25 on Feb 20, 2014 |
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Feb 20, 2014 15:20
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Also, what's the big deal? Oh no! He saw a breast! You no doubt don't give a crap, it's not something abnormal.
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Feb 20, 2014 15:31
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Right? I mean, they're great and all, but a titty just kind of loses it's flair when there's some sort of vacuum cleaner machine or whatever hooked up to it.
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Feb 20, 2014 15:42
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In our building, which we've pretty much completely taken over at this point, every floor has a "Mother's Room". I'd say aside from someone else's example of "Lactation Room", that's probably a straightforward way to go about naming things. It's also worth noting that our floor has no expectant mothers, and hasn't since the moment we built it out for our company. To the best of my knowledge, it's only been used for extramarital sex in the last two years.
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Feb 20, 2014 15:43
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There should be a room specifically for that too.
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Feb 20, 2014 15:43
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ExtraFox posted:It's also worth noting that our floor has no expectant mothers, and hasn't since the moment we built it out for our company. To the best of my knowledge, it's only been used for extramarital sex in the last two years.
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Feb 20, 2014 15:49
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Varkk posted:At first I was wondering the exact use for the quiet room and why a business would have one, then I was more confused by what kind of company allows people to nap while at work. The first part is explained, the second is not. I work in a cave complex and we have an old unused office on the far side of the thing. It's got a couch in it. If you go in there and shut the door, it's freakishly dark and scary quiet. I definitely will go in there and take a 15-20 minute snoozy on days when I am just not getting my poo poo together or after smashing my face into a problem for 2-3 hours. My boss is the one that told me about it and invited me to use it.
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Feb 20, 2014 15:49
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The closest we get is a restroom that locks. Or the super-secret restroom off of the presidential conference room down the hall.
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Feb 20, 2014 16:14
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stupid Project Manager tricks, today's edition. I sent an email basically stating, "This task is now completed. I spoke with the customer and they are satisfied with how this works now." the response? My email above, quoted, with this response: "Is this done yet? Please call the customer when it's done to make sure they are ok with the new setup once done."
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Feb 20, 2014 16:16
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AlternateAccount posted:I work in a cave complex and we have an old unused office on the far side of the thing. It's got a couch in it. If you go in there and shut the door, it's freakishly dark and scary quiet. I definitely will go in there and take a 15-20 minute snoozy on days when I am just not getting my poo poo together or after smashing my face into a problem for 2-3 hours. Let me have your boss. Please.
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Feb 20, 2014 16:24
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AlternateAccount posted:I work in a cave complex and we have an old unused office on the far side of the thing. It's got a couch in it. If you go in there and shut the door, it's freakishly dark and scary quiet. I definitely will go in there and take a 15-20 minute snoozy on days when I am just not getting my poo poo together or after smashing my face into a problem for 2-3 hours. The support department here has a room off the main pit that used to be my office until I moved out here onto my Ominous Platform. When we hire a new tech and I take them through, I specifically inform them that if they don't know what the gently caress and need like a half hour to get their brain together, go in there and sleep. There's two beds, a couch, and no windows.
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Feb 20, 2014 16:43
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We used to be OK with people taking naps as long as their stuff got done, until one of the rear end in a top hat managers a few years ago fired a narcoleptic for it. This was teh same rear end in a top hat manager that wouldnt hire a deaf person because "he needs to be on phones" (never mind he was good enough that we'd have used IM or a relay service for him)
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Feb 20, 2014 16:47
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dogstile posted:Let me have your boss. Please. I won't have him for much longer. After the buyout he's only contracted thru June. Same boss also said, "I don't care when you come in or really how many hours you work. 20 or 40, no difference as long as you meet your responsibilities. If you take a day off, just tell me. I don't care why or what the reasoning is, you're not asking for my approval. Just keep me informed." Yeah. I am going to have a real hard time getting back into the normal job market. :\
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Feb 20, 2014 16:47
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skooky posted:Is there some SLA in your contract which states you'll receive on-site same-day modem replacement? If not, why didn't your engineer just go on-site with a replacement modem in the first place if the issue could have been resolved in 15 minutes? Yep, we have an agreement with CenturyLink that if their hardware is at fault, they send it out same day from a local depot. Half the problem was the outsourced support CL uses, and they're either stubborn or just plain stupid when it comes to sending stuff out or cooperating with us or the client. Unfortunately, we don't have replacement modems on hand in our offices because of the SLA agreements we have with many ISPs, so that cost extra time...which I suppose we could plan for later, but honestly, we shouldn't have to deal with stubborn half-wit ISP tech support that's been outsourced to India and can't get it through their thick skulls to call a depot and have a modem shipped when it's in the agreement to do so.
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Feb 20, 2014 16:51
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/\/\/\/\ Sounds like someone needs to have a breach of contract lawsuit against them then.AlternateAccount posted:I won't have him for much longer. After the buyout he's only contracted thru June. Sounds like the next 2 people up the totem pole from me. As long as everything is taken care of, could not give 2 shits how, and believe in shielding the department from company politics and the stupid finger pointing that goes on on top of that. It does a huge amount to make up for being paid significantly below industry averages in my state. I love my bosses 
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Feb 20, 2014 16:54
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I'm really wary of any kind of open naptime or "fun in the workplace" policy because it just gives them a convenient excuse to make you practically live at work. Facebook campus is full of games, bands, food, and fun things but gently caress you if you're leaving before 8pm. If it's a normal 9-5 and you can do this stuff, then your boss's boss needs to get his poo poo together because it's not that hard to go 100% for 8 hours
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Feb 20, 2014 17:05
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Roargasm posted:then your boss's boss needs to get his poo poo together because it's not that hard to go 100% for 8 hours Yes, because wandering off for 15 minutes or closing your eyes for that time is INEFFICIENT!!! Give me a break, I am glad I don't work for you.
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Feb 20, 2014 17:14
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Roargasm posted:I'm really wary of any kind of open naptime or "fun in the workplace" policy because it just gives them a convenient excuse to make you practically live at work. Facebook campus is full of games, bands, food, and fun things but gently caress you if you're leaving before 8pm. If it's a normal 9-5 and you can do this stuff, then your boss's boss needs to get his poo poo together because it's not that hard to go 100% for 8 hours Or you know, happy people are more productive and efficient, and being treated like a human instead of a number leads to a more productive and profitable company. But hey, let's ignore hundreds of years of psychology!
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Feb 20, 2014 17:17
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AlternateAccount posted:Yes, because wandering off for 15 minutes or closing your eyes for that time is INEFFICIENT!!! Give me a break, I am glad I don't work for you. Seconded. It's well documented that people simply can't "go 100%" for 8 hours and that taking short breaks is a good way to restore productivity and concentration, so is actually much more efficient. There isn't really room for argument on this any more, there have been enough studies. Any management chaining people to their desk with no breaks is management which is shooting itself and its own bottom line in the foot.
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Feb 20, 2014 17:19
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Roargasm posted:I'm really wary of any kind of open naptime or "fun in the workplace" policy because it just gives them a convenient excuse to make you practically live at work. Facebook campus is full of games, bands, food, and fun things but gently caress you if you're leaving before 8pm. If it's a normal 9-5 and you can do this stuff, then your boss's boss needs to get his poo poo together because it's not that hard to go 100% for 8 hours Honestly, on helldesk right now and its been one of those weeks where something has gone wrong on an install and i'm the poor bastard dealing with the fallout. After four hours of customers calling you incompetent, you tend to need a break so you don't smash something to pieces. AlternateAccount posted:Same boss also said, "I don't care when you come in or really how many hours you work. 20 or 40, no difference as long as you meet your responsibilities. If you take a day off, just tell me. I don't care why or what the reasoning is, you're not asking for my approval. Just keep me informed." This is how I think it should work, although I realise how rare it is. If I get put into a job where i'm expected to do x task in y amount of time and I get done early, if there is nothing else to do then why am I at my desk? Either give me something to do or let me go hang out around town or go home (if they need me to be close by just in case, sure, i'll stick around). Being sat at my desk with nothing to do saps my energy more than working does. So long as the employee doesn't abuse the trust AlternateAccount's boss has shown, I imagine i'd even consider coming in early for gently caress all pay and helping out. Respect goes a long way. I've only been paid to work at two places. The last place only paid me the bare minimum but they gave me a lot of freedom, so i'd even stay 2 hours late to finish something and wouldn't ask for overtime, because i'd get to go home early if I finished early.
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Feb 20, 2014 17:21
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Yeah, I am salaried, so it's a bit easier. And I don't mind being here for 40 hours. If I "run out" of things to do, which isn't really super common, it's general research time. Learn something new, read a book about something you didn't know, etc.
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Feb 20, 2014 17:32
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loving application teams. When you're generating a gig of logs an hour, you should probably monitor the space available, and maybe, I dunno, do what you said you would 2 months ago and set up a job to ship the loving things to the log backup server. Maybe loving zip them up, I don't know, I'm not a log wizard. What you absolutely shouldn't do is have your manager complain to his manager, about how the platform team (me) isn't giving you the support you need. And you absolutely, 100% for sure, completely totally should loving NOT blame me for the outage on your stupid bullshit system, because I have notes and emails, rear end in a top hat, and I will throw you under a different, larger, angrier bus than the one you just tried to throw me under.
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Feb 20, 2014 17:40
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Tell us how you really feel.
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Feb 20, 2014 17:41
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GreenNight posted:Tell us how you really feel. Current Mood: Annoyed, Homicidal,  Roughly in that order.
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Feb 20, 2014 17:49
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ratbert90 posted:... and being treated like a human instead of a number leads to a more productive and profitable company. This is the main point. People are different, and you're going to get the best work out of them in different ways. Some people need to have their day filled and can just kind of march on steadily. Some people have to take lots of breaks but get a ton of work done over shorter periods of time. The problem is that managers have to treat these people like individuals, and that takes effort. Most of them tend to have the mentality that we're all factory workers. Whistle blows, start shift, whistle blows, eat lunch, whistle blows, resume shift, whistle blows, go home. Butt in the chair. 40 hours in a work week. Shift. Shift. Shift. Obviously if someone is getting everything done in 20 hours when you expected 40, that bears examining. Why is he getting things done that quickly? Is all his stuff the easy grunt work while the guy spending twice as long assigned to all the brain-crushing problems? What about their environments? Is the "slow" guy being interrupted every 5 minutes while the fast guy isn't? Or is one guy just that much more productive than your others? Or you know, just pile work on the 20 hour guy. Maybe you'll get lucky and the answer was he really didn't have enough to do. Or maybe it could be something else, and the manager just drove one of their best employees to burnout by being a lazy, factory shift boss instead of a problem-solving manager of skilled professionals.
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Feb 20, 2014 17:58
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I guarantee that someone going 100% for 8 hours every day is punching out poo poo work
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Feb 20, 2014 18:10
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go3 posted:I guarantee that someone going 100% for 8 hours every day is punching out poo poo work Or they're on crack
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Feb 20, 2014 18:18
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