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MC Fruit Stripe posted:I've been put into a position of authority, over a few people who don't feel like I deserve it and who have no incentive to listen to me. Awesome. Time to lay down the law and start replacing the deadwood.
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Aug 22, 2014 17:16
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Sickening posted:I have never personally keyed a car. I would guess though that people who park like that basically ask for their car to be keyed. I just never understood the thought process. I think it's either people being so oblivious they don't realize how horribly they parked, or they just don't care. I don't know who the person is in this Lincoln Navigator who parks like a prick all the time, but god damnit I want to camp out in the parking lot just to see their stupid face. I wouldn't go so far as to key their car, but I'm considering writing a lengthy note with diagrams on how to correctly park, and that the white lines are supposed to be parallel on each side of your car. Edit: That spray on chalk might also do the trick. Just paint a white line down their car where the markers are on the pavement.
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Aug 22, 2014 17:30
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So I was reviewing the web proxy policies today to upgrade from GFI Webmonitor 2012 to 2013. I need to find the ticket for whoever the hell put the first two allow entries in:
Ahdinko fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Aug 22, 2014 |
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Aug 22, 2014 17:34
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Spazz posted:I think it's either people being so oblivious they don't realize how horribly they parked, or they just don't care. I don't know who the person is in this Lincoln Navigator who parks like a prick all the time, but god damnit I want to camp out in the parking lot just to see their stupid face. Just leave a note saying "sorry about the dent!"
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Aug 22, 2014 17:35
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Sirotan posted:How exactly do people think they can "quit" a job by emailing the whole company to say goodbye without talking to HR first? Uh yeah seeya, we don't have your laptop so I hope you didn't expect to get that last paycheck. Pretty sure this is universally illegal in the US. You cannot withhold pay for basically any reason at all. If he had a billion dollars worth of your poo poo in his garage, you'd still have to pay him as usual.
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Aug 22, 2014 17:36
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baquerd posted:Time to lay down the law and start replacing the deadwood. Come now, you don't think "authority" actually implies any kind of actual power, do you? Sirotan posted:It got to the point that I was coming in on a Sunday to scrub down the fridge and throw out 80% of it's contents. It's me, I'm the fridge nazi. If I worked in the same place you do, I would have to bring you large quantities of flowers and/or alcohol, depending on your preference. I hate it when people can't clean up after themselves, especially in space shared by alleged adult professionals.
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Aug 22, 2014 17:44
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AlternateAccount posted:Pretty sure this is universally illegal in the US. You cannot withhold pay for basically any reason at all. If he had a billion dollars worth of your poo poo in his garage, you'd still have to pay him as usual. Pretty much. Lots of companies still put threats about that stuff in their employee handbook but I would assume that very few actually try to garnish wages. My wife is at teacher for a charter school and the owner regularly threatens to dock pay for salaried people who work partial days without vacation balances. Being that this owner has a law degree I would assume that this person doesn't really believe that she can do it. My wife has been put into situations where she might have attempted to deduct her pay and didn't so I assume its just hot air. These are all protected by federal labor laws and are basically slam dunks.
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Aug 22, 2014 17:49
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MC Fruit Stripe posted:I've been put into a position of authority, over a few people who don't feel like I deserve it and who have no incentive to listen to me. Awesome. Time to do the opposite of everything you've ever read in this thread: Listen and support your direct reports. Screen them from bullshit. Give them opportunities for input and let them see you act on that input. Praise loudly and in public. Discipline quietly and in private. Allow your team to fail and learn from those failures. Encourage all of them to grow and to be working towards their next opportunity- even if it's with another company. Stomp hard on gossip, backstabbing and other quabbles. Read the poo poo out of Managing Humans. Remember: We as IT folk allow ourselves to be led by those we respect and admire. Be the person you would respect and admire and they'll follow you willingly. No "laying down the law" required. Agrikk fucked around with this message at 18:38 on Aug 22, 2014 |
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Aug 22, 2014 18:14
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Che Delilas posted:I hate it when people can't clean up after themselves, especially in space shared by alleged adult professionals. I was out of the office most of the day on Wednesday. When I came in there was an empty, apart from the bones & napkins, 21 piece chicken wing bucket from Dominos on my desk. This was put there by the business owner as my desk is directly outside of his office. poo poo like that pisses me off, I dumped it on his wife's desk to get him in trouble. I really should just have put it back in his office.
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Aug 22, 2014 18:22
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Che Delilas posted:If I worked in the same place you do, I would have to bring you large quantities of flowers and/or alcohol, depending on your preference. I hate it when people can't clean up after themselves, especially in space shared by alleged adult professionals. All I got was one extremely corpulent individual yelling at me that I threw out her butter. 
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Aug 22, 2014 18:26
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Sirotan posted:All I got was one extremely corpulent individual yelling at me that I threw out her butter. How dare you throw out my lunch! 
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Aug 22, 2014 18:42
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I wanna know how dope that butter was. It has to be pretty special for someone to go into a diabetic rage over it.
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Aug 22, 2014 19:32
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Should thou'st violate the sanctity of thine brethrens refrigerator, thou only violates himself. We once trialled a badass fresh coffee making machine with a neat colour LCD screen, it lasted a week before being returned because people were blowing through something like 12 pints of milk a day, and nobody gave a gently caress about maintaining it and keeping it clean. Lots of people are just dirty loving hogs and are why we can't have nice things.
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Aug 22, 2014 20:23
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MC Fruit Stripe posted:I've been put into a position of authority, over a few people who don't feel like I deserve it and who have no incentive to listen to me. Awesome. I'd double-check with your boss to make sure you have the necessary power to discipline and/or fire non- or under-performers (and if I didn't have it I'd drop the position post-haste) before having a "Come-To-Jesus" meeting with all members of your team. Bring with you a write-up form filled out and signed so that when the first jackass smarts off or acts up you can hand him/her the form and tell them to come see you after the meeting for their disciplinary sit-down, and then ask if there was anyone else who would like to express their disdain for their new manager. Then thank them for their attention and let them know that if they have any concerns you will be happy to speak with them about it and that you hope everyone has a wonderful day. The sad thing is that's the exact same way I used to deal with high school students back when I taught. Just because I was fresh meat didn't mean I was going to let them chew me up.
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Aug 22, 2014 20:41
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My top priority right now is fixing my boss' personal laptop whose HDD failed. After recovering whatever super-important photos she needed from her desktop, I sent her a couple options for SSDs on Amazon. This was her response:quote:Get [CFO] to charge this on his card.. I just need this computer fixed and back to me It's constantly "JUST FIX IT" with her. Nevermind the fact that this computer has never and will never be used for work purposes, just spend the company's money and fix it. Nevermind that I have plenty of better poo poo to do that actually impacts our employees right now.
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Aug 22, 2014 21:00
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Agrikk posted:Time to do the opposite of everything you've ever read in this thread: Funny thing is that this also applies for those on the dark side of consulting. Every time I've had a difficult jackhole of a client, basically being an advocate for them in public, drawing them towards "Lets focus on being productive for the sake of the project" the rest of the time, and by the end of the project they've usually at least backed off fighting you, and in some cases I've had them come around and return praise to my own management. Its a strange beast, being a not-boss-but-telling-you-what-to-do.
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Aug 22, 2014 21:00
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wa27 posted:My top priority right now is fixing my boss' personal laptop whose HDD failed. After recovering whatever super-important photos she needed from her desktop, I sent her a couple options for SSDs on Amazon. This was her response: My reply would be something along the lines of: Sorry, but that is theft of company property and resources. I will not be working on non-company property while on the clock nor will I be using company funds to replace hardware on non-company hardware. I would do this through email as well, so as to CYA.
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Aug 22, 2014 21:11
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Boss's kid got moved to a new department a couple weeks ago. Held a meeting to basically say they want laptops (we just bought them Dell Precision desktops to run Solidworks on). They want laptops (he asked for 17" ones) but not workstations. They are going to SHARE one computer to run Solidworks on (saving money because we now only need one license!) and then use the laptops for everything else. Specced him out a T540 and T440 (i7, 8GB, 256GB SSD, 1080 screens, around $2,000) so I'm just waiting for him to write back saying DELL HAS LAPTOPS FOR $800! They don't travel. It will go from a desk to a conference room and MAYBE out on the plant floor. He really just wants to use it as a toy. Fucker. Bob Morales fucked around with this message at 21:42 on Aug 22, 2014 |
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Aug 22, 2014 21:13
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TWBalls posted:My reply would be something along the lines of: That would be the right thing, but she's the CEO and that definitely wouldn't end well for me. I made sure my supervisor and the CFO who's making the purchase know it's for her personal use, and that I wasn't happy about spending time on it. Her orders were through email so I'm just going to get it done and forget about it. I'm sure if she needed to, she could just say she uses it to connect remotely from home.
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Aug 22, 2014 21:22
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Oh. When you said boss, I assumed you meant your manager/director. I was in that same predicament at the last facility I was at. After having to fix the CEO's son & daughters systems for the umpteenth time without any kind of compensation or even so much as a Thank You, I finally told my boss (I.S. director) that I wasn't going to do it anymore. I'm sure that had something to do with me being the first in my department to be let go when the hospital was closing, but by then I didn't care.
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Aug 22, 2014 21:35
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Daylen Drazzi posted:I'd double-check with your boss to make sure you have the necessary power to discipline and/or fire non- or under-performers (and if I didn't have it I'd drop the position post-haste) before having a "Come-To-Jesus" meeting with all members of your team. Bring with you a write-up form filled out and signed so that when the first jackass smarts off or acts up you can hand him/her the form and tell them to come see you after the meeting for their disciplinary sit-down, and then ask if there was anyone else who would like to express their disdain for their new manager. Then thank them for their attention and let them know that if they have any concerns you will be happy to speak with them about it and that you hope everyone has a wonderful day. Holy poo poo that's a terrible idea. IMO all that would do is breed resentment and accelerate the team's decay. Students have to put up with this. Employees don't. They'll fall in line, sure - But if any one of them has an inkling of sense they'll be doing the bare minimum while they look for new jobs. Praise in public, reprimand in private. In conclusion DrAlexanderTobacco fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Aug 22, 2014 |
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Aug 22, 2014 21:48
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DrAlexanderTobacco posted:Holy poo poo that's a terrible idea. IMO all that would do is breed resentment and accelerate the team's decay. Yeah, that's an atrocious idea.
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Aug 22, 2014 21:54
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DrAlexanderTobacco posted:Holy poo poo that's a terrible idea. IMO all that would do is breed resentment and accelerate the team's decay. He's already said that the team members feel that he didn't deserve the position and have no incentive to listen to him. What else (and I'm seriously curious to know since I'm not a manager) can you do in that situation that doesn't have you appearing to be a doormat or petty, power-tripping dictator from the first day?
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Aug 22, 2014 22:49
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Daylen Drazzi posted:He's already said that the team members feel that he didn't deserve the position and have no incentive to listen to him. What else (and I'm seriously curious to know since I'm not a manager) can you do in that situation that doesn't have you appearing to be a doormat or petty, power-tripping dictator from the first day? How does bringing a pre-signed write-up slip and waving it at people not make you look like a petty, power-tripping dictator? That's the absolute epitome of "If you don't listen to me, you'll get in trouble!" If that's the only reason your subordinates are listening to you, you're already screwed.
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Aug 22, 2014 22:59
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I won't lie, if I had my way I'd fire one of these people on the spot, and rehire him the next day just so I could fire him again. But the world doesn't work like that, and sometimes the piece of poo poo you've got is better than the piece of poo poo you don't, or however the saying goes.
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Aug 22, 2014 23:14
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Honestly, I'd raise your concerns to your manager and if they don't provide some feedback or suggestions, find another job. I know that's a common thing to say, but that bad blood doesn't go away. Where I used to work a guy was promoted into the shift senior job ahead of a few other people who had more time there* and they held a grudge until they left. There's still people there almost 4 years later who resent him for it. * The current shift senior broke his elbow in a bad way and was out on medical leave for a few months. He stepped up and took over his responsibilities, and that's why he was promoted. He did it right, but because nobody else was smart enough to think of it first, he got the promotion and they were bitter over it.
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Aug 22, 2014 23:41
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Maybe the well is already too poisoned for this, but I think your best course is just to do what you can with what you have. Sometimes lovely employees have to be fired, but now that you're supervising people you need to focus on getting them to take care of business, not replacing them. You will be in a much better place mentally and professionally if you start from the assumption that they are competent and want to do good work, true or not. If they really do need to go, and it turns out that that is your decision -- it probably isn't -- you can start documenting in preparation, but for now if you start publicly complaining about the people you're supervising, it will reflect badly on you. One of the worst jobs I ever had had what I still think is a brilliant policy -- no blaming anyone else for anything, ever, no matter how at fault they are, anywhere in the company. You could be terminated on the spot for violating that policy. It cuts out the backbiting bullshit and forces you to focus on addressing the task at hand going forward.
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Aug 22, 2014 23:55
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My friend has upper management who are a bunch of pretentious children that produce poo poo work, are condescending, and do everything at the literal last minute. This crew has been in for about a year now and it's already bleeding down onto the rest of the staff, many of whom have been there for 10+ years. Culture is everything
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Aug 23, 2014 00:06
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Comradephate posted:How does bringing a pre-signed write-up slip and waving it at people not make you look like a petty, power-tripping dictator? In that context then yes, you're right. I suppose your suggestion for a better way of handling it would be telling the offending individual to stay behind after the meeting and ripping them a new rear end in private? Then afterwards it's their option to relate what went down to everyone else, since it's not like it will stay confidential for long. I can see how that might be a better approach.
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Aug 23, 2014 01:40
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Daylen Drazzi posted:In that context then yes, you're right. I suppose your suggestion for a better way of handling it would be telling the offending individual to stay behind after the meeting and ripping them a new rear end in private? Then afterwards it's their option to relate what went down to everyone else, since it's not like it will stay confidential for long. I can see how that might be a better approach. I think the argument is more that asserting your authority by doing poo poo like this (whether publicly or privately, since as you said, it'll get around) is a terrible way to take over a team. Meet with your juniors/reports as a team, then one-on-one to set expectations and reinforce the handover. No biases from before. Then go through the normal disciplinary chain. It's like parenting. Having a stable, consistent manager solves a lot of problems. See also the previous comments about a manager's job being shielding your team from company politics (and shielding the company from team members sending snippy emails). Don't rip anyone a new rear end in a top hat. At all. If you want them to quit or to fire them, wait for them to gently caress up then verbally warn, then written, etc. Don't be a dick. Follow policy. Failure is just as embarrassing as "being ripped a new rear end in a top hat", and HR gives a poo poo about hostile work environments and the perception of bias in wrongful termination. Be a grown up. Somebody already likes you better. That's why they plucked you up and put you in charge. They probably didn't do it expecting you'd treat it like you're a DI. It's not doing anyone any favors to come in like it's occupied territory or feeling like you need to leave your mark.
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Aug 23, 2014 02:03
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I'm going in tomorrow to perform a *~/Data Center\~* move (Moving a rack of servers from one building to another.) No we can't do it any other day. Yes I have to come in on a Saturday
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Aug 23, 2014 04:20
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This is my second Saturday in a row. Joy.
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Aug 23, 2014 04:28
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QuiteEasilyDone posted:I'm going in tomorrow to perform a *~/Data Center\~* move (Moving a rack of servers from one building to another.)
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Aug 23, 2014 05:53
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This weekend is my second weekend off in a row, which is awesome. Might even get the next couple off as well, if I'm lucky. I'll be making up for it with an 8PM-Saturday-till-6AM-Sunday maintenance project at the end of September and then another 9AM to midnight Saturday and Sunday monitoring shift at the beginning of October though. Man, I wish we got comp time... 
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Aug 23, 2014 06:18
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dennyk posted:This weekend is my second weekend off in a row, which is awesome. Might even get the next couple off as well, if I'm lucky. I'll be making up for it with an 8PM-Saturday-till-6AM-Sunday maintenance project at the end of September and then another 9AM to midnight Saturday and Sunday monitoring shift at the beginning of October though. Man, I wish we got comp time... Are you salaried? I am and I pretty much say, "OK, I'm on call for a change this weekend in case someone fucks up. So, if I get called we'll figure 2hrs comp for every one hour I work". I didn't ask, I just said it like I assumed I'd get it (not really demanding). Manager never blinked. Everyone in my group does this. I'm not 100% sure, because I never had to deal with someone forcing me to work unpaid/uncomped overtime, but I think if if it were me I'd have a sit down with my manager. I'd talk about work-life balance and how *everyone's* morale and productivity suffer when being constantly overworked. I'd also point out that when I was hired my salary reflected 40 hours of work a week (or 37.5 depending). If that doesn't work, you can try threatening to walk. Depending on your level of expertise you may be able to get away with it. Regardless, if you get no satisfaction, start casting the net for a new position. Yes, there's a dearth of entry-level jobs, but for SME's or other types of workers of that level with a little work and networking you can find something relatively quickly. Even "intermediate" type positions can be found if relocation is a possiblity. Believe me, the jobs are out there. Hell, it took us 4 months to fill a req for another team member because we just could *not* get enough qualified applicants.
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Aug 23, 2014 19:40
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Never threaten to walk. You can communicate your unhappiness in a plethora of ways that a boss with a few brain cells will interpret as "this guy is gonna quit soon if something doesn't change," without resorting to ultimatums. Make sure your situation is clear with your boss, that your personal life is suffering "too much," or you can't take any more of these weekends, or otherwise goes beyond "I don't like this" to "this situation is something I can no longer endure." If they are too dumb to interpret that message correctly, or if they get it but still keep abusing you, that's when you start looking for a new job.
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Aug 24, 2014 04:13
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Yep, I'm salaried. Luckily, my manager and director are really good about letting us take a few hours or a day here or there, as long as we don't abuse it, and we don't have a company-wide system to track time off, so I've managed to sneak in an occasional extra day off (though since we only officially get two weeks vacation plus a handful of national holidays, it still doesn't add up to much). On the corporate level, though, there's officially no such thing as comp time and the general expectation from above seems to be that you'll be in at your usual time Monday morning to start a full week of work even if you worked through the entire previous weekend. Not all the managers are so lenient, either, so on some teams there are folks who pretty much put in 60+ hours a week every week until they finally burn out. One thing keeping me here is that my direct boss and the director above him (the guy I started out working for before he got promoted) are both great managers and good people, and our entire team is an awesome group of folks to work with. I probably could find another job fairly easily, if it came to that (quite a few years of Linux sysadmin experience at big companies, and the job market for Unix admins is pretty hot in Atlanta these days), but I really do enjoy my job here overall, aside from the whole after-hours-with-no-compensation thing. We are bringing a junior-level Linux admin on board really soon, too; right now it's basically just me and one other guy (and he spends almost all his time and most of his overtime hours working on our enormous system monitoring platforms except when he's covering for me while I'm out) so having another guy to share some of the after-hours workload should help. And maybe one of these days our boss can finally convince corporate to hire some college kids for an actual 24/7 NOC instead of dumping that duty on our team on top of our normal work; those monitoring shifts are the biggest pain because you're literally working 15 hours a day for seven days straight and basically can't go anywhere except the office for the entire week.
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Aug 24, 2014 04:17
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That's one of the reason I love the company and client I work for. I'm hourly and they are very generous with the way on call is done. If I get called, from the time I get called to the time I resolve the issue/give up, I get paid. If I have to come in, travel time is on the clock all the way to the time I get back home. If I drive to the offsite location (which is a maddening 90 miles away), I can charge travel time and mileage. I think once you get to applications or network, they put you on salary, but support is non-exempt still. The network guys don't seem to bitch about comp time too much so I assume they take care of them on that front. Seems like everytime I turn around one of them is on vacation. So there's hope out there if you can get a gig like that. I may not be paid quite as much as a comparable position, but they make it worth my while.
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Aug 24, 2014 04:43
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How petulant would I be if I declared that all VMs in all environments now go through me? You come to me with the VM you want to create, you describe it, and I will tell you what specs to give it. That way I can stop seeing full datastores and WSUS boxes with 16GB of memory. I've been waiting for people to learn but my god they're just not going to.
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Aug 24, 2014 15:13
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MC Fruit Stripe posted:How petulant would I be if I declared that all VMs in all environments now go through me? You come to me with the VM you want to create, you describe it, and I will tell you what specs to give it. That way I can stop seeing full datastores and WSUS boxes with 16GB of memory. I've been waiting for people to learn but my god they're just not going to. Doing it for them won't teach them either. Over subscribing memory isn't that big of an offense, but it sounds like how they're using the datastores is. When I took over my group, I did a review of each environment, explained to the group what needed to be changed and why, then set deadlines. It's been my experience that once you start thinking for someone, not only do they stop, but they will blame you for their oversights since you weren't there to instruct them.
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Aug 24, 2014 15:37
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