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The org chart thing might be an anti-union measure. You need to get a certain percentage of eligible employees to sign union cards in order to organize, and that's a lot harder to do if you don't know exactly how many people work there and under what titles.
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Dec 19, 2014 01:12
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Konstantin posted:The org chart thing might be an anti-union measure. You need to get a certain percentage of eligible employees to sign union cards in order to organize, and that's a lot harder to do if you don't know exactly how many people work there and under what titles. That wouldn't be more than a mild inconvenience to a decently organized union though. Union organizing was invented before computerized org charts.
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Dec 19, 2014 01:14
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Sydin posted:When I joined my company, I was curious about how far removed I was from the top. Only four spaces removed. Me -> Director -> VP -> CIO -> COO -> CEO. I told my buddy who works at a major bank, and he just gave me a death stare. rolleyes posted:Not only that, you can click any contact in Lync and see their direct reports, who they share a manager with, and who their direct manager is. You can then click anyone shown in that view and do exactly the same thing for them. This means:
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Dec 19, 2014 03:25
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ladyweapon posted:I just found out one of the vendors I loathe (because they're inefficient and terrible) has been charging us like 6-10x the going rate for a piece of software we use. They don't do anything with it, its just usage fees. I never looked into comparing rates because the company has been using them for years and my coworker usually haggles people about their pricing intermittently. This is like $5-7K per year we're about to save because I sent one email to the software manufacturer.
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Dec 19, 2014 05:45
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Sundae posted:Okay, serious question because I just don't get it: Why is our company org chart considered executive confidential?
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Dec 19, 2014 08:12
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Miss-Bomarc posted:Poaching. They're worried that some headhunter is going to get a list of who's at what roles and hire them all away to go work at a pharma startup for triple the salary, stock options, and no consent decree. I'd agree except that, if a significant proportion of their employee base was hired under the same conditions as Sundae, then they're already protected from that because they're literally operating a system of indentured servitude.
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Dec 19, 2014 08:49
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Corporate christmas cards are a reason to not want to work in corporate anymore. This one though, I really wonder what these people were thinking.. 
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Dec 19, 2014 13:25
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^^ We received some rather minimalistic templates from the communications team but I haven't seen anyone actually send one. If I received something like that though... Taliesyn posted:It still blows my mind that Sundae's employer can even operate with all the restrictions effectively banning the use of Excel. Well that's actually one thing they did that makes sense, I know I'd be about 200% happier if Excel didn't exist. Although yeah, the company would grind to a halt if that happened. Just checked our org chat, apparently they changed the system and you can't trace a path to an arbitrary employee, but it does show it to the top by default. Also, a few layers seem to have been cut out since I last checked it, and one VP will move out to another org effective Jan 1. So, it's me->manager->VP->VP->COO/SVP->CMO->CEO, and going to be me->manager->VP->COO/SVP->CMO->CEO! mobby_6kl fucked around with this message at 14:28 on Dec 19, 2014 |
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Dec 19, 2014 14:26
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Taliesyn posted:It still blows my mind that Sundae's employer can even operate with all the restrictions effectively banning the use of Excel. Honestly, for things where reliability and safety are critical, Excel blows. It has tons of unknown bugs and lots of weird behavior. Our software QA guys basically tell us to never make a large spreadsheet of any kind unless you can replicate the results in MATLAB and do sensitivity studies/testing. Honestly, I prefer using MATLAB anyway. If it's any kind of database it's probably better to use a more purpose-built piece of software.
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Dec 19, 2014 14:53
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Just got the news that my last day will be December 31st. HR doesn't want me to work in January because they would owe me vacation pay. gently caress corporate, on to better things.
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Dec 19, 2014 15:03
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Blindeye posted:Honestly, for things where reliability and safety are critical, Excel blows. It has tons of unknown bugs and lots of weird behavior. Our software QA guys basically tell us to never make a large spreadsheet of any kind unless you can replicate the results in MATLAB and do sensitivity studies/testing. Honestly, I prefer using MATLAB anyway. I'm not going to pretend that Excel is flawless, but then any sensible company would validate it for performing certain tasks and require a different/better software for the ones it might gently caress up. Sundae's complaint wasn't that he has a huge hardon for Excel, it was that his company has not validated any spreadsheet software, so he was/is stuck drawing tables by hand. Sure you don't trust excel with your sensitive calculations, that's cool, but I am pretty sure it is 100% safe to make a table in, and less error-prone than hand-copying them.
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Dec 19, 2014 15:42
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Jossos posted:Corporate christmas cards are a reason to not want to work in corporate anymore. They better be thinking that is the most loving amazing Christmas card of all time. I wish someone where I worked would straight up troll like that.
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Dec 19, 2014 22:48
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Ok, then I'll throw this little grenade out there... Ford is run basically via hundreds and hundreds of interlocked Excel workbooks. If MS ever stops publishing Excel, it might well kill Ford. That was even more interesting than when I was interviewing for BC/BS and discovered just how much they use MS Access internally. While the front end is really quite powerful (it's basically Visual Basic customized for databases), the actual database portion is sketchy enough I just never expected a company that large to use it like they do. Especially since like 95% of the people trying to use the program don't know the first thing about database design and make a bloody hash of it.
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Dec 20, 2014 01:15
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Taliesyn posted:Ok, then I'll throw this little grenade out there... The largest companies often use extremely outdated, inefficient, or totally hosed systems. You wouldn't believe the stuff for which my company uses excel. I actually wish I had the time or the resources to convert all of our stuff to Access because it would be a huge loving improvement. Another department is using something like 20+ linked Access databases to do things that should be managed by a real case management system. Another fun fact are the versions of IE we have to use because of how old some of our systems are. I'm on a major project to develop a new case management system (to replace the above mentioned 25 databases and our spiderweb of Excel sheets) and a serious consideration is that some of our international markets are still using IE 6 or earlier. Saltpowered fucked around with this message at 01:53 on Dec 20, 2014 |
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Dec 20, 2014 01:49
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I loving love working for a small company. We use google apps and everything is in ~the cloud~. We're revamping our internal sales process, and I'm in charge of the project. I get to call the VP of sales an idiot, to his face, because he doesn't actually understand what we do or how we do it. It's glorious.
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Dec 20, 2014 02:43
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a shameful boehner posted:So, I assume we all managed to survive the company holiday parties without much incident and all the requisite awkwardness. Every one got sick at my wife's Christmas party except for me because I didn't eat the vegetables! Armacham fucked around with this message at 03:58 on Dec 20, 2014 |
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Dec 20, 2014 03:55
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Armacham posted:Every one got sick at my wife's Christmas party except for me because I didn't eat the vegetables! I have real trouble partaking of all the goodies (especially homemade) that the nicer people in the office bring in on a regular basis, and this kind of thing is why. People don't know how to wash their loving hands.
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Dec 20, 2014 04:25
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The company that I work for is still using a mainframe database from the early 80s for a huge amount of work(Warehouse, merchandising, manufacturing, HR, etc.). There are still green CRT's everywhere and there really isn't a complete list of command keys. People just "know" the commands. There isn't any training involved and when I was hired I was just told to "figure it out".
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Dec 20, 2014 05:47
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AS/400 has about another hundred years of life left probably at this point.
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Dec 20, 2014 06:39
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rolleyes posted:I'd agree except that, if a significant proportion of their employee base was hired under the same conditions as Sundae, then they're already protected from that because they're literally operating a system of indentured servitude. G-Mach posted:The company that I work for is still using a mainframe database from the early 80s for a huge amount of work(Warehouse, merchandising, manufacturing, HR, etc.).
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Dec 20, 2014 07:10
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Peven Stan posted:AS/400 has about another hundred years of life left probably at this point. It's pre-AS/400 system.
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Dec 20, 2014 08:40
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SAP has got to be one of the biggest corporate boondoggles around considering the number of companies using it when SAP is totally inappropriate.
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Dec 20, 2014 12:44
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G-Mach posted:It's pre-AS/400 system. The place I worked as an intern between years at university 7 years ago had, I poo poo you not, a legacy system in the basement which used reel-to-reel tape. This was the backup for their modern system which had been bought in to replace it. The modern system was, yes, AS/400. It was accessed via a terminal emulator, a fairly recent improvement. Prior to that it had been accessed via dumb terminals, the serial cables and ancient sockets for which were still in the walls. The AS/400 was still on a token ring network, and required some sort of specialist router/switch to bridge it onto the main CAT-5 network so the terminal emulators could see it. Again, this was only 7 years ago.
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Dec 20, 2014 13:03
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Hands up if when you saw the bunker scene in Captain America 2, you thought "The Future!"
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Dec 20, 2014 19:17
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Lawlicaust posted:The largest companies often use extremely outdated, inefficient, or totally hosed systems. You wouldn't believe the stuff for which my company uses excel. Cheapskate midsize companies, too! I still have a tractor-fed dot matrix printer in my office and I pray every day for the loving thing to die already. We also use a database software built in 1992 which exports to Excel and WordPerfect. Law offices loving love WordPerfect.
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Dec 21, 2014 02:17
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Che Delilas posted:I have real trouble partaking of all the goodies (especially homemade) that the nicer people in the office bring in on a regular basis, and this kind of thing is why. People don't know how to wash their loving hands. Even better: it was catered at a country club.
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Dec 21, 2014 03:48
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One of the reasons I'm glad I left my last job 2 years ago is that they were still on an AS/400 with System 38 programs for some things. They also wanted me to learn to maintain their OPM COBOL programs. No thanks! I have to say though, the system itself was much more solid than our Windows 2000 servers 
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Dec 21, 2014 06:55
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BigFatFlyingBloke posted:SAP has got to be one of the biggest corporate boondoggles around considering the number of companies using it when SAP is totally inappropriate. We're in the midst of switching over to SAP and it's a glorious, glorious clusterfuck trying to shoehorn decades of Excel spreadsheets, Access Databases, custom internal apps, and arcane processes fully understood only by one semi-retired greybeard who probably makes more than his previous annual salary 'consulting' for us two days a week into SAP. Honestly, it's like a Dilbert cartoon around here. PHBs exhorting us to 'just figure it out', finance departments baulking at sending people on SAP training, and a looming deadline. I fully predict it'll be another year before we're close to going live (and it's already been a year).
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Dec 21, 2014 07:55
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Hugbot posted:Law offices loving love WordPerfect. My old title examination professor had a raging hard on for WordPerfect. I swear he mentioned it every drat day in class. He'd send all the assignments out in wpd too which would inevitably lead to someone (usually a mac user) being unable to do the assignment and losing their poo poo in class the next day.
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Dec 21, 2014 08:17
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modeski posted:We're in the midst of switching over to SAP and it's a glorious, glorious clusterfuck trying to shoehorn decades of Excel spreadsheets, Access Databases, custom internal apps, and arcane processes fully understood only by one semi-retired greybeard who probably makes more than his previous annual salary 'consulting' for us two days a week into SAP. Honestly, it's like a Dilbert cartoon around here. PHBs exhorting us to 'just figure it out', finance departments baulking at sending people on SAP training, and a looming deadline. I fully predict it'll be another year before we're close to going live (and it's already been a year). Switch to SAP for my current company took about five years and it's still causing problems. For a period of six months all order processing related activities had to be done using handwritten templates because SAP was so utterly borked. We also now have a corporate policy of not accepting Letters of Intent for no other reason than how much of a headache trying to put a change order through SAP is if there is a difference between whats entered for the LoI and the eventual order.
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Dec 21, 2014 13:52
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modeski posted:Honestly, it's like a Dilbert cartoon around here. PHBs exhorting us to 'just figure it out'... And then you get the people that say "Just Figure It Out!" (employee presents JFIO solution) "Actually, see if you can figure it out using the standard processes and tools because that's the line I've been ordered to push these days. The standard tool doesn't have that function? Don't bring me PROBLEMS, bring me SOLUTIONS!"
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Dec 21, 2014 21:47
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Miss-Bomarc posted:I always love (hate) when someone says "just figure it out!" Just Figure It Out is how we got the clusterfuck Excel-spreadsheet solution in the first place, rear end in a top hat. I get this all the time. "Well if you don't like it, why don't you come up with a better solution?" "Well, we can always do X. It's easier, cleaner, more straightforward, and just plain makes sense." "Nope, we're not doing X. No reason, we're just not. Stop being insubordinate and pushing the issue."
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Dec 22, 2014 03:14
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Funny y'all should mention PHB's and such. Adams must be reading the thread.  
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Dec 22, 2014 09:26
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Armacham posted:Even better: it was catered at a country club. I'm wondering if there might be legal ramifications in there someplace - a nice healthy bout of food poisoning can be fatal in some cases, especially for people at opposing ends of the age spectrum. Plus, a decent case of gastroenteritis will have employees out sick for up to a week, unless they're the hardcore types* who can manage working while taking frequent bathroom breaks when it's spraying out of both ends. * and it's so considerate these diligent employees making everyone else at the workplace sick as well - sharing is caring!
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Dec 22, 2014 19:07
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Drink and Fight posted:I loving love working for a small company. We use google apps and everything is in ~the cloud~. We're revamping our internal sales process, and I'm in charge of the project. I get to call the VP of sales an idiot, to his face, because he doesn't actually understand what we do or how we do it. It's glorious. Given what happened to my organization, gently caress the cloud forever. rolleyes posted:The place I worked as an intern between years at university 7 years ago had, I poo poo you not, a legacy system in the basement which used reel-to-reel tape. Also SAP is horrible because no company will ever buy enough modulus to make it work right plus a horrible outdated UI. I should not have to memories 100 different loving codes to access one thing that if you don't do it perfectly throws hours of work into nothingness. Sadly it's still better then all the other piece of poo poo business software. If a company ever makes a real working piece of business software they will make so much money.
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Dec 22, 2014 19:55
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sbaldrick posted:Also SAP is horrible because no company will ever buy enough modulus to make it work right plus a horrible outdated UI. I should not have to memories 100 different loving codes to access one thing that if you don't do it perfectly throws hours of work into nothingness. Usual response: 'well I know how to use it' ...to which my plaintive response is 'but you shouldn't have to know that the sun-behind-a-mountain 32x32 icon does that, it should be obvious from the icon what happens when you click on it. Otherwise it'd mean that you and only you knows what that does ohhhhh' Thus 'working your business software' becomes something you do, rather than something you use to get your real work - your actual purpose - done.
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Dec 22, 2014 20:40
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so I could say that I finally figured out what this god damned cube is doing. Get well Lowtax.
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spincube posted:Usual response: 'well I know how to use it' To those people I say "die in a loving fire" It's needing to find the command for that function that you do like once a year that shouldn't be hidden behind like 20 layers of bullshit to make it run, like printing off an old report.
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Dec 22, 2014 21:13
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sbaldrick posted:If a company ever makes a real working piece of business software they will make so much money. Anyone that doesn't use the software should not be the deciding factor in a purchase of an enterprise-wide rollout. In fact, different execs should just do bake-offs and let the vendors fight each other and identify users in pilot programs to lead the charge - these would be the experts that hate the existing solution the most. That model has worked ok for commercial software but has been basically collusion in most government software given there's so few players that are competing for the same contracts and the industry is so terribly regional, incestuous, and half the vendors are literally friends or business partners with the purchaser on the other side. The federal procurement laws are so backwards designed you'd think it was written by.... oh wait....
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Dec 22, 2014 21:29
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Dec 23, 2014 00:12
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Not realistic enough. The UI is too clean to be my company's ticketing system.
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Dec 23, 2014 00:23
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