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YeahTubaMike posted:I'm sorry if I missed this, but does anyone else work at a company where they hired waves and waves of new people so it ended up that there were whole departments of people who had -- at most -- 4-ish months of experience? As of right now, we still haven't hired a manager for the team. Nobody in the agency really has any idea what we actually do. The team itself is heavily siloed, to the point where I only have vague ideas of what the other folks' day to day duties are. We're supposed to provide support and testing for our custom-built system that was only switched over from a COBOL mainframe in 2020. When we do hire a manager, we'll have to "train" them, and I put that in quotation marks because since me and the other guy only got 1-2 months of any real instruction we really don't know wtf is going on. Plus we have to hire a new person to replace the lady who's retiring. I was supposed to learn a portion of her job duties so I could teach the new person how to do them, except there's been a fuckup in another agency and our database isn't properly communicating with their database so we haven't been able to do any real work for like 2 weeks. Compound that with our stupid Republican legislature passing a new law that says anyone hired for a managerial position after July 1st will be at-will so the only applicants will be desperate or insane. There's literally no manual or policy on how to do our jobs - everything has been imparted by word of mouth and then people write stuff down. Most times when I'm trying to figure out how to do something I have to go digging through ex-employees notes saved on a drive somewhere and hope they make sense to me  So yeah, I get where you're coming from.
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May 27, 2022 17:35
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YeahTubaMike posted:I'm sorry if I missed this, but does anyone else work at a company where they hired waves and waves of new people so it ended up that there were whole departments of people who had -- at most -- 4-ish months of experience? This is going to be my wife's company in about six months, but not because they're trying to expand. They haven't been able to retain for poo poo and everyone is throwing applications out and heading for the door. Meanwhile they're not hiring to replace for basically the same reasons they aren't retaining - compensation for the most part, but there are a few other issues as well. They're a subsidiary of a bigger megacorp and megacorp policies are dictating how their compensation and other benefits are working, only megacorp and her corp are in related but not quite the same industries. Result: saying you can't give raises for like 3 years drives people out the door, and saying you can only hire people at about 80% of what they'll get at the competition means you have trouble bringing in new hires. My prediction is that once they literally can't do their jobs any more due to a lack of people (they're getting loving close) megacorp will backtrack the pay policy and they'll have an entire crop of fresh faces who don't know their jobs nearly as well as the people they had a couple years back and who are now working for their direct competition.
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May 27, 2022 17:40
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Elephant Ambush posted:Anyway, during my first meeting this morning someone mentioned that nobody was in the office today because there was already a report of someone testing positive for covid and everyone was asked to stay home  as where I work, they've been really pushing hard for back-to-office at more than 50% capacity the last 3-4 months. In the last 6 weeks alone we've had at least 1-2 COVID cases per week in the building but they're just essentially like "we're sending custodial staff to bleach everything for the hundredth time, remember to wash your hands!" It's the dumbest poo poo but at least people don't hassle me about wearing my mask or not attending big group meetings.DreadUnknown posted:When I worked a retail job for the first time, ToysRUs of all things, I heard the cash register bell in my sleep for a while. It was really weird One of my first jobs out of high school was working call center sales. I'd have weird dreams & sometimes wake up on my stomach with my arms in front of me like I was typing. Glad I got out of there, a year was too drat long for that kind of work.
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May 27, 2022 17:43
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YeahTubaMike posted:I'm sorry if I missed this, but does anyone else work at a company where they hired waves and waves of new people so it ended up that there were whole departments of people who had -- at most -- 4-ish months of experience? We have something close where an adjacent compliance dept had a long time supervisor leave then his replacement left after two months, so that wrecked their institutional knowledge and they frequently ask me what their own procedures are. Kinda fun to set policy on critical items for the whole MegaCorp as their management nods at whatever I suggest.
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May 27, 2022 17:44
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Escape From Noise posted:"We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works." Isnt a minor problem is when it breaks or something goes wrong, no one knows what to do?
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May 27, 2022 18:05
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another person handed in their notice, was apparently offered quite a big salary increase (over the new offer) and a title change (what title do you want?? how can we keep you?) and they refused. lol
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May 27, 2022 18:56
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School where I work sent out an email stating that in honor of memorial day the school is having a half day, but due to the fact that we are in the middle of end of school year procedures every single department is required to stay back and continue working. The Headmaster basically just sent a schoolwide announcement that he is taking a half day.
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May 27, 2022 19:05
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So not technically a dumb thing my current job is doing, but anyone currently applying for jobs are you having to do multiple interviews for something that seems like a simple yes or no from one person is fine? I am not someone applying for upper management, so having to sit through 3 or more interviews seems a bit extreme.
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May 27, 2022 19:27
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Scientastic posted:What? That should definitely not be the case. Measuring pH is consumptive of the electrode and/or reference. You can still end up with wrong probe for wrong use (probes made for the extreme ranges have more electrode and reference to consume) or improper use and storage (measuring while dry will consume hell of reference and reference electrode or the environment can still corrode the measuring electrode while its turned off). A year is pretty typical of most uses online. Longer tend to be probes of Theseus because you're replacing the reference or electrodes as PM if you're online or in set up if you're periodically using it in a lab. Or you're just not using it a lot if you're periodic lab use.
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May 27, 2022 19:29
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Zil posted:So not technically a dumb thing my current job is doing, but anyone currently applying for jobs are you having to do multiple interviews for something that seems like a simple yes or no from one person is fine? I am not someone applying for upper management, so having to sit through 3 or more interviews seems a bit extreme. I had three interviews with seven people, and a salary negotiation, and I legit started wondering whether or not I even wanted the job toward the end of it. Such an exhausting process, and now that I'm in it and dealing with all the dumb poo poo from my last post, I'm legit starting to wonder if the 17-ish% raise was even worth it.
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May 27, 2022 19:37
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as much as my place is a potential garbage fire, I will say the interview was the most painless I've ever had "we have approx 500 invoices backed up, how quickly do you learn software?" "give me an hour" "how long do you think it will take to clear the backlog?" "a few days, a week at the outside?" was done in five minutes, got the temp offer five minutes later, got the perm offer after three weeks when I was told to expect 60 days
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May 27, 2022 19:54
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That sort of poo poo is why I keep my job despite being an obstinate poo poo since early 2021 about RTO. I have simply refused every time on various grounds, while dangling the carrot that if circumstances change, etc. Of course, this time I actually threatened to start looking elsewhere and the CFO blinked. To my original point, I learn my best when I am shown once, walked through once as I do for the first time, watched over once as I do for the second time, and the next half dozen or so checked. Then I get into a groove and I've tabbed my way through completing a form before boomer coworkers can click their way through half of it.
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May 27, 2022 20:08
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Yeah, I have a fair bit of experience with pH probes, thanks guys. I guess my definition of needing to be replaced “on the reg” is shorter than yours, I would say replacing annually is not that frequent, I envisioned weekly. Which is seriously what we had to do when the masters students visited and ruined all our pH probes by not putting them in the buffer when they were done.
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May 27, 2022 20:23
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Evilreaver posted:I work as a hearing reporter for social security, essentially just typing out everything everyone says (no I don't get to use the fancy stenography machine, just a regular-rear end keyboard). Everyone teleworks except me so I'm the only one in the office. What's up, Alone in the Office and Not Detected by the Light Motion Sensors buddy  Initially I had a mobile built out of office envelopes and paperclips hanging from the ceiling, but that didn't always work. But then I figured out if I roll back in my chair a bit and raise my arms up over my head they come back on, so now I just do that every hour or so every afternoon.SkyeAuroline posted:Yeah, we've got a dude who goes to sleep for 15+ minutes at a time snoring loud enough you can hear him throughout the (large) room he's in. Nobody does anything. Used to have a dude here who would do that about every other afternoon, just be slumped at his cube sawing wood. We only have 1/2 cube walls so the sound was clear. I never heard anybody mention it, but he's also not here anymore so 
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May 28, 2022 00:50
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YeahTubaMike posted:it feels very "blind leading the blind"-y. Welcome to a fruitful career of being employed
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May 28, 2022 01:07
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Critical posted:as much as my place is a potential garbage fire, I will say the interview was the most painless I've ever had You hosed up by not taking a full day to do that. Now there are expectations
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May 28, 2022 01:08
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Outrail posted:You hosed up by not taking a full day to do that. Now there are expectations Listen to Scotty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xRqXYsksFg
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May 28, 2022 01:14
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I always loved the idea that even in an emergency that was about to destroy the entire ship and kill hundreds of people Scotty was thinking "Okay this will take 1 minute to actually do and it'll save the ship but if I tell Kirk 5 minutes that'll really pad my reputation and then he'll have to..." I don't know, let Scotty keep another 8 bottles of booze in his quarters or something.
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May 28, 2022 01:17
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Always give Scotty estimates.
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May 28, 2022 02:01
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devmd01 posted:Always give Scotty estimates. Always boggles my mind when people don't make realistic estimates and add 30%. 'how long will it take?' 'maybe a day' 'okay so how long will it take?' 'a day!' 'okay start to finish. Including prep. And cleanup. Including emailing and chasing people down. Including driving around to pick the stuff up. Including etc etc etc. How long will it take?' 'oh, about three days?' 'so if I put 24 hours of your time in this application will that be enough? Are you going to take even a second longer than that?' 'oh, yeah maybe' 'are you sure?' 'maybe 4 days?' Every single time. Every single loving time. Outrail fucked around with this message at 02:22 on May 28, 2022 |
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May 28, 2022 02:20
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One of my engineering professors in college told us that back when he worked in manufacturing and he got a timeline from his team about how long it would take to fabricate something, he would always double it before giving it to customers. Claims he was always closer to the truth and what his guys originally gave him, and with 20 years of hindsight I have no reason to doubt him.
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May 28, 2022 02:47
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Outrail posted:Always boggles my mind when people don't make realistic estimates and add 30%. One thing I've learned over the years is that when you imagine yourself doing a job you have what I call 'an internal musical montage of getting poo poo done'. We all have a foreshortened expectation of how easy something will be until you're the one staring the job down. Anything that spans more than a couple of hours will fall into musical montage territory and should be evaluated accordingly. Same goes for when you ask somebody how long something will take. They will simultaneously suffer from musical montage and a desire to give you a favorable answer whether it's true or not.
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May 28, 2022 02:53
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Takes No Damage posted:One of my engineering professors in college told us that back when he worked in manufacturing and he got a timeline from his team about how long it would take to fabricate something, he would always double it before giving it to customers. Claims he was always closer to the truth and what his guys originally gave him, and with 20 years of hindsight I have no reason to doubt him. Boss on my first job always tripled developer estimates before giving them to the customer. He was always right to do so.
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May 28, 2022 03:52
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Tarkus posted:One thing I've learned over the years is that when you imagine yourself doing a job you have what I call 'an internal musical montage of getting poo poo done'. We all have a foreshortened expectation of how easy something will be until you're the one staring the job down. Anything that spans more than a couple of hours will fall into musical montage territory and should be evaluated accordingly. Same goes for when you ask somebody how long something will take. They will simultaneously suffer from musical montage and a desire to give you a favorable answer whether it's true or not. Yeah, that and magical thinking. What pisses me off is I explain all this to younger people. I explain that I've been through this. I explain the older people in our organization also agree with this. I explain I have been writing up these estimates for over a decade. I explain I've worked in remote area environmental survey logistics and world economic market forecasting and consulting and education and it's the same in every single loving industry. I explain the theory and the practicalities. I explain why this happens and why we need to avoid it. Then they personally experience this and I tell them exactly where things went to pieces and how now they see how things take longer and when that happens I reiterate it again and again until they're visibly sick of listening to me harp on about it. Then I ask them to write up an estimate and it's like I never said anything.
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May 28, 2022 04:27
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Outrail posted:Yeah, that and magical thinking. Yeah, sometimes you have to keep an internal note of who's giving you the times. Some people I know are right on the money in terms of time and for some people I have to increase the time by a factor of 3. Sometimes it's because they're slow. Sometimes they underestimate a realistic amount of time. It's often both to varying degrees. Quoting for anything is a bit of a black art.
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May 28, 2022 04:55
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Tarkus posted:Yeah, sometimes you have to keep an internal note of who's giving you the times. Some people I know are right on the money in terms of time and for some people I have to increase the time by a factor of 3. Sometimes it's because they're slow. Sometimes they underestimate a realistic amount of time. It's often both to varying degrees. Quoting for anything is a bit of a black art. If they're slow they can still give you an accurate estimate!
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May 28, 2022 05:32
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Outrail posted:If they're slow they can still give you an accurate estimate! lol, true
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May 28, 2022 05:34
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Always inflate your time costs so the schmuck who isn't has to do two jobs while you do one.
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May 28, 2022 06:39
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I get engineering estimates from my team that we use internally and then double them for external estimates. No one ever minds if you're early. But it is good to have your team be honest with themselves and what they have to do.
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May 28, 2022 08:38
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Aramoro posted:I get engineering estimates from my team that we use internally and then double them for external estimates. No one ever minds if you're early. But it is good to have your team be honest with themselves and what they have to do. I'm gonna start doing this lol. Whatever duration they give me, double it. Especially the designers, god they're overconfident.
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May 28, 2022 11:45
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Samuel L. Hacksaw posted:I'm gonna start doing this lol. Whatever duration they give me, double it. I just don't give delivery dates on anything that requires design input. With engineering estimates I think it's down to a slight disconnect in what you're estimating. When I was an engineer I certainly estimated things by how long it would take me, when I was a senior how long it would take me and take QA to test it. But even then those aren't delivery estimates, so a weeks work might spread across 2 or 3 weeks of elapsed time depending how much they get to focus on it. I consider at best 50% time dedicated so 1 week becomes 2 weeks.
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May 28, 2022 12:24
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even artists know to always double the timeline cause poo poo will come up and imma bill your rear end for every god drat second your idea is living in my head
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May 28, 2022 13:06
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When i was working retail at my current job amd running the shop, I always added 50% to lead time. I know for a fact their order will probably be in or completed sooner and that only makes them happy. I (thought I) coined the term managed expectations for this. It always made the most sense and builds in a buffer for unforeseen events
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May 28, 2022 13:26
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Use the unpadded estimate for backing out an (early) due date. Then the real estimate informs actual completion date. When someone gives you a 3 day estimate they are basically telling you I would start this 3 days ahead if left to my own devices and odds are that's what they're going to do anyways even after you grill them into admitting ok actually it's double. Way more people with procrastination broke brains and God help us from the MBAs who think Parkinson's Law scales backward infinitely so it's A-ok to start their 40 hour task 3 days ahead of due date.
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May 28, 2022 13:36
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Aramoro posted:I just don't give delivery dates on anything that requires design input. Yeah, I've had to use work and duration with the design team to get reasonable estimates, then I do the resource leveling so nobody gets hosed with more work.
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May 28, 2022 14:27
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How are you just doubling estimates? I could never get away with that as a consultant.
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May 28, 2022 18:38
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multiplication
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May 28, 2022 18:41
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TehRedWheelbarrow posted:multiplication Lol
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May 28, 2022 19:00
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May 28, 2022 19:03
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Target Practice posted:How are you just doubling estimates? I could never get away with that as a consultant. When I was a consultant we got away with it all the time. 'Project management' and 'administration' are nebulous things that you can double and none will blink. Also you can hide more time in there by double counting. 'emailing vendors' is basically a Pm or Admin so count it twice and split the descriptions between the two. Also add a 10% contingency to the whole thing Also you need overhead costs Also add in 'project preparation and breakdown/wind-up time' Also just be generous with all your estimates to begin with.
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May 28, 2022 19:08
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