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Jun 23, 2022 21:51
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| # ? Jun 7, 2024 14:14 |
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 Now THAT'S how we page-snipe at Corporations Incorporated.
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Jun 23, 2022 22:12
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Sundae posted:Now THAT'S how we page-snipe at Corporations Incorporated L.L.C. GmbH Inc. PLC Ltd. RC
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Jun 23, 2022 23:38
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KozmoNaut posted:A few months ago, all of our automatic coffee machines were replaced with fancy new ones, plus all the water taps can now dispense sparkling water as well. I want a sparkling water dispenser at work
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Jun 24, 2022 02:21
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Yeah that would be nice. Make your own soda if you want, otherwise nice sparkly water to help with the after lunch malaise
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Jun 24, 2022 03:14
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Vaporware posted:Yeah that would be nice. Make your own soda if you want, otherwise nice sparkly water to help with the after lunch malaise This is the big secret. Keep SodaStream syrups at your desk. 
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Jun 24, 2022 04:25
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Back on PE buyout chat - I worked at an independent retailer for six months before they were bought out by a private equity mob, and lasted six months after that. Up until the buyout, the founders were in charge of everything day-to-day but had zero strategy, would burn through money doing pointless goofy poo poo and giving jobs to their dodgy friends. It's a miracle they got bought out honestly and probably only because the product was great with a good national reputation. The PE guys came in, sidelined the founders (who immediately got dirty that they couldn't order the staff to do random "guerilla marketing" stunts any more), made maybe a third of the office redundant in really public and traumatic circumstances (though thankfully it included the dodgy friends who immediately grabbed as much product as they could fit in their cars on the way out), and brought in a new CEO who brought in several mates as execs. From that point, the new strategy was "go hard, go global, open a billion stores and we'll make our money back by repositioning us as a luxury product". Didn't work. All the new store openings put them in a massive financial hole that they couldn't make back. The office was incredibly toxic, my job had totally changed and I bailed six months later (and yeah, I also stuffed as much product as I could fit into my car). Once Covid hit, the company went into voluntary administration blaming lockdowns and not the fact that they had been mismanaged for years. They were hunting desperately for a buyer... ..and one of the original founders bought it back. Would love to know if he made or lost money on that.
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Jun 24, 2022 05:09
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w...was the product marijuana?
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Jun 24, 2022 21:50
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My previous company was bought by a larger company that while it was in the semiconductor space as well it was used to just cranking out 10-20 year old designs of microprocessors that were produced on ancient fab processes. My company was doing near cutting edge datacenter chips with more transistors in a single device than the buyer company's entire portfolio combined, running complex firmware and on a 3 year cycle from production to EOL. They hosed it up within 2 years of buying it and nearly everyone who at the architect and technical technical lead level has left with all the new projects being shelved because they have no one to design the devices anymore. It will just be maintenance releases until existing products EOL with nothing to replace them. It's really baffling why they bought us. Basically not just PEs can be insanely bad buyers of companies 
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Jun 24, 2022 23:33
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The worst acquirers are other companies. A tremendous % fail to provide extra value. Anecdotally, ego also seems to fuel many of them, which is a pretty gross misuse of position given it fucks up the livelihood of two different companies.
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Jun 25, 2022 00:59
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Good example of that was a company I worked for what acquired a bunch of smaller competitors in one country just to be able to say they were the biggest in that market. Never did anything with those companies as long as market share was still #1.
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Jun 25, 2022 01:10
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Frequently its about buying the customer books, products are secondary
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Jun 25, 2022 02:28
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Lockback posted:Frequently its about buying the customer books, products are secondary Yeah this part is especially common in shipping. It’s not unheard of for a company to swallow another only to scrap almost their entire fleet.
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Jun 25, 2022 02:35
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In my industry, it's (understandably) usually the reverse. Companies buy out each other to consolidate their product lines and stave off the inevitable collapse of their own products' individual profits as exclusivity periods end. Thou shalt always post record growth, reality be damned.
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Jun 25, 2022 04:14
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The plan for this acquisition company was absolutely being able to have a wide portfolio so when there was any kind of datacenter build out they could effectively “own” all the components on a board to to increase customer dependence etc. This is something Broadcom has mastered (and made all its customers hate it in the process lol). Problem is there is a massive difference in the amount of R&D budget between cost reducing 25 year old designs and having new cutting edge billion gate devices every 3 years..
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Jun 25, 2022 04:30
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Ha, my company (well parts of it) are trying to launch designs from the 1910s, that never saw the light of day. Because hey, sometimes people want to buy a 100 year old design because they last that long.
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Jun 26, 2022 02:00
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Oof, my boss thinks a pair of developers can run parallel projects because “I work on a bunch of different things all the time, they can just switch back and forth.”
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Jun 26, 2022 04:00
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Fish fly, birds swim, managers fail. Nature works in mysterious ways.
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Jun 26, 2022 04:33
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secular woods sex posted:Oof, my boss thinks a pair of developers can run parallel projects because “I work on a bunch of different things all the time, they can just switch back and forth.” The manager's different things are sending emails, a developer's two things involve complex requirements gathering, planning, sequencing, and execution on thousands of lines of code that do what they're supposed to. Lol switching between modes or tickets on a single project is bad enough.
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Jun 26, 2022 13:25
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Be a development manager and you can have the worst of both worlds!
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Jun 26, 2022 14:27
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secular woods sex posted:Oof, my boss thinks a pair of developers can run parallel projects because “I work on a bunch of different things all the time, they can just switch back and forth.” I’ve sent that “makers schedule managers schedule” essay to many, many non-technical people. If someone’s basically smart but doesn’t understand programmers, it really helps.
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Jun 26, 2022 18:48
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secular woods sex posted:Oof, my boss thinks a pair of developers can run parallel projects because “I work on a bunch of different things all the time, they can just switch back and forth.”
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Jun 27, 2022 01:36
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Well, it's all over. My company just promoted me to Sr. Manager of Analytical Development! I'm now officially "the man".
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Jun 27, 2022 02:03
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Question at R&D Town Hall: Q: "Our bi-annual R&D conference is coming up. Given pretty much every other company in the industry does single rooms at their conference, and given the pandemic is not over, why on earth are we expected to double-up every year, let alone this year?" A: "We literally book out every single hotel, B&B, and sometimes even every AirBNB in the town (Sundae note: Pacific Grove / Monterey) for this event. We're out of rooms to book; if we do singles for everyone, we literally can't fit people." Ya know, it's almost a fair excuse. *books a single room with a medical reason anyway*
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Jun 27, 2022 02:10
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Sundae posted:Question at R&D Town Hall: lmao too bad Monterey is the only conference venue on the west coast. Condolences.
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Jun 27, 2022 02:41
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Midjack posted:lmao too bad Monterey is the only conference venue on the west coast. Condolences. Yeah, they never talk about that part of it. Gee, we're sending 2,000+ people to Monterey all at once for four days and there's not enough room. Maybe... oh I dunno, anywhere else???
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Jun 27, 2022 02:47
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Man the hotels must be gouging the *gently caress* out of them, too.
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Jun 27, 2022 02:47
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Used to go to conferences in SLC and they hosed everyone in hotel prices. Eventually the conference out grew Utah so they moved it to Vegas so they could be gouged more and also no one turn up to the conference sessions at all because you have an expensed trip to Vegas.
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Jun 27, 2022 02:51
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FrozenVent posted:Man the hotels must be gouging the *gently caress* out of them, too. I checked prices right now and they're normal. We'll see what they look like next month when the bookings officially start.
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Jun 27, 2022 02:52
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After a certain scale your choice for conference cities gets really limited and pretty much all roads lead to Vegas.
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Jun 27, 2022 12:35
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Xguard86 posted:After a certain scale your choice for conference cities gets really limited and pretty much all roads lead to Vegas. Sure, but that's mid 5 digits and higher. There are plenty of places where 2000 people wouldn't be noticed.
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Jun 27, 2022 13:20
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Midjack posted:Sure, but that's mid 5 digits and higher. There are plenty of places where 2000 people wouldn't be noticed.
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Jun 27, 2022 15:18
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TheSpartacus posted:Well, it's all over. My company just promoted me to Sr. Manager of Analytical Development! I'm now officially "the man". I mourn for you and the management lobotomy you will soon receive.
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Jun 27, 2022 16:06
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TheSpartacus posted:Well, it's all over. My company just promoted me to Sr. Manager of Analytical Development! I'm now officially "the man". Unsolicited advice: read Managing Humans by Michael Lopp
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Jun 27, 2022 16:28
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Remember: your job is to coach, encourage and allow your employees to do their job better, not to do the job yourself. Pass on praise, accept criticism.
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Jun 27, 2022 18:53
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Anyone else view well spoken businessmen with trendy thick-rimmed black glasses as vaguely untrustworthy, or am I just manifesting jealousy in a weird way? They can be saying something I 100% agree with and I’ll still be looking out for the knife headed for my back.
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Jun 27, 2022 18:56
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I always expect a knife in the back from management because that is all I have ever received from management.
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Jun 27, 2022 18:58
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Democratic Pirate posted:Anyone else view well spoken businessmen with trendy thick-rimmed black glasses as vaguely untrustworthy, or am I just manifesting jealousy in a weird way? I view businesspeople with trendy anything with side-eye. But I'm in manufacturing-ish land, this probably doesn't work in say, software. It's probably not healthy but they've generally earned it.
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Jun 27, 2022 19:26
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FrozenVent posted:Remember: your job is to coach, encourage and allow your employees to do their job better, not to do the job yourself. Absolutely this. Focus on replacing yourself by developing your people to do so. Give them challenging assignments and support to complete them. Rinse,repeat for as long as it takes so that you replicate you as many times as possible. Then people will see how well you develop and bring people up. Makes it easier to move you/promote you when your replacement is obvious.
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Jun 27, 2022 19:37
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| # ? Jun 7, 2024 14:14 |
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One more thing. Cultivate an environment where you don't make any decisions. Encourage your team to only bring you opportunities to provide input and that they make decisions that you support. Of course, your opportunity for input precedes their action so you can interject. In reverse, do this for your leader. Bring FYI and opportunities to provide input and make decisions. I LOVE sending notes like, "Here is the information.... I'll be sending this over at 4p today. Please let me know if you have any input ahead of that." Then you do it, no waiting for them and you have cover if they dislike it but never responded. Shows that you are taking action but not blindly.
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Jun 27, 2022 19:39
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