More shit that pisses you off: What does that say about the quality of your emails?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > More shit that pisses you off: What does that say about the quality of your emails?

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ConfusedUs: Feb 24, 2004; Bees?
You want fucking bees?
Here you go!
ROLL INITIATIVE!!

Speaking of resumes:

Almost exactly a year ago I decided to get a new job, applied to 350+ places, did 30+ interviews, and got nothing. Every tech company got busy laying off people, and suddenly every job had 800 applicants in the first six hours. I ultimately gave up because, while my current role was boring and frustrating, it was also very unlikely to be downsized.

So I had some heart-to-heart talks with my boss about what I was doing vs what I wanted to do vs what I'd been promised I'd be doing, my skillset, and my career goals. I didn't expect huge change, but I did see some change, and the departure of an important person opened up a huge opportunity for me to move up a level and start working on what I'm best at. My boss and I spent the last few months prepping everything I'd need to step into this role, full time. I would, finally, have actual ownership over the support portal--something I was promised nearly two years ago.

And now it's not happening. Our megalomaniac CEO--someone I swear admires Elon Musk's antics--popped into a standard, everyday planning meeting and told us to put together a proposal to switch to an entirely different support platform. When asked if this was a cost-benefit analysis to make the decision, or simply a list of costs, he said "The decision is made. Give me numbers to justify it."

I'd like to mention that, for the last three years, the entire support org of this company--a 25k employee, $5b/year megacorp--has been shifting our existing support teams from the (not exaggerating) 37 different platforms used by various teams acquired over the years. We're one year (13 months) from the first launch bringing the first two (of 37, mind you) business units into the platform. We have one million users registered to the platform and the next phase, scheduled for April, is 64 million more.

Alongside the design and onboarding exercises, we've had to maintain and upgrade the existing user experience, which is frankly the worst support site user experience I've ever encountered. I have some enhancements planned and waiting for dev that could, no kidding, eliminate up to 25% of support volume. That's right, over 25% of the calls to support are people looking for help with the support site. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find the product binaries for the products you own. Wanna download your thing? Good loving luck.

I have had to beg and scrape and plead to get anything meaningful done, and just as I was finally set to get the authority to make it happen of my own volition...poof! It's all gone.

CEO wants us to build our own platform, from almost scratch, using some half-baked piece of software from one of our more recent acquisitions as the heart. This software doesn't have a customer-facing portal, at all. Nor does it have knowledge management, chat interface, virtual assistant, or any other way of self-service. It all, every bit of it, has to be built from scratch. The only thing it has is a half-baked ticket queue. This apparently came about because a single customer asked someone at our recent conference what support system we use, and why we're not using our own thing.

And look, using your own software is good. We should be using our own software, but that means we have to invest in it. It has to meet our needs. The company we acquired, who owns this thing, doesn't even use it themselves because SalesForce is just better and it's cheaper to pay for SFDC than it is to build and maintain that product at the scale they needed. And we're more than double the size they were, with over a thousand distinct products to support compared to the original company's four. If it didn't work for them, it sure as gently caress won't work for us.

(We're also abandoning Jira in a very similar situation based nearly the same line of reasoning.)

So, back to resumes: I rage applied to half a dozen companies yesterday, and I've got three more on deck for this afternoon. gently caress this stupid company and its megalomaniac CEO and its nonsensical decisions and its complete and utter lack of follow-through on everything.

# ? Nov 3, 2023 18:47

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# ? May 25, 2024 05:51

FISHMANPET: Mar 3, 2007; Sweet 'N Sour
Can't
Melt
Steel Beams

Job hunting is just the worst. I got "fired" 2 months ago but because of the way our employment agreements are and my length of service (over a decade) I get a year long "notice period" where I'm removed from my team but still employed, and in theory assigned some pointless makework but nobody cares, so it's basically my full time job to find a new job.

Anyway specifically i'm complaining about this particular job portal that parsed my resume for "skills" and found pretty much every noun listed on my resume, so it's automatically found skills like "organizational" and "initiatives". Now I have to go through and parse this list by hand, and the text box on the website isn't even big enough to hold all the text, so I have to copy it into notepad and update it there.

# ? Nov 3, 2023 19:18

22 Eargesplitten: Oct 10, 2010

ConfusedUs posted:

Just cut and paste the job description into chatGPT. Ask it to make a resume for it.

Proofread the output. Delete anything that is wrong enough to trip your conscience. Add a few numbers if you can.

Takes ten minutes per resume.

Your r�sum�s only goal is to get you past the automated keyword-based system so you can talk to a person, and the thing AI is best at is keyword-based word salad.

I don't know if I'll do that, but I might see if I can plug my resume in and the JD in and then get it to optimize the resume based on the skills mentioned. I'll have to see how it does, I have mixed experiences with ChatGPT. I use it as an incredibly fallible math tutor, which is actually kind of helpful. It almost always gets the steps right but frequently messes up the actual math so it helps me realize what approach I need to take while also still making me do the actual math work.

# ? Nov 3, 2023 19:48

ConfusedUs: Feb 24, 2004; Bees?
You want fucking bees?
Here you go!
ROLL INITIATIVE!!

22 Eargesplitten posted:

I don't know if I'll do that, but I might see if I can plug my resume in and the JD in and then get it to optimize the resume based on the skills mentioned. I'll have to see how it does, I have mixed experiences with ChatGPT. I use it as an incredibly fallible math tutor, which is actually kind of helpful. It almost always gets the steps right but frequently messes up the actual math so it helps me realize what approach I need to take while also still making me do the actual math work.

That's not a bad way to do it, either. I find it much better to leverage the AI to write a few lines for my experience and skills section than to figure out how to get every keyword in myself, though. That poo poo is exhausting.

# ? Nov 3, 2023 19:56

Neddy Seagoon: Oct 12, 2012; "Hi Everybody!"

ConfusedUs posted:

Speaking of resumes:

Almost exactly a year ago I decided to get a new job, applied to 350+ places, did 30+ interviews, and got nothing. Every tech company got busy laying off people, and suddenly every job had 800 applicants in the first six hours. I ultimately gave up because, while my current role was boring and frustrating, it was also very unlikely to be downsized.

So I had some heart-to-heart talks with my boss about what I was doing vs what I wanted to do vs what I'd been promised I'd be doing, my skillset, and my career goals. I didn't expect huge change, but I did see some change, and the departure of an important person opened up a huge opportunity for me to move up a level and start working on what I'm best at. My boss and I spent the last few months prepping everything I'd need to step into this role, full time. I would, finally, have actual ownership over the support portal--something I was promised nearly two years ago.

And now it's not happening. Our megalomaniac CEO--someone I swear admires Elon Musk's antics--popped into a standard, everyday planning meeting and told us to put together a proposal to switch to an entirely different support platform. When asked if this was a cost-benefit analysis to make the decision, or simply a list of costs, he said "The decision is made. Give me numbers to justify it."

I'd like to mention that, for the last three years, the entire support org of this company--a 25k employee, $5b/year megacorp--has been shifting our existing support teams from the (not exaggerating) 37 different platforms used by various teams acquired over the years. We're one year (13 months) from the first launch bringing the first two (of 37, mind you) business units into the platform. We have one million users registered to the platform and the next phase, scheduled for April, is 64 million more.

Alongside the design and onboarding exercises, we've had to maintain and upgrade the existing user experience, which is frankly the worst support site user experience I've ever encountered. I have some enhancements planned and waiting for dev that could, no kidding, eliminate up to 25% of support volume. That's right, over 25% of the calls to support are people looking for help with the support site. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find the product binaries for the products you own. Wanna download your thing? Good loving luck.

I have had to beg and scrape and plead to get anything meaningful done, and just as I was finally set to get the authority to make it happen of my own volition...poof! It's all gone.

CEO wants us to build our own platform, from almost scratch, using some half-baked piece of software from one of our more recent acquisitions as the heart. This software doesn't have a customer-facing portal, at all. Nor does it have knowledge management, chat interface, virtual assistant, or any other way of self-service. It all, every bit of it, has to be built from scratch. The only thing it has is a half-baked ticket queue. This apparently came about because a single customer asked someone at our recent conference what support system we use, and why we're not using our own thing.

And look, using your own software is good. We should be using our own software, but that means we have to invest in it. It has to meet our needs. The company we acquired, who owns this thing, doesn't even use it themselves because SalesForce is just better and it's cheaper to pay for SFDC than it is to build and maintain that product at the scale they needed. And we're more than double the size they were, with over a thousand distinct products to support compared to the original company's four. If it didn't work for them, it sure as gently caress won't work for us.

(We're also abandoning Jira in a very similar situation based nearly the same line of reasoning.)

So, back to resumes: I rage applied to half a dozen companies yesterday, and I've got three more on deck for this afternoon. gently caress this stupid company and its megalomaniac CEO and its nonsensical decisions and its complete and utter lack of follow-through on everything.

Deliver your planned portal, say it runs on top of the other software. He'll never know the difference or truth.

# ? Nov 6, 2023 10:31

Agrikk: Oct 17, 2003; Take care with that! We have not fully ascertained its function, and the ticking is accelerating.

ConfusedUs posted:

Just cut and paste the job description into chatGPT. Ask it to make a resume for it.

Proofread the output. Delete anything that is wrong enough to trip your conscience. Add a few numbers if you can.

Takes ten minutes per resume.

Your r�sum�s only goal is to get you past the automated keyword-based system so you can talk to a person, and the thing AI is best at is keyword-based word salad.

This is fantastic.

Considering that getting past the first hurdle in the job process is cramming enough keywords to get past the AI-driven filters, it only makes sense that we now use AI to create content to get past the AI filters.

quote:

David: is there any way to get this to play itself?

Professor Falken: Yes. Number of players zero

# ? Nov 6, 2023 17:09

ConfusedUs: Feb 24, 2004; Bees?
You want fucking bees?
Here you go!
ROLL INITIATIVE!!

Neddy Seagoon posted:

Deliver your planned portal, say it runs on top of the other software. He'll never know the difference or truth.

Yes he will, because this CEO is a HUGE micromanaging megalomaniac. He has to personally sign off on every expense over $500 (in a $5b company, mind you), including the monthly maintenance contract of the current portal.

Agrikk posted:

This is fantastic.

Considering that getting past the first hurdle in the job process is cramming enough keywords to get past the AI-driven filters, it only makes sense that we now use AI to create content to get past the AI filters.

That's the only purpose of a resume nowadays, so why not automate it?

# ? Nov 6, 2023 17:15

Hughmoris: Apr 21, 2007; Let's go to the abyss!

I think I often take basic troubleshooting skills for granted. Recent experiences at work have shown me that.

While I hated my time working Tier 1 at an ISP, I think it taught me how to rapidly troubleshoot a given problem. That, and the painful experiences as a kid trying to get tech poo poo to work on Windows 3.1 and Win 95.

# ? Nov 6, 2023 17:53

guppy: Sep 21, 2004; sting like a byob

Hughmoris posted:

I think I often take basic troubleshooting skills for granted. Recent experiences at work have shown me that.

While I hated my time working Tier 1 at an ISP, I think it taught me how to rapidly troubleshoot a given problem. That, and the painful experiences as a kid trying to get tech poo poo to work on Windows 3.1 and Win 95.

Like 80% of the people in any IT department of significant size cannot troubleshoot.

# ? Nov 6, 2023 18:20

Thanks Ants: May 21, 2004; #essereFerrari

I like the people who just start making loads of changes without recording what they are doing, instead of reading logs or getting packet captures

# ? Nov 6, 2023 18:30

teethgrinder: Oct 9, 2002

ConfusedUs posted:

Yes he will, because this CEO is a HUGE micromanaging megalomaniac. He has to personally sign off on every expense over $500 (in a $5b company, mind you), including the monthly maintenance contract of the current portal.

Sounds like he took the finance route.

The worst people I've ever had to report to in IT were CFOs.

# ? Nov 6, 2023 18:30

wicka: Jun 28, 2007

Thanks Ants posted:

I like the people who just start making loads of changes without recording what they are doing, instead of reading logs or getting packet captures

Unfortunately this describes our entire telecom org

# ? Nov 6, 2023 18:43

Blue Footed Booby: Oct 4, 2006; got those happy feet

Cyks posted:

They all say that.

and then you ask "prove it doesn't work in Edge" and when they go to show you and it actually DOES work, they'll come back "well yeah but it works better in Chrome!!!"

That one's code for "the devs and testers all use chrome and no one with the power to force the issue gives a poo poo." I've been on teams like that, typically as the only Firefox user. :twisted:

# ? Nov 6, 2023 21:15

Agrikk: Oct 17, 2003; Take care with that! We have not fully ascertained its function, and the ticking is accelerating.

My company is rolling out a new, high-touch, fast-response support add-on for companies in our strategic business verticals.

As part of the support team, a few of us are still hammering out the details of what the offering looks like, engagement models, etc.

Today we learned that the pilot customer has been billed for this service since September. A sales guy apparently got enthusiastic about it and started billing them. Sure, to the customer it�s a rounding error but we are charging them and providing nothing in return and this can so easily blow up in our faces if a critical workload goes sideways and nothing in our support model has changed.

Whose fault will it be? Certainly not the account manager who turned on billing prematurely�

# ? Nov 7, 2023 00:08

Hughmoris: Apr 21, 2007; Let's go to the abyss!

Agrikk posted:

My company is rolling out a new, high-touch, fast-response support add-on for companies in our strategic business verticals.

As part of the support team, a few of us are still hammering out the details of what the offering looks like, engagement models, etc.

Today we learned that the pilot customer has been billed for this service since September. A sales guy apparently got enthusiastic about it and started billing them. Sure, to the customer it�s a rounding error but we are charging them and providing nothing in return and this can so easily blow up in our faces if a critical workload goes sideways and nothing in our support model has changed.

Whose fault will it be? Certainly not the account manager who turned on billing prematurely�

That account manager sounds like a real go-getter. They turned on the money faucet, not their fault if other people weren't ready. :mad:

# ? Nov 7, 2023 01:42

Reoxygenation: Dec 8, 2010; if wishes were fishes fuck you this is my pie

Days without Microsoft seemingly changing poo poo in their security stuff and it affecting our environment : 0

Very tired of this loving company some days (by some I mean every)

# ? Nov 8, 2023 19:12

eonwe: Aug 11, 2008; Lipstick Apathy

The most infuriating Microsoft thing for me is when they recently changed the default behavior of links opened in Outlook to ignore your default browser and instead open in Edge

# ? Nov 8, 2023 19:16

tactlessbastard: Feb 4, 2001; Godspeed, post; Fun Shoe

eonwe posted:

The most infuriating Microsoft thing for me is when they recently changed the default behavior of links opened in Outlook to ignore your default browser and instead open in Edge

I like constantly fighting with Edge over .pdf control.

In Edge's defense, it�s a perfectly good pdf manipulator for my purposes.

In my defense, every day it�s a new goddamned day as to what printer Edge wants to print to.

# ? Nov 8, 2023 19:32

klosterdev: Oct 10, 2006; Na na na na na na na na Batman!

Reoxygenation posted:

Days without Microsoft seemingly changing poo poo in their security stuff and it affecting our environment : 0

Very tired of this loving company some days (by some I mean every)

I'm still pissed that MS is forcing authenticator apps on all users on all tenants. It's causing me problems right now, I've got a user who's phone is so drat old it won't support the App Store authenticator app.

Texting-based MFA is good enough security for most organizations, fight me.

# ? Nov 8, 2023 23:51

Polio Vax Scene: Apr 5, 2009

Could it be that Microsoft doesn't want to foot the bill for those texts?

# ? Nov 9, 2023 00:02

SyNack Sassimov: May 4, 2006; Let the robot win.
��--Captain James T. Vader

klosterdev posted:

I'm still pissed that MS is forcing authenticator apps on all users on all tenants. It's causing me problems right now, I've got a user who's phone is so drat old it won't support the App Store authenticator app.

Texting-based MFA is good enough security for most organizations, fight me.

Sorry but you're not in the right on this one. SMS is poo poo and should not be a security measure. And Microsoft has to force it at some point because no one would change otherwise.

# ? Nov 9, 2023 00:16

Internet Explorer: Jun 1, 2005

User whose phone is so old they can't install Authenticator is a problem in and of itself. Do they have company data on it?

Otherwise, software OATH tokens and hardware OATH tokens are options. As are FIDO2. You don't have to use Microsoft Authenticator.

# ? Nov 9, 2023 00:22

Reoxygenation: Dec 8, 2010; if wishes were fishes fuck you this is my pie

klosterdev posted:

I'm still pissed that MS is forcing authenticator apps on all users on all tenants. It's causing me problems right now, I've got a user who's phone is so drat old it won't support the App Store authenticator app.

Texting-based MFA is good enough security for most organizations, fight me.

Yeah that whole ordeal was thoroughly uncomfortable. Had to ask people to get that poo poo on their personal phones, cause we don't supply phones to everyone. Didn't have issues - people were receptive - but it sure was uncomfortable!

Forced MFA is whatever to me I just submit myself to the times, but kind of unfun to have that sprung on you as opposed to being a choice (even if I do think it's a no-brainer)

Personally went with Microsoft Auth so at least I won't have a plethora of apps people might ask questions about

# ? Nov 9, 2023 02:55

wolrah: May 8, 2006; what?

eonwe posted:

The most infuriating Microsoft thing for me is when they recently changed the default behavior of links opened in Outlook to ignore your default browser and instead open in Edge

I know that Edge is functionally just Microsoft-flavored Chrome these days and $deity knows there's good reason to not want Google in control of ones entire internet experience, but the aggression with which Microsoft pushes it on Windows users turns me off from ever giving it a chance. If they would just chill out and stop trying to force it on me there's a reasonable chance I might have switched.

# ? Nov 9, 2023 05:09

The Fool: Oct 16, 2003

SMS based mfa is better than no mfa and is perfectly acceptable in situations where there are no other options.

# ? Nov 9, 2023 05:11

evobatman: Jul 30, 2006; it means nothing, but says everything!; Pillbug

Thanks Ants posted:

I like the people who just start making loads of changes without recording what they are doing, instead of reading logs or getting packet captures

Thanks, I like you too

# ? Nov 9, 2023 10:24

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

eonwe posted:

The most infuriating Microsoft thing for me is when they recently changed the default behavior of links opened in Outlook to ignore your default browser and instead open in Edge

I can't work out how to get the random help links etc to open in the default browser and not Edge. Funnily enough MS know it's illegal in the EU so there's a way to opt out if your device is there. Doesn't do poo poo for me in the UK though.

# ? Nov 9, 2023 12:47

SlowBloke: Aug 14, 2017

klosterdev posted:

I'm still pissed that MS is forcing authenticator apps on all users on all tenants. It's causing me problems right now, I've got a user who's phone is so drat old it won't support the App Store authenticator app.

Texting-based MFA is good enough security for most organizations, fight me.

We purchased two hundreds yubico security keys NFC C at 15�/unit. If your organization cannot consider that amount as an acceptable onboarding expense, i would suggest to rethink budgets.

# ? Nov 9, 2023 13:31

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

Internet Explorer posted:

User whose phone is so old they can't install Authenticator is a problem in and of itself. Do they have company data on it?

Yeah, the minimum on Android is 8 and iOS is 15.

So, either it's an android device that stopped getting updates 7 years ago or its a 9 year old iPhone. Either way, shouldn't be allowed anywhere corporate data or the security chain to access it.

# ? Nov 9, 2023 14:18

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Some people don't use smartphones at all. Only reason I have one is for authenticator apps for clients.

# ? Nov 9, 2023 14:24

nielsm: Jun 1, 2009

Actually, it would be neat to have a feature phone that can function as an MFA device, FIDO2 key or similar. Sometimes you just need to be able to take calls and then log in via a real computer.

# ? Nov 9, 2023 14:47

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Yeah I would actually love that. Get on it, Nokia.

# ? Nov 9, 2023 15:07

The Fool: Oct 16, 2003

it doesn't even need to take phone calls, maybe just a button to turn a display on so you can read an otp number

# ? Nov 9, 2023 15:11

The Fool: Oct 16, 2003

they'd be cheap as dirt too, someone get on that

# ? Nov 9, 2023 15:11

Thanks Ants: May 21, 2004; #essereFerrari

OATH hardware tokens are in preview for Entra ID

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/entra/identity/authentication/concept-authentication-oath-tokens#oath-hardware-tokens-preview

# ? Nov 9, 2023 15:16

i am a moron: Nov 12, 2020; "I think if there’s one thing we can all agree on it’s that Penn State and Michigan both suck and are garbage and it’s hilarious Michigan fans are freaking out thinking this is their natty window when they can’t even beat a B12 team in the playoffs lmao"

My passwords are �fu(k [client]1234� why do I need a million entries in Authenticator no one is guessing it

# ? Nov 9, 2023 15:29

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

Arquinsiel posted:

Some people don't use smartphones at all. Only reason I have one is for authenticator apps for clients.

If you don't have a smartphone and you have a job requirement that needs one, then the job should be supplying it. Regardless, it not being nearly a decade old isn't a high hurdle to clear.

# ? Nov 9, 2023 15:43

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Nobody will be surprised to learn that management do not like that logic.

# ? Nov 9, 2023 16:24

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

On the flip side, management requires that you have reliable transportation to get to a job (if in person) and electricity to run you laptop (if remote) and there are few that would argue that they are unreasonable requirements to function in a position.

Smartphones are rapidly approaching if not already reached that level of basic service and authing at work isn't going to be the only place that you are swimming upstream if you choose not to have one. I'm in no way shape or form trying to infer any judgement from that statement, it's just fact at this point.

# ? Nov 9, 2023 17:44

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# ? May 25, 2024 05:51

The Fool: Oct 16, 2003

Management is currently not able to install monitoring tools on my car or in my home.

# ? Nov 9, 2023 17:48

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > More shit that pisses you off: What does that say about the quality of your emails?

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