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"I don't like how you leaning on my desk makes me feel." "You will." --- Has anyone heard of any male-to-male or female-to-female sensitivity training? Because it's no-loving-duh you can't call someone Toots or ask them to smear on some makeup. But if Angela tells Ruth she "looks tired" in the morning, there's no way in hell you can get HR to intervene. In any company that isn't How to Succeed in Business, Passive aggression is the battleground of harassment and bullshit, and if it's done well, it's not actionable.
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Apr 27, 2014 07:17
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Golden Bee posted:Passive aggression is the battleground of harassment and bullshit, and if it's done well, it's not actionable. I wish I knew this when I was younger so I could have decided to take up a trade like plumbing or something. Maybe I should try sell myself on the street corners.
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Apr 27, 2014 11:54
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Golden Bee posted:Has anyone heard of any male-to-male or female-to-female sensitivity training? Because it's no-loving-duh you can't call someone Toots or ask them to smear on some makeup. Good anti-harassment training makes clear same-sex sexual harassment is also illegal. Golden Bee posted:But if Angela tells Ruth she "looks tired" in the morning, there's no way in hell you can get HR to intervene. In any company that isn't How to Succeed in Business, Passive aggression is the battleground of harassment and bullshit, and if it's done well, it's not actionable. That's not being clever, it's just that harassment in general isn't legally actionable. Only harassment involving a protected class (like sex or race) opens an employer up to lawsuits. Simply being a passive-aggressive rear end in a top hat doesn't.
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Apr 27, 2014 12:48
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Renegret posted:I wish I knew this when I was younger so I could have decided to take up a trade like plumbing or something. Maybe I should try sell myself on the street corners. Look at this guy who doesn't think there's passive aggression on job sites.
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Apr 28, 2014 13:12
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Look at this guy who doesn't think there's passive aggression on job sites. I'm more referring to having my own business so I don't have coworkers and I have the freedom to tell lovely customers to get hosed. Of course, that's also why I would fail miserably.
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Apr 28, 2014 13:26
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Renegret posted:I'm more referring to having my own business so I don't have coworkers and I have the freedom to tell lovely customers to get hosed. That's not how the trades business works. My former bosses (home remodeling and custom cabinetry) did plenty of jobs barely breaking even, or even at a loss, to preserve their good reputation. But the next time that customer inquires about a job, you bid it high enough ("aggravation tax") that you'll be happy to work for them if they say yes.
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Apr 28, 2014 13:38
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Having worked here for a while I think I'm almost ready for a big-rear end post about bureaucracy, infighting, and other corporate BS, but for now just simple office crap: I have a 1 amp USB charger from my tablet constantly plugged in at my desk, and like every other day someone will come asking to use it and then disappear on 1-hour lunch or meeting. I don't mind bailing someone out occasionally, but there are a handful of people seeming on rotation constantly asking this. Get your own chargers or just $1 micro usb cables for your laptops, for gently caress's sake!
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Apr 28, 2014 13:44
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Defenestration posted:According to my recent sexual harassment training, you're supposed to ignore it the first time because only one comment isn't harassment. Then if it becomes a pattern, you speak to him calmly using passive voice and "I" sentences so as not to spook the sexist fuckface into thinking that he's done something wrong and is terrible for doing so. (Also, "no one can argue with an 'I' sentence") I had the best harassment training, it's fun when you are more up on case law then the person teaching the class. The answer "Org only covers this" doesn't fly with binding arbitration rulings.
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Apr 28, 2014 16:41
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mobby_6kl posted:Get your own chargers or just $1 micro usb cables for your laptops, for gently caress's sake! Grab a pile of them off monoprice and sell them to your coworkers for a healthy markup. That way when you refuse to let them use yours, you're not being unreasonable, you're just protecting your business interests!
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Apr 28, 2014 16:51
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sbaldrick posted:I had the best harassment training, it's fun when you are more up on case law then the person teaching the class. The answer "Org only covers this" doesn't fly with binding arbitration rulings. Do tell. How'd the person react?
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Apr 30, 2014 00:48
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Golden Bee posted:Do tell. How'd the person react? She just kind of ignored it me for the rest of the class, even when I brought of the other fun fact that organizations in Canada always settle before a labour board ruling because no one wants to be the person that loses a case to them.
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Apr 30, 2014 17:17
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sbaldrick posted:She just kind of ignored it me for the rest of the class, even when I brought of the other fun fact that organizations in Canada always settle before a labour board ruling because no one wants to be the person that loses a case to them. Hmm...would this apply to retaliation do you think as well? I (stupidly) reported a superior to HR for hiring someone with a conflict of interest earlier in the year and my contract was mysteriously cancelled less than a week later.
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Apr 30, 2014 17:47
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So a study found that at one big company about 300,000 hours a year were spent in meetings preparing for one big important weekly status meeting: http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/04/how-a-weekly-meeting-took-up-300000-hours-a-year/ Punchline is that's based just on time spent in the meetings, not the time preparing materials for the meetings.
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Apr 30, 2014 18:43
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No doubt some jobs (see Sundae) have way too many meetings, but I don't see the trend of more meetings being a negative indicator of progress as that slideshow thing seems to imply. For my job (programming), we need to spend a ton of time on communication because it's so easy to get poo poo done now so you have to have more meetings to decide what the next course of action is. If web dev was as difficult as it used to be, we'd need way fewer meetings as I'd take a lot longer to get a given thing done.
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Apr 30, 2014 18:51
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peter banana posted:Hmm...would this apply to retaliation do you think as well? I (stupidly) reported a superior to HR for hiring someone with a conflict of interest earlier in the year and my contract was mysteriously cancelled less than a week later. It can depend on what kind of conflict of interest and if it's spelled out in writing.
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Apr 30, 2014 19:38
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The company I work at is quite small (pretty much all its employees could fit in a decent-sized shoe closet, albeit without much wiggle room) and has, for the last couple of years, gotten a little addicted to simply laying off/firing staff and hoisting their responsibilities onto other people. I'm one of its most junior members and starting the week after next I think I'm going to have the jobs of at least three other people, with no commensurate raise in wages. Hell, I think the head director's holding my vacation back pay hostage. The directors are both scientists more than businessmen and neither of them are very good at the latter. The younger one gets a giddy thrill at roping in new business without any regard to how the clients' needs will actually be fulfilled once their projects come in, and the older one is a serious penny-pincher and in his late 80's, so on the rare occasion his body is in the office and his mind in the current decade he just prevents any new hires or raises from coming in. They're also father and son, so, that's fun. All the finances and HR have been handled by two completely different people, and one of them's resigning by the end of the month. All attempts to even interview for replacements are being stonewalled. Time to jump ship, I think. This was a nice place to work while it lasted but the directors' negligence is choking it to death.
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May 3, 2014 02:07
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If you can at all avoid it, don't work at family-owned businesses. I'm sure there are exceptions out there, but most of 'em are very poorly run (because running a business well is a very specific skill that most people don't have) and you'll basically always be a second-class citizen (because most people don't know how to run a business well).
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May 3, 2014 03:45
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Kreeblah posted:If you can at all avoid it, don't work at family-owned businesses. I'm sure there are exceptions out there, but most of 'em are very poorly run (because running a business well is a very specific skill that most people don't have) and you'll basically always be a second-class citizen (because most people don't know how to run a business well). This times a thousand. I interviewed at a small family-run business and they had zero written policies on sick leave, vacation, overtime, benefits, anything. It was all up to the discretion of the guy who owned the place who would decide on a case-by-case basis, which basically meant that if he didn't like you you were hosed. Yeah my ultra corporate job can get bogged down with bureaucratic red tape sometimes, but at least we have written policies for everything and for the most part everyone is treated equally and fairly under the fear of bringing down the wrath of HR. Honestly I would take a corporate cube job over a family run company every time. Small company with a real dedicated HR department and qualified management? Fine. Family company? RUN.
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May 3, 2014 04:02
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Kreeblah posted:If you can at all avoid it, don't work at family-owned businesses. I'm sure there are exceptions out there, but most of 'em are very poorly run (because running a business well is a very specific skill that most people don't have) and you'll basically always be a second-class citizen (because most people don't know how to run a business well). By all accounts it was a great place to work for a long time. But the older director's getting senile and his son doesn't appear to know or care about anything beyond snapping up new clients and testing, so now that one of the senior administrators is fed up with their attitude, the dominoes are starting to fall. The head of HR gave two freaking months of advance notice. Neither of those two guys did anything to prepare for it because they were convinced she'd change her mind or something. She's been working there 20 years and their "solution" is to hire a part-time bookkeeper for payroll and shrug the rest of her responsibilities onto me and two other employees. I don't know anything about HR! It's one of the few subjects on which I cherish my ignorance! Any job is better than no job, but I don't think I can scootch away from this disaster fast enough. Oxxidation fucked around with this message at 04:06 on May 3, 2014 |
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May 3, 2014 04:03
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Oxxidation posted:and shrug the rest of her responsibilities onto me and two other employees. Don't sign anything! 
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May 3, 2014 17:29
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Kreeblah posted:If you can at all avoid it, don't work at family-owned businesses. I'm sure there are exceptions out there, but most of 'em are very poorly run (because running a business well is a very specific skill that most people don't have) and you'll basically always be a second-class citizen (because most people don't know how to run a business well). I was lucky to get this experience early on in my career. Father and daughter, both engineers. 
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May 4, 2014 21:39
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TO BE FAIR... It depends on the level of "Family Owned" the business is. A 300+ person operation can't be doing all to poorly as compared to a small 12-50 person firm and probably has effective management principles in place.
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May 5, 2014 00:31
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QuiteEasilyDone posted:TO BE FAIR... A 'family owned' of that size is probably structured properly according to corporate principles anyways (Board of Directors, etc.) with a CEO who has a good chance of not actually being related to the owners.
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May 5, 2014 02:31
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YF19pilot posted:A 'family owned' of that size is probably structured properly according to corporate principles anyways (Board of Directors, etc.) with a CEO who has a good chance of not actually being related to the owners. I technically work for a family owned company...except that it's a Fortune 500 company and it's large enough that we have 500 people named Michael employed here. It's run like your typical big corporation, except if I was part of the family I'd probably be fast tracked into some executive position created just for me. Otherwise I don't bother calling it family owned because it's just like every other big business out there.
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May 5, 2014 11:36
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Renegret posted:It's run like your typical big corporation, except if I was part of the family I'd probably be fast tracked into some executive position created just for me. Otherwise I don't bother calling it family owned because it's just like every other big business out there. Maybe my experience with corporations has jaded me, but that doesn't sound any different from a business that's not family-owned, for that matter. Nepotism has been rife in every organization I've been through.
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May 5, 2014 16:04
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Volmarias posted:Don't sign anything! I'm not certain if those two are even aware there'd be anything to sign. I'll probably try to speak privately to the head director sometime this week about the way things are going; he likes me and I'm low enough on the totem pole for my opinions to be non-threatening. It's not like I have anything to lose at this point, I'm not exactly looking for a letter of recommendation from the place.
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May 5, 2014 16:27
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Shady Amish Terror posted:Maybe my experience with corporations has jaded me, but that doesn't sound any different from a business that's not family-owned, for that matter. Nepotism has been rife in every organization I've been through. Oh yeah, without a doubt. One of our worst temps is a personal friend of one of the Engineering VPs. This VP is triple CCIE certified and is a god drat genius. This friend of his can be outsmarted by a child and is one of the dumbest temps we have in this place. And of course, he's impossible to get rid of even though he's a temp because one of the big men in charge is pulling strings. And that's not just it because a huge number of the people in my department got their job because they know somebody, I can keep going on about it if I wanted.
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May 5, 2014 16:41
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Renegret posted:Oh yeah, without a doubt. One of our worst temps is a personal friend of one of the Engineering VPs. This VP is triple CCIE certified and is a god drat genius. This friend of his can be outsmarted by a child and is one of the dumbest temps we have in this place. People who are extremely intelligent like to surround themselves with idiots to make themselves look that much better or be that big fish in the kiddie pool
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May 5, 2014 17:49
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Kreeblah posted:If you can at all avoid it, don't work at family-owned businesses. I'm sure there are exceptions out there, but most of 'em are very poorly run (because running a business well is a very specific skill that most people don't have) and you'll basically always be a second-class citizen (because most people don't know how to run a business well). Hey now  I resemble that remark. Seriously 'tho. The last three places I worked for were family owned. Some of the highlights were:- Owner and his family use the business as their personal checking account. - Get asked to pick up kids from school, pick up groceries, and even do yard work. Off the clock of course. - When the business starts to fail random completely unqualified family members are brought in to work at no pay with me expected to train and manage them. That went as wonderfully as you can expect. - Constantly being dragged into family feuds Becoming that person to work for is my nightmare.
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May 5, 2014 19:16
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Nepotism got me my current job, and while you might think working for your mother is easy, you've never worked for my mother. Yes, she gets me and my quirks and mannerisms and the way I work best, but goddamn if she doesn't ride me harder and expect more out of me than anyone else in that place. Now our parent corporation, though. That's sort of family-like. The CEO's Golden Child runs the headquarters branch and his LITERAL child was his stool pigeon at our branch up until a few months ago. And his brother runs one of the other branches. 
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May 6, 2014 00:44
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Renegret posted:And that's not just it because a huge number of the people in my department got their job because they know somebody, I can keep going on about it if I wanted. This is pretty much how everyone gets jobs, though, it's why networking is so critical for most professions. I have never had a job that I just applied for blind and got, I have always had some sort of connection to the company or someone there, no matter how tenuous, to get your foot in the door. Oh god its me, I'm the incompetent nepotism hire.
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May 6, 2014 02:00
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Ashcans posted:This is pretty much how everyone gets jobs, though, it's why networking is so critical for most professions. I have never had a job that I just applied for blind and got, I have always had some sort of connection to the company or someone there, no matter how tenuous, to get your foot in the door. I will let you in on a secret: we are all incompetents, to varying degrees. We are all the incompetent hire.
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May 6, 2014 02:35
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Leroy Diplowski posted:Hey now Nothing is better then watching people go to jail because they used their business as a personal chequing account, which happened at a family owned business I worked at. My organization has hosed me in a new and magically way by loving up my payroll till May 21st. Not only that, but I cashed out vacation (because who honestly needs 30 days in the bank) that was due on April 17th, but surprise they hosed that up too and I won't get that till the 21st too. I almost lost it on the stupid bitch that does my departments payroll as it's her fault.
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May 6, 2014 16:05
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By hosed up, do you mean you're not even getting your normally scheduled paycheck till the 21st? Even Texas doesn't allow employers to screw workers over that badly, so your state probably gives you some protection here. You might want to see if you can pressure the payroll idiot to do her drat job.
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May 6, 2014 21:53
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Ashcans posted:This is pretty much how everyone gets jobs, though, it's why networking is so critical for most professions. I have never had a job that I just applied for blind and got, I have always had some sort of connection to the company or someone there, no matter how tenuous, to get your foot in the door. I have never used nepotism to get a job ...which probably explains why it's taken me almost 5 years of retail work to finally land a contract entry-level position in an industry unrelated to my degree-field, getting paid less than said field; which I might lose at the end of next month if not sooner depending on volume. Okay, I lied, there was one job I got using nepotism, but I ran into all the same problems of "family run business" and more, and ended up being forced out after a year. No, I wasn't related to the family running the business, just knew the son from college. On of the worst jobs I've ever had, but I had some great coworkers and enjoyed living in NoDak for a year. Otherwise, exciting corporate pet peeves have finally begun showering their graces on me, like apps being routed into my queue when they need to go somewhere else. Or when trying to chat with someone they FORGET TO TURN CAPS LOCK OFF. Or when I ask someone to help in my queue, instead of doing FIFO like the boss asks, they cherry pick all the easy apps. Also, one of our vendors apparently has a problem with filling out paperwork that is required by federal regulations.
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May 7, 2014 01:00
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My last job I was a nepotism hire, kind of, friend of my mom's needed a Junior EE. My Boss would delegate one of the experienced designers to help me through my tasks (not the problem). But none of them trusted Excel. None of them. They had to do all the math manually using a calculator that doesn't do square roots (they needed square roots) and would argue over the numbers being 0.02 off on a value something close to 345.86. It would be rounding error from them. I would have to re-do it with the rounding error, then get told I did it wrong from another person because it only took me 10 minutes to fix it and half of that was waiting for the printer and getting a coffee. Now I'm at a family run business that grew into something that a huge corporation bought. So far it looks like it's the best mix of those two words: They care about you as a human and now they have to make SOPs and document things properly. Though there's a lot of janitor politics.
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May 7, 2014 01:13
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I think nepotism only works if the person who got you in is held accountable for your actions, as in, they've vouched for you, and if you gently caress up, they are partly to blame and look like an idiot and lose pull. It would work if that were the case. I work for a state government and I'm told that our facility is so "inbred" that pretty much everyone has a relative/friend working there, some have large amounts of family members working there. It's fine if there is little or no favoritism and if you do a good job. If you are a major gently caress-up, though, you are nearly impossible to get rid of, and your highfalutin family member is going to stick up for you to the point of an interdepartmental incident. Apparently no one at my work really cares if they look bad for getting their unemployable brother-in-law a position he isn't qualified for. And so, a majority of all resources don't go into actually caring for our residents but for dealing with incidents that were caused by drama.
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May 7, 2014 02:22
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I work in medical billing and every now and then we send a private invoice to a company that is getting a once-off test done which doesn't justify us creating a full commercial contract with that company. Now 99% of these once-off invoices get paid with no drama but every few months we get some fuckwit company who we've sent a $50 invoice get a hair up their rear end about setting us up in their system as a vendor / supplier which inevitably requires me to fill out some lovely vendor detail form. And every time, every time, this form requires the most insane volume of information, all to pay one loving invoice. The last one I filled out wanted copies of our indemnity and liability insurance certificates as well as a guarantee that we would resend them each year when they expire and are renewed (despite the company not having a contract with us, they're just paying a once-off invoice). And today I got a form that asked me, along with the standard contact and banking information, to supply the year my company was founded, our annual turnover, and a 'company overview' which, in no more than 50 words, I should detail my company's history, agencies, products and services, capabilities, core business activities, etc. The question itself was almost 50 words long  And all this to pay a once-off $50 invoice.I just sent them our banking details and told them that if it was imperative to perform a full investigation of our company before agreeing to pay then I would refer them to our legal department. But holy poo poo, who comes up with these vendor detail forms? Why do you need all this information for every single company you ever do business with?
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May 7, 2014 04:27
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cyberia posted:
Legal departments.
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May 7, 2014 04:33
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Xandu posted:Legal departments. Wait, so why is poo poo like a 50 word history of the company of any interest to the legal department? That sounds more like college application bullshit than anything someone in the real world would care about. Or do you mean to say it's more of an issue of companies like these having a one size fits all approach and normally that poo poo is a good idea for long term suppliers in heavily regulated industries?
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May 7, 2014 07:02
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