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Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Sundae posted:

:wtc:

A minor reorganization has been announced in my department/platform. The actual org chart stays the same, but a series of committees oversee a variety of functions in the company and have to grant approval for said functions, act as stage-gates, etc. One of these is the Product Family Ownership program, through which one person "owns" the entire related family of products and acts as the primary source of information and product strategy for the whole thing. The PFO is responsible for everything from formulation knowledge to packaging to deciding how much we're going to market it, to figuring out new markets we're going to expand it to, prioritizing / rejecting proposed projects related to it, etc. Basically, all-powerful (until the oversight committee overrules him or her).

The minor little reorganization was that now, my manager (the head of the technical operations group at my site) has to report into the PFO and ask for permission for everything she wants to do related to the products.

I'm the PFO. I just became my boss's boss. :suicide:

That PM I sent you a couple days back? Think very carefully about whether/how you want to act on it in light of this change.

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Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.
Hey Sundae, new plan- once you retire, let me know if you want to become a whistleblower. It's lucrative. I'm not sure of the details, but there's a similar process to what happened in the case of Ranbaxy for reporting cGMP fraud- if your company is at that level of evil.

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Sundae posted:

Okay, serious question because I just don't get it: Why is our company org chart considered executive confidential?

You aren't allowed to view it as an employee. Only executives have access to it (not even my manager or my manager's manager), and even though we got written up by an FDA auditor when nobody at the entire site was able to provide it on request, we still can't access it or provide it to the FDA on request. This is a super common request they make in order to determine chain of command and who various decisions rest with in the end. We got a loving 483 citation for not having it last time, and they're still saying nobody is allowed to see it.

(Comedy and yet probably real answer: I bet some senior director has like fourteen hookers on the payroll as floating VPs.)


Any insight on why a company would do that with its organizational structure? My last two companies had it in a searchable web-app format on their front page.

Sundae posted:

It's really hard to judge without an org chart, but I'd estimate that somewhere between 60-80% of all our employees are contractors.

This is a bit old, but I think you answered your own question without realizing it. The lack of an org chart may be an attempt to prevent regulators from gaining evidence of (among other things), contractor cycling.

Now that I've finished powering through the archive of this thread, I have one burning question, Sundae: Why on earth would you use Minitab? I'd go anywhere and use anything to avoid it.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 09:50 on Jan 24, 2024

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Sydin posted:

Setting the bar low and then exceeding it is one of the fastest ways to be treated like a rock star for doing the same thing everybody else is doing. Likewise, setting the bar high and then failing to meet your commitment is one of the fastest ways to get poo poo on for busting your rear end.

Is it sad that I've barely been doing this a year, and I'm already this jaded? :v:

There's actually a simple explanation for this- the people doing the evaluation have no other way of measuring things objectively than failure or success in meeting commitments, and because commitment statements are relied upon in making other scheduling and planning decisions. For those trying to figure out a (for example) project schedule, your ability to set goals you can always meet is genuinely more important than your ability to go above and beyond- and let the people who are relying on your commitment down.

Sometimes those above you do have other ways of evaluating you, but they themselves are forced to, or trained to, use the "met commitment" standard because it's the closest thing to an objective performance indicator that they have. More importantly, it's the only objective indicator your boss's boss's boss will have, because they don't personally know how things operate in your area or what reasonable versus challenging commitments are.

I suspect that this last disconnect is a major source of the horribleness I've read in the thread. Even when the corporate overlords want to care about meaningful, long-term outcomes (and they're raised in a system that educates and incentivizes them not to at every step), they don't have a way of knowing what such a measure would actually look like.

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Cast_No_Shadow posted:

So I applyed for a job that sounded cool but never intended to get in order to put a bit of fire under my bosses boss. The plan was im so underpaid vs market rate and so annoying/expensive to replace that they would take my request for a pay rise seriously.

Job is well above where I am now and mega high profile but is internal so I figured word would get to my bosses boss (it did) and it would make her panic a bit (it did) and see reason around my pay request (it did not).

Just got the call and it turns out, against expectations I got the job. Despite getting food poisoning the night before the interview and spending every minute not interviewing throwing up I did pretty good.

So even though im too professional to say this in real life.

:yotj: ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahabahahah:yotj:

Congratulations, Director Botticelli! Um, could you look at my grant application, please?

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Sundae posted:

I just don't care anymore. I hate this industry too much to even jump ship now.

If/when I get into NIH/NSF ethics and regulatory oversight, I may ask for your contact information/CV. You have the mindset I'm looking for!

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Kim Jong Il posted:

One thing that's pretty common is a lot of Lean Six Sigma programs use it, you can probably thank Motorola or GE for that.

I can't think of a better reason not to use it. Hey, Sundae, you know how your Company was trying to prove that all possible calculations coming out of Minitab were correct by hand? They may have had good reason- it would not surprise me in the least if Minitab returns consistent calculation errors.

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Sydin posted:

Is it common for people to actually get yelled at in most corporate settings? I've never seen anybody so much as raise their voice at another employee at my current company, and in talking with some co-workers who've been around longer than I have, it sounds like that kind of behavior is something of a major faux pas in our corporate culture. Particularly between a manager and a report.

Again, maybe I'm just ridiculously spoiled.

Yes, even at very high levels. Some people are never socialized not to do it, and some people are socialized to do it because it was done to them. It's never a particularly effective practice, at least under any sort of conventional circumstances. Maybe if there were literally a bomb involved, or people were dead.

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

ItalicSquirrels posted:

Just found out our Director got a promotion to... Executive Director. Not like he moved up to a different post, his position got renamed to include "Executive". So now we have Associate Directors, Assistant Directors, and an Executive Director. I think this is going back a couple pages, but this is my new least-favorite corpspeak thing. Tacking "Executive" onto things to make them sound more important. I guess whatever he needs to do to justify his salary increase while the rest of us get our COLA rescinded so the budget will break even.

Edit: Oh yeah, almost forgot. We're hiring another Associate Director to take over part of another Associate Director's duties. Must be nice to be the boss' drinking buddy.

It's actually perfectly sensible- it's meant to reflect a role equivalent to a parallel structure in other companies (particularly larger ones) where there are both Directors and an Executive Director- it smooths over normal role confusions. If you're the executive director, and you're dealing with executive director things, do you expect to talk to the director of your partner company, or to another executive director? It's not like the company org chart is public.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Jun 2, 2015

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

ItalicSquirrels posted:

We're a state agency with an extremely public org chart. We mainly deal with similar organizations.

It's not like you pass around the org chart at executive meetings, though. These name changes are a routine practice to let everyone in the room know the responsibility and authority levels of the people they are talking to. For state orgs, the different titles also often correspond to pay grades that are established at a higher level, or which may be shifted as a part of mandated seniority or employment-period based shifts. I can still remember my father's move from assistant to associate dean, with no other changes, because he'd been employed for three years. The same sort of policies may exist in the private sector.

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.
The procedure on evals sounds like a misapplication (probably intentional) of the central limit theorem.

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Lowly posted:

My boss went from Director to Executive Director to VP. Her actual job has never changed and they haven't created any new positions. Every time she gets a promotion the title she used to be just disappears. She's the worst boss I've ever had, but she sure is great at getting promotions. I think she has one for every year of working. Promotions are super rare at my company, so I'm not sure exactly what sorcery she's doing, but whatever it is, I guess she's spending all her time on that instead of her actual job.

We already talked about why this was the case. Read the rest of the thread- it has nothing to do with her on the job quality and a lot to do with being able to interact with people from other parts of the company/other companies.

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Sundae posted:

Speaking of performance reviews, I have to fill in my mid-year evaluations for some of my underlings. These are samples of the questions I've been asked for each person this year...




This is for an entry-level scientist whose job is to support floor activities. I keep scrolling and scrolling, and there's nothing asked at all about her actual job performance. :v:

CONNECT

SHAPE

what are some of the others?

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Taliesyn posted:

Those review questions make me think of the old Dilbert strip where a frustrated Dilbert points out (I believe to a Purchasing Troll) that not everything adds value, using office chairs as an example. The next panel has either Wally or Alice bitching him out because the company got rid of all the cubicle workers' chairs.

As well they should- chairs are an indirect value add.

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Radio Talmudist posted:

In the four years after graduate I spent job hunting, the vast majority of jobs I got came from temping. I think once or twice I was hired off cragislist, but most of the time applying for jobs consisted of me spending several months sending dozens if not hundreds of resumes without getting any response. Which creates a kind of generational divide because our parents had it considerably easier in terms of finding employment, at least that's my perception.

Part of the generational divide is actually a continuous sampling error. If your parents were able to have kids, they were more likely to have a stable job or jobs.

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Radbot posted:

This would be accurate if people with lower socioeconomic status had fewer kids, which they don't. In fact, the precise opposite is true.

socioeconomic status isn't a proxy for job stability, and you're turning children into a continuous. We've also got a selection bias in the population on the forum.

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Radbot posted:

Yeah I'm just gonna call bullshit on your whole idea until you've got data to prove otherwise.

Feel free. Also maybe reread my initial idea and notice what you missed in your initial eagerness to attack it.

vvvvv Congrats! Also share in the lawthread- they will be happy for you/you remind them that family law exists, which will depress them. Bonus Points!

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 02:59 on Jun 6, 2015

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.
The point of the game is to incentivize that sort of thing- it's not particularly meaningful.

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Miss-Bomarc posted:

"removing a side effect" sounds good until it turns out that the side effect is, like, "occasional nausea, vomiting, chills and fever" (which is pharma-label code for "psychosomatic bullshit but people reported it so the FDA forced us to put it on the label so that they can feel like they're doing something, which, these people have bachelor's degrees in English and their boss has an MBA and they're dictating terms to people with PhD's in biochemistry who've brought entire new classes of molecules to market, but the law says that whoever sits in the FDA seat is in charge so whatevs"

Look, I'm sure you have Opinions about the FDA, but this is some monumentally incorrect and ignorant posting here. You're wrong in so many ways I can't keep track of them all-the facts, the reasoning, the implicit causal and ethical claims, the bizarre sense of moral confidence that I'm used to seeing from people under scrutiny because they just killed a roomful of immunosuppressed kids. Please find somewhere else to express these ideas, preferably the Leper's Colony.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 07:12 on Jun 8, 2015

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

1. Removing side effects is generally good absent externalities. "occasional nausea, vomiting, chills and fever," aren't always psychosomatic, and there isn't a clear evidentiary standard for their inclusion.
2. The legal basis for listing reported effects is effectively hardcoded into the laws the FDA enforces. They don't do things "to feel like they're doing something".
3. If the FDA doesn't enforce the law in that way, it creates an opening for a suit (probably from WLF and friends) that will make it hard to list any side effects, or make it even more impossibly expensive for FDA to regulate labeling and approvals. That would be the best case scenario. They probably already have several generations of filings and amici lined up in case the opportunity arises. I have interacted with WLF. They are the stereotype of satanic lawyers made flesh.
4. Few people in policymaking at FDA have MBAs, and none that I've worked with have just had english degrees-aside from the couple who do the equivalent of copyediting. Some of the lower level heavy hitters had bachelor's degrees in sciences, but most of that generation is retired. Anyways, they still knew the relevant science better than industry. Using degrees as a substitute for field knowledge is a dodge from the main issue, which is that industry can't meaningfully regulate their own science.
5. Industry believing they categorically know the field (and the science) better than regulators is a symptom of conflict of interest, and is usually a prelude to people dying. These people are often immunosuppressed, because that's a particularly vulnerable population for a number of FDA regulated areas.
6. I spent a summer working with an FDA compliance consulting firm. One of the categories of company we would have to work with were people under investigation after regulatory noncompliance or adverse events. Many of these people, confronted with their own responsibility and incompetence, doubled down on the "I know better than FDA" line of thought. It rarely ended well for them- but sympathies are better directed at the innocent people such actors have harmed. They also parroted many of the antiregulatory non-truths that Miss-Bomarc did, especially the bullshit pointless English degrees one. It's a stupid, dangerous line of reasoning, built on nothing but ignorance and self-delusion. As someone who has worked in that area, it's not a set of statements I have much patience for.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 07:59 on Jun 8, 2015

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

MrKatharsis posted:

the FDA was mean to my mommy

Haha, wow, I didn't notice that post- it was from right before I speedread the thread and started reading regularly. Can I call 'em or what?

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Miss-Bomarc posted:

Right, that's the takeaway. Not "kid in his twenties with a BA in English telling a woman with two PhDs that genetic engineering is still an unproven technology and that's why we can't cure cancer this year". No, it's all about mean to my mommy.

You are proving our point. Do you understand why you are proving our point?

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Fil5000 posted:

Vox, how would the Death Vox version of the FDA operate?

Whether for serious or not, that's probably too far off-topic. Assuming total control, I would change the mandate of the tobacco division so that it harmonizes with the rest of FDA's mission, though.

I have to be careful here- FDA is one of the places I hope to work.

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

SubjectVerbObject posted:

Given that your company seems to be all about appeasing authority rather than scientific discovery, it would be the perfect place for one.

?????

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

SubjectVerbObject posted:

I am just thinking that a creationist scientist would work very well in a place where you are expected to follow orders, not think for yourself and not question authority.

I see- I couldn't tell who you were referring to as authority.

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Grabpot Thundergust posted:

Ask them to recite the contents of your employee handbook from memory.

It's...I...do they not know what that is?! :psyduck: How could..I mean, even an expert attorney in your area doesn't have rote knowledge of the relevant CFRs- it's like expecting you to know the machine code of all the software you use!

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

FizFashizzle posted:

Girl at Huge Corporate Entity who I'm friendly with has recently been promoted to a new position. SHe's now in charge of the entire national wellness program for the entire nation through all their big facilities. Her main job is basically telling the employees exactly how many wellness options they have, and getting them to partake. All companies receive free health screenings (cholesterol, triglycerides, etc) because healthy employees lower insurance premiums across the company.

My crossfit program is insanely successful. We have data on everyone who goes, how often they go, how much their lifts have improved, how much their cardio endurance (stretching it, this is rowing times) have improved, etc. We can prove that the crossfit clients are getting healthier relative to the general Huge Corporate Entity population and it's saving the company money.

Guys.....guys.

Before you lean in, make a list ( I mean a literal list) of all involved parties who might try to screw you on this, and any way in which your program would have liabilities or problems in an upward scaling.

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Ashcans posted:

Just start inserting excerpts from your books into your work and see how long it takes anyone to notice.

Set one of your books in your workplace. Describe the company and location in detail. Include details on the security system. Make concealing FDA noncompliance a plot point. Include this fact in the blurb. Let me give you some people to send promotional copies to.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 01:41 on Jun 18, 2015

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Epic Doctor Fetus posted:

If Sundae were to do this, it could potentially open him up to libel charges. The setting should be the completely fictitious pharmaceutical company "Jackson & Jackson."

Only if the published statements were false- and weren't considered parody!

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Sundae posted:

I've been invited to an award presentation with the company president next week.

:wtc:

I mean seriously now... what in the flying gently caress is happening here? Am I stuck in some sick sort of Twilight Zone episode where no matter how much hatred I hurl at my employer and how much poo poo I give them, they keep on loving it? What the gently caress is wrong with this place??

I look forward to reading about your promotion to president of the company in a couple week's time.

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Sundae posted:

Double-post, but it's worth it.




It's training time!!

I don't understand- Susan does not appear to be a friendly animal of the savannah.

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Sundae posted:

If they try, I'll be declining it. :v: Though, I do suspect that my boss is on the way out... :ohdear:

That's because they're giving you your boss's job.

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

FizFashizzle posted:

They're going to send me another, new offer letter. From there I guess I'll counter, quit, or put my head down and just start counting down the days until I die.

Why not all three?

More seriously, if they spent time discussing how to present your case to other stakeholders, it sounds like you have their buy-in.

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.
I would guess that in this context, "executive presence" is actually another way of saying initiative-taking and stick-toitiveness, meaning:

Initio posted:

He also wants me to show up earlier, work on more than my current set of tasks, and not bill any additional hours.

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Sundae posted:

Edit: But on a positive note, my indenture clause terminates at 11:59:59 PM EST tonight! :toot:

Congratulations! I sorta want you to stick around so I can see how high up the ladder you can be dragged.

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

CitizenKain posted:

The next thing is the company puts up a health flier in the bathrooms, which usually ends up on the wall in front of the urinals, providing reading material. These are usually tips like "Veggies are good!" or stories about health screening. Banal but harmless. Last week someone must have got rushed, and pulled one from a weirdo health blog, as it recommended drinking water because you get energy from water, and it helps with the bodies magnetism. Then had a bunch about flushing toxins from your system. I'm a little worried homeopathy is going to show up on there next.

Ask, and if this is the case, escalate. It may seem dumb, but even things like this can be a vector for this sort of nuttery.

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

BigDave posted:

I thought a lot of big corporations love to push homeopathic b.s. because it's cheaper to have sick people take sugar pills then actually using their health insurance.

...I would be surprised if this is the case, since that would cause the employee to incur more serious costs. And almost certainly be illegal.

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.
For the thread's amusement, I found a story about Sundae's latest promotion. This is also a good opportunity to understand how the business is seen from the other side. Read the whole article once :thejoke: wears off- there are multiple layers of irony if you've been reading Sundae's posts.

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.
Right, but as the article says, she did so much to improve the workplace culture and atmosphere! That was her strong suit!

(notice that Sundae did not deny being Alex Gorsky)

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Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Kim Jong Il posted:

That sounds strange. I'd figure they'd be scared of liability to recommend anything.


It's not true though, EVERYONE at J&J was miserable for a long time and a fair bit of blame went to Weldon. Gorsky wasn't a panacea but there was some utter misery at there before.

:thejoke:

Sundae was discussing terrible culture interventions coming down from above during a period that matches Weldon's tenure over his division. Sundae also has a history of being promoted despite being a seething, apparently well-concealed fount of white-hot loathing directed at his employer.

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