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I'm a programmer. These are my favorites. "Just A Quick Question...". I know it's meant with respect for my time. They think that if they downsell how much work they think it should be for me to give them an answer, it suddenly makes it better on me. Guess what? It doesn't. This prefaces most questions that require work for me to research. Yes, I might have been involved with the implementation. Yes, I might even have written it entirely by myself. But unless I did it in the past week, I have forgotten the kind of detail you're asking for. If I get the question in email, I can get back to them but if it's in person, I have to tell them I don't know/don't remember. The look on their face is visible dissapointment. If theres a real-world analogy, it's like being asked what you ate one day 6 months ago with the expectation that you immediately can rattle the answer off. After all, you ate it, how can you possibly not be able to answer? The Perfect Interruption. I don't get interrupted very often but when I do, it's absolutely at the wrong time. Ok, when you're programming, any interruptions are bad. Having to switch your mental gears away from what you're working on is very hard. However, you're not neccessarily thinking/writing full-on during the entire day. There are times when interruptions are not as bad as others. Like if you were coming back from the bathroom or maybe taking a break to read emails. The most recent example occured last week. I was in a slump that lasted about two days. During this time I could not get anything done. No motivation and I was slacking off, reading the forums, youtubing, etc. During this time when it would have been absolutely perfect to ask me questions, I had no interruptions at all. Finally I kicked myself in the rear end and got my mojo on. No more than five minutes into "the zone", I get interrupted. By a "just a quick question", no less.
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Apr 21, 2010 22:14
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Robot Hobo posted:...
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Apr 22, 2010 22:40
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Roberto_Silencio posted:Okay, now imagine that, if it actually was less than ten feet away from you, every ten to fifteen minutes. I am completely not exaggerating here. All day long, I was assaulted by disgusting throat clearing on two sides of me and I think I may have damaged my hearing because of how loud I had to turn up my headphones to drown them out. Every 5 minutes. We timed him for 30 minutes because we couldn't get any work done.
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Apr 23, 2010 13:44
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It wouldn't be this? http://www.killianbranding.com/blog/
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Apr 26, 2010 23:31
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A dog's age ago, I worked for a small company that was in a transition stage between a dying market and an emerging one. Due to the inexperience/ineptitutde of management to make this transition, our income was down and the future of the company was looking grim. We just had a round of layoffs and we were down to a dozen employees. While several of us were busting our asses to make it work, the same old same old (now nearly half of the company!) were sabotaging it. Either they wanted to continue living in the past and were therefore not motivated to help the transition or they were just lazy fucks who wouldn't do the work. They had favor with management and were considered "protected species". Needless to say, morale was as bad as I've never seen it anywhere before or since. We started having weekly meetings about what the stakes were and what we could do to improve the situation. Of course those causing the problems were never called out. They'd just nod sagely to the rest of us as management would explain how we all had to dig deep to make this work. During one of these meetings, one of the managers sang the same old song and dance but with a twist. He said we all needed reach down to find our motivation to keep our work and that this was his: he held up the keys to the new SUV he just bought. While nobody said anything, I swear I could read minds that day. Cheesus fucked around with this message at 20:42 on Apr 28, 2010 |
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Apr 28, 2010 20:39
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Downs Duck posted:Also:
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Jul 13, 2010 13:59
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FreshShoez posted:When I took the job they tried to guilt me into taking it and staying for as long as they needed me... they also added a nice little "You have to realize that we have NO obligation to you. If money runs out, we get rid of contractors. You contract could end in a week... or it could end in a year, we really don't know. Also, we picked you out of a pool of 30 applicants. 30 other people wanted this job.... don't take it if you're going to quit in 2 weeks if you find a permanent position somewhere, that will waste our money. Also... you're LUCKY to be a contractor... because you get paid for overtime". In fact based on that attitude, I'd be tempted to time it in the middle of a project.
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Jul 21, 2010 14:08
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In my experience, even if you do get extra compensation, it may not be worth it. For example, we do some outsourcing to the far east. In order to manage them effectively you have to travel there a few times a year and usually put in 12-18 hour days either managing or entertaining them. Minimally you have to talk to them on the phone every day during their working hours which translates to 7-9 pm local time. And you're still expected to put in an 8-5 day at the office, Monday through Friday. The boss above you is either an rear end in a top hat or at best, doesn't want to provide you with the support you need, requiring you to beg/haggle over say, much needed equipment. I can only speak for myself, but even if I were to make $20-30k more than I am now, none of those extra responsibilities would be worth the extra time and stress that would take time and enjoyment away from my personal life.
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Feb 3, 2011 14:52
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GWBBQ posted:Are your rooms at least in order? Here's the main part of our second floor.
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Feb 9, 2011 22:56
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Keetron posted:Working in Test Management for a few years made me resent these projects. As a TM you are made responsible for the quality of the product (you are not, as a tester you are responsible for the measurement of this quality) and on the other hand treated like poo poo if you dare report all the risks that come with fixed price/fixed time. Even though he was around when those "rough guesstimate" schedules were off 30-40%. And the "taking appropriate time" schedules were almost 100% spot on. The attiude seems to be that if we're not hunched over our computers and looking like we're coding, we're wasting time and money.
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Mar 31, 2011 14:44
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AlphaDog posted:This sort of happened to me when my Team Leader quit unexpectedly and I was the most experienced person in the team. Everything kind of hosed up for the next three months while I sort of figured out on my own how to do this new job. It all worked out in the end though, so that's nice. But yeah, no training or guidance just "X quit, do you want his job for an extra ten grand a year and a laptop?" and really, do you say "nah, I don't know anything about leadership" when that happens? The only exception is if you're planning on leaving at some point in the future and having a management task on your resume would look good.
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Aug 22, 2011 14:08
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Jason Sextro posted:A senior guy where I work was once told, without warning, that our company had changed its vacation days policy and he had to do something with his vacation days or lose them. He had 13 weeks accrued, so he told HR he'd take a payout. And at your company, what kind of punishments are likely due for him exercising an earned benefit?
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Oct 26, 2011 15:56
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I'm surprised that after he filed with HR to take 13 weeks off, someone in the chain in either HR or his direct didn't stop in and say, reasonably, "Woah woah woah! We can't allow you take that much time off. Would you be agreeable to a buyout?" Or unreasonably, and more likely, "No way you're approved to take a week off, let alone 13. Get back to work."
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Oct 28, 2011 19:15
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God I'm paranoid at the prospect of a future job interview and being unable to resist dissing my current place.
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Nov 8, 2011 03:28
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Email is too valuable these days as a paper trail. My IT manager tries his hardest to get everything in email so when he gets the inevitable "This is your fault!" he can point to email.
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Nov 19, 2011 16:31
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Sundae posted:Not an international corporate thing certainly, because my former company removed all our first aid kits back in May 2009 for "cost savings."
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Nov 22, 2011 18:18
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I think it's: "Create list of customer feature requests (for our software product) in order of high to low importance"
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Apr 3, 2012 12:46
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Sundae posted:She was a very special case of 'entitled corporate prick.' After announcing layoffs, she talked about how she knew just what it was like, how the uncertainty felt, because "she'd just bought a house facing the water and the layoffs might affect her property value." Two years into the job, the small company started having a revenue problem and for a good year, we were under the gun of uncertainty as to whether we'd still have funds to stay open. Compounding that was half of the company consisted of "old guard" employees who could be at least partially blamed for the company's dire situation due to their laziness. Every week we had a company meeting to discuss the situation. One day an "old guard" member tried his hand at a pep talk. He told us that we needed to all work together and individually come up with our own inspiration to see that light at the end of the tunnel that would keep us focused. He ended his speech with a grin and "Here's my inspiration". He held up the keys to his new Suburban.
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Sep 24, 2012 17:16
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Crowley posted:Our CEO likes to dress in velvet suits when he's presenting something at employee meetings. That was quite the change from my last job where all the C-levels wore regular boring suits.
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Sep 25, 2012 19:16
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How long is "too long" to wait? I might be on the edge of a layoff myself. My rough plan was to take 2-3 months off to recharge but is that too much in the fields of IT/software engineering?
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Nov 18, 2013 23:35
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I'm anticipating a possible scenario where I may both have a job at a new company and be asked to do contract work for my old company. Since I've never done contract work, can someone point me to good resources?
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Nov 25, 2013 15:54
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The Berzerker posted:That whole "not backfilling my old job when they promoted me" thing is really starting to wear me down. For example, it is 8pm and I am still at work, and have been the only one here for about 4 hours.
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Jan 15, 2014 14:48
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A company I worked at for almost twenty years finally imploded last year. Looking back, I'm amazed that the company was able to string successive days of operation for that long with the so-called "leadership". Any measurement of "success" came from everyone without the title "CEO" in their job description avoiding or dealing with figurative tacks and nails thrown at their bare feet by said holders of that title.
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Jan 15, 2014 21:15
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I think there's also the mentality of one "showing" how hard they're working.
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Mar 12, 2014 14:29
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docbeard posted:Or even better, "I will stop by to discuss this" without giving any indication of whether it will be in the next five minutes, sometime later today, or ten minutes before the heat death of the universe. From the asker's perspective, it may appear to be inoffensive and meant to cause minimal disruption. To the target, it's insulting to a) make the assumption that it's minimally disruptive question and b) be put into the position of looking/feeling like an idiot for not being able to follow through. Even better is when you respond "I don't know the answer, but I can research it and get back to you later." the response is usually "Nevermind" with a visible air, however slight, of irritation and/or disappointment. Sorry, I'm not your personal loving Wikipedia.
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Mar 13, 2014 16:49
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SubjectVerbObject posted:My reward? 2.5% raise and an atta boy. At a previous company, they had a bonus plan for managers and senior staff. The bonus was based on a manager approved personal objective for the quarter and sales meeting its CEO-defined goals. Personal objectives were expected to be quarter-long efforts (like a new product) on your own time for what amounted to less than a week's pay.
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Mar 20, 2014 13:13
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Sickening's saga was masterful, from start to finish. In this day and age of decreased value of the IT worker, I hope to read more.
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Mar 25, 2014 15:43
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I'd be more concerned that your husband didn't defend your request and justify the job to his father. I definitely agree that looking for another job with even a manufactured story is the best way forward.
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Apr 7, 2014 17:20
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ItalicSquirrels posted:You can then take that number to management and say, "This rear end in a top hat is costing us $5000 a year and I can prove it." Books don't seem so smart, now do they?
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Apr 14, 2014 15:42
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SubjectVerbObject posted:At this point... nothing will happen. The cost savings will be more important than having a working product, and the folks left in the US will be responsible for trying to clean up the mess and keep the customers from leaving. As much as I'd enjoy a tale of schadenfreude, I suspect the more common answer is along the lines of "No, not all expertise was let go; that single employee is now responsible for managing the outsourced teams and correcting all of their work. He works 100 hours a week."
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Sep 25, 2014 15:03
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My favorite dailywtf comment quote: "After 30+ years, my metric is simply, "Do the paychecks bounce?" If no, then I'm good with whatever cockamamie thing they dream up." Words to live by.
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Sep 25, 2014 20:57
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Ozz81 posted:But it has the potential to be used against you later....like, say, during a performance review. Sort of a catch-22 anyhow, if you say "no", you don't look like a team player, but if you say "yes" and don't get the job done (or do it wrong), it still counts against you.
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Oct 2, 2014 20:25
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There's a reason why Office Space is a painful masterpiece beyond even white collar work.Xibanya posted:I also was told I should show more enthusiasm. As in, I didn't have a negative attitude, but my attitude just wasn't positive enough! Essentially, get happy or else.
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Oct 10, 2014 18:58
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ladyweapon posted:Before I started my company didn't back up anything at all. No backup server, no USB backup, nothing. If the server just up and died one day, years of documents/accounting records/etc would disappear. Now I back everything up very regularly. It gets better than "no backup". At the time, that particular server hardware was coming up on twelve years. As soon as the new owners took over, the RAID controller started to die. It was a good test to see if the lines they fed us before the transition about being prepared to invest in the company were true. The answer to that question was "See if you can buy a used version of the controller from Ebay".
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Oct 28, 2014 14:03
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First, thanks for the post. I appreciate learning a non-US perspective.Keetron posted:Again with the flexibility problem, finding a new and challenging place is hard, due to labor protection laws companies are unwilling to take a chance. And in other cases, "due to a moral distaste for hiring those who are unemployed".
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Nov 6, 2014 14:47
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I'd never considered retirement planning but an iteration of my previous company set me off on the right foot. The owner was my mentor imparted on me how he though it would be a good idea. Since I've always taken a "long view" of life, it was an easy sell to me that saving the maximum allowed toward the future was way smarter than the junk I was likely spend it on as a young, single guy. And at the time, they matched so it was stupid not to so. Fast forward several years later. The matching had long stopped but seeing the effects of that saving only solidified my beliefs. That company had new management who switched to two different co-employment services. Getting retirement funding set up was made incredibly inconvenient. Lots of paperwork and for each enrollment, a couple of month wait to start. I got the impression that I was the sole employee doing it and felt a small wave of resentment coming my way for making more work for everybody involved. gently caress 'em, but I could see how someone else might think "It would just be easier to not do this." The current company was much the same. But the reaction I got when I told HR to set me up with my standard (maximum) contribution (no matching) was the shock of "Why on earth would you bother doing that?".
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Nov 13, 2014 23:39
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enraged_camel posted:I've always been curious about what people like that have in mind for retirement. Like, what do they believe will happen when they have no option but to retire (health, etc.) and the paychecks stop coming in?
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Nov 14, 2014 14:34
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Che Delilas posted:There are a lot of unprofessional things managers can do, but insulting the people they're responsible for, past or present, has got to be near the top of the list. Early in my career I was put in "charge" of the boss's son. The guy was not motivated to do any job and as often occurs in these situations, I didn't have any sticks in my pocket. Since my hands were tied, bitching about my "subordinate" was fair game.
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Dec 17, 2014 15:34
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Sundae posted:I'm sure we'll end up getting people to replace them, but mother of god what a clusterfuck. I hate the contractor model for high-level positions even under the best of conditions because of the knowledge loss at the end of the contract, but this is such a gently caress-up that I hardly know what to say. "Oh, all your people are gone. Whoopsie, hope they didn't weren't working on anything." The scenario: New contractors are hired and yet, oddly enough, need a period of time to come up to speed. Sundae is called into his boss's boss's office and the conversation begins, "Even with these replacements, we're missing our established deadlines..."
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Jan 3, 2015 23:34
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Taliesyn posted:You'd think, based on the SQL, VB, and VBA grilling I received while being interviewed for this place that I would allowed to use those skills, but nope. A company has a list of nearly impossible skills, after months or years, finally bags their unicorn, then it becomes clear to the hire that none of those skills are used or necessary.
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Feb 25, 2015 15:38
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