Corporate Megathread: Within cells interlinked

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Corporate Megathread: Within cells interlinked

Scrapez: Feb 27, 2004

My company has come up with the excellent idea to make everyone salesmen.

So, as an engineer, I have to watch hour long training videos explaining to me how to be one of those annoying people I hate that try to sell things.

On top of that, they have an external company that calls every employee and quizzes them on the sales material while role playing as a customer.

Now here's the even better part...When you refer a customer, you are eligible for these reward point things where you can get money or products. Hey, that's cool! I can win stuff!

Nope. I am not eligible since I work for a division of the company that was acquired years ago.

However, I am still expected to take the training and the calls even though they offer none of the products in my part of the country and even if they did I wouldn't get any incentive for selling anything.

/rant

# ¿ Apr 21, 2010 20:39

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 12:38

Scrapez: Feb 27, 2004

Dunno what this 6S is that you guys are talking about but it sounds similar to ISO.

ISO is great for factories and processes that have definable steps and measures.

ISO is retarded when applied to dynamic things like troubleshooting issues. My division was ISO certified last year. It's a complete joke where we make things up so we can get audited on them and pass.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2010 21:06

Scrapez: Feb 27, 2004

The company has laid off our whole testing group so I now write, test and implement my own code. :pwn:

They've laid off 75% of the support staff but haven't laid off anyone in marketing/sales. They are still selling as much or more as ever and are wondering why the support just isn't what it used to be.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2010 21:25

Scrapez: Feb 27, 2004

WarLocke posted:

Don't test the code unless they start paying you to do so?

Oh trust me, it isn't tested well. See my statement about marketing wondering why things don't work like they used to.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2010 21:28

Scrapez: Feb 27, 2004

Cheesus posted:

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.

My life. You've just described it in perfect detail.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2010 22:17

Scrapez: Feb 27, 2004

Do Not Resuscitate posted:

Buzz words...

Sense of urgency. Ugh.

We all need to have a sense of urgency because we've laid off half the staff and you guys have to do twice as much work now. mmkay? Thanks.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2010 23:46

Scrapez: Feb 27, 2004

I don't know if it's been mentioned but...

The meetings to discuss what we're going to do as a "team". Usually, the first meeting is missing a few people so we end up having another planning meeting even though the missing people don't matter in the slightest.

Once we've planned things we have another meeting to assign action items. All action items go to the 1 or 2 people that actually do things and could be doing things if they weren't in meetings.

A follow-up meeting to check status at least twice a day and see how we're "tracking". Red, yellow or green? OK, it's either Red or green. I'm either waiting on someone else or I'm actively working on it.

Do I know if it's going to be completed on time? Yes, it is because I gave you a date that was much longer than I had anticipated it taking because I've learned in the past that you will supplement your requirements after the fact to add much more work.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2010 23:53

Scrapez: Feb 27, 2004

modestduty posted:

It could be worse.
Much worse. As in, I had a winter program at a consulting firm that exclusively used Vista. Not just any Vista, but a Vista that probably hadn't been updated since it came out of the box. Running on some Compaq pieces of poo poo with monitors straight out of 1994 and a server that would go down randomly several times a day. I don't know how anyone got anything done.

We still have some machines running OS/2 Warp.

# ¿ Apr 22, 2010 01:16

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 12:38

Scrapez: Feb 27, 2004

Winkle-Daddy posted:

Does anyone work with employees from India?

Oh hot drat. We've laid off the majority of our American employees and replaced them with Indian contractors or employees.

1. They work during Indian business hours so they regularly think it's cool to call me up in the middle of the loving night for some stupid poo poo because they think "Oh it's 1 P.M., he'll surely be up."

2. I try to be patient. I try try try to understand but I can't count the number of times I've said "Can you please tell me what's happening via email?" Because I simply cannot understand what they are saying on a conference call. I mean it's like Americans...there are people that speak English that talk fast or mumble that I have a hard time understanding but you factor in English as their second language and the accent and my god it's impossible.

# ¿ Apr 22, 2010 06:19

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