Dumb shit your work does: for some reason in the Diablo font.

The Something Awful Forums > Main > General Bullshit > Dumb shit your work does: for some reason in the Diablo font.

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

Currently contracted to the largest company I've ever worked for. Big billions and offices in scores of countries etc. Honestly pretty surprised how not terrible a lot of stuff is, but they have this bizarro thing where there are so many overlapping internal software processes. Like multiple document sharing/editing methods and so on. And part of that is they have like 5 ways to contact people, and different generations of employees have personal preferences, so you have to have like 3 chat apps, comment notifications and email open at all times.

The other day somebody asked me to use a bunch of image assets and sent them to me individually on a Google Slide rather than the files themselves. And you can't save images off Google Slides, oh no, you have to transfer them to Google 'Keep' and then open them in a new page because you can't download files from that either because reasons. And I can't make any edits on the weenie company laptop I have to use because it's all set up with security and VPN stuff, so I have to email it to myself and do it at my desktop, then send it back to the laptop.

This is my first job in COVID times since I finished my MA in December and it's pretty weird to just...work during the day and nobody is ever looking in on me. There are no meetings on a Friday, so I just went through the whole day and didn't speak to anyone other than via little popup comments. Pretty chill.

# ¿ Jan 30, 2021 18:37

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 07:42

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

Hyrax Attack! posted:

It�s so drat bad. If a user�s password is expired, why not pop up a screen telling them to reset their password instead of a baffling error message?

I've run into SAP Fieldglass, which is a Timesheet management thing for contractors. I forgot my password in a storm of making new passwords. The 'Forgot Password' button asks for my email and username. I put it in, and all it ever does is email me my username over and over. I submitted a ticket to their customer service desk. They responded and said "'We're sending you an email with a reset password link. Reply ACCEPT if this has solved your issue, or REJECT if it doesn't."

And of course, no email ever arrived. Just remembered my password in the end and spitefully never replied because hot drat what is wrong with your system.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2021 17:58

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

Outrail posted:

Start a move to finish them. If it works you're the big hero. If it fails you used your initiative and cleared some space ahead of time and you're the big hero.

--

I just realised you can hold space while muted on zoom to temporarily unmute, release to mute again. Like using a radio switch. It's great. Also 'I have connectivity issues' are magic words to turn your webcam off and gently caress about on your phone.

if only the other grandpas out there could learn the magic of PTT as you did

# ¿ Feb 10, 2021 16:27

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

AHH F/UGH posted:

Are people literally just unplugging from the plane and then and dropping them because they�re too lazy to carry them down the ladders or something, or are they actually butterfingers and they slip and drop accidentally

Like this is America so I would imagine they just toss poo poo into the ground because that�s par for the course of how little Americans care about doing thing right and care about their work but that�s just egregious.

you sound like manager material

# ¿ Feb 11, 2021 12:11

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

I imagine a big reason that most companies don't frequently include future co-workers in the hiring process is that it just creates a source of potential tension and introduces bias into the selection process. Not saying there's none of either of those things already, but asking people their preferred hire and then hiring someone else just makes people mad. Likewise, some engineers or whatnot may 'mysteriously' disapprove of a large number of female candidates and so on.

People prefer other like-minded people with similar opinions, skillsets and more. I for one would definitely prefer to hire somebody I got along with well if my input was asked for, and I would rather that than have somebody marginally more qualified who is loving horrible. And 'theoretically' hiring is supposed to be based on merit etcetc.

I don't doubt that if co-workers had full authority over hires in their own field, they'd probably get better technical outcomes (although it's half a job in itself to deal with those processes), but stuff like hitting diversity targets would be a complete pipe-dream.

Best system I ever saw had HR cull the field down to a shortlist where they anonymised statements and qualifications for each and asked team members in the relevant to vote for their preference (also anonymously), but honestly that sort of stuff only really flies in small/medium companies.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2021 15:08

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

InternetJunky posted:

# ¿ Feb 19, 2021 15:04

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

I was meaning to respond to talk about project managers/digital stuff pages back but never got around to it.

The dumbest person I have ever met, or at least have spoken to for more than a few minutes, was a lady in her early 40s who was hired on as a Freelance Senior Digital Project Manager, for which she was paid somewhere just shy of the equivalent of $1000 per day.

I don't work with anything digital, and at the time, the most I did was vaguely liaised with their team on certain bits and pieces. But what became very quickly apparent was that this woman didn't know anything about technology whatsoever. I have no idea how she passed an interview, I just assume her CV was completely forged and she blagged through it. The main project (among others) was building a website for a big client and she was meant to be directing priorities and mediating with the client through the process or something, whatever the gently caress a project manager actually does.

I think almost all of the most awkward career experiences of my life were at the hands of this woman. I was basically a junior copywriter (also freelance) working on a bunch of stuff, so pretty tangential to her, yet she would basically rope helpless subordinates into these nightmarish conference calls, including me, where she basically deflected all questions from clients to the team members directly because she was completely clueless about literally everything. She was almost incapable of using a computer or the internet, and soon every single non-management person in her orbit complained constantly. You couldn't actually talk to her normally because she would basically freeze up and go boggle eyed if you said anything slightly complicated, so everybody had to talk to her like a small child.

Her average day consisted of coming in late, leaving early and taking 2 hours for lunch everyday to do some yoga thing. In the office all she did was shop online and, as it turned out, fielded and then sat on increasing angry client emails and calls. It came to a head at one point 2-3 weeks in where she put a call on hold and came over to me with this panicked look and said there was a call for me on the line and forwarded it to me. I got on the line and it was the account manager for the client who was almost in tears of frustration at the other end of the line, who went on this rant about how they were on the verge of cancelling the whole project because this lady "couldn't follow even the most basic instructions." I had to apologise and say that I didn't even really work there or on that project but I would talk to management, which I did, alerting them to the fact that she was the most incredible moron and that the client was nearly cancelling everything.

There was complete radio silence for several days after they said they would look into it. Management then returned that they were completely satisfied with her performance and extended her contract for like three more weeks, but got some other account manager to handle the client emails from then on. The project finished without her input whatsoever and she left when the contract was up, having made like $50,000 for doing nothing but act as an impediment to everyone.

Of course, when you put it like that, she seems like the smartest person I ever met.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2021 19:19

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

Sounds like an effective way to grab attention to me, you child-beating monster.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2021 18:26

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

Quantum of Phallus posted:

Cool

Don't worry, I reported them for bashing on Apple. Despicable.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2021 10:26

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

Dick move or not, an entry-level candidate actually being called personally to be rejected by a senior employee, and not only that, being told exactly why they failed is probably better praxis than 95% of companies lol.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2021 16:05

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

titty_baby_ posted:

I've applied for multiple jobs with the state and county, and have been interviewed several times, and even though there own policies say they should contact you when the positions been filled theyve only done it once. Ive even been in the position where I was emailing the guy who would be my supervisor, who kept saying "were still waiting on HR but your name is on the shortlist, check back next week" until he eventually ghosted me

I think we know why, buddy. :hmmno:

# ¿ Mar 1, 2021 16:45

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

Fitzy Fitz posted:

whole generations of people who think writing can be reduced to what the charlotte's web guy said

all I know is there is a whole generation of people who learned to type on typewriters and will insist on putting double spaces between every word as if that were valid and not moronic

e: woah what the actual gently caress, the forums deleted all my double spaces?? stop auto-correcting my boomer humour :mad:

# ¿ Mar 1, 2021 18:00

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

Mojo Jojo posted:

It's only Germany and France that do this to my knowledge. And it's going out of fashion thankfully.

Although I'm seeing more and more grads from UK universities putting photos on. Which we have to autoreject without reading. I assume there's some reason for this but we can't even reach out and explain they need to stop it because the company is terrified of getting sued.

That's weird. In the UK I associate photo CVs with boomers, mostly. Modern companies will straight up tell you 'No photos' in application processes, so I dunno what's up with that trend.

Name is still de rigueur though. Hobbies and poo poo is only for uni kids with no work xp, and the 10% of people who hsve never removed that section since they themselves were uni kids.

The true dystopia lies in the keyword searching 'algorithms' that basically pre-bin CVs if they don't hit enough arbitrary terms.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2021 10:32

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

AHH F/UGH posted:

Wait is there some kind of push of companies somewhere that there is not even have someone�s loving NAME on a CV? lmao what the gently caress

As someone with a very ethnic name attached to a decidedly non-ethnic body, ~10 years ago I got very used to a very particular look of visible confusion and disappointment when arriving for an interview, so it's not like it doesn't imply anything about you. Nowadays, they just look you up on LinkedIn first (and maybe Facebook if they're psychos) in advance anyway so no photos means nothing if the position is in any way considered important.

CVs are declining in relevance for most people as so much recruitment now is web based through forms anyway, so as Mojo says, it can be held automatically identity blind.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2021 11:11

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

AHH F/UGH posted:

I know it�s not always the case but it seems like a self correcting problem of companies passing by the best candidates based on their name alone, not to mention at some point in the interview process the name is going to have be learned regardless

Obviously once you get to the interview stage, it's all out the window, but foot-in-the-door is still important. The point is as much to mitigate unconscious bias as conscious bias in the initial stages.

Galewolf posted:

I don't know if this is true or not but a contractor friend told me to have a list of keywords/buzzwords (like hundreds (thousands?) of them), have them minimized to like the microscopic fonts and have letter coloring white so you embed it in your CV to be picked up by the algorithm used by the HR softwares.

Dunno if there is any truth to that but with the problem you mentioned, it might seem like a thing.

I have like one throwaway mention about a Document Control software I used before and every now and then I get queries about it despite it was stated that I was only the end user. It has to be the algorithm picking it up because a human recruiter would pick up that I only used the software, not a developer or even admin.

Filling your CV with millions of tiny words like "collaboration" is more urban legend than truth, but Applicant Tracking Systems (and believe me, almost every large company uses them) will absolutely be filtering CVs by keywords, specifically those in relation to skills. So if you apply for a job, look very carefully at all the required skills and match as many as you can in your own CV with the same terminology.

The further you are in your career, the less this sort of thing matters, but it's extremely pertinent for entry level/graduate roles, because if you're applying anywhere sizeable, they are getting literally thousands of speculative applications for any position. This kind of thing is the double-edged sword of living in a world where all positions must be advertised, everyone can find them, and far, far more people are technically 'qualified' because most people have at least an UG degree.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2021 11:30

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

If there was ever a canary in the coalmine policy that signalled "help my company is dying", making you pay for previously free coffee is surely a leading contender.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2021 16:14

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

zedprime posted:

In a, uh fair isn't the right word, normal? effective? Capitalist society other people's pay is market info you need for effective negotiation to place your labor supply in the right place on the supply/demand chart. Companies know this and instead play every sort of awful anti labor game you can think of to try and distort even an educated person's understanding of where their labor supply line intersects the demand line.

Pages back, but this is a good post that really rings especially true if you ever have the fortune/misfortune to actually grapple with a complete picture of budget/billing for a project or whatnot. Unless you're pretty senior or in accounting, you don't often get to see exactly how your contribution is being billed to a client - that's usually eye-watering enough - but further to that, the kind of spaghetti mess that goes on behind the scenes where budgeting is reallocated. Which is part and parcel of this:

Inzombiac posted:

I have to code my labor on my timesheet down to 15 minute increments but no one can tell me what constitutes what.
Most of my job is IT related and have a code for that but then our budget unit sends me 60+ hours of labor codes that I'm supposed to use instead but... like when and where?

No one can explain what they want from me. Like so much else, we operate in this swirling game of telephone.

Where actual work involved and timings is often just a fiction. Like a client is billed for 20 hours of X and 40 of Y, and then X overruns by like double and all the hours get shuffled into Y. It's not unusual to see situations where certain work is billed at 4-5x+ your effective hourly rate and that excess (that isn't just regular ol' profit) is skimmed off to pay for other areas where the rate is only billed at double or even close to cost.

How much you actually add value is almost always completely opaque to you.

wilderthanmild posted:

The social media thing reminded me of a crazy thing that happened to me at an old job. It's not really employer related, but drat it's nuts.

SEA is just filled to the brim with people like this (although usually a decade older or so). It's absolutely possible to subsist and even make bank due to the low cost of living, although Thailand is probably on the expensive end. Most don't end up staying for the long-term though.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2021 11:56

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

quote:

I have been working at Aurea Software full-time for more than 3 years

Pros

Ability to work from home

Cons

- monitored via video snapshot every 10 minutes

-monitored via desktop screenshots every 1 minute

- every keystroke and mouse click logged

<snipped about 1000 more cons>

Glassdoor review I found presented without comment :stonkhat:

# ¿ Apr 7, 2021 13:43

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

Fried Watermelon posted:

Imagine being the person who has to sift through thousands of images & videos of desktops & employees homes daily lol

or do they get a neural net AI to go through it and ding you if it thinks you turned into a firetruck for a tenth of a second?

My bet is they have basic photo recognition software to detect anomalous levels of absence from being at the computer and flag it.

Keystroke info is used to detect work intensity compared to in-house averages for comparable roles and flag under-performers.

Desktop screenshots probably checked manually for evidence of shirking, possibly also trained to recognise certain key timewaster sites like Facebook/Amazon.

Hellworld lol

# ¿ Apr 7, 2021 14:52

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

Sheik Yerbouti posted:

Edit: Of course, you need to document the time you spent doing that poo poo using the same tool as well.

Zeno's Paradoxical Timesheet Systems Incorporated

# ¿ Apr 23, 2021 14:51

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

It's standard for companies to know who searches what on company computers. Unless you are all sharing some without logging in first.

# ¿ Apr 26, 2021 12:35

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

I had to make something in the 'new' Google Sites the other day. It was like trying to use a website making kit for 5 year olds, except less customisable.

e:

Batterypowered7 posted:

seems about right for my experiences working with people at BNP Paribas lol

# ¿ Apr 27, 2021 17:19

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

The Butcher posted:

"Hey how is {project} going? Deadline is tomorrow remember."

"We are almost there, just want need to run a few more tests. Could be a late one for me, I'll keep you in the loop."

He said, after finishing it two days ago and is currently weeding the garden, and has fully verified {project} is going to work and just needs to push a single button to go live.

The garden is nice. It has dirt and plants and I can make useful things grow. There are birds and fresh air.

I somehow managed to gently caress up the basil but at least I don't have to hear your stupid voice.

it's like a beautiful dream

# ¿ May 19, 2021 18:39

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

Many of my projects are assigned to be completed by EOD on the day they are assigned, but have to be submitted for a review to every interested party (so between 3-5 people, usually) before they can be fully signed off.

Then after making amends in line with comments, the amended version must go through the same review process as before.

And if there are more amends, etcetcetc.

Have you ever had to chase 5 separate people for amends three or even four times in a day? Even doing it once can be torture. And the worst part is that some people only review copies after a certain other person has reviewed it (as in they review a part-reviewed copy), so it's not like they all review simultaneously. The review time is practically cumulative per person because it doesn't run simultaneously.

Inevitably, this means that like half the stuff I work on is never finished by EOD, not because I didn't have time but because of the sheer amount of deadtime of waiting for people to respond on reviews. Often it's the only thing I have on that day, so I just twiddle my thumbs. Then, inevitably, it's too late to finish that day so I finish it the next. But I generally have another new project 'due' EOD that day as well, so everything is forever half a day behind.

Why don't they give me two projects and schedule two days for each so I can at least balance the time while one is in review? Why do I have to go through Zeno's review process?

:iiam:

# ¿ Jun 3, 2021 20:04

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

Outrail posted:

Drooling moronic inability to empathize or think critically coupled with terminal laziness.

Don't ascribe to malice what can be explained by stupidity etc etc

Have you emailed them point blank asking for the file they're working on? And included 'waste of funding/resources to recreate the wheel'? And Cc'd your boss and their boss?

no point in asking when the time it takes to get a reply, probably in the negative, takes 5x longer than just typing the whole loving thing out from a screenshot

# ¿ Jun 23, 2021 16:54

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

SubnormalityStairs posted:

Tell me, Mr CEO, what good is a project roadmap when you cannot develop?

If that is even your real name

# ¿ Jun 25, 2021 14:49

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

manpurse posted:

My computer has about 7 bloatware programs forced onto it that we cant shut off. We use mcafee antivirus and internet explorer. My computer takes ~17 minutes to start up and load all of this trash. IT remoted in to my pc to update a piece of software (we�re not allowed to update software) and he got so mad at how long it took he gave me his login credentials so I could do it. we�re a multi billion company spread across Canada and the USA and recorded our highest profits ever last year.

It's funny how many of the dumb things that crop up in this thread are shared experiences. I have a company laptop (actually I have like 6 laptops gathered over time from different places lol), for which the setup and IT is handled by a third party business. I don't have the admin password (it's a Mac) and changing or doing literally anything requires me to phone a landline and get a technician to do it for me. No matter what time or day I call, they are 'swamped' and it takes a minimum of like 2 hours to get a callback and someone to go on TeamViewer and type the admin password in for me.

I can't even share my screen on video calls because it requires admin privilege and I can't be bothered because the effort/reward ratio is just ughh

# ¿ Jul 13, 2021 10:51

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

Scientastic posted:

Do you remember when words were used to communicate meaning, instead of to baffle people into thinking that you were doing something special and different?

frankly? no

# ¿ Jul 14, 2021 15:45

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

weirdest meltdown I've seen for a while, ngl

# ¿ Jul 15, 2021 12:40

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

Ziv Zulander posted:

For every bullshit problem you solve at work I have to deal with one elderly person who is sobbing their eyes out because they�ve lived beyond their usefulness

sounds like a good gig

# ¿ Jul 15, 2021 14:04

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

20 Blunts posted:

sitting in meeting about how much money we're losing and then i hear:

OMG I'VE NEVER BUILT AN INSTAGRAM FROM SCRATCH

Please spare a shred of pity for people who are responsible for building social media presences from scratch for faceless corporates. Probably one of the most psychically draining jobs imaginable. It's almost the archetypal modern capitalist dystopia gig and it's no surprise that it is like a maw that devours an infinite treadmill of young grads.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2021 10:46

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

Barudak posted:

I've been tasked with politely putting a pillow over the face of our social media account and pushing down until it dreams forever

"Shout out to the 83 corporate accounts, senior employees and bots that follow us. We're slipping...it's so dark...I'm scared #notearsonlydreams #b2bmarketing #manicmonday"

# ¿ Aug 11, 2021 11:01

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 07:42

Jeza: Feb 13, 2011; The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.

On the topic of timesheeting software, we just got a new one that is meant to save time and cut down on the amount of emails created by our back and forth review process. I'm holding judgement on whether this actually makes timesheeting easier once I've gotten used to it, but the replacement review system is like...

The previous system was sending the document attached to an email with REVIEW in the title that allows it to be filtered. Get doc, look at it, send amended version back.

Now the 'streamlined' system involves me uploading documents directly to a OneDrive, getting a sharepoint link, sharing it on the 'job page' of this timesheeting app, then leaving a comment on this page that @'s the relevant people. This makes no noise beyond a silent app notification (it only works on desktops, not mobile either) so you have to enable email notifications that you've been tagged if you actually want to see this. Then they have to comment and tag me when they're done, sending a separate email, and I have to go in and make the changes to this online only version of the document, then re-download it back to my PC and save it manually onto the server anyway.

How to turn a 30 second process into a 10 minute headache 101.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2022 13:45

The Something Awful Forums > Main > General Bullshit > Dumb shit your work does: for some reason in the Diablo font.