The Water Cooler - 2014-04-24

« first day (743 days earlier) ← previous day next day → last day (3667 days later) »

1:36 AM

Hello user, I edited this to cleaned up the bad language and bad grammar, and I eliminated the references to your colleague's perceived stupidity. An objective question that meets the guidelines listed in Good Subjective, Bad Subjective is more along the lines of what we're looking for in a professional workplace question. Also, please see How to Ask for more guidance. Good luck! — jmort253 ♦ 35 secs ago

Still not really sure it's a good question, but hopefully the edits help the asker understand a bit more about what we're looking for in a good Workplace SE question...

9 hours later…

10:46 AM

@jmac: Ha! I've seen this movie before. High-rep user threatens to "stop investing his/her time into TWP unless big changes are made". Then they sit out for a few days. And then they return and participate even more than they did before their sabbatical!

@jmac: To be fair though, we actually did lose some really good people on Programmers.SE after we converted from NPR; but we haven't lost anyone of a "Joe Strazzere" caliber on TWP so far.

Hi Shiraaz, welcome to The Workplace. Your question is a very interesting one, that I myself am keen on learning more about. It is, however, better suited for a chat or forum than for this type of Q'n'A sites as there are lots of different possible answers and for each one there will be many opinions on whether that's the right or wrong approach. I hope you can find a suitable peer group to discuss this with. — CMW 10 secs ago

1 hour later…

11:54 AM

hiya

12:36 PM

@AlexM. Good morning Alex

1 hour later…

1:53 PM

@jmort253 Good edit. I think its a reasonable question now. I voted to reopen

No one has asked for big changes. But I am expecting that the "Be Nice" policy be enforced. I am really tired of back handed and passive aggressive attacks on myself and others on the site.

4 hours later…

5:51 PM

-1

Q: How to deal with a petty, stubborn and begrudging office lady after an argument?

We just had our company lunch and we bought some doughnuts packed into small little boxes from our excess team fund. As most of us were too full, they told me to bring some of it back or they will go bad. There were about a dozen boxes so I took one. Some of my friends took some and it was quickl...

team company-culture unprofessional-behavior

Can we get this rant destroyed quickly please

6:04 PM

Great there is already a horrible answer

6:21 PM

@Chad it's on hold now. The answer doesn't seem to me to be horrible, though it's not great either (no vote from me either way). Putting the burden of followup back on the person who has her undies in a bunch over a few doughnuts sounds right to me. What am I missing? (I'd leave out the "you can't seem to let this go" part as unhelpful passive-aggressiveness, but otherwise...)

@MonicaCellio The answer deals with the question asked... so now if the question gets focused on what the OP actually wants (based on her comment) of "What do I need to do to head off problems with management?" The answer is invalid...

Answers to bad questions that arent great... are horrible because they prevent editing

@Chad true, the answer might need to be edited or removed depending on what happens to the question. I was reacting to your saying it's a "horrible" answer. What did I miss?

Oh I see -- that there is an answer is horrible. Gotcha.

Because the mandate that did exist was not to edit questions in a way that breaks existing answers

Anyway, I closed it as soon as I saw it. The answer appeared while I was on the page. :-(

I assume that is still the policy we have

6:25 PM

I think this answer will probably still be ok with any plausible edit to this question.

Yeah, we can't edit questions in ways that invalidate answers -- that's SE-wide. Personally (and not having checked with my fellow mods yet), I'm more willing to do that when events unfold very quickly -- question asked, answered, and closed within a few hours.

In this case it was 28 minutes from ask to close.

But we should check with other mods. @jmort253 @jmac opinions? (Thread starts with the "petty" question.)

I edited the question removing the rant, and focusing the question on preventing the problem from further escalating

I think it totally invalidates the answer or at least makes it not an answer

Hi Francine. This question was put on hold and then edited to make it more suitable for the site. The focus has changed some, which affects your answer. Please take a look. (We try not to invalidate existing answers when improving questions, but in this case there didn't seem to be much hope for that. Sorry.) — Monica Cellio ♦ 12 secs ago

7:01 PM

@MonicaCellio W/the edits, it seems like a question with potential.

leaning towards a reopen but wanted to get others thoughts?

@MonicaCellio For the year I've been a member I've worried less about whether or not an edit will invalidate existing answers, and more if an edit will invalidate existing quality answers. While I don't advocate people editing willy-nilly to invalidate answers, if it happens in the course of making the content better, I don't see why it's such a big deal.

Would anyone miss that answer if it were gone?

@jmac Do I get a vote?

@Chad Of course!

My preference would be delete the answer and leave a comment that if she wants to edit it and flag it for undeletion she can

Personally I think thats how we should handle all answers to closed questions that are not great

I understand the sentiment, but that isn't scalable (it means mods have to step in every time there is a bad question/answer combo, where they have to determine if they agree with the closing in the first place, and if the answer is so bad as to merit deletion)

Then again, we're here to do the community's bidding to an extent, so why not start a meta post and drum up some support for it? (discussing when to delete answers with said comment, and how to flag them for mod attention)

7:09 PM

I think if an answer still passes the NAA filter, even if it's a poor answer, then we don't have the prerogative to mod-delete it. (Of course the community can.) If a necessary question edit invalidates an answer (makes it NAA), I think deleting with invitation to edit and flag for undeletion is reasonable. But re what @jmac said, the mods can't 100% police that; the community will have to point out cases of this.

@jmac good idea!

I am a big fan of meta. It allows folks to gather thoughts and put things together in an easily digestible serving size.

And with that, I'm off for now.

0

Q: Could questions asking for job advice for a group of people be considered on topic?

One of the reasons questions asking for advice about which jobs should they go for are marked as off topic are they aren't relevant to many people, if anyone except the original poster. However I have come across one question (that I did flag for this very reason) that seems to consider a group ...

discussion on-topic-definition

@jmac I am not thinking it needs to happen every time. More of an as needed/appropriate basis. I would rather see mods taking perogative and proactively keeping us clean that leaving the mess that we dont have the community mods to deal with. We only have 1 person with community delete active on the site that actually uses it. (I have never seen a deleted by that included beth)

My theory is that if the mods lead by example the community will follow.

7:42 PM

I'm no native, but isn't this supposed to be "defused"?

-2

Q: How can I diffuse a tense situation with a coworker?

We just had our company lunch and we bought some doughnuts packed into small little boxes from our excess team fund. As most of us were too full, they told me to bring some of it back or they will go bad. There were about a dozen boxes so I took one. Some of my friends took some and it was quickl...

team company-culture unprofessional-behavior

(and again at the bottom of the question)

it is

he has to go to the tense situation and keep on pressing "E"

haha

don't fear the beeping

lol

thefreedictionary.com/diffuse

it could also be diffuse

too late now :)

it's fine either way

so no worries

7:47 PM

never doubt oneself!

@CMW Its a different meaning that what I was looking for but I guess it works :p

@Chad Oh was that yours? I thought it was the original question

sorry :)

feel free to roll back if it changes the meaning too much. I would have done it as an edit that needs to be approved but I don't know if that's even possible, when the magic rep level is passed

@CMW I meant soften, or deescalate. Defuse is more of an agressive remove the problem type adjective. But either work really

I'd have used alleviate in that case

ah, I see. didn't know that use of diffuse. then again, maybe I just always misheard :D

7:51 PM

They are kissing cousins

@AlexM. it would be super effective ;-)

in this case.

I just think of Defuse as looking for a solution that makes the problem go away completely. But I think its too late for that. But you can soften and deescalate Either really works for the question

ah, ok. I never thought of defusing as making the problem go away. like an explosive that's still sitting there when you cut off the burning end of the fuse. Another spark might still set it off :)

tiny bit too literal, maybe :)

@CMW seeing three other reopen votes, I've gone ahead and reopened this. I also added a notice to the existing answer saying it's out of date; that seems a reasonable compromise (for this case) between doing nothing and deleting it pending an edit. If it doesn't get edited in a reasonable amount of time we can revisit.

@CMW Like I said no harm no foul. Maybe someone will be able to totally defuse this if so great. If not then hopefully the OP will get some guidance to deescalate at least.

8:07 PM

Ah Tim Minchin always makes me chuckle

Subtleties of languages are interesting stuff

0

Q: Coworker inflates their timesheet

A co-worker of mine has inflated their timesheet. Our standard work day is 7.5 hours with flexible overtime. They said they worked 9.25 hours (private information, and I should not have seen it) even though I witnessed them only working 7 hours including lunch. This person has been with the compa...

colleagues ethics

Close votes please

Please note we already have a snitches get stitches answer

8:41 PM

And the Snitches get stitches answer got an up vote... I hate this place some times

« first day (743 days earlier) ← previous day next day → last day (3667 days later) »

Transcript for

Apr '1424

The Water Cooler

General chit-chat for workplace.stackexchange.com. Feel free t...

ask-your-manager use-headphones

join this room
about this room

00:00

06:00

12:00

18:00

all times are UTC

site design / logo © 2024 Stack Exchange Inc; legal

mobile