The Water Cooler

jmac

8:43 AM

Welcome back @enderland.

What's the remote worker's equivalent of a lunchbox?

enderland

12:13 PM

@MattGiltaji great! Seems I'm in the minority there though whether you should say it that way or not

jmac

12:39 PM

@IanHolstead Fully with you on that one Ian! @Matt knocked that answer out of the park too. I really love the fact that you link in other answers and resources -- it not only makes your answer better, but it also highlights other good content on the site and gives people a reason to read more if they need it. I really hope you stick around!

2

Review of this question would be appreciated:

-2

Q: Does Business Analyst experience make a programmer more valuable worker?

I had various workplaces, and my first one was a pharmaceutical company where in the IT the Business Analyst (BA) tasks were divided between Programmers and Project Managers (PM). I spent there five years, which I try to evaluate in myself since I spent a lot of time doing specifications and deal...

I think it should be closed, but I lack the time to make a proper comment (and my vote is binding)

enderland

@jmac I voted so at least you'd only have the 3rd

jmac

Basically the answer is "it depends" -- and that's useless to future visitors. Even if we could say objectively which is better, that won't help someone who visits in the future but has that experience but still can't find a job, or the person who studies BA to get a job and can't find one, etc.

I would close as 'primarily opinion-based' but I anticipate that there would be a giant discussion about how 'there is an objective answer to this, why was it closed?' or something of the sort.

enderland

1:10 PM

@jmac That's like 50% of the questions here, heh

jmac

Yeah, I usually have fewer responsibilities and can do it myself, but in the meantime, I figure that I should put it here so someone else can handle it. Hopefully.

Ajaxkevi

2:43 PM

workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/30716/… Edited, feedback is wanted.

jmac

2:57 PM

Thanks for the edit @Ajax!

AJ Henderson

5:28 PM

anyone have any actual experience with paternity leave?

and if I ask a question on the site about it (assuming you don't have one already) would you guys prefer it or prefer I give it to parenting?

enderland

@AJHenderson what sort of question? many of these I'd think are "what is your company policy"

AJ Henderson

well, the question is more specifically how much to take, which has a balance of family and workplace components

though in chat, it would also be about what kind of setups worked well

enderland

@AJHenderson is there any answer to that other than, "you have to balance which is most importnat to you" ?

AJ Henderson

for example, would it be worth it to take 2 weeks off fully and then another two weeks of doing half time

enderland

For me, I will alwyas prioritize family over work, and so almost always I would take FMLA leave if allowed (at least some)

AJ Henderson

5:31 PM

it's probably a little open ended, but I'm looking for ideas of how to try structuring it that have worked well

that's also why I am starting in chat :)

enderland

@AJHenderson I'm assuming - your wife is having a baby? you are wondering about taking time off yourself?

AJ Henderson

yeah

due in 6 weeks

enderland

what sorts of responsibilities/timelines do you have at work?

that's a fairly important piece, if you are say in R/D or some sort of "I can be gone from work indefinitely with no significant effect" it's one thing

but if you are on a project due in 3 months or something similar that changes things

or have direct reports, etc

AJ Henderson

I mostly work on long term projects but I also do framework support (framework developer/architect). But I'm also not the only one with my responsibilities

there are two of us

enderland

brb, lunchtime

AJ Henderson

5:35 PM

basically, they would be a little short staffed and things would slow a bit, but not critically so

I also have 3 weeks of paid time off banked

so the only thing particularly special is that they normally don't like people taking time off for more than 2 weeks at a time, which obviously doesn't apply to FMLA, but it's also why I'm thinking along the lines of 2 weeks off fully and then 2 weeks of half time (preferably working from home)

enderland

6:05 PM

@AJHenderson I was going to suggest something like half time working from home

Especially if you have the ability to do it without much problem (ie most of your work is feasible to do remotely)

AJ Henderson

yeah, in fact, the other guy that does my job regularly works from home 2 days a week

enderland

I think what'd I'd first figure out how much time at home you and your wife want

AJ Henderson

(that's the conversation I'm having in Parenting chat right now :) )

enderland

I think almost all reasonable managers are willing to work with people on this one, it's more what does @AJHenderson actually want

I'd say if its your first to take perhaps more than you initially would think, too

AJ Henderson

yeah, that's the big mystery of it for me is that I have no idea how much to take in general

Matt Giltaji

6:16 PM

@AJHenderson A previous boss of mine only took one week and regretted not taking enough time later on

I would say take as much time as you can get, your child is only an infant once

that said, work form home or flexible time is an excellent middle ground

enderland

@AJHenderson Can you do something like - 2 weeks vacation and then 1 month FMLA but with the option to either work from home part time or return early?

AJ Henderson

@MattGiltaji yeah, I'm certainly taking a minimum of 2 weeks at the start

I've also asked my boss for ideas too. He's actually usually pretty good about such things too

very much a family man himself and very supportive of unique arrangements to balance needs both professional and personal

which is nice

enderland

Yeah

Matt Giltaji

6:39 PM

took a stab at cleaning up this, hopefully that will address the downvotes

-4

Q: How to stop co-workers from unpluging my stuff!

I have a power outlet with a fan that I share with my co-worker, and my lamp in it. This co-worker keeps unplugging my lamp so he can plug in his phone charger. I've tried the obvious asking nicely. I want to know how to padlock my plug so he can't unplug my lamp. It's a standard US power outlet....

colleagues

the typo in the title was driving me crazy

Matt Giltaji

6:54 PM

our "hot network question" is from an asker that quit the site :(

9

Q: How to push back when colleagues send work to me they can do themselves?

Over the years I've acquired some Perl skills to get the data in a shape I can work with (marketing analytics). Average dataset sizes have grown over the years, and colleagues tend to say "Excel can't handle that" and send the work in my direction. The other day my boss referred to me as the dat...

professionalism work-environment scheduling

35k "hotness points"

enderland

7:22 PM

@MattGiltaji where did you get the hotness points from? just manually calculating it?

Matt Giltaji

@enderland hover on the stackexchange page

stackexchange.com/?page=1

looks like its down to 31k hotness points now

but i remember reading on meta that the stackexchange.com site hotness calculation is different than the sidebar one

enderland

huh, neat, thanks, I never noticed that

enderland

8:17 PM

Blog - Stack Exchange: Please welcome jmac, Community Manager of the Rising Sun

Shog9 on July 23, 2014

As Stack Exchange continues to expand to serve new audiences, we’re constantly on the lookout for folks who can take the principles and practices we all hold dear and communicate them effectively to the folks who would otherwise find them strange and difficult. I’m happy to announce we’ve found another of these rare specimens in the form of Joshua Maciel:

Josh joins us remotely from beautiful Kansai Japan, where youthful ignorance brought him for a two-year stay (maximum!) to teach English. Eleven years later he still hasn’t left, having found gainful employment doing internat …

7

Matt Giltaji

@enderland finally, the blog post lands :D

enderland

Yeah, I was waiting for an official announcement

I figured that was going to happen given some conversation Shog and him had in here once :)

Matt Giltaji

all those comments you deleted make sense now :D

that and jmac starring all the chat messages indicating he got more diamonds

enderland

8:36 PM

yeah. there was a convo in here a few months ago

Eggy

hey guys, has anyone here had to do a programming task before an interview. and did you get the job if you did the programming task correctly afterwards?

Matt Giltaji

@Eggy Yes and No

enderland

@Eggy I once had an interview that had a prework associated with it, I spent a few hours (I think 5 total) and apparently was one of the only candidates they had who actually worked with it

most interviewers were shocked I did anything

Eggy

wow really

I mean, I had my second interview today. (i did the programming task correctly). But I'm still not sure

enderland

It was more of a "hey play with google app engine and make an app to do something" and so I did

Eggy

8:40 PM

I see

Matt Giltaji

@Eggy you can also do prework by researching the company ahead of time, reading their blogs, researching the tools and frameworks they use, even if they don't assign specifically

that always looks impressive

and the opposite can be just as bad

Eggy

yeah, the company is fairly small, and I couldn't find anything of that sort

in terms of blogs and frameworks **

I'm just wondering because someone here: workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/18696/…

mentioned that some companies make ppl essentially do free work

Matt Giltaji

you can usually tell by the kind of work it is

if its some trivial thing, like FizzBuzz, chances are its not free work

Eggy

LOL no

It was quite specific

Matt Giltaji

the other thing is you can do most of the work, but leave out some key piece

when you hand it in, so that they know that you solved it, but they don't have that missing piece unless they bring you on board

Eggy

8:44 PM

Yeah, I'm further worried because they asked for my code about 3 times in the interview

I was like, ok..

Anyway, if I'm not accepted I'll just tell my placement officer to be cautious with the company

Monica Cellio

@enderland local boy done good -- congrats @jmac!

Matt Giltaji

1

Q: My Ex-Employer wanted me back

Just checking with you people if it is good to go back to the ex employer, i am young professional with 2.5 years of work experience, i have switched from my first company(where i joined as a fresher) an year back with all formalities and good will. My ex-manager(he is promoted to some good posi...

employer

not sure how best to edit this to make it less "what should I do"

enderland

I'm sure we have had that q before

24

Q: My ex-employer wants me back. How should I evaluate?

My previous employer recently reached out to explore possibility of getting me back on board. I worked with them for 6+ years before moving on three years ago, basically to check out grass on the other side. I would consider my previous stint with them successful and my departure was on friendl...

job-offer

Matt Giltaji

ah, was searching for "former employer" and got buried

enderland

I think I did "previous employer"

Matt Giltaji

8:54 PM

@MonicaCellio I know that multiple offensive/spam flags will close out a question after reaching a certain threshold....is there any benefit to multiple duplicate flags or does that just clog up your mod queue?

I don't have VtC privileges yet

Monica Cellio

9:13 PM

@MattGiltaji multiple flags of the same type come through together, so no worries. (That is, if two different people flagged a question as a dupe, when I see it in the queue it shows up once, with two flags.)

Matt Giltaji

@MonicaCellio thanks, good to know

Monica Cellio

@MattGiltaji you're welcome. Oh, and I don't think I've talked with you before -- I've noticed your pattern of good answers and helpful participation; glad to have you on board!

enderland

We need people to vote to close more

How do we get that?

Matt Giltaji

@enderland I'm working on getting my rep up there :D

@MonicaCellio Thanks, I'm impressed by the mod team here at TWP... I try to copy the "hi new user, i edited your post..." style of comments that jmac does

enderland

I used to be more ambitious about that sort of thing, but I'm getting cynical...

Monica Cellio

9:21 PM

@enderland looks like we have about 60 people who have the privilege, though I didn't look to see how many are currently active. So, I'd say a mix of encouraging active people with the priv to use it and encouraging less-active people to come back (if we can).

enderland

@MonicaCellio well many of them post answers to those question :P hah

Monica Cellio

@MattGiltaji thank you for the help. This site only scales if other users step up like that; anybody can be the welcoming committee, not just mods. :-)

@enderland ah. Yeah, that's a different problem...

Monica Cellio

9:34 PM

@MattGiltaji oh, correction -- a flag as duplicate doesn't even hit the flag queue; that kicks a question into the close-votes review queue so other people can look at it. No mod action needed. :-) (But, that said, I just closed the "old employer wants me back" one as a dupe, which may have been in response to a flag.)

Ian Holstead

@MonicaCellio I second what @MattGiltaji said, the mod team here is great!

enderland

Here poor jmac is going to come back and see everyone suddenly praising the mod team immediately after he leaves ;)

Ian Holstead

General editing question: If I make a typo when editing (i.e. the other day I wrote collage instead of colleague) should I edit the post again or am I just filling up the review queue?

enderland

review edits get approved pretty fast

I wouldn't worry about them

We can't tell you what to do with your life. IMHO this is off topic. Perhaps you may have a valid question here if you were to rephrase it while focusing on the risks/benefits of coming back to a former employer? — MrFox 57 mins ago

wtf, he didn't even vote to close this as off topic

Ian Holstead

9:57 PM

@enderland Ok cool

@enderland You sir are quick on the related questions!

enderland

@IanHolstead I've... seen many duplicate questions by now hahahah

This is a great list which gets at what I was hoping for with the bounty. — enderland Aug 26 '13 at 20:26

I put a bounty on a "startup vs big company" question about a year ago too :)

Ian Holstead

@enderland We should replace the current 'your question might be like' with 'enderland thinks your question is like:' on the ask a question screen :P

enderland

Eh, knowing what to search for helps

Plus, sometimes you can find duplicate questions simply by putting the question into google or even the "ask a question" box and seeing the dup the asker clicked through

Ian Holstead

@enderland Pretty much. Before I even ask I do a site search using google

enderland

I hate to think how much of Workplace is stored in my memory though, it's somewhat depressing

Or awesome, not sure which

Matt Giltaji

10:41 PM

@enderland my vote is for awesome

@jmac the CM of the hour!

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