The Water Cooler - 2013-04-23

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1:03 PM

I think we need to graduate so that we can elect some mods

@jmac It should be scissors and we could call it snippy

@jmac it helps to be CST that's for sure...

@jmort253 I like the change you added to the "What kind of questions can I ask here" section of the FAQ, however the FAQ begins with "What kind of questions can I ask here?" which is still answered by "This is a site for members of the workforce navigating the professional setting. For example, ...", which I still think implies that any question for a member of the workforce is OK, and says nothing about the fact the site is for a specific topic only.

1:32 PM

The ETC should be removed I think.

1:52 PM

7

Q: Is there an effective personal strategy or methodology to stop bringing work issues home

In my work environment I interact on a daily basis with people who are not as technically strong as they should be. Who do not have the necessary managerial and administrative skills to run teams or departments (those are the negatives, there are also a lot of positives too - the inverse of my pr...

management colleagues work-life-balance tech-industry

isn't the answer ot this question "figure out your life priorities first, then start making actionable changes?"

2:25 PM

@Rachel Thanks Rachel. I didn't make all of the changes because I didn't want to make too many changes all at once.

crap, I just posted an answer which included "you should think about quitting if XXX is true"

To some extent, we're still defining our site, and there may still be questions out there that fit really well that we might not see if we make it sound like we're only including the topics in the list.

So... Think we can we sleep on the other changes for awhile and see how we feel in another week? :)

@jmort253 nah now we're starting to actually define it instead tribally defining it :)

@enderland Nice answer. I felt I'd wait to see how he commented on mine before going for the "Which means more". And to be fair, I've met a lot of people, especially of my generation, for whom their job means more than their relationships. They just don't reflect on that that much.

You can normally tell by the fact that they haven't been in a serious relationship in 3-30 years, and spend every evening slinging code.

Questions and answers seem to be arbitrarily closed based on the standard of their asking, rather than their topic.

Im not saying this is bad, poor questions should be closed. But like that post on meta points out, similar ones are closed, or left open, or even praised, seemingly at random

2:31 PM

@deworde oh gosh this problem practically defines 1/2 the software/programmers I know

most people spend no time considering how their 168 hours a week are allocated and whether that is what they want long term....

@enderland planning is overrated!

@enderland Yup. It's amazing how many people will say "Of course my wife and kids mean more", but see nothing amiss with working hours of unpaid uncalled for overtime on a non-"life's work" project. On the other hand, been there, done that.

@SpikyBlue I'm not even talking about doing anything about it :P just thinking about it

@enderland The sad fact is if you genuinely love what you do, it creeps up on you.

I dont see why thats a sad fact

2:35 PM

I actually made a decision to not go into software dev types of jobs partically because I know how easy that would be for me to let it take over my life (plus I cannot separate "work" from" home" at ALL with respect to software, not that you can separate your work/home person anyways)

penny-arcade.com/report/article/…

it's so easy to make compromise after compromise, then find out you're working 60 hour weeks every week and go, "wtf happened to my life"

@enderland but is she happy?

@SpikyBlue the answer to that is really complicated

because if you enjoy what you do and it makes you happy i dont see any problem with it

2:38 PM

I don't really care, because if I ever have kids, I don't want to have to go, "sorry, mommy is just at work this month for the entire month, I guess you'll see her next month"

not to mention how that affects me as someone dating or potentially married to her

no one looks back on their life and thinks, "damn, I wish I had spent another 10 hours in the office each week, I would have had SUCH a happier life!"

people go "oh @#%@# my parents are going to die and I've ignored them for years"

or "oh @#%@# my kids are graduating high school, where did that time go?"

never "oh @#%% I could be making more money and work more hours"

Thats because people are never happy with what they have. Enough is never enough. Tv's have to be bigger, pay has to be better, food has to be tastier, healthier. Grades have to be better.

Basically all that up there.

I dont see why people complain that they should have done this, or should have done that, rather than enjoying the things they actually did.

@SpikyBlue because, eventually, you realize work and making money for the sake of money/work has no lasting meaning to you - the lasting meaning comes from the people in your life you either neglected or cared significantly for

@enderland im not talking about just work, im talking about tdoing whatever it is that makes people happy

2:42 PM

I don't want to be happy

I want to live a satisfying and fulfilling life

@SpikyBlue Listen, it's possible to own that, to say "I love what I do, and I'm prepared for the personal sacrifices that entails." But that choice will define whether you have a family, or an ex-wife and some kids you never see.

and living that life would make you happy.

sometimes those are mutually exclusive, temporary happiness often comes at the cost of lasting fuflilment

@deworde why do you keep assuming that when i say 'Whatever makes you happy' means that you drop your social life and your kids?

if those are the things you enjoy then do those

@SpikyBlue I think there's some confusion here. My statement is that people neglect their wife and kids by accident because they're so focused on their jobs, and we're no longer a culture that accepts that. That's what I meant by "creeps up on you".

2:49 PM

@deworde and those people who are doing it, for minimum wage, day after day, to provide basic needs for their family? sure they see them perhaps an hour a day while they are awake. Do you say they are neglecting their family?

@SpikyBlue At the same time, I get that there are some jobs that define you, and that you build a family from. But I think the former's more common than the latter.

Screw the idea of cultural normalcy. Its a case by case basis and people should quit with the 'norms'

@SpikyBlue the "norm" in the USA is for people to go to work, work a ton, then come home and "check out" of their life - something like 4 hours TV average a day

@jmort253 Ok, thanks for the reply :) I'm fine with waiting a week or so, but I do think the change is important and don't want to see it getting forgotten about

@enderland ok, wheres this going?

2:51 PM

@SpikyBlue people tend to be far more likely to run into this situation - workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/11274/… - than the opposite

@enderland I see no part of that where the family is neglected

@SpikyBlue did you not read his (or her) question?

@SpikyBlue They don't work unpaid overtime. Or if they do, then frankly, yes.

@enderland i see a man who wants to talk to his wife about his problems but is instead told to can it

Are there effective strategies or methodologies to stop bringing work issues home and to balance my work, family, spouse.

2:52 PM

@enderland thats the title, no part of the question alludes to him neglecting the family. Atall

@SpikyBlue that's the question, how to better manage work and family

but there isnt an imbalance

it snot like he says he constantly works overtime, spends no time with his family etc

his time is split between work and home.

@SpikyBlue except he consistently works at home by talking with the spouse about work enough that it's a problem. not sure how you're missing this...

he has issues at work which he talks to his wife about that is normal, if you dont talk to your wife about your problems what are you supposed to do?

@SpikyBlue Talk to her about her problems would be my glib but insightful answer.

2

2:54 PM

@enderland at no point does he say thats all they talk about though. all we know is that he talks about his problems, too much for his wife. all i see is a wife who doesnt want to listen

and is placing the blame on the husband

@SpikyBlue Or to be honest, I've had good luck with curling up on the sofa and watching BakeOff.

Communication is part of a relationship. Shes basically said she doesnt want to listen to his problems. And everyone is agreeing that he is in the wrong

the solution is to talk less about it. not cut it out completely

@SpikyBlue anytime someone is concerned enough about to say I end up relying on my spouse far to much to talk over daily issues in the workplace and it's driving them nuts obviously has work/life balance problems

@SpikyBlue At the point where she claims she now has two jobs, and he acknowledges that, you've crossed the Rubicon.

If the roles were reversed this would be a totally different conversation

if a wife said her husband doesnt want to listen to her work problems, he would be in the wrong

2:58 PM

anyone who uses their spouse (this doesn't matter if it's man/woman) as an extension of their job is not maintaining proper work/life balance in my opinion

regardless of gender

enderland, but talking over your problems with your spouse IS part of that balance

you cant just bottle your problems away and ignore them

@SpikyBlue yeah? to the point where you are concerned enough to post on an internet website about how to do it less? I realize some of this is healthy, but this person is well past that

@enderland HE didnt see a problem, or he would have stopped doing it. he was TOLD by his wife that its too much for her

but its clear we wont come into agreement over this. so perhaps we would be best to drop it here

Its entirely possibble that im not even following or understanding usual interaction. Its a bit of a, weak point, of mine

@enderland hows that guide going?

@SpikyBlue I guess any situation where:

1) the persons spouse complains they have to work two jobs
2) the person admitted relying on the spouse too much
3) the person is concerned enough to ask online how to deal with the situation

and most importantly

4) the person is unable to imagine taking time off work because things fall apart

STRONGLY suggest there is a huge work/life balance problem

@enderland i will agree there. Perhaps i misinterpreted the situation from the get go

3:10 PM

I think everything you've said is exceptionally good and hitting the nail directly on the head, but I have a problem with the last paragraph. I took a week off and came back to a (co-worker and team members induced) disaster zone where I was very nearly dismissed, instead I was removed from that particular project. Even taking two days sick last week, appeared to cause "while the cat's away" mayhem (no stories, tasks, work items done) - caused in part by my line manager's seeming inability to steer the ship even though he was directly supervising them on my behalf. — Ourjamie 3 hours ago

@enderland lets hope he avoids bus lanes on his route to work

@SpikyBlue I would extort a raise and have the entire team fired: p

@Chad Except if he's a manager, I might raise questions about how much he's managing people rather than doing their work...

@Chad why the entire team fired? i get the raise bit, but not that bit

@SpikyBlue If you can not trust your team to do work while you are out for a week or even 2 days then either the team is horrible, or you are a horrible manager. Since I am perfect the whole team needs fired :)

3:17 PM

@Chad it feels wrong that that sounds convincing

Seriously that is somewhere that someone needs to be fired. I tend to think OP since the problems persist in 2 different teams.

@Chad he should extort a raise, then get a new job, and use his new wage to barter for a higher pay at a better job

I am impressed no one has said that he needs to slap his wife for whining about him venting about work :p

@Chad apparently i have some controversial views on that question so my lips are sealed

@Chad I get it's a joke, but... no. Just no. Not funny, not fair, not cool.

3:27 PM

@deworde you are aware of the onrunning 'slap' joke here at the wp right?

@SpikyBlue It had better be hilarious. :(

It was sadly a "real" question about slapping his bosses wife

@deworde we had a whole variety of questions of suspect seriousness about slapping at work (and outside work with coworkers) for a week

@deworde we had a week where there was a sudden influx of questions where the entire scenario was 'boss/coworker/minion slapped me"

Real in that someone asked it not that it was actually wanting an answer

3:29 PM

@Chad i thought it was the wife slapped him?

10

Q: How should I deal with being slapped at work?

A girl at work slapped me. I didn't touch or offend her, she was drunk. There were no witnesses to support my story or security cameras in that area of the building. The witness didn't support my story because he slapped me after she did to try turn it into a joke and thought he'd be implicate...

etiquette professionalism colleagues conflict

There was another one about the wife slapping

14

Q: boss slapping me due to calc error

I was slapped in the face by my boss. Me male. She female. My Excel file had an error in the calculation. Ok, so I messed up. But to be slapped. I fixed it and saved it out to the network. If I complain I guess I will just get fired. But I don't want to work for someone like this. How should I ta...

professionalism management colleagues conflict

@chad wow i dont remember seeing that one!

@Chad I think that one might have gotten deleted

3:30 PM

Yeah im pretty sure it did

@chad typical

Yeah, outside of that context, it came across as... different.

Those are a bit extreme but we get quite a few answers that advocate fraud as the solution or condone fraud. Those are the ones that bother me. That was just an extreme cynic in me

@chad yeah some answers i dont get why they are even posted

did you see that one the other day that basically said 'Throw a tantrum and get him fired'

and was an upvoted answer

0

A: How to not let co-worker's incompetence affect my productivity

Does anyone have any suggestions for a strategy to deal with my co-worker? Personally, I would lose my temper when he screws something up or lies to me about the tasks he failed to do or clients he said he called when he didn't. It would be mild at first, and mostly fake. Just enough to let ...

@jmac you were interested in seeing this answer yesterday ^^

@SpikyBlue I WANT MY CODEZ or I am telling mom!

3:41 PM

@Chad im hoping that 'throw a tantrum and get them fired' wont become the next 'quit' or 'slap' meme we have running here local to WP

Then you should not have pointed it out... we have a new meme

there needs to be a coder search engine

which will actually ONLY return results with the specified method

not "close"

Instead of quit we shall recommend they throw a tantrum

@enderland "Do you feel lucky?"

@Chad reverse psychology at its finest :P (or is this the reverse one to get you to not do it)

@SpikyBlue Duck Season!

3:43 PM

@Chad im not even sure i follow

how is this on topic:

8

Q: How important it is to have a profile on LinkedIn?

Many of my friends have a LinkedIn profile and they claim that it is quite useful for making industry connections, but I am not sure how these industry connections work. Will they be able to replace the need to apply specifically to a company? Are people flocking onto LinkedIn just because it is...

@SpikyBlue You are too young and british

The correct response is rabbit season!

@Chad because its vagely work related and easy rep

@Chad hmm, the only link that has to me is loony tunes...

How important is it to have a facebook profile?

yep

@Chad How important is it for a company to represent themselves on facebook with their own page

No that is not what that says. It says how important is it for me to have a personal profile on a social network.

Though actually the company question is off topic too

3:46 PM

@Chad i was just throwing another one out there,

holy fast answer on a duplicate

?

0

Q: how to approach my boss about a pay rise

I have been with the company that I work for roughly 6 months now, during my interview they asked me roughly how much I think I should be paid and they have matched that though they know that I undersold myself due to my degree grade. When I started I started at the same time as another member of...

@enderland Its called alt-ctrl-F in VS :p

@Chad ??

4:00 PM

@enderland i think you killed him :O

@enderland Down vote on principle

im not sure why the answer is downvoted. sure its on a duplicate but its a good answer

actually, on second thoughts...

One thing i dont understand. why do votes need to lock in.

why cant i change it whenever i like form a plus to a minus to nothing

@SpikyBlue because it is an answer to a bad question... I downvoted on principle

@Chad yeah i changed my mind, dv'd because its also too specific just to the OP. not future proof

4:15 PM

I need to avoid the Politics SE...

@Chad how come?

I think, we need to have a WP day, where Downvotes / upvotes require an explanation in a pop up box. All the results are then stored and reviewed so we can see why things get upvoted / downvoted and if it is for good reason. or even if the community follows any pattern atall

though this would annoy a hell of a lot of people and result in stupid answers being given

so instead we shoul dhave a questionnaire that people can fill in, and choose from set answers or an 'other' box. to say how they mostly decide between up and down votes

I would rebel by typing in "CUZ" to all of them

@Chad youre the guy in the hypothetical maths questions in college about a guy buying enough watermelons to fill his car arent you

4:41 PM

@Chad you don't even have to feel bad voting to close this question as a list

-1

Q: Building CV from scratch: where to find a nice template?

This is a list question. I need to build a CV this evening, and surprisingly, Google proves quite unhelpful. For example cv template the workplace stack exchange returns not one question, connected to cv templates. How about a thread, with posts, listing one or several CV templates (text fil...

@SpikyBlue why would you fill a car with watermelons

1 hour later…

6:00 PM

@Rachel okay, don't let us forget. Please remind us in a week. :)

6:11 PM

@enderland So, I should have asked about a specific answer, answering a set of requirements. I wonder if .odt files can be represented in plaintext. workplace.stackexchange.com/a/10658/1382

2 hours later…

7:52 PM

@Vorac I'm... not sure what you are asking me

@Chad hypothetical maths question? :P

8:33 PM

4

A: Turbocharging the Roomba: solutions for premature deletion

This will be live in the next build: Deleted questions will be visible to their authors, regardless of those authors' reputation. They won't be linked to anywhere that they're not already linked, but if someone knows where to find their question and it's been deleted, they should always be abl...

Unrelated:

Try slapping them — Rarity 46 secs ago

I just had to

3 hours later…

11:46 PM

@SpikyBlue Thanks! That was an awful answer. Wow. Downvoted it was!

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