@schizoid04 I found @enderland's moderator note rather hilarious, in that I wasn't trying to be clever, sarcastic, or impolite. I read through the entire comment thread and I got the impression that everyone was genuinely trying to reason with the OP and make her realize she was overreacting.
There was just one comment at the end intended to be funny, where I told @SaggingRufus that I would get him removed from the site for asking me to go scuba diving (with a :P), but that comment got deleted when it was moved to the chat room. :(
I guess if you found me funny as hell, perhaps I have the talent to be a standup comedian ... or maybe Donald Trump's speechwriter?
A friend asked me to provide recommendations as to what he can do early in his new role to improve his chances of succeeding as a supervisor, and to promote satisfactory performance from his team. He is new to supervision in general, and in particular of employees who are significantly older than...
@RichardU Yeah, the list of things that would not offend someone is rapidly shrinking, so it is hard to tell if someone complaining about getting offended is serious or trolling.
@JoeStrazzere There was no social media back then, that made a huge difference I guess. Now everyone wants to be the center of the universe.
@JoeStrazzere I think I should start selling those posters with some modification. "Keep calm and please don't ask me out". Then you could strike out either "please" or "don't" with an erasable marker.
@MaskedMan yesterday I also learned the actual difference between "absurd" and "silly", although I knew there was supposed to be one I had to look them up in the dictionary to put my finger on it.
I'd applied and been turned down by a company about 2 months ago. The HR manager, say Jill, first asked me what I'd been doing since my last position. I'm in a new town this past 4 months, and there was a 4 months' gap on my resume back then.
I'd replied to Jill saying what I did. “What i did”...
@RichardU I disagree. I'm of the opinion that most people will end up enjoying work that they are a) good at, and b) that is in high-enough demand that they have some negotiating power. And that most people don't know what they're good at until they try it for a while. And so, if you're young, and don't know what you want to do, you might as well start with the fields that are in high-demand (and hence pay better).
Sticking with a field that makes you miserable in return for high pay: not a trade-off I would make, but there's a whole spectrum beyond that can work out reasonably well for people.
We've both started at this company a few weeks ago. They got a mechanical keyboard on day two or so and it's very distracting. I can hear it over music on earphones.
Ideally I'd like them to use a different keyboard that is not loud.
How can I approach this? Speak to them? Speak to our manager?
@Kaz Cultural differences? I would say in Spain it's very common to work in jobs that you don't like, as long as they afford you the life style that makes you happy
@MaskedMan for those folks in our studio audience who are unfamiliar....
@schizoid04 One thing that you may not realize is that moderation here is very private to prevent escalation. If you flag posts and don't see moderators acting it does not mean that they are not. Moderators will contact the person privately.
@MaskedMan some comments definitely were sarcastic, or just put there in response to other witty remarks though; i understand why the mod left the note. It seemed a lot of people may not have been taking that OP seriously due to the way they worded that question
@RichardU can you elaborate on "moderation here is very private to prevent escalation." what does that mean
@schizoid04 SE is set up as to prevent flame-wars and to keep things professional.
to that end, moderation is done in private. You won't see a moderator's actions towards a poster here. You flag, the moderators handle it. There's no feedback.
Do moderators ever review comment flags? I've read in the help center that they're automated and they can 'age away' if they don't 'accumulate' to a certain point where action would be taken automatically?
and I can understand that ethics might get a little blurry when you're talking about ensuring you still have a job and can feed yourself and your family
At a previous job, my coworker and I had mastered the job to the point where we could get more done in 4 hours than the other two teams could do in eight, COMBINED.
I regularly spend time automating things because I'd rather break my mind over something interesting and difficult then do busywork for 8 hours at a time
@schizoid04 I do similar, I even try and preempt it these days and ask if it's something they maybe EVER want to do again, if so I at least do it in such a way as to allow for future automation
@RichardU No, I'm a freaking AMAZING programmer! :D
"Please fill out form DilBert 102A. If this is something you need me to do in the future, check box two paying me 2 weeks salary to automate the task you're requesting."
I actually did something similar to what the poster did in that. I automatized my job, but I shared the code. It worked out well, they let me finish out the last two months of my contract by working at home where I could care for my dad.
In my case, I spent about 10 minutes a day working because the rest of the time, I was monitoring the systems. The systems couldn't handle my speed.
I was recently speaking with my manager, who stated that while my work is satisfactory, they've been noticing I'm spending a lot of time of Stack Exchange. I find Stack Exchange to be very informative and helpful in my work.
Particularly considering this Stack Exchange site has many users who sp...
Almost 8 months ago, I encouraged my team members to follow Stack Overflow so that they can read questions, help others, and build their skills. But now this has gotten out of hand. I have a team of 5 developers, and three of them each make at least 150 points on average during business hours.
T...
I ended up automating my job when I was a temp at a call center. Built an app that integrated with our new ITSM application (Which no one knew how to use and no one owned internally to administrate)
App condensed your entire job down to a series of buttons that would automate writing our and processing your support ticket for you on the phone
result - our 2 day training process for temp workers was condensed to four hours instead showing how to use said app instead of training them on how to do everything the app did in our ITSM tool,
hired on permanently (i was a temp at that point), later given ITSM administrator role to administrate the application I'd built this app for / to integrate with
IMO the op there probably wouldn't have lost his job if he shared the app early on and made note of it; once you get into that sort of thing you become somewhat difficult to replace if you're the only one with the knowledge to maintain said apps
2 years later I became an ITSM consultant for the app that it integrated with :P
I could point my entire career in the past couple of years to a simple, no-brainer software tool that was developed internally, mostly to help just myself, that once I finished, realized I could just let everyone else use too
We've both started at this company a few weeks ago. They got a mechanical keyboard on day two or so and it's very distracting. I can hear it over music on earphones.
Ideally I'd like them to use a different keyboard that is not loud.
How can I approach this? Speak to them? Speak to our manager?
@motosubatsu It's funny. I've worked in shops with heavy equipment running and managed to get my work done. Am I just that old, jaded and cynical, or are the folks just getting softer, weaker, and more spoiled?
Probably a little from column A and a lot from column B
there's a lot of Special Snowflakes out there that definitely weren't around even when I was starting out (which given I'm only 36 isn't that long ago)
I do think that some of the shift in what is considered acceptable working conditions has been good but a lot of what people are whinging about these days is such a non-issue it's untrue
either that or they have never really worked in truly unpleasant conditions and have no baseline (lucky them?)
@motosubatsu This is the first full-time job in my life where I have not been working overtime. My father did until he retired. My grandfather went into semi-retirement for years after he could have just sat back
@motosubatsu yeah, I've had some nasty jobs in my day. maybe that;s part of it.
The question in question: My area of expertise at a new job is apparently being outsourced
The comments indicate the lack of an explicit question as the closing reason. Personally, I felt there was an implicit question - but edited the question to make it explicit.
Having done that, there are n...
I agree with @Magisch here, if I were to work 70 hours, I would expect getting paid that much. If I'm going to work that much I may as well work in personal projects
@angarg12 He worked hard and rose to the top of his field, worked long hours, sometimes without paid overtime, and took every opportunity to advance. 100% honest in all his dealings, and never lied, even to his detriment. You get screwed at first, that ALWAYS happens, but then you build a reputation and that is the payoff. He can literally earn as much or as little as he wishes now.
@motosubatsu yeah, I'd never do that much overtime without being compensated somehow.
@angarg12 yes, I don't blame the younger folk. You grew up in an entirely different time where you are used to quick results. Build your reputation above all things. Value it, treasure it, nurture it and you will be successful.
@RichardU one of those situations where it sort of crept on me rather than a conscious choice - I've always been happy to go above and beyond to get the job done (and of course it can have long term career benefits too) but it just got insane, there was too much work, no budget to get any help and the work just kept coming. My main boss was very supportive (she ordered me to take two weeks off at one point)
but the organisation as a whole was dysfunctional, ungrateful and generally rather toxic. I was just too burnt out to do anything
when I finally did escape I made a poor choice of replacement employer (because burnout) and ended up somewhere just as bad. 12 months and one extended nervous breakdown later I jumped ship and I've never been happier about a decision
@Magisch that's a great position to be in - actually understanding that money is a means to an end not a goal in of itself is wonderfully liberating
@motosubatsu From what you've mentioned here, I think you might find the articles at MrMoneyMoustache.com to be a good read. It's a financial independance blog
@Magisch why not earn all you can, save it up, then retire early, OR get to the point where working is an option, not an obligation. I know someone who did this so that they could become an archeologist
@motosubatsu def. check it out. Very inspiring; i just wish they'd write more than one article per month. Once you catch up on the reading there, you kind of stop visiting because of the low frequency of new material d:
There are lots of jobs I would really like to take at this point, but I can't, because it's been made an explicit possibility that if I stay here, I'll be CTO sometime in the next 4 years. And CTO of a Billion-Pound-Of-Assets Investment Management company, at 27, is a really hard opportunity to bail on.
@motosubatsu Yeah. I'm (very) young. I'm learning a tonne. I'm developing far faster here than I might somewhere else. And I've got the rest of a 40-year career for all of this to pay-off over. So it's a risk I'm willing to take.
@Kaz Sounds sensible.. I'd probably have a mental note to review it every couple of years or so to make sure things were still in (and moving towards) a happy place for you but otherwise I'd just keep trucking on
So, I have a philosophical question about the concept of employment and am looking for real world applications and examples of how that philosophy is put into practice. It's probably on topic on philosophy.se, but I'm thinking due to the workplace oriented nature of the question and the expertise on this SE, I might get batter answers here. IS there any precedent for if such a question would be on topic?
I'm just curious why the large difference between an employer/producer who automates something and an employee who automates something. Ford could automate it's entire factory and for the most part keep the same prices -- it would just lower it's bottom line and rake in more profit. It would be unreasonable for consumers to say "You automated this, you obviously aren't spending as much resources, we expect you to charge less and innovate more".
At the same time, an individual could automate his job function, yet he is expected to then inform his boss, take on more work to fill the "time" he is paid for, or even risk being replaced by his own automation. We are paying ford for a car, not the amount time they spent making a car. Why is Ford paying an individual for his time, not the product of whatever time he spends?
@Sidney For many, many reasons. Generally because employees are not paid per unit of output. They are paid for their time and their effort (generally speaking).
You can opt for different modes of employment with a different risk/reward profile (think commission-based sales, or performance-based bonuses) but most people don't.
@Sidney Some individuals are paid solely for their output. Think "piecework", "task work" or "commissioned sales". Others are paid hourly or by salary. Think of the converse - if a salaried or hourly worker worked for 8 hours but didn't produce any output, should they still be paid?
I am currently looking for new jobs, and am currently on £X amount of money. I know I am currently underpaid, so when talking to recruiters I am bumping my current salary up in order to apply for jobs at an acceptable market rate for my work. This naturally progresses through into the interview s...
There's a new kind of sh*t testing for employees they're doing now. Interviewers are being deliberately abusive on the interview to see how far they can push you as an employee if they hire you.
I have a personality trait (desire to understand details and confirm them) that very often can be mistakenly perceived by people as micromanaging them (even though my intent in what I ask/say is purely centered on my mental details and NOT on what/how I want them to do).
For example:
Me: (notic...