The Water Cooler

Mu30 murugans2katgmail

07:12

hi

Snow

Good morning. Or evening, or whatever.

Twyxz

2 Accepts in one night! not bad :)

Magisch

@Snow Hey Snow (hey oh) :D

Twyxz

08:14

Are the review queues broken for anyone else?

Magisch

@Twyxz worked fine this morning

although someone was seemingly just voting to close every HNQ question from the past week so idk why that

Twyxz

Mine says error has occurred, it's been happening for the past few days

Snow

Tried a different browser?

Magisch

You using a userscript?

Some review userscripts have stopped working recently, namely the close vote improvements script from SOCVR

I can confirm that both on latest chrome, vivaldi and firefox the review queues work fine

Twyxz

I'm on the latest Chrome

I'll try IE

It works on IE

Magisch

08:22

Are you using any user scripts on chrome?

Custom ublock origin blocklists?

Twyxz

Nope

Not to my knowledge anyway

Magisch

I have latest chrome at home even with ublock origin, ghostery and tampermonkey and it works there. Seems odd

Magisch

08:45

out of curiosity: how do y'alls workplaces handle sick leave?

motosubatsu

09:01

@Magisch I give my staff 1 year paid

Magisch

my company's owner had a meltdown at the last management meeting and said he was going to tie raises this year to not having more then 10 days of sick leave

I'm moderately considering switching employers over it

(for context unlimited sick leave is mandatory here)

motosubatsu

I understand where his policy is coming from - he's probably had someone take the piss and is annoyed by it - doesn't change the fact that his policy is idiotic

the correct way is to actually manage people properly and have safeguards in to ensure sick leave is genuine

otherwise you just punish people who are legitimately sick

Magisch

I'm a bit miffed because 10 days is well below average

average sick time a year in our area is 19 days a year. Our company has 11 on average. That is "unacceptable" according to him

motosubatsu

is that a mean average? otherwise that sounds rather high (from a UK perspective)

Magisch

average

as in SUM(everyone'S sick days) / number of employees

motosubatsu

09:12

yep that's what I thought

those tend to skew high (as all it takes is one person to have surgery or something)

shitty policies towards sick days really annoy me

it's not like people choose to get sick

Magisch

Thats where the real shittiness comes in. They said something to the tune of "only people who don't take care of themselves get sick" I wanted to say something but it's a management meeting and I'm not management

I'm pretty sure I can still get my raise despite having 12 sick days in 2018 though, but it still irks

Nofel

09:28

morning everyone.

motosubatsu

@Magisch yeah that's some grade a horseshit

Magisch

It is, and it makes me question their judgement in other areas

motosubatsu

09:57

@Magisch yeah rarely is such extreme burning stupid contained to just the one facet

Twyxz

10:23

10 days? O.o

That's two weeks off a year, ill. Even though I've not been off yet it could easily happen. Just takes that one annoying thing

Magisch

I had pneumonia last year and was out for 12 days because of that

apparently that happening should make me uneligible for a raise

Twyxz

Just start trying to poison your boss so they stay off for more than 10 days (I'm joking don't actually do this)

Nofel

11:11

@Magisch is there any handbook for it? sickness or natural sickness cannot be made a excuse for not giving a raise.

Nofel

11:22

@Magisch given ur age, I can say that management can be bullish to some people at ur age. coz they think they can give crap to younger gen and they will take it coz "they need the job"

Magisch

11:34

I really, really dont

I think i'll still get my raise this year (I dare them to try not to), but the entire situation stinks for people who have families and can't just leave if they care to

Nofel

finger crossed for ur raise

I am due on my as well

speaking of which, today is my 6th month comeplete in the company. amazing journey it has been

Twyxz

11:58

About to get another gold badge

Magisch

12:21

The red review indicator is a dirty liar

@RichardU There are some more edits to your posts wrt. Pronouns. Seems like you used "they" and "his" interchangably and they want to make it consistently "they". Not reviewing these items for now but you had something about that yesterday so I wanted to let you know

Mister Positive

12:59

morning all

Magisch

morning

Mister Positive

@Twyxz Good luck catching snow. At one point I swore he found a way to game the system....

@Magisch You did a great job fielding questions in the Election Chat Room

Magisch

Eh. I'm not sold on my chances yet. Snow's concern that I'm not that active especially lately is valid. Lets see how the electorate feels

If nothing else I'll get some valueable experience to present myself under stress out of the candidature

I still feel I can do it well, but the concern is very valid

Mister Positive

@Magisch There is no perfect candidate. If I decide to run, I am sure there will be a lot of fodder tossed my way. Last years election was an interesting experience for some of us.

Magisch

point

I guess we'll find out on feb 26

I'm sure richard will grill you similarly when you nominate :D

Mister Positive

13:08

@Magisch I would expect nothing less from @RichardU BUT he is intense but typically very FAIR. Others would be a different concern. Last time I let my emotions get the best of me, this year if I give it a go, I won't.

Magisch

was a series of fair questions tbh. nothing out of line or bad faith assuming

I believe every candidate should endeavour to answer all relevant good faith questions from constituents. Moderators field question and criticism all day, so this is a necessity to be able to deal with anyways

Mister Positive

@Magisch Agreed.

Twyxz

13:21

@MisterPositive He has moderator advantage. See the diamond? Upvote!

And that's never going to happen even if I tried anyway haha

Magisch

I mean, nominating is free

the worst that could happen is that a bunch of people think I'm pretentious

Magisch

13:36

Well the effort spent on answering inquiries and preparing the nomination isn't free, and neither is the stress of running, but it's a learning experience nonetheless

Mister Positive

@Twyxz I gave up trying to catch or beat him in the gold department.

@Twyxz Someone downvoted your answer, it was not I

Twyxz

I would've downvoted my answer also

But I'm too lazy to delete it

Mister Positive

@Twyxz LMAO - that is something Snow would say.

Twyxz

Just trying to build up votes for tomorrow :P

Richard U

Firing up the grill for the next group of candidates... Who wants a burger while it's on?

Nofel

13:50

@RichardU donno if ur offering real burger or grilling someone

lol

Richard U

@MisterPositive I don't ask "So, do you still beat your wife" types of questions. I prefer. "How would you address this weakness' kind of issues.

@Nofel I am very good with double entendre.

One time I told my SO that she trimmed her eyebrows too high. She looked surprised.

Twyxz

HAhahahahhahaha ffs

Richard U

I remember Scott Adams on his Dilbert site would generate fake performance reviews FULL of double entendre... they were hilarious.....

Mr. Smith demonstrates the importance of good hiring practices, and the possibility of hiring another employee like him should be discussed immediately. Mr. Smith has never been caught sleeping on the job and many of his coworkers have commented on his work.

Nofel

double entendre are tricky

Mister Positive

Got to run, backlog grooming time.

Richard U

13:57

@Nofel you need mastery of the language to be able to pull them off. Here's one. "I hope you get exactly what you deserve"

or...

I would like to tell you just how much I enjoyed this evening.

or...

Words cannot describe what I am feeling

Nofel

lol

I would raise my eyebrows IRL to thse

Magisch

Attending management meetings has convinced me I'm never going into management btw

Richard U

@Magisch WISE MOVE

Let me put on my manager hat for a moment.

Nofel

@Magisch do u want to or do not want to?

Richard U

.
We need to be proactive rather than reactive, because, at the end of the day, if we move the goalposts back, we can create a new synergy to leverage a paradigm shift that will significantly impact the bottom line

Magisch

14:03

@Nofel do not

I'm DPO now that's as high as I'll go

Nofel

what's DPO

Magisch

data protection officer

Richard U

@Magisch so, you're basically a Trojan that defends against Trojans?

( a little more double entendre there)

Nofel

@Magisch ur already sort of management, think "To protect and to serve"

Twyxz

Not sure how.... BUT I have 216 rep today with only one accept?

Richard U

14:10

@Nofel I thought that was "To punish and enslave"

Nofel

IRL yes

Richard U

@Magisch BTW, good job at handling those questions. Very solid answers you gave

motosubatsu

Can I get some reopens for this?

-1

Q: Open space vs offices. Which one is better for a new team?

I want to create a new workspace for a small software development team (4-15 developers). From your experience, which type of workspaces is better: open space or small offices?

as a topic that has actual proper research behind the question it's the very opposite of "opinion based"

!

Richard U

@motosubatsu ya got my vote there, pilgrim

motosubatsu

@RichardU cheers :)

Pointy Haired Boss

14:15

0

Q: Can we reopen the question of open plan vs offices?

This was closed as being Primarily opinion based, however given there is actual research done on this I'd suggest that it's actually not the case. I was actually typing up an a suitably referenced answer when it was closed!

discussion reopen-request

Richard U

@motosubatsu I have to admit, if I see one particular name for a close, I tend to be more likely to reopen

Magisch

@RichardU eh

@Nofel technically, but I manage nobody

Nofel

@Magisch I think good ppl shld be in management, I have seen if that is good, ur subordinates and junior flourish, turn it otherway, u destory many lives and don't worry fella everything comes with time.

I am thinking of getting car but "I give too many f"

I wasn't like that e.g "small car, what people will think. big car, how will i manage with insurance, posh car, "outlaws will ruin it"

Twyxz

14:32

Wow I need to build up some big scoring answers. My portfolio is looking weakkkk

Magisch

focus on getting good answers

my top answers are far from my best ones

Nofel

@RichardU lately i been impressing myself with doing things i thought i can't

but when I post question on SO i feel imposter and ppl will find out coz I hit a wall and I shldn't coz i am a developer

Richard U

@Nofel well, SO isn't known for their tact.....

Remember that

Magisch

SO has a very cutthroat environment on meta and in some tags

Nofel

@Magisch tell me about it. If i had bashing from my ex-manager 50%. 30% was from SO about telling me "I do not know X, lol how can u be a dev" and 20% myself telling myself "ur screwed"

@RichardU ^ I have suffered a lot and I feel sorry for me and more sorry for people who will work for those manager.

my current manager is of my age and is amazing guy professionally

Rhys

14:47

@motosubatsu you ever used CQRS?

motosubatsu

14:57

@Rhys I've dabbled with it.. tbh I'm not really convinced it brings much value unless you are frequently needing to make small adjustments to very large and complex DTOs

Richard U

@Nofel yeah, I bet we could exchange stories that would be nightmare fuel for most people

Rhys

@motosubatsu Yeah, it seems to be overkill for simpler applications where most things are already split with little contamination. I think it has its place for some of the more complex sites with lots of overlapping features.

Ran into a weird design issue recently and was hoping i could nick your knowledge :P I'll pester the people over at software engineering instead

hows things been lately? anything exciting?

Richard U

15:12

New drinking game. Take a shot every time someone posts the words "toxic" or "problematic"

motosubatsu

@Rhys Happy to help where I can... I have to say my knowledge/experience with CQRS is just a bit slender!

Richard U

@motosubatsu so, are you running for moderator?

Rhys

@RichardU that sounds problematic

Richard U

@rhys, that's it, I'm moving up to 44 caliber. The holes in my screen aren't big enough

JK, of course

I have never liked buzzwords. I remember back in the 1980's everyone was saying "irregardless", that one has died, thank god.

Rhys

@motosubatsu i basically have a piece of work thats neither pure query or pure command, from a consumers perspective its a query, because it looks data up, but under the hood it also modifies data (long term caching in our db) so that we can avoid being charged too much as we rely on a third party service.

so its not a query because it modifies, but its not a command because it returns business data

i could seperate the two, but we never want to be in a situation where someone can run the query portion without the command portion, or that could cost us, way too much money

motosubatsu

15:47

@Rhys sounds like a perfect case for a stored procedure to me

that being the case and the "modify the data bit" being essentially intended to be invisible from an end user perspective has me thinking that the stored proc should be essentially used as the Read operation for the data

Rhys

16:26

@motosubatsu Would have been a nice way to do it if it didnt have to sometimes go to a third party via an api (when our version is stale)

motosubatsu

@Rhys ick... that's annoying

how is the staleness check done?

ideally a separate process should exist that ensures the local copy doesn't get stale but whether that's feasible or not depends entirely on the criteria for determining staleness

if it's a straightforward "our cache is older than x hours" check then let a service take care of that and then the stored proc solution as above is still viable

IDrinkandIKnowThings

23

Q: How to convince HR to let my star employee work from home?

We recently got a new CEO and he took away everyone's ability to work remotely, including that of my most productive team member. As you can guess, everyone's productivity has dropped considerably, but nothing hurts more than one engineer's productivity. To give you an idea of what's at stake he...

united-states human-resources telecommute california

Rhys

@motosubatsu huh, yknow this might perfectly solve my problem

IDrinkandIKnowThings

^ Am I the only one that feels like the OP is the Star player not the boss.

Rhys

if i remove having to worry about staleness by having a different automated process stay on top of it

motosubatsu

16:35

@Rhys no charge :)

Pointy Haired Boss

0

Q: can we reopen: "how to deal with inter team work in a toxic team"?

How to deal with inter-team work in a toxic team? This has been edited down to a manageable size. It's answerable now.

discussion

Mister Positive

16:53

@IDrinkandIKnowThings late to the party on that question but YES I DO.

Rhys

@motosubatsu phew, i think my tab would be quite high otherwise

thanks for the assistance by the way

motosubatsu

@Rhys no worries, happy to help :)

Magisch

17:08

The red review indicators appears while there are less then 15 actionable review items

mhhm

Richard U

17:20

I rarely vote or flag anymore.

Richard U

17:35

Hey, question for the peanut gallery. I have a new "friend" who has taken to leaving comments on my posts that distort the meaning of my answers. He will literally say that my answer says something it doesn't. I'm beginning to think it's deliberate.

Any ideas how I should handle this?

IDrinkandIKnowThings

@RichardU flag it as not nice.

Richard U

@IDrinkandIKnowThings yeah, but each of them alone just look like he's being an idiot, but he keeps doing it.

I think I'll start doing some screen caps, then flag if he keeps it up

IDrinkandIKnowThings

@RichardU flag it with other and describe the problem. The mods will warn your "Friend" to stop harassing you

Richard U

@IDrinkandIKnowThings good idea

Snow

It would help to flag them with a custom reason (if it's not too much trouble), then we can see if there's anything we can intervene with.

IDrinkandIKnowThings

17:45

I have had my share of bridge dwelling commentors myself

Richard U

@Snow thanks. I realize that people are starting to capitalize on my volatility, and I'd rather not play their game any longer

IDrinkandIKnowThings

@RichardU I wish I understood why people want to trigger those of us with problems.

Richard U

@IDrinkandIKnowThings Why does anyone want to trigger someone? Because they are jealous, because there insecure in their own abilities, but most of all, simply because they can.

@IDrinkandIKnowThings my doctors are concerned that I may be borderline bipolar, or maybe even have crossed the line. We're looking into it. But that means I need to try to be much more aware of what is going on.

Mister Positive

18:02

@RichardU @IDrinkandIKnowThings Sometimes people are just evil.

Magisch

Internet anonymity strips away what little (social consequence) is holding some people back from being reprehensible

Richard U

@Magisch I've realized that I've been letting my temper get the best of me as of late. Looking to correct that

Trevor D

Hope RichardU isn't talking about me. Sorry if it's me

Richard U

@TrevorD no, not at all

Attention everybody, I am absolutely not talking about trveor. he is not the person.

trevor, sorry

Trevor D

phew

Magisch

18:07

@RichardU One thing that always helped me to shake the feeling of "unfairness" when I have to be calm in the face of others not being so is that getting upset and angry only hurts myself

People are looking to get a reaction sometimes, and you can't control that, but you can choose to not give them the satisfaction

Richard U

@Magisch yeah, I know. Easier said than done.

Magisch

I know

Richard U

If you've ever seen HouseMD, played by Hugh Laurie, that sums up my personality nicely, my brother was the "Wilson" to my house, and now he's gone.

makes it that much harder for me to find my moorings at times

Magisch

I hope you get more balance, not for us, but for yourself and your own wellbeing

Richard U

@Magisch I never grew up, I grew old, there is a difference.

@TrevorD welcome, BTW. Come on in any time, join in. We don't bite.

Mister Positive

18:12

Well, I might. ;-)

Richard U

@MisterPositive so long as you've had all your shots

Magisch

I might not bite, but I am a cactus :p

I really like my new avatar :D

Richard U

I've been re watching Babylon5. Favorite quote....

**We are all the sum of our tears. Too little and the ground is not fertile and nothing can grow there; too much, the best of us is washed away.**

@TrevorD good edit to your comment, BTW. I'll see if I can incorporate some of it into my answer. Thank you.

Trevor D

18:26

@RichardU thanks I tried, also posted answer with the least jaded as I could manage

Richard U

@TrevorD It's hard not to be jaded BELIEVE ME (check out my profile...) I've been to hell and back so many times, I know the way blindfolded.

Trevor D

18:56

@RichardU I agree, too often I want to tell people that should leave the company. I have to keep telling myself that's not really a useful answer.

Richard U

19:07

@TrevorD I think everyone should be PREPARED to leave a company because you don't want to be there if it's starting to affect your health or career prospects. It's also good advice when you're about to be put on a PIP.

Because I've seen questions asking if you're on a PIP on job applications

Richard U

19:29

@TrevorD Very good answer, BTW, I upvoted it.

Trevor D

@RichardU thank you

Twyxz

Two gold badges in one day woooo

Trevor D

19:50

Congrats

Richard U

@Twyxz very nice. Soon, you may make the top 10 of all time.

Maybe you'll break 100k... only five people have.

IDrinkandIKnowThings

20:34

PSA: If the first line of your answer is "I dont really know about what you are asking" Then you should not submit an answer to that question.

2

Trevor D

21:11

@IDrinkandIKnowThings That should probably be in a guide somewhere :)

DarkCygnus

23:03

Sup everybody

I want to ask you something: Do you know any recommended books regarding Android Development? I consider myself somewhat experienced on making Android apps, but I would like to get more insights to best practices, google standards, pro tips, etc... any suggestions?

DarkCygnus

23:19

-2

A: How to convince HR to let my star employee work from home?

diploma.IELTS,GRE,TOEIC,TOEFL,PET, FCE, CAE, CPE, BEC,YLE, KET,BULATS,ILEC, ICFE CELTA,DELTA ESOL AUTODESK CERTIFICATESses whats app us :+1(701)-369-2091 [email protected]

KILL IT

@MonicaCellio BTW

-2

A: How to convince HR to let my star employee work from home?

diploma.IELTS,GRE,TOEIC,TOEFL,PET, FCE, CAE, CPE, BEC,YLE, KET,BULATS,ILEC, ICFE CELTA,DELTA ESOL AUTODESK CERTIFICATESses whats app us :+1(701)-369-2091 [email protected]

mind hammering that?

its gone now

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