Encountered an nice "gaps and islands" problem in SQL, this is the time when the job becomes interesting

@Martin you had me at "islands". What's up?

In reality it is not jobs and resets (we do not reset people, we are a pretty good karma company), but you get the idea

So the challenge is in identifying the periods of inactivity

Yes, those are the "gaps"

The periods of activity (overlapping) are the "islands"

I think you have a 1D variation of the Skyscraper problem

@Zaid That's new for me

Trying to get you a link...

Did I say skyscraper? I meant skyline

I see. Yes, it is similar.

briangordon.github.io/2014/08/the-skyline-problem.html

You'll need to figure out how many islands you have

For each employee

I explained it badly: I need only the last gap, longer than 20 days, that has no reset (that got done after the gap ended)

True

Take "employee-passcard" instead of "reset", perhaps it will clear the confusion :)

Otherwise there will be a potential to reset every single time :)

brb, lunch

So not every workplace understands every colloquial phrase. For example, “target of opportunity” usually means “we need to move on this unexpected bounty or we will miss out. Not the end of the world but we should think hard before passing it up.” However, I work in an environment where that phrase is super common for a bunch of reasons. That makes me double mad that I’m going to miss out on a workstation upgrade because of dawdling by people who don’t care but like to be in the way.... 🙄

@BobCross - I hate it when people get in the way ... I'm usually bigger than they are, so just running them over tends to be a serious option.

I know what you mean. In my current role, I don’t have a budget so I have to wait for people who can spend money get around to it. I’m not good at waiting for the horse to decide that it’s thirsty (even though we are standing in a desert on a sunny day)

I feel your pain. I've been there, done that for the past while now. It's amazing how much bureaucracy goes into a bureaucracy!

I’m not naive. I’m totally cognizant that big organizations need process. I just wish that everyone would exercise their role with a quickness. Why dick around with something when you could just get it done?

I'm right there with you.

My wife and I often complain that no else in the world ever seems to want to work on our schedule. Thing needs doing? Do the thing. The thing is now done. On to the next thing. 😉

@BobCross KPIs - people, especially in large bureaucratic organisations end up with so many actions competing for time, or priority etc that they end up simply going with the one that most directly impacts the KPIs their end-of-year is measured on

Even if that ruins everyone else's day

bad KPIs encourage bad behaviour

especially when, as is the case in most orgs, you don't have KRIs measuring inter-departmental cooperation or similar

@RoryAlsop - Yes, but not sure if the inverse is true.

@Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 they can do - but it's not easy to get really good behavioural KPIs. Once good behaviour is practiced, it can be self-sustaining as long as competing demands/KPIs don't come in

There you go.

A huge portion of my day job for the last 12 years has been around improving behaviours and making them self-sustaining. It ain't easy!

especially when humans are involved. Dogs; easy. Computers; easy. Humans; hard.

@RoryAlsop totally get it. It’s just double annoying when you’re presenting a business case that is effectively “I propose to do what you effectively told me to do in our last meeting. Is that okay?” And then a week of waffling and deck chair shuffling ensues. 🙄

It’s okay, I’m perfectly capable of keeping myself busy with my other three full time jobs. 😉

@RoryAlsop - And your night job has been Pure ROCK-N-ROLA! Heir Doktor! :o)

@Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 nice!