The Water Cooler

11:30 AM

@Twyxz I don't think the poster is doing himself any favors by doubling down with increasingly far-fetched justifications

11:58 AM

@motosubatsu That fellow should learn that once one reaches rock bottom, one should stop digging.

Twyxz

12:41 PM

-22 now

This is record breaking

Q: Is it okay to ask for feedbacks on Meta about a question on the main site?

2:01 PM

@Twyxz it's like watching a slow-motion train wreck

-25 now

Feeds

2:33 PM

0

Let's suppose I ask a question which is badly received (despite going through the Tour and the Help Center, as well as asking on Meta whether or not my question has its place on the main site). Is it authorised to ask for feedbacks on Meta about that specific question? I don't expect to get fee...

discussion

@RichardU it's right up there with this excellent answer of mine which somehow got 29 downvotes workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/74620/…

@Kilisi yes, but you also got 11 upvotes.

I remember one time, I got a massive split with -75 to + 100 something.

@Kilisi because you dared to sympathise with an employer - don't you know that we are all the spawn of satan who live only to make the lives of our employees miserable and where possible to break their spirits?

@motosubatsu maybe because I AM an employer, probably not a very good one though

@RichardU you're a downvote magnet

@Kilisi yeah don't let the rabble know but me too!

2:44 PM

@Kilisi People seem to react.... passionately towards my posts.

hehe

@motosubatsu yeah, whenever anyone suggests that the OP isn't pure as the driven snow, and that the employer might have a point, LOOK OUT.

@RichardU I might paraphrase that for people's reaction to me IRL.. it sounds a bit nicer than saying they "run screaming"

Mine is just because of my abysmal grammar I reckon

@motosubatsu growing up tiny, nerdy, uncoordinated and physically weak, my only defence was my wits, which I sharpened to be a very effective weapon. Now, I'm big and fairly intimidating, but my wits are still quite sharp.

2:47 PM

@RichardU remember..everything (and I mean everything) an employer does falls into one or more of the following categories 1. Trying to make your life miserable 2. Trying to trap you into doing or saying something wrong 3. Trying to eat your firstborn while slowly marinating your second born for main course

@Kilisi Your grammar is not terrible, it's no worse than that of an American in most cases. Although, that may be damning you with faint praise.

@RichardU yeah, you might be setting the bar a little low there :D

@RichardU yes, I resent that, there is no such thing as American English, there is English, and there are mistakes

hehe

@motosubatsu When people whine about something being too tough, or snark in the workplace and want to run to HR, I go into a near panic on their behalf, because..... HR IS NOT YOUR FRIEND

I'm linking to that article every time I say that now.

AHAHA... I love that saying

I know some pretty cool HR people, but it's a high stress job, couldn't do it myself

2:51 PM

@Kilisi it's a memetic mutation from the military saying "Once you pull the pin, Mr Grenade is no longer your friend".

HR is not the enemy, but people don't realize that going into HR for matters that can, and should be handled at lower levels, can end very badly.

@JoeStrazzere People do get fired here all the time, but not in a position such as this with a long standing employee, they would get a warning. It's a small company where the boss has a personal stake in long standing employees usually. I even know all my employees kids birthdays etc,.

just one warning though

@Kilisi - so one warning and then they get fired? Wouldn't the risk of ruining their lives or triggering a suicide be the same in that case?

@JoeStrazzere yes it would, but at least you gave them a chance, it makes a difference.

When I owned a fast food restaurant, I knew all my employees well too. The one we fired was a good friend who lived right down the street. She was one of the original employees when we opened the place. But once she got caught stealing, she had to go.

@JoeStrazzere did she find another job? or other support?

2:59 PM

@Kilisi - yes, she found another job.

@JoeStrazzere that is the difference

Many places don't have a fallback like welfare, and huge unemployment, people can't get another job

if I sacked an engineer, his social status would drop from big man in the village, widely admired, pretty wife, paying off his own land, well dressed kids, to unemployed living in the dirt struggling with debts trying to keep his family together

he might get a govt job if he's related to the right people, but thats way less than half what he's making

@Kilisi - I understand. I guess we each draw the line in a different spot, depending on our culture.

@JoeStrazzere yep, it would be very interesting to learn more about Pakistan

@JoeStrazzere locale as well, I'd sack a NZ employee with no warning.

and it's closed as a dupe, ot sure I'd class it as that since one was money and the other product, but understandable

3:27 PM

@Kilisi that attitude is much the same in Rural America as well. Firing a man is as good as killing him in some areas.

@Kilisi I flip-flopped on whether that was a dupe or not - there are some extra considerations with it being product rather than straight up cash so I thought I'd see if anyone focused on that point before deciding whether the VTC or not. Also there were a few things that made it struggle to pass the sniff test for me

The age of the asker's account is coincidentally the same age as the pharmacy Q (although they could have arrived via googling for that sort of situation and finding the pharmacy question), locale was the same, "has helped me out previously" was similar, the length of service for the employee (6 years vs 5 years) was similar

and perhaps most "damning" to me was the remarkably similar wording of "fulfill her need" and "fulfill his needs"

none of that is a smoking gun - and each could be reasonable explained on their own, but the cumulative effect nagged at me

@RichardU don't go giving the meatbag on the US throne any ideas.. he'll be transferring everyone he doesn't like to Barrow in Alaska and then firing them

@RichardU men usually manage, it's the women that bear the brunt. We have the highest sideways rate for young ladies in the World. There are high expectations and pressures on them. My neighbour for instance has 7 adults and 6 kids on their property, currently only one of the girls has a low paying job, she'll be sacked for stealing eventually when it get's too much for her. The rest have all had their turn.

the men have never had jobs as far as I know

@Kilisi My ex wife's sister and her husband wound up with a house that was worth literally nothing because they shut down oil production. It was an oil town, and overnight, the land became worthless, as it was a good 40 miles to anything other than the now closed oil rigs

yep crap happens to even the nicest people

my neighbours don't even own the property, one of their relatives who married an Indian and live in NZ owns it.

3:48 PM

@Kilisi interesting.. how does it compare with sideways rates in men? in the UK ~ 75% of all suicides are male

most of ours are girls, not sure the percentage

but stats can't be trusted, we have no unsolved murders because our cops are so efficient... but we also have sideways where they beat themselves up and tied their own hands before hanging

I take everything with a large grain of salt

@Kilisi yeah...that's gonna skew the figures slightly

anytime the response to the question "what do the numbers say?" is "what do you want them to say?" you know you're in trouble

@motosubatsu Could just be a copycat thing. I raised my suspicions as well. If I were more skeptical, I'd suspect that it's someone trying to test the boundaries of the fire/don't fire equation.

4:10 PM

@JoeStrazzere yes I had that thought to.. "but what if it was a young woman stealing product not cash and there's no starving kids at home - are the answers still the same?" type thing

perhaps I'm getting a bit cynical in my old age

5:00 PM

That answer hit -29 so the poster deleted it, and has now shifted tactics to trying to poke holes in my answer instead.

:D

@motosubatsu I find the most nay-sayers on my highest rated answers, for some reason.

5:14 PM

Rep of 215 today... how did that happen..

hard to believe my answer got deleted workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/123107/…

@RichardU you see when other users like content that you post they can click on the "up vote" button - doing this gives you what our SE overlords call "reputation" or "rep"...

@Kilisi I guess we know who the flavor of the month is now....

@motosubatsu I wish the nattering 101s would learn that

@Kilisi that's a bit shitty.. while making full use of your trademark call-a-shovel-a-shovel style it certainly wasn't offensive, and enough people agreed with you that it was sat at +4

"involving your employer" and "Learn from it, don't try and rationalise it into someone elses fault." is essentially a slightly less verbose version of one of the core tenets of my answer which had (has?) the same score!

5:34 PM

@motosubatsu It was not a "Nice" post though

@IDrinkandIKnowThings work is not nice either. But, I guess it's better to be nice than to tell people about the harsh realities of life.

It contained Judgement opinion. That makes it "Not Nice"

@IDrinkandIKnowThings how? he didn't attack the op - he called the OP's profile rubbish and explained why that likely got him fired and what he should do about it. Which is exactly what I did in mine

@IDrinkandIKnowThings next time we get a question about someone stealing from a company, I will take care not to call him a thief.

we're allowed to call inanimate or digital objects "rubbish" - they don't have feelings

5:38 PM

you quite rightly got fired for involving your employer. - Is not nice. It is not wrong but it violates be nice.

Just puppies and rainbows from me from now own.

@IDrinkandIKnowThings it's also damn accurate.

There is no "Be Accurate" rule... though I could buy into one... there is however a "Be Nice" rule

@IDrinkandIKnowThings again.. how.. he's expressing that the employer fired him for involving them and that they were "right" to do so..in other words that such a firing was right

which is, at least partly what the OP asked

@motosubatsu ah, we forgot, the employer is never in the right.

should we be sending sternly worded e-mails to the legislators of the Australian Fair Work Act?

5:40 PM

The post feels like troll-bait to me in the first place.

after all they are they ones who determined that out of hours conducted deemed to involve the employer is a fireable offence

are they "not nice"

?

@IDrinkandIKnowThings Bullshit

I'm wondering how we can tell someone who was justifiably terminated that he was justifiably terminated.

every time I disagree with you in here on something like this you dodge and shift to say the post was just troll bait

Do we just lie?

Not Kilsi's but the question it self feels like troll bait

5:42 PM

if you don't agree with my opinion how about coming back with a reasoned line of argument

I upvoted your answer moto

then why was Kilisi's "not nice"?

he said pretty much the same core thing I did?

that's all I'm trying to understand here

how you say things matters

You also did not attack the OP.

yeah it does.. and just declaring "x = not nice" is just an assertion

I suggest this reformatting.....

5:44 PM

I didn't attack the OP

neither did Kilisi

he took some good faith comments and used them to improve his answer as well

hardly the actions of someone just out to attack the OP

you quite rightly got fired is where the line was crossed

whatever happened to "assume good intent"

Your profile was stupid rubbish, and you quite rightly got fired for involving your employer.

You involved your employers name with: Occupation = **CENSORED**, "looking for someone to start a crippling **CENSORED** addiction with" and sexual comments, you getting fired is **CENSORED**
Learn from it, **CENSORED**

Much better ^^^^^^

@IDrinkandIKnowThings how? it's a factual statement.. the OP commited a fireable offence and got fired for it

Ooops... let try that again

5:46 PM

the quite rightly is opinion (Even though I share it) saying that opinion violates be nice.

"was this lawful dismissal?" <- quoth the OP

how is Kilisi's answer not addressing that?

@IDrinkandIKnowThings no it

is not

it's regional fecking employment law

Your profile was **CENSORED** **CENSORED** , and you **CENSORED** **CENSORED** **CENSORED** **CENSORED** for involving your employer.

You involved your employers name with: Occupation = Pro Bank **CENSORED** , "looking for someone to start a crippling **CENSORED** addiction with" and **CENSORED** **CENSORED** , you getting **CENSORED** is **CENSORED** .

Learn from it, don't try and **CENSORED** it into someone **CENSORED** **CENSORED** .

from a part of the world that Kilisi has extensive experience in since he lives just round the metaphorical corner

you can argue that he didn't cite references to back up his answer if you like

but you can't say that what he said is opiion

because it's not

Other reasonable people disagree and it was far enough over the line that a mod took action.

@IDrinkandIKnowThings other "reasonable people"

also agreed with him and up voted his answer to a positive score

5:48 PM

I've always thought that the "be nice" rule should be a bit more relaxed in here. The advice we give can impact a person's life in a huge way. I tend to post the most cynical answers because of that.

his answer which says the same thing mine does

Does my post deserve flagging/deletion as well?

I prefer a be helpful rule. Which i think Kilisi's answer could be arguably helpful

after all I'm stating my "opinion" as you call it that his firing was justified

A: How can I deal with troublesome Professional Engineer?

@motosubatsu.... or this one.....

216

Key points: He has always been a dependable employee So, you started with a good man, now what happened. but since being overlooked for a promotion to principal engineer. Your company screwed him.... (which would have been a large pay increase) AND you hit him in the paycheck L...

This was about the harshest thing I ever posted..... ^^^^^^^

the harshest word that kilisi uses is "rubbish", a word deemed so offensive that it's censored across the world... oh wait

5:50 PM

@RichardU At no time do you take it personal though. That is the differenct

no it isn';t

A: Should I include controversial achievements in my resume?

@IDrinkandIKnowThings well, I wouldn't say that.....

Your whole question is basically "Hi, we did dirty by one of our employees and found out that we couldn't just step on him, so how do we do him dirty again."

Then, of course there's this one.....

324

I'm a gamer and somewhat skilled (white hat) hacker. If I got that on a resume(the aimbot), I'd burn it and use the ashes to fertilize the poison ivy growing near the office. If I were you, I'd list any white hat achievements, if any that you have. If you have none, then it's time for some, be...

@RichardU Still not personal.

@IDrinkandIKnowThings perhaps not, but neither of my above answers is nice.

@RichardU you address the controversial action, with out any overt judgement

I disagree. Honesty given when it can help is the most sincere form of kindness there is.

5:55 PM

@IDrinkandIKnowThings I agree, and Kilisi was honest, that person deserved to be fired.

But he also violated be nice by going personal

@IDrinkandIKnowThings I think that's splitting hairs a bit.

Too much language policing in here.

in general, I mean, not directed towards you. @IDrinkandIKnowThings

Address the problem, not the person.

@IDrinkandIKnowThings sometimes the person IS the problem

Again I think the original question is Trollbait.

6:00 PM

@IDrinkandIKnowThings It does smell fishy, but then again, I've seen far too many things IRL to be convinced we're being Poed there.

It was trolling for the answer that Kilisi gave so they would scream and hollar that they were being treated rudely

@IDrinkandIKnowThings still, he should have been given a chance to tone it down. You'd think that SOME defference would be given to a non-native English speaker from a different culture who is also a top contributor to this site.

@RichardU He has that chance now he could edit the answer and flag to have it reopened.

@IDrinkandIKnowThings I doubt it will happen.

I doubt he would have taken the opportunity to tone it down before it was deleted either

6:15 PM

Hi there, can I ask for some feedbacks on a question?

sure Clockwork what question

Basically, I asked this question a few hours ago: workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/123134/…

Although I took the time to get all the information I could (including asking on meta if it's on topic), the question started with a negative score and got downvoted several times

The score is positive now, but I'm still wondering what's wrong with the question

From your point of view*

@Clockwork Nothing you should worry about. We have some users that downvote for a living. Its a decent question should stay positive

Ah. Alright. Well, seems like some people are more trigger happy there about downvotes than on other SE sites

Thanks

@Clockwork Sometimes yes they are

6:33 PM

@Clockwork Yes, they absolutely are. Don't take them seriously.

@Clockwork next question you ask, don't be so quick to accept an answer, give it at least a day or two. That way, you'll get more input. Once people see an answer is chosen, they usually don't add an answer.

@RichardU To tell you the truth, I honestly hesitated to wait a bit longer to give some time. But the answer looked... "good enough" I was thinking "if anyone does come with a better answer..."

@Clockwork oh, there's nothing wrong with picking one early, it's just a "best practices", as your question will likely get more attention, and upvotes. +1 from me, BTW.

I just came across apathy used in two questions. It seems a bit meta-taggy to me, but I don't know how you handle it over here.

@IDrinkandIKnowThings @RichardU Thanks to both of you for the feedbacks (and the votes)

@Clockwork come in here any time you have questions. You get a good feel for the place in here.

6:40 PM

Quite honestly, I do feel less stress on the chat than I did on the SE websites these past years

@Clockwork we're a bit savage towards each other at times, but we are kind to new people :D

I wish we could say the same on Stackoverflow x) That's a completely different universe

Oii folks

@Clockwork errrrrr, yeah.... not friendly at all

@DarkCygnus cheers mate.

@AnneDaunted Burninator Instincts Activated**

good evening @RichardU how are things today?

@AnneDaunted yup. If it were up to me I'd burn that tag. Has no wiki, no excerpt. Only 2 questions (asked 3+ years ago), and to be honest seems they were added in some rant-ish way...

6:45 PM

@DarkCygnus new rep record. +230

Creating meta post to see consensus

@RichardU 2 accepts huh. I was almost (225) like that yesterday thanks to the Bounty I got

@DarkCygnus Link to Jeff's helpful blog post.

@AnneDaunted thanks, was already familiar with it :D

@DarkCygnus Personally, I'm not contributing any labor to the maintenance of this site without fiscal compensation.

Just so you have the link ready for the meta post

Q: Announcement: Some cleaning and changes done to our Meta Tags

6:55 PM

@AnneDaunted Thanks, posted it :)

Jo jo, this reminded me of that day I got inspired and organized some of our Meta Tags, one of which was used for its purpose right now

11

Today I took some time to do some cleaning and organizing of our tags here on Meta TWP. What inspired me to do so is that our tags are kind of a mess right now, and also because I noticed we have requests to burninate but had no tag for such requests. I also noticed some inconsistencies on the ...

discussion tags

Feeds

7:21 PM

2

Q: Is the [apathy] tag of any use? Should we get rid of it?

As pointed out in chat, seems that we have an apathy tag, which is in the current state: Only 2 questions with it Those questions are 3+ years ago No wiki and no excerpt Contributes few to the post and finding a solution to it, perhaps even added/created in a rant moment Other tags the posts h...

discussion burninate-request

7:33 PM

Oh... don't you love making hot fixes :) ... when everything works, of course... you feel like a boss

Who said downtime?

8:06 PM

@DarkCygnus Hmmm no one seems to care about the Apathy tag... how meta :p

8:25 PM

LOL

Such apathy on the apathy tag

Perhaps I'll just burninate it then... Still will wait a bit

8:45 PM

@DarkCygnus See what I mean... you have practically abandoned your quest already

9:02 PM

when the post reaches 4 UV I'll take it the Community agrees

@DarkCygnus meh

@RichardU lol

Q: Demeaning co-worker - What can I do besides go to HR?

When will folks learn that going to HR is not like running to your mommy about a skinned knee.

2

I've been at my job for 2 1/2 years now. We have a small team (5 people), that all works remotely. The co-worker in question started about a year before me. This co-worker is consistently rude and demeaning. I've had two other people (one of whom has left) independently describe similar confl...

colleagues conflict

I'm sorry, having worked blue collar jobs, the complaints people in white collar, esp IT come up with seem trivial in comparison.

For reference. I lost two coworkers who were Killed on the job. One was murdered, the other was crushed to death while operating heavy equipment.

Dealing with a coworker with an attitude seems like paradise in comparison.

@RichardU damn murdered on the job sucks

@IDrinkandIKnowThings yeah, the only reason they ever caught the guy was because he bragged about it.

9:10 PM

@RichardU That takes a special kind of stupid

Had a very good and close friend have his head crushed in a machine at work. Was a tough time

@IDrinkandIKnowThings yeah, but he turned the stupid up to 11 by saying to the people he bragged about it to: "Gee, I probably shouldn't have told you that"

His "friends" couldn't run to the cops fast enough. They were all convinced he was going to kill them for his slip-up

What kind of moron thinks its ok to brag about breaking the law.

@IDrinkandIKnowThings Far more than you think. Any police officer will tell you that 90% of police work is done by stupid criminals.

which is why serial killers are so hard to catch

@IDrinkandIKnowThings . The other guy was operating a back-hoe, pulling a tree out of a stream, It swung back into the cab and pushed him out the back window. Problem was that the back window was only 18x18 inches. 0r, about 54 CM to our friends.

ouch

@IDrinkandIKnowThings yeah, worst part is he didn't die right away.

9:25 PM

That is worse

9:37 PM

@IDrinkandIKnowThings Even my psychiatrist wonders why I haven't gone off the deep end with everything I've seen.

I think it's BECAUSE of what I've seen

I've gote more for you: late used in 3 questions, the mysterious cards used in 2 questions, question and answer used once, grasping-concepts and problem-solving used in 1 closed question.

For me its smaller breaks to aviod having the big blowups

Too deep for me, not going to censor my answers into the ridiculous anyway, my English skills aren't up to it

but que sera sera, Monica has been having a tough time lately

got to cut her some slack

Yeah she is just trying to deal with the crap coming down from the powers that be

yeah I know, some people are just crap at dealing with things... hehe

no idea why people here manage to upset themselves so easily

9:51 PM

@IDrinkandIKnowThings if they lose her, they're in trouble.

@Kilisi I need to study your ways, Sensei

I'm with @RichardU if no one is actively trying to stab or shoot me, I'm having a pretty good day

relic of my bouncing days

@Kilisi I always say.... "That which does not kill me..... had better run damn fast"

ahaha

I am too old to try to run fast, im content with a slow menacing gait

<<<slow menacing limp

have a good day guys, I just poked my head in, will be back later

9:58 PM

Cheers

@IDrinkandIKnowThings My greatest challenge to date is , having fully recovered, to refrain from taking a terrible revenge on the people who kicked me while I was down.