How's work been?

Jonman wrote:

My office space got moved over the Christmas break.

I used to have a comfy desk next to a window in a modern office building. Now I have a smaller desk in a corner of the 50 year-old factory. Mouse poop waiting on my desk when I rocked up on day 1. No natural light whatsoever (which means I literally don't see daylight during the week at this time of year). Whatever is on the other side of the thin metal wall I sit by has a radio playing, so I have a background soundtrack of muffled 80's pop hits.

Super not happy about it.

Boy, that's no fun.

We have rats in our building, too. I saw a big one the other day on the back side of the building. Middle of the day, too. (That's bad, right?)

How's the heat? The week after Christmas, when daytime highs were in the 30s here in NC, the heat in this part of the building didn't work. It's damn hard to type when you can't feel your fingers (or hands, or legs).

I prefer the small snakes we get as opposed to the mice... at least snakes are interesting. Sorry you got the red stapler treatment. Grab a daylight bulb and put it in a desk lamp nearby... It will improve your winter.

Jonman wrote:

My office space got moved over the Christmas break.

I used to have a comfy desk next to a window in a modern office building. Now I have a smaller desk in a corner of the 50 year-old factory. Mouse poop waiting on my desk when I rocked up on day 1. No natural light whatsoever (which means I literally don't see daylight during the week at this time of year).

Probably 90% of our facilities are like this. Engineers in particular do not tend to get areas with windows, a holdover from when we dealt with a lot of Defense Dept. classified documents that were on paper.

I like to work from home every so often for two reasons - I save an hour not commuting, and I get to work in a sunny room. I haven't had a desk anywhere near a window in...ever.

Boudreaux wrote:
Jonman wrote:

My office space got moved over the Christmas break.

I used to have a comfy desk next to a window in a modern office building. Now I have a smaller desk in a corner of the 50 year-old factory. Mouse poop waiting on my desk when I rocked up on day 1. No natural light whatsoever (which means I literally don't see daylight during the week at this time of year).

Probably 90% of our facilities are like this. Engineers in particular do not tend to get areas with windows, a holdover from when we dealt with a lot of Defense Dept. classified documents that were on paper.

I like to work from home every so often for two reasons - I save an hour not commuting, and I get to work in a sunny room. I haven't had a desk anywhere near a window in...ever.

+500000000000 same for IT guys. "You don't like sunlight anyway, right?" - a previous Manager.

Enix wrote:

How's the heat? The week after Christmas, when daytime highs were in the 30s here in NC, the heat in this part of the building didn't work. It's damn hard to type when you can't feel your fingers (or hands, or legs).

Toasty. The exposed steam pipe that's literally 8 feet above where I sit will probably keep me warm right up until the point it bursts and boils the skin from my bones.

Jonman wrote:

Office move story

Damn. Reading stuff in this thread is often an exercise in biting my lip while thinking, "Suck it up, that's work, you'll have that problem everywhere." That office move, though, that's a hard hit.

Only thing I can think to say is that just about any rough environment eventually feels normal after a few weeks have passed. Except the radio noise thing. You'll absolutely have to get that addressed, somehow, or go mad. Hang some Dynamat if it's coming from another tenant that you have no control over.

Sorry, man.

Tired. Crappy. Still underpaid. I've got to dedicate 2018 to getting a new gig.

I had to warn my manager today "One of these times one of these white baby-boomers tells me we have to ensure our materials reflect diversity in a tone that suggests they are the first person to think of this, I'm going to blow up and say 'Motherf*cker, I guarantee I spend more time thinking about how to reflect diversity in a considered manner, and I can guarantee that because I'm not saying sh*t like 'Could this animated character be more Latino, maybe?'!"

In the meeting that prompted this, I got the pleasure of telling the person in question "We actually based that character on the co-worker who voices him. His parents were born in Guatemala," and it was sweeeeet.

Jonman wrote:
Enix wrote:

How's the heat? The week after Christmas, when daytime highs were in the 30s here in NC, the heat in this part of the building didn't work. It's damn hard to type when you can't feel your fingers (or hands, or legs).

Toasty. The exposed steam pipe that's literally 8 feet above where I sit will probably keep me warm right up until the point it bursts and boils the skin from my bones.

There's always a bright side, isn't there? Can you rig a trap with a BB gun? It's for the mice. If it happens to hit the people who put you into that corner, that's most definitely a bug, not a feature. Definitely a bug. Unintentional.

LarryC wrote:
Jonman wrote:
Enix wrote:

How's the heat? The week after Christmas, when daytime highs were in the 30s here in NC, the heat in this part of the building didn't work. It's damn hard to type when you can't feel your fingers (or hands, or legs).

Toasty. The exposed steam pipe that's literally 8 feet above where I sit will probably keep me warm right up until the point it bursts and boils the skin from my bones.

There's always a bright side, isn't there? Can you rig a trap with a BB gun? It's for the mice. If it happens to hit the people who put you into that corner, that's most definitely a bug, not a feature. Definitely a bug. Unintentional.

*takes notes*

Go on ...

SpacePPoliceman wrote:

I had to warn my manager today "One of these times one of these white baby-boomers tells me we have to ensure our materials reflect diversity in a tone that suggests they are the first person to think of this, I'm going to blow up and say 'Motherf*cker, I guarantee I spend more time thinking about how to reflect diversity in a considered manner, and I can guarantee that because I'm not saying sh*t like 'Could this animated character be more Latino, maybe?'!"

In the meeting that prompted this, I got the pleasure of telling the person in question "We actually based that character on the co-worker who voices him. His parents were born in Guatemala," and it was sweeeeet.

IMAGE(https://frinkiac.com/video/S08E14/GFJgs3JGmVejQz33ztrsA4sl_c8=.gif)

Mr Crinkle wrote:
Jonman wrote:

Office move story

Damn. Reading stuff in this thread is often an exercise in biting my lip while thinking, "Suck it up, that's work, you'll have that problem everywhere." That office move, though, that's a hard hit.

Yeah, I try and keep the fact that I have stable, well-paid employment with good benefits that should take me the rest of the way to retirement at the forefront of my mind in situations like this.

My wife on the other hand, seems to be unable to grok that you have to take the rough with the smooth - she lost her sh*t entirely last year because I had to spend three weeks of the year in total (spread across 4 different trips) on the other side of the country. Serious case of privilege blindness. I'm like, "hope you like literally never having to worry about money, going to the doctor whenever you like for the myriad chronic medical issues you have, and knowing that there's a cushy retirement waiting for you. You're f*cking welcome."

Jonman wrote:
Mr Crinkle wrote:
Jonman wrote:

Office move story

Damn. Reading stuff in this thread is often an exercise in biting my lip while thinking, "Suck it up, that's work, you'll have that problem everywhere." That office move, though, that's a hard hit.

Yeah, I try and keep the fact that I have stable, well-paid employment with good benefits that should take me the rest of the way to retirement at the forefront of my mind in situations like this.

My wife on the other hand, seems to be unable to grok that you have to take the rough with the smooth -

I feel your pain. My wife refuses to understand that when i am working at home, I need to do actual work. I can't spend the whole day running errands. I need to be at my computer actually working.

Jonman wrote:

My wife on the other hand, seems to be unable to grok that you have to take the rough with the smooth - she lost her sh*t entirely last year because I had to spend three weeks of the year in total (spread across 4 different trips) on the other side of the country. Serious case of privilege blindness.

Good thing you're not in the military. The guys here routinely spend 6 months out of every year away from their families, and it's not uncommon to get the 'geo-bachelor' folks who are away from their families for a couple of years. Three weeks away is a joke!

I don't have time to write it up and I don't want to come off as bragging but in the last 15 years in Healthcare I have been through a lot and pushed through several bad situations, had to leave a work place I loved in 2013 that lead me on a path to be in a role I love now, with a department I love, and this next year only looks better. I get to work around my family which can be great with a dash of hectic but my team is really flexible.

Things are great. It's been a long time coming but things are really great.

Coldstream wrote:
Jonman wrote:

My wife on the other hand, seems to be unable to grok that you have to take the rough with the smooth - she lost her sh*t entirely last year because I had to spend three weeks of the year in total (spread across 4 different trips) on the other side of the country. Serious case of privilege blindness.

Good thing you're not in the military. The guys here routinely spend 6 months out of every year away from their families, and it's not uncommon to get the 'geo-bachelor' folks who are away from their families for a couple of years. Three weeks away is a joke!

My father was in the (Canadian) military.

6 months with my dad gone is, as you mentioned, quite normal.

So, one of my leads has left for new work elsewhere, and one of the supervisors just put in two weeks notice, thus leaving two leadership positions open. I've put in for both. Hopefully it goes better this time, considering I've been passed up for promotions four times at this place.

PS, both the lead and the sup are leaving at least in part because of our other supervisor. He's gotten a lot of complaints (particularly from the female employees). Despite our program manager, site director, and HR manager having been informed of things he's said which have made people uncomfortable, nothing has been done about him. It's gotten to the point where our trainer has gotten into it with him and several times has left early (she's been going through other things at home as well, which doesn't help).

Funny story - today, he was going around asking everyone if they could think of anything leadership or process -wise that they thought was too complicated or difficult, or anything they thought should be changed. She said to him, with no hesitation, "Fire you." He went back to his desk really quickly at that. XD

Frankly, things are coming to a head and I myself have been tempted to go over our site director's head to corporate to complain. This has been a problem and I know of at least three or four female employees who have left likely due to him, several of which have been gone since before he was promoted to supervisor (which has been a while now).

If nothing else, I'm hoping if I get chosen for the promotion I can try to use the position to put a stop to it. He's sort of buddy-buddy with the PM though, so there's that... if our old PM was still here she wouldn't have tolerated it.

EDIT for update: Well... snubbed again. He hasn't announced who is getting the promotions but he emailed me expressly to say he was NOT promoting me. Oh, but it was a "hard decision." Whatever. I'm so done with this place. I'd take part time sh*t at Winco's at this point. I'm on my lunch right now and I'm debating if I even want to go back for the rest of the day.

EDIT again: Well, now I'm well and truly done. I did go back after lunch... only to end up leaving after another incident.

There's one coworker who I do not really get on well with. I can tolerate hom for the most part because we don't sit anywhere close to one another, but now it comes out that they plan to move him two seats down from me, with nobody in between.

This guy has caused issues in the past. He is argumentative, opinionated, and overall does not know when to just stop talking. He asks very baited questions, bot at all work related, and expects a debate. It really isn't appropriate.

So I expressed these concerns to my supervisor (the same one mentioned above that everyone dislikes). However, rather than addressing my concerns or trying to find a solution, he instead tells me to "man up."

Now, if this came from anyone else, I wouldn't care. But that is NOT something a supervisor should be telling an employee, EVER. I brought it to mlthe other supervisor (the one leaving Thursday), and she was taken aback by it. I've also emailed our program manager about it.

I was so angry I could barely keep my jaw from shaking, even now typing this on my phone. So, I ended up leaving for the rest of the day. And frankly, I hope he knows it was because of what he said.

New morning routine when I get to work - check the rat-trap under my desk to see if I’ve won a dead rodent!

First day back in the office after the fake honeymoon. First day for our team attempting to do a project with an Agile/Scrum methodology. We hit the ground running: had our sprint planning meeting in the morning, had our standup mid-morning, and in the afternoon we had a call with a researcher person to go over some methodology. That call was immensely useful and cleared up damn near every misconception I had about the math in question. It feels like things are happening, which is awesome.

Also, I'm reminded that I really need to be in the office, talking to people, being around people, etc. I can't do remote work for an extended period of time. I think I even put on some weight due to the lack of walking that's a part of my day. I don't think I can even work out of a different office, I need to be in the same place as the team. I felt so productive today, for the first time in a while. Not sure if that's an afterglow effect or if things are really trending upward. Either way, I won't look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth.

Three days left at this job! I realized a week ago that this is the first job I've left on purpose to go to another job. (I'm been in hi-tech since the late 90s; most of my moves have been caused by layoffs and shutdowns.)

I'm trying to finish up a couple of last things, but cast thine eyes upon the field in which I grow my f*cks, and thou shalt see that it is barren.

Sidenote: resigning is awesome. In the month since I gave my notice, I've actually been able to do a bunch of the small-to-medium cleanup-type things that I've been meaning to do for literally years. I'm going to implement a quarterly "no assigned work, do the stuff you've been wanting to do" week at my next job. I think the returns on it will be fantastic.

I'm... actually having a pretty good day. This is good because there's a lot of uncertainty hanging about in regards to the future shape of our roles in IT.
I had a nice chat with the Chief Medical Information Officer about his vision for leveraging APIs and business intelligence tools. Then one of the other C-levels called me out to my manager for being consistently excellent after I helped him get a handle on a possible compliance issue.
So I am hoping all this attention is a good omen.

Having survived one six month internship I've now received notice on where my next one will be. First one was great. I was integrated into a team, given actual work, and felt like I was contributing. Came out of it told that I'm a natural for QA. Glad I had the experience, but look forward to more dev work this time around. I'm slowly coming to terms with maybe QA being my future, but I don't want to pigeonhole myself. Not going to miss the three hours of commuting time each day.

Next one is 20 minutes from my house, and is where I hope to find a permanent job. With me holding a degree by the time I work there hopefully that can become a reality.

Every fricken client I have ever been to has the same problem.

End of month project finance is always a rats' nest of bugs, issues and workarounds with folk wisdom replacing documented processes for how things actually get done. It seems it is actually impossible to have costs incurred in a month hit the ledger in the correct month at every large corporation in Australia. I've even worked for an accountancy peak body and they have the same bullsh*t there.

That and inconsistent microwave UX are the banes of my consultancy existence.

And while I'm ranting; This particular client has the worst "reply all" culture I have ever seen.

Weighing a job offer to leave a major division to go to HQ working for the deputy CFO. Would be implementing a huge new service.

Pros:
Would be working for a longtime mentor who has MAJOR pull org wide
Pay bump (I'd want to negotiate more than 1st offer)
After implementing and getting to maintenance mode (~4yrs?), I'd basically get to write my own ticket - VP of something?
Really stretches my skill set, learning how to lead/get it done w/no direct authority
Big upside/challenge where I'd learn a ton
High visibility

Cons:
Building service from scratch
No direct authority (and I love being a coach/manager)
Big risk (see: visibility), with lots of unknowns

Leaning towards doing it.

Top_Shelf wrote:

Weighing a job offer to leave a major division to go to HQ working for the deputy CFO. Would be implementing a huge new service.

Pros:
Would be working for a longtime mentor who has MAJOR pull org wide
Pay bump (I'd want to negotiate more than 1st offer)
After implementing and getting to maintenance mode (~4yrs?), I'd basically get to write my own ticket - VP of something?
Really stretches my skill set, learning how to lead/get it done w/no direct authority
Big upside/challenge where I'd learn a ton
High visibility

Cons:
Building service from scratch
No direct authority (and I love being a coach/manager)
Big risk (see: visibility), with lots of unknowns

Leaning towards doing it.

I say go for it. I've always been on the "take a chance" side of things when it comes to job opportunities though.

I say go for it. I've always been on the "take a chance" side of things when it comes to job opportunities though

Agreed. It isn't always easy, but every time I've thrown myself into an opportunity like this its ultimately paid off in both the experience and the new opportunities it opened up.

Good luck Top_Shelf!

Okay, so, I did end up getting a small bump up. Since our SME was promoted to the QA lead, that left his position open so I was promoted to be the SME in his place. It's basically lowest level of leadership, but it's something.

Basically I'm first in line for helping answer questions from my colleagues (which I pretty much already was). New to this position is that I'm now also first in line to take any escalations*, as well as being one of the primary people in charges of real time management (making sure we have enough coverage in phones and chats as well as making sure emails stay in compliance).

Well, today is the first real day I've had to do some juggling. We had last minute uptraining throughout the day as the client is implementing a new ticketing system in our chat service, so that pulled people away all day, so coverage was bad all day.

On top of this, we have a new hire group being trained, and because our main trainer was occupied doing the uptraining, they had to sub someone in to work with the new folks. And the person they subbed in was... well, frankly, not someone I would have chosen. He doesn't follow processes correctly, and in fact our QA lead went downstairs to the training room right as he was giving the new folks some rather bad advice. So, yay for that. Apparently, this guy BEGGED to be allowed to do the training. I don't think there will be a repeat of that.

Then. after my lunch, I was supposed to be scheduled to work in channels (large RMAs for reseller/distributor customers), but the other SME who was scheduled for help desk didn't come back after his lunch and the QA lead was downstairs with the new folks. SO, I ended up having to do help desk, clean up coverage (we still had uptraining going), AND try to keep my channels in compliance.

It didn't help that my primary program ATE one of my RMAs at one point. I have no idea what happened, I input all the parts, clicked Save, it gave me an RMA number... but that RMA number never imported into our database. It just freaking vanished. So, I had to create it again. It was, thankfully, NOT the RMA that I had set up immediately beforehand - that RMA was 51 line items and took me probably the better part of an hour to set up, as this was during the time I was juggling RTM and help desking with working the channels. I'm sure I would have cried if it had eaten that one.

So yeah... not the most pleasant of days. But hey, my pay check today was a good $40 higher than before with the $0.50/hr raise I got with the promotion, so...

*I actually took my first escalation the other day, which went fairly well. Customer was upset about an order that was canceled for verification (well, three orders actually), so I helped him find the part on Amazon for a cheaper price .

My company ain't doing so great, but i did get an interview at Riot! Downside is they take months to hire anyone ><

Chumpy_McChump wrote:

but cast thine eyes upon the field in which I grow my f*cks, and thou shalt see that it is barren. :D

That's some sig-worthy arrangement of words! And congrats on the new gig.

CEO resigned to pursue other opportunities, replacement is an internal replacement and they have announced there will be some restructuring. Got an invite from my manager for a offsite team lunch to discuss the reorg. The fact it is a nice lunch/and I'm still employed means this is either going to be good news or at the very least neutral news in that it won't impact us. I'll find out tomorrow.