How's work been?

I have a question for you workers. How many of you all get comp-time instead of overtime pay? how about a choice between both? Would you prefer one over the other?

I get comp-time. If you don't know what it is, it's just overtime that can be used as leave no questions asked (at least in the case of my employer). It's not so bad when you have a big vacation coming up so you can use that for vacation leave instead of actual vacation time or use it whenever you just don't feel like coming in. There are times though that I wish I could split it up. Especially after the legislative session. I get a lot of comp time from that because we can't leave until an hour after the legislators all leave. It'd be nice being able to split up the 100+ hours a month of comp time to some overtime pay.

We have both at my workplace. Some people get comptime (Incident Engineers) while others (Change Managers) get overtime as per the work is billed differently.

I'd rather the pay. It sucks when you're in the thick of it, but at the end of the month when you look at your pay stub, it's suddenly all right.

Well. Given I've been interviewing I guess my brain was trying to tell me what was inevitable. They shut down our office last Thursday. Everyone but my boss and I were told not to come back after Friday. Me and him get to hang out together this week while I bone up on things I've wanted to bone up on and be "on call" in case someone needs something in our Montreal office.

However:

ColdForged wrote:

"Make this enormous pile of bloatware work on this incredibly cheap, low resource feature phone."

Maybe it's a blessing in disguise! F*CK YOU, SH*TTY PHONE!

Just got informed that management sold and is in the process of installing the next version of our product, the one that is not even code complete yet. Had a great "come to Jesus" meeting with my boss (the CTO) who did not tell me the timeline. It involved shouting and threats to quit. I am not going to be hung out to dry because he cannot set expectations with the sales people. And I refuse to bust a gut to make a date I had nothing to do with.

So, to answer the OP's question: kind of sucky this morning.

Nightmare wrote:

Just got informed that management sold and is in the process of installing the next version of our product, the one that is not even code complete yet. Had a great "come to Jesus" meeting with my boss (the CTO) who did not tell me the timeline. It involved shouting and threats to quit. I am not going to be hung out to dry because he cannot set expectations with the sales people. And I refuse to bust a gut to make a date I had nothing to do with.

So, to answer the OP's question: kind of sucky this morning.

Ah, sales. A sharper double-edged sword you'd be hard pressed to find.

ColdForged wrote:

Well. Given I've been interviewing I guess my brain was trying to tell me what was inevitable. They shut down our office last Thursday. Everyone but my boss and I were told not to come back after Friday. Me and him get to hang out together this week while I bone up on things I've wanted to bone up on and be "on call" in case someone needs something in our Montreal office.

Nightmare wrote:

Just got informed that management sold and is in the process of installing the next version of our product, the one that is not even code complete yet. Had a great "come to Jesus" meeting with my boss (the CTO) who did not tell me the timeline. It involved shouting and threats to quit. I am not going to be hung out to dry because he cannot set expectations with the sales people. And I refuse to bust a gut to make a date I had nothing to do with.

So, to answer the OP's question: kind of sucky this morning.

Same thing happened here. Our next version is set for release at the end of January. Got news that a new customer made a deal to go live on Jan 7. I just shrugged and said, "That's fine but they won't go live on the new version." But part of the contract involves eCheck and insurance eligibility, neither of which we currently do. Bah.

Last week was insane. A new phone system installed on the entire campus, a film shoot on Saturday and a photo shoot on Sunday.

Monday - 9-6pm
Tuesday - 9-6pm
Wednesday - 9-4am
Thursday 8:30-6pm
Friday 11-5am
Saturday 7am-7pm
Sunday 8am-10pm
Monday 8-6pm (and my receptionist out all day today)

bilbodiaz wrote:

I have a question for you workers. How many of you all get comp-time instead of overtime pay? how about a choice between both? Would you prefer one over the other?

I have both. Kind of. I have the freedom to flex my schedule within any 2-week pay period. As long as I put in the requisite 80 hours, and I get done what needs to get done, I can flex my time how I see fit. So if I pull a bunch of overtime, I can work short days or take a half-day or full day off. It also allows me to shuffle my schedule around so I can get the occasional long weekend.

I'm pretty happy with the arrangement.

So, there is a grander story here. I had a performance review. I assumed a law clerking/internship position about 4 months ago. I learned a fair bit: 1. no way I will practice banking law for a living. 2. A person new to a law firm, new to managing a legal department, and someone new to legal work will probably make for a bad combination. 3. Going into a position to tick a box on a resume is a recipe for disaster in a career; I had no business seeking to do this calibre of legal work in a field I had no interest in.

I was informed I would have 2 weeks with which to find another position in the company but that I would not be retained as a law clerk. Spoke with a friend who is a supervisor in another department, will interview tomorrow, his department has many openings and he presented to me as "I found you a new job". So, I am not out on the street, but it was a hell of a Monday.

I was saying to my girlfriend, it rang of an awkward break up. At the end I got a lot of, everyone likes you a lot, and it is tough to say this to someone as nice, funny, etc. as you are. But I cannot argue that my work was below what were departmental expectations. I was expected to be a compliment to another girl who had been working as a legal assistant there for 3 years. And I was mostly starting from square one. What I had in mind was an opportunity to learn more of the real legal trade.

Starting new job in 2 weeks. Happy that it's a step up in every aspect. Sad that I'm not going to be able to poke Pawz when I feel like being a jerk. Still sucks to be him, he's gotta do all my workload as well now

bilbodiaz wrote:

I have a question for you workers. How many of you all get comp-time instead of overtime pay? how about a choice between both? Would you prefer one over the other?
...
It'd be nice being able to split up the 100+ hours a month of comp time to some overtime pay.

That's more-or-less the arrangement we have: we get flex time (the same as comp time) but once we've got more than 37 hours built up we can turn any surplus into pay if we want.

We get the same pay no matter how much we work but there is some pay if you work after 8pm .We can't accumulate vacations either so everyone keeps their minus in check ( we can owe up to 14 days or so) . We recently moved from cubicles to a more open space environment. It's fairly noisy but bearable .

The unreasonable thing about it was that people who used to have rooms had to downgrade to an open space and due to the fact many of them have to talk with a quiet a few people it makes it hard for their neighbors to concentrate and for them to do their job.

Anyways we managed to do even better than expected for the demo. Yesterday we manged to get most of the bugs out of the serial receiver . Today I came to see if we can get the GUI upgraded . I generally finished everything I might just go home and enjoy the holiday. Tomorrow is Erev (evening) Simchat Torah which is 5 hour vacation (Jewish calendar days start/end when the sun goes down) and Thursday is off as a holiday (obviously until night fall) and Friday is a day off(we work on Sunday ) . I'm going to have a very long weekend I wasn't even planning to come to work today.

Better.

We're currently working on trying to get this other group settled in. We've been having all kinds of meetings on how to change up the room while keeping up with what the bosses want. They mainly want an open space cubicle set up so we came up with cubicles around the edge of the room so that the middle is open for demos and conference tables. The bosses were tempted to get rid of our setup/testing/repair room and knock down the walls so that we'd have more room but that was a no-go since that room is a must have. Then the other group was wanting a separate room or large cubicle away from everyone else for their testing to which the bosses simply replied "no do your testing in the same room as everyone else". Which I'll have to give them props for, because if they really want the groups to merge then they'll need to force us to work together.

Then the higher ups decided to change our titles to "Infrastructure Specialist" which to me sounds a little bit like construction worker which working construction isn't a bad thing, it just adds confusion when people ask my job title when it's easier to just go with IT Specialist. Then they divided the merged groups into 2 project teams where the team titles don't mean anything but they still felt the need to give names. Personally I think if the team names don't matter then just go with team 1 and team 2 or alpha/bravo or something that doesn't sound like an added job title. They split the teams up into Logistics/Receiving and Network Operations/Special Projects.

And then both the department and division directors came down to inform us that the division will be starting internships between every group so that:
-They can hire from internally much easier.
-Give everyone a better understanding of each others' jobs
-To give all internal IT applicants an equal opportunity because my department is the go-to department to recruit and other departments have been vocal in their displeasure.

While I like the idea of the internships, the majority of my group are the guys who were rejected from all the other departments because they weren't internal hires so we can't help it if we have a group of guys that know a lot of different things. So to me it feels like my group is the "test run" group for new hires and if they show some competence or that they're not crazy while in my group then they'll get moved over. I'll admit that my group in general wouldn't get along with the application programmers because we're all kind of loud and i don't want to say "obnoxious/rowdy/aggressive/mean" so lets go with "aggressively assertive" compared to their quiet demeanor. They probably think we're uneducated brutes while my group, especially a couple guys on my team, think they're "stuck-up, holier-than-thou princesses" (not my words)

Fun story time: A couple guys and I were setting up the wireless in our building and because we don't like contractors messing with our network cables, we do the cable runs then configure the switch for PoE to the AP. So we were running cable and someone in the applications group was asking us what we were doing and we told her that we're setting up the wireless for the area and we won't be taking long. She then asked why we had a spool of cable and we told her because we like to go with the exact amount of cable needed. She then said "ohh how interesting. Did you learn that in trade school?" One of my guys replied "I've never been to trade school, I've got a degree," and then she responded back "Oh but its not like all of you guys have one," I then told her that I had one as well and I guess she was embarrassed because she was "oh okay" and walked away quickly. I couldn't help thinking to myself that this particular wireless team all have degrees minus one guy who's a semester away from graduation and getting a little offended that this isn't the first time that someone assumed my team and I weren't college graduates.

Feeling a little nervous. Which I can rationalise as being stupid, but there you go. Human nature and all.

Gonna find out soon whether I get the Manager's job full time. The nervous part is that I know they are interviewing two other people this Thursday.

Prozac wrote:

Feeling a little nervous. Which I can rationalise as being stupid, but there you go. Human nature and all.

Gonna find out soon whether I get the Manager's job full time. The nervous part is that I know they are interviewing two other people this Thursday.

I feel bad for those two other people, losing their homes in a tragic molotov cocktail accident tomorrow night. I hear they were thrown from inside the house.

Today I am sitting in a windowless room all day, trying to remain attentive to an endless stream of dry technical presentations.

Meanwhile, my girlfriend is trying to distract me, successfully, it should be said, by texting me rude pictures.

It's a more interesting day than usual.

Jonman wrote:

Today I am sitting in a windowless room all day, trying to remain attentive to an endless stream of dry technical presentations.

Meanwhile, my girlfriend is trying to distract me, successfully, it should be said, by texting me rude pictures.

It's a more interesting day than usual.

The guy sitting behind you agrees, and thanks you emphatically.

Jonman wrote:

Today I am sitting in a windowless room all day, trying to remain attentive to an endless stream of dry technical presentations.

Meanwhile, my girlfriend is trying to distract me, successfully, it should be said, by texting me rude pictures.

It's a more interesting day than usual.

Jealous!!!!! I mean, be careful. You don't want to have to share with the whole class now, do you?

I haven't worked a normal 8 hour day in months. Now it is between 10-14 averaging out to 12 hours a day. We need an extra a person to take up some work. It wouldn't be so bad if the recent upgrade didn't have some kind of problem on a daily basis. The stupid upgrade that was suppose to make things faster and better has only added on work that I didn't have to do before. Then I have to figure out other departments problems almost daily. Then I have deal with people getting pissy with me because I don't have time for them or when I refuse to their job. I mean for christ sake I don't have time to do anything but work. If I work 14 hours, ride the bus for 2 hours, sleep for 6 hours. That leaves me a whole 2 hours to do what? Not clean the house or hang out with friends. Then they want me to come in on the weekend. F that.

Though I am glad to have a job.

Simply summed up: Happy to be working, not happy where I work.

Been offered a slight change of role. Hoping it's more management and less technical, rather than just less technical.

Yoreel wrote:

Simply summed up: Happy to be working, not happy where I work.

Ditto.

My computer blew up!!!?!

working from spare laptop now.

Cayne wrote:

My computer blew up!!!?!

working from spare laptop now.

Is the error reproducible?

30 minutes left in the day and I'm still reading GWJ threads. So pretty much like every other day.

I do not travel well. Flew out of O'Hare to DC on Wednesday. 7:00 am I and my jeans and a t-shirt think to text the boss and ask "are we going into the DC office first or checking into the hotel first?" Answer was office, and I spent about 20 minutes wrestling with myself in the O'Hare bathroom changing into business attire. Ended up not soiling myself, so that was nice.

I fly home tomorrow. I miss my 2 yr. old. I want to go home, work in a cube on Monday, and be left the f alone.

Better today.