Job thread

[Lantyssa]

Mind you I was speaking in generalities and ideals.  If I still had to go into the office and deal with the people I do it would be a worse situation because I'd have gotten fed up and quit.  People, once again, fuck everything up.

[Yegolev]

I'm not sure who thinks it is a good idea to lay off two engineers that are experienced with a client and the tech (RHEL, VCS, Dell, etc) and give the unfinished project to someone who only learned VCS existed about a month ago.  Not that I'm complaining.

[Lantyssa]

Suits.  They never met a dumb idea they didn't like.

[HaemishM]

Or a good idea they couldn't fuck up with huge hierarchies of micro management.

[Yegolev]

I'm thinking that the ones laid off were some of those "job-focused" people that don't know how to play the career game.  No proof but I do not have any other explanation.  I was told by my boss that most people under him do not even fill out the Leadership section of the review, and he was very pleased that I took it seriously.  Of course I took it seriously, but I guess that's part of why I'm still here.

I'm in a very hands-off role, so much so that it's unnerving.  Coupled with working from home and I keep looking to be sure my red stapler is here.

[shiznitz]

.  I was told by my boss that most people under him do not even fill out the Leadership section of the review, and he was very pleased that I took it seriously.  Of course I took it seriously, but I guess that's part of why I'm still here.

Well played, sir.  It is just a game but you have to recognize it as such first in order to play.

[Yegolev]

I'm very bad at explaining this to people.

[Merusk]

I'd bet more on it being that lots in tech are bad at listening to others because they're used to being, 'the smart one,'  than a failure on your part.

They assume they know better than you, because they've always known more than those around them. Combine that with the lack of respect for authority/ leadership inherent in a lot of tech personalities and a corporate environment. Ta-da you've got a formula for winding up with a cardboard box full of your desk contents wondering what happened.

[shiznitz]

Just remember that there is really no one at any company that isn't replaceable. That belief is either individual self-delusion or a corporate message to instill a false impression of loyalty.  Yes, there may be key people whose departure would create short term problems, but those problems are never insurmountable and there are is usually plenty of eager underlings looking to make a name.

This is true in money management, professional sports, technology, etc.  Just ask DeSean Jackson if he thought the Eagles could go 5-1 without him and the Redskins would go 1-5 with him.

[Yegolev]

The two types we are talking about are the "I'm only doing real work" and "If I'm the only one that knows this" people.

The people I associate with are pretty smart, not just thinking they are smart, or else they would not be where they are.  It's hard to explain the idea of incorporating "not real work" into your workday, or non-tech work for those who don't want to be managers.  I'll tell you that performance reviews are super-important but lots of people think they are stupid.  I've advanced beyond most of the ones that think the reviews are stupid, which is entirely expected if you think about it for twenty seconds.

Also aligning to corporate goals.  If a baseball player did his own thing instead of aligning his work to the team manager's goals, he's not going to be on the field for very long.

The people that want to be indispensable are chasing a unicorn.  I share everything I know.  Firstly, hoarding info doesn't help you.  Secondly, you can be a SME pretty easily while still being a star team player.  Thirdly, you'll want someone to replace you when you move on, without lots of tedious KT.

[Merusk]

Yeah, those are exactly the people I'm talking about. Not the "I think I"m smart" people.  The really smart ones who think they're above things or too valuable to need to bend to leadership.  You put it better as, "aligning with corporate goals."

Those are the same smart folks you see on the tech forums laughing about how they've been fired from 5 jobs in the last 10 years because they won't give in to "the man."  In another 10 they'll be wondering why they can't get a job despite knowing a bunch, mostly because of their toxic resume. 

[Lantyssa]

I'm in a weird position due to management decisions and it being a small company with the most frugal stingy man I've ever heard of.

I want to pass on everything I know, but there's no one around who can remember what I tell them after five minutes.  (Good luck with them figuring out where the documentation is, either.)  And the company is so precariously on the edge of somehow staying alive that they may not survive an absence if anything critical comes up.  It's all a matter of timing.

They're better than where they were, but some things not getting done can mean the loss of an important client or a major lawsuit or fine.  Thankfully I'm to the point I don't care and I'm more curious what happens if it does come to that.

[Yegolev]

That sounds a lot like my wife's company, and they've been in business since the sixties.  I've decided most businesses are like that and have accepted that reality.

[Rasix]

Another awesome quarterly report.  "Hey, lets do all of the same things we've been doing, throw out some strategic shit that won't bear any fruit for years, and expect something different!"  My company is the text book definition of insanity.  Great commercials, though.  

Reaper INC.  Time to get out for real this time.

[Yegolev]

Ask Watson what he thinks.

[Rasix]

I try, but I keep getting back a recipe for chipotle pork with apricots and quinoa.

[schild]

Quinoa is bullshit.

[Rasix]

So is software defined storage, but this is the world we live in. 

And these are the hands we're given.

[shiznitz]

At a conference earlier in the week, there was a presentation about the complexities of inter-generational workplaces.  The presenter laid out how the various generations (Traditionalist, Baby Boom, Xer, Millenials) view the workplace, what they hope to get from it and how they will potentially shape it.  I certainly cannot go into all the minutiae of the presentation but as a Xer (1965-1981 birth year), it was interesting.

I doubt there are any Boomers here, but there are certainly Xers and Millenials.  The main difference between the two - and understand this is all generalization from very large surveys so don't get all hissy if you don't fit the "stereotype" - is that Xers want to be left alone to do their work and Millenials value lots of collaboration.  This mirrors the general childhood experiences of Xers as latchkey kids - on their own - and Millenials with parents who hyper-scheduled and hyper-supervised them.  The presenter made a point that these differences should not be judged but understood since the Millenials are almost twice the size of the Xer generation and will have a large and lasting impact on corporate America.

I don;t want to try and summarize everything but if you have questions about this presentation and I can give a good answer, I will.

[pxib]

What did they say about the Boomers? They're an overwhelming majority at my workplace. I'm the youngest of three Xers, and we're already slightly outnumbered by late-80's Millennials. As the Boomers retire it will be they and not we who take over.

We have a lot of "Greatest" and Silent generation volunteers at work, and it's been slightly terrifying to watch the Boomers arrive. The elders aren't lazy workers, exactly, but it always seems they're primarily here to chat about their grandkids and have potlucks in the break room. They are, first and foremost, a community. The Boomer volunteers who replace them as they die are here to do the most amount of work in the least amount of time and, if possible, get a part-time job to supplement (or become) their retirement.

Boomers don't talk to anybody unless it's asking about the status of their application/interview or ways to improve workplace efficiency. During the interview process for the two jobs I had to fill, Boomer applications outnumbered Milennials almost three to one... there were no Xers.

[shiznitz]

Boomers want to excel at a specific career and seek monetary success during their working years so they can retire comfortably.  They are willing to trade away lifestyle for career to achieve this.

Xers want to build a repertoire of skills that are portable since they are less trusting in a "job for life" idea. They are less willing that boomers to sacrifice lifestyle today for lifestyle tomorrow.  They seek to be rewarded more directly for their specific contributions.

Millenials almost view work and lifestyle as the same. They crave flexibility in the workplace to accomodate.  This is the single biggest challenge companies face when looking to hire this cohort but it is important to understand that the individual will make an effort to be as flexible as possible to the job.  They thrive on multi-tasking and collaboration and want feedback often, but it doesn't have to be monetary.

[Selby]

I've been dealing with the boomer generation at work.  My new job has groups divided into engineering, technicians, and mechanics.  The mechanics are basic wrench turners and screw drivers.  Give them a task to do, with some guidance and some drawings and they get it done.  Technicians are supposed to be somewhat independent of that and handle being given a generic "go make this happen" task with engineering input.  The 3 different levels aren't supposed to cross-work, meaning I'll get yelled at for turning wrenches or being too hands on, so I have to write all the procedures and give the technicians guidance and specific procedures for the mechanics.  EVERY single one of the techs and mechanics I've worked with are old enough to be my parents and while some are very helpful and do great work, there's quite a few that have the "not my job" or "you didn't specifically tell me NOT to do X or HOW to do Y."  I've been working with one middle level guy who basically got angry with me this week because he was expected to be able to use an oscilloscope to run tests on a module and record the data.  His answer to me was "I didn't have to do this 25 years ago so why should I have to do it now?  You engineers expect too much from us!"  I had a simple task that took me 2 hours to do today (and 1.5 hours of that was letting the module get hot) yet he took an entire day to NOT get it done yesterday - and complained that it was too difficult and I was expecting him to be able to do engineering work that required a degree (read a hardwired multimeter display and write it down).

I've encountered this for the last 6 years at my jobs, I get older boomers who flat out refuse to do things that *should* be part of their job because they blame the technology being too new or us younger people for "expecting too much" from them.  I've already "fired" 5 of them from working on my stuff because they just make it worse or cause more problems.  I don't know if it's just laziness or what...

[Strazos]

Yeah, I'm learning a lot lately that personnel management is...hard. And sometimes, making the hard decision to cut the cord is harder still.

[Merusk]

We've had the boomer/ x/ millenial discussion before and I've been told I'm full of shit on it so I'm not interested in discussing more here.

However, I agree with this, 100%.

What did they say about the Boomers? They're an overwhelming majority at my workplace. I'm the youngest of three Xers, and we're already slightly outnumbered by late-80's Millennials. As the Boomers retire it will be they and not we who take over.

Boomers always have and always will see X's as slacker adult-children. (and really, as I get older I start to agree.) The Mils are their kids and in their mould and will be the ones given the promotions and positions of power. Just deal with it and look out for yourself, not the company and certainly not your co-workers.

[koro]

Welp, you know things have gone to shit at my plant when we've got hardcore South Carolina Republicans talking about how badly we need to unionize.

[Paelos]

Welp, you know things have gone to shit at my plant when we've got hardcore South Carolina Republicans talking about how badly we need to unionize.

What went wrong?

[koro]

Just a steady grinding away of long-term problems that's finally getting to people.

Working 50-60 hour weeks three weeks out of every four for the past eleven months, with no end in sight. When equipment and machines inevitably fuck up and break or cause us to produce substandard product because they're running all but about 15 hours a week, the employees get the blame.

Managerial incompetence, usually involving us running far too much of certain kinds of product, and then freaking out when we don't have any room in our too-small warehouse to store the excess. Or worse, running too much product and the customer cancel the order because they also ordered too much.

Massive employee turnover. We have around 120 employees across three shifts. In 2012, we had around a 9% turnover rate. In 2013 it was actually 0% (nobody was fired, or quit). Just shy of eleven months into this year? 45%. The past three months alone we've lost at least one person a week. Some of them are due to people quitting, but many more are due to firings, usually for trivial matters or simple disagreements between a supervisor and an employee. My shift (third) is currently running at about 30% "temp" employees due to all the losses.

And of course, the awful pay. $10/hour starting, with maybe a 15-25¢ raise once per year -- if you're lucky. Everyone who has quit has done so over the pay. It's ludicrous when you have people who have been in a place 9-10 years only making $3 more than they started at.

Oh, and on top of it all, we're getting in 10 new machines at the end of the year at the end of our production line (bringing us up to 50 total in that area), but we're getting no new employees to operate them and no extra machines in the other steps of the production chain to facilitate this. So everyone's dreading how much harder we're going to have to work to make our often ludicrous (and often lied about) production goals.

[Paelos]

Yeah production line goals can get ridiculous at the top (and I'm saying this as someone now construction management). The problem is that people don't like to make conservative estimates anymore. Everything has to look great for banks and investors, so we're going to make these rosy completion goals. Yet, anyone with half a brain can realize this isn't realistic.

[koro]

The worst part is, employees are never told what our production goals actually are, or even given an idea of how close we are to meeting them. It's always "we're behind, gotta work Saturday*." And then when someone from the lab manages to get access to our production status, we usually find out we're actually several weeks worth of production ahead.


*Of course, no front office staff have to come in on the weekends, and all the supervisors in the plant have managed to bullshit management into giving them permission to leave when they've been in for four hours.

[Yegolev]

Management woes.

[Cheddar]

Verizon Wireless is hiring, I hear, like 13 bucks an hour to start.

Though, it is a call center in northeast Columbia.  So I hear.

[rattran]

So, is it in the poor black areas, or the rich white areas of Richland/Northeast?

[Quinton]

Today I received a check which "represents your entire share of the Net Settlement Funds created by Settling Defendants Lucasfilm, Pixar, and Intuit as an approved Class Member-Claimant in in re: High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, San Jose Division, Master Docket No. 11-CV-2509-LHK."  It's not a very large check, and only 15% of it represents my "Lost Mobility and Career Opportunities", but hey, free money (in exchange for not pursuing my own lawsuit against the involved parties, which was not something I had any interest in doing anyway).  Hooray, Justice is (partially) served?

[schild]

$14.72

[Yegolev]

The people I work with seem to think I'm working much harder than I actually am.  I alternate between positive and negative opinion on this situation.  What does the group think?