Job thread

[Trippy]

Not so great for Diablo III.

Switch to the 15".

I have that one with custom 1TB flash storage.  It's mostly a right-click problem.  Although, I haven't tried it since I picked up the magic mouse.  Using the pad is not possible with Project Zomboid, not from what I've managed.

The MBP is awesome for worky-work.

In that case just use a real mouse with it. And get USB Overdrive:

http://www.usboverdrive.com/USBOverdrive/News.html

[Sky]

I fucking love the magic mouse...except for right clicking. About a 50% success rate finally drove me back to a wired mouse (just for work, I game on a pc like a sane mortal). Sucks, because I really, really loved gestures and the way it scrolls.

[Yegolev]

Awesome.  I end up using the control/command click a lot despite the ease of right clicks (IMO) on the magic mouse.  The only thing I dislike about it is the three-finger swipe isn't compatible with my fingers.

I finally got a piece of IBM swag that has the "Eye Bee M" logo and I should probably be embarrassed at my glee.

[Fabricated]

What sucks about getting Macs printing where I work is that we're pretty much stuck on locking down printers so that you can only access them via smb on a windows print server for various reasons. Also CUPS presents issues with getting all of the various whiz-bang features of the largest MFPs working.

I just hate them from the perspective of us being a STEM university. like 20% of your fucking software or less as an engineer has native OSX support. Why bother? You really want to spend $2500+ on a riced out MBP so you can have it sucking wind to bootcamp Windows or running a shitty VM through parallels? Just because you like how it looks? And if you're going to be SSH'd into clusters that do the real work, then why do you need an MBP?

[Viin]

I will say being able to create/run scripts natively that interact with machines remotely is super nice.
Would you rather support MBPs or some random Linux distro on an Asus laptop?

I thought I would dabble in creating a simple iPhone app but then I found out you *must* have a Mac in order to develop anything for iOS. Sigh. Tried a VirtualBox and other options and none of them really panned out.

[Fabricated]

Or you could just install PuTTy/SecureCRT/Cygwin and still be able to run all of your software natively, instead of complaining to us asking why <shitty engineering software company> doesn't have an OSX version of their software.

And I'd rather support a Dell Latitude/Precision or an HP Elite/Probook. Because you know, those are subject to our enterprise-class warranty contracts so when they break you can get a fix or a replacement part within 1-2 days. Applecare is dogshit in comparison.

I've had Xenapp suggested to me but it is in my experience, slow and bad.

[Merusk]

Our mac users access printers the same way, but they're set-up in CUPS. Printing is a reimbursable so the macs have to print via the Windows Print server which is running the service company's printing accounting software. Mac users use Xenapp to access the assignment interface, the same as they do for the timesheet.

Xenapp is "ok." We invested in it because <reasons> but it's certainly never going to be as fast as a native app. There's graphics cards out there by NVidia now for the Citrix/ Xenapp environment that work really well but you have to be willing to invest in the environment. Since you're support for a university, I don't see that happening.

Applecare we've had no problems with. Take it to the store, tell them to replace it, we get a whole new unit 70% of the time. We're on Pro Laptops and the trash-can towers, though. Longest we've had to wait was trying to salvage a machine because data was on it and that was only a few days.

Filesystem and linking between programs and Macs locking-out PC users from the file system? All. The. Fucking. Time. That's our primary malfunction with supporting them and has been for a while.


Also had my first phone interview. HR phone interviews are silly. Phone interview with the actual supervisor next Friday.

[Viin]

Also had my first phone interview. HR phone interviews are silly. Phone interview with the actual supervisor next Friday.

Yes, they just want to make sure you are a living breathing entity and not a bot. And being the gatekeeper makes them feel important. Good luck with your real interview!

[Fabricated]

The closest apple store to our university's campus is over an hour away.

Our we could call Dell and have a technician or new part in a day. Our users aren't gonna go to the apple store and we certainly aren't.

[Yegolev]

Cygwin is kinda shitty.  Not super shitty, but kinda shitty.  Moving to a Mac was, for my workflow, like moving from a crowded freeway to an open road.  My disclaimer is that I'm no longer just ssh'ing into servers and doing crap there.  I'm using (shitty) tools to manage code for Cloudy McCloud crap.  Using git on Windows is for masochists.

[Shannow]

I'll be employed again as of Monday. While I may change my mind 3 months from now, getting laid off was the best thing that could've happened.

[RhyssaFireheart]

Congrats on the new position, Shannow!

[Yegolev]

Awesome.

[Merusk]

Also had my first phone interview. HR phone interviews are silly. Phone interview with the actual supervisor next Friday.

Interview with the supervisor went well. Got the interview with HIS boss done today and it's probable they're going to make an offer. Guess I should tell my boss I'm looking now and why.

I haven't mentioned the final straw, though. We've been doing a business process eval with a department who's been struggling with massive overtime and a - frankly- undertrained staff who doesn't know best practices (and won't listen to me, as the "internal prophet" problem is real.)*  He's lost 9 people of his 45 person staff in the last year when the firm average is 11% turnover.

So we did an eval with a process expert and recommended implementation of standards, training, and automation of menial but time-consuming software tasks as the first three steps. He balked at the $5,000 price for automation. The ROI is ~$17k per year. He balked at the training cost of ~$200 per employee. Apparently we're just "nickel and dimeing" him on costs and he expected it all to be done for the $3,000 cost of the initial interviews and meetings with the consultant.

Then, he - in two separate meetings - implied that they didn't really need me if this went through. This guy is also a new member of the owner's group and here he is telling me, "We don't need you if this works. Doesn't that worry you?" "No." "Well, I'd be worried. It's not my job, though."

Nope. No need for that shit. Don't know what I do and what I manage? Ok, good enough, enjoy. I could fight and 'prove' myself here, but why? I've got no skin in this game and the path to a leadership or ownership position here started about 12 years behind where I am. Time to move on.

Still, 50% travel will suck.

* I think that's what it's called. It's when the guy IN the organization says something but you discount him because he's a co-worker. Guy outside says the same thing and he's a damn genius.

[Strazos]

Wow, he's crying over $5k, plus what to me seems like very low training costs of $200 per person, per year? Fuck that noise, he obviously doesn't know what it means to actually invest in your people. No wonder he has 25% turnover in professional positions over the year.

[Merusk]

Yeah it's all incredibly low. He says he's worried about ongoing costs to upgrade the program every year. Even if we had to, so what? We pay more than that in software licensing fees. It's a pittance, especially if the ROI is anywhere near accurate (and I assumed the staff exaggerated their time saved by about 3x when coming up with that $17k).

This firm does NOT invest in people. It sees training as a luxury. "People should invest in themselves. We're a cash-flow business and can't budget for training." I was floored to hear this from the HR lead. "It's just the way things are set-up. We'll never have a training budget like that."

That was another brick in the "nope the fuck out" wall.

[Paelos]

Yeah it's all incredibly low. He says he's worried about ongoing costs to upgrade the program every year. Even if we had to, so what? We pay more than that in software licensing fees. It's a pittance, especially if the ROI is anywhere near accurate (and I assumed the staff exaggerated their time saved by about 3x when coming up with that $17k).

This firm does NOT invest in people. It sees training as a luxury. "People should invest in themselves. We're a cash-flow business and can't budget for training." I was floored to hear this from the HR lead. "It's just the way things are set-up. We'll never have a training budget like that."

That was another brick in the "nope the fuck out" wall.

$5k? LOL, that's basically our birthday lunches budget for the year. What an idiot. That company is destined for a shit-show level of incompetence long term.

To actually have an HR person say people should invest in themselves? Double LOL. How big of a company is this ship of fools?

[HaemishM]

"Invest in themselves?" Someone actually said that in regards to training costs?

Get... the... fuck... out.

[Merusk]

250 people and $44 million last year. That's actually enough to get us in the top 350 for Design firms. It's rather sad.

[Ironwood]

It's not sad, it's greedy and shortsighted as all fuck.

In other words, business as usual.

[Draegan]

So remember when I was job hunting again last August (you probably don't)? Well I'm making a move again. I've scheduled two interviews this week already. Why am I looking?

Well 40 days after I was hired the North American GM/Mgr/Dir whatever title he had quit and is now working for the competition. The staff, infrastructure, budget, marketing, pipeline, demand, etc that I  was told was already in place was basically a lie. I was hired to manage this and my compensation was set against a certain business profile and workflow. Which also doesn't exist. This means I'm significantly underpaid.

So here's to finding something new.

Already had an interview on Monday, I think I explained myself without sounding like I was making excuses or just job hopping for no good reason.

[Viin]

Sucks to try and find something again so quickly. Good luck!

[Yegolev]

I'll give you a fat thumbs-up for not staying too long, which is what most people do, including me.

[Paelos]

I can honestly say I've never walked into a job where I was out and out lied to about the job, so that sucks. Usually they fudge a few things about the role, but rarely THAT much. You are absolutely right to leave.

[Merusk]

Yeah that situation surpasses mine for the "wtf" award. I knew going in it was going to be rough it's just gotten worse. You just got pissed on and told it was raining.

[Draegan]

Interviewed for one position on monday. Weird interview, but I'm told it's normal. Interviewed with the VP then the Pres. seperately back to back. Never had to give two first interviews in the space of 2 hours. Haven't heard anything back from them yet, but the President has been travelling all week apparently.

Has another interview on Wednesday, went real well, HR person called me back 30 minutes after the interview going around the recruiter (he couldn't be reached right away) to schedule a second interview with the President of the company on monday.

All in all. Decent week.

[Draegan]

Welp got a new job, that was quick.

[Viin]

Nice! Hopefully this one is better!

[Draegan]

Thanks. Had to submit to a background check. Always feels creepy doing that.

[Teleku]

Government/contractor work, or private company asking for its own background check?

[RhyssaFireheart]

Congrats, Draegan! 

----

As for me, it seems I'm kind of being fought over to see where I end up in the new transformational order or something like that.  Do I stay in the Project Management Office group, do I move to the Business Management Group, does Finance grab me?  It would be great if I new any of this would result in a permanent (not contract) position, but who knows.  This place is stingy as fuck about headcount.  I got a meeting with the BMO director on Monday to talk about the finance processes, mostly because he was in charge of the PMO for group A and handed that area off to the PMO director of group B (which I'm in) now that the groups have merged.  And his group is going to be in charge of back office stuff like what I do.  Who knows, I sure as hell don't.

Anyways, in the meantime, I'm trying to reverse engineer an Excel spreadsheet that has a whole fuckton of macros and other coding in it, to see if I can adapt it to group B's use going forward.  Normally I'd simply edit the existing sheet, but I don't understand everything it does, plus the woman that created it set it to that you can only edit one cell at a time before the page protection kicks in again.  But my current boss offered to buy me an Excel 2010 book to help if I needed it, lol!

[Draegan]

Government/contractor work, or private company asking for its own background check?

Private company.

[Paelos]

Thanks. Had to submit to a background check. Always feels creepy doing that.

So what kind of sex offender are you? 

[Merusk]

Know what's awesome? Expecting a 6k pay increase if you move jobs and winding-up being offered a 12.5k one. I'm a terrible negotiator, though, and turned it into a 10.5k for an additional week of vacation.

Also, my complete misunderstanding of the bonus structure means that's guaranteed pay. An additional 80-110% bonus per month (of a few hundred dollars) comes on top of that if we meet cost and resource goals.

Formal offer should come this week as they want me to start April 1 or shortly thereafter. Woo new job. Boo lots of travel. Guess I should tell the boss and start archiving e-mail.

[Chimpy]

Congrats.

Don't tell the old boss until you have the formal letter in hand!