The All New Jobs Thread

[Foe]

At least you can switch off.

We’ve got some wells stuff looking likely to sit over Xmas time, stuff we’ve never done before and v expensive equipment offshore. I’d noticed a few weeks ago it was sitting there in the schedule and started to query what we were going to do.

Christmas is cancelled, seems to be the outcome. My colleague is heading off to south east Asia for a family wedding and I’m pretty confident they’re going to try and get him to take his laptop. Absolutely fuck that.

I’ll be coasting the shit out of January if I have to dial into calls and check trends over the festive. If you can’t switch off then, you never can.

[Jimmy Floyd]

I was going to have this week off but now going in because the CEO, my boss, the Arab, the Russian and another guy have all jetted off to Shanghai for the worst week of their lives. I was talking to my colleague, if the plane goes down it's probably a straight run-off between us for some big wonga board position.

[phonics]

I've been saving my time off because I have been in an extended house purchase process and was going to use it to move in, builders etc.

Now none of that seems to be happening until the new year I have 11 days to take before December 31st and I have nothing to do with them. My old job had rollover but they don't do that and they also don't pay you out for holidays not taken so I'm just going to be taking nearly 2 weeks off to get behind on work to sit on my arse 10 minutes away from said jobs office. I don't think this is a great use of anyones resources.

[Ben]

We've got a huge bid in and we find out next Friday if we've been successful.

If we are, then my last 5 days are getting banged in immediately and I'm going to fly somewhere in Europe on a whim, because January will be insane when all the prep work starts. If we don't win, I'll roll the remaining 5 days over to next year because there will be fuck all to do for a while anyway.

[Lofty]

I have 10 days left to take, 5 of those have been allocated towards taking 2 weeks at christmas (the other 2 days coming out of next year's allowance). I can roll 5 which might be handy as I am away on a few long trips next year and traditionally the run up to christmas is hectic in my job so unlikely I'll be taking days then - I can take days but it just means I have to do additional work to hit deadlines so unless it's something amazing why bother.

[Shindig]

I've got a week off in December and another day I fancy rolling over into next year. No idea what the Christmas workloads will be but I'll be in for all of it.

[Spikey M]

It doesn't really matter when I take my leave, nobody picks up my work for me anyway, so it's always a shitfest when I return. I often wonder what they'd do if I was long term sick. I hope to never find out, but I imagine the answer would be to panic.

[Gray Fox]

Most years there is an odd day around Christmas. This year it's the Friday 27th. We're closed the two days before and whenever this happens, said odd day always follows later on. It just tends to take them until about a week or two before to actually confirm it.

Well this year they've gone early and we're closing. Cue people now complaining that they're losing a days holiday to cover it off. Can't win.

[Baz]

Since condensing my hours (Mondays off) I’ve got more holidays than I need, cos when I book weeks off now it’s only 4 days used rather than 5. So I’ve had a few random days off, and have two more booked in December, as well as being off from Christmas Eve to 7th Jan, and having another 4 days to use before the end of March. Genuinely might have a week off to play Warcraft.

[Ben]

I feel like I'm in the wrong job when you spin it like that.

[Baz]

Nah you probably make 2 x my pay.

[Mike]

21st December until the 7th Jan for me.

[Kikó]

https://www.theguardian.com/business...eking-new-jobs

I don't know why employers are determined to make themselves less attractive as a workplace.

[Waffdon]

I feel like I'm in the wrong job when you spin it like that.

Pretty sure every single senior manager has them condensed hours. Must come with the territory of the job.

[mo]

Flooding closed my school today so worked from home. Had a parent meeting scheduled for after school so around 2 I emailed to say as the school is shut, can we re-schedule to tomorrow. Bloody mad woman replied about 10 mins later saying she was already in the school carpark! First of all, who leaves that early for an appointment 20 mins from their home, and secondly why did she think it would be going ahead with the school closed??

You'd think the number one obstacle in teaching is the kids, but it's the parents. Always the parents.

[Giggles]

https://www.theguardian.com/business...eking-new-jobs

I don't know why employers are determined to make themselves less attractive as a workplace.

Because they're running a business for themselves, not a service for their employees.

[Baz]

There's so much old fashioned stuff that needs fixing here. I put a contract up for bids and got a few written applications - all pretty good tbh but two absolute standouts. Wanted to interview just those two to narrow it down to one and award the contract but have had to interview them all, even though all the others have zero chance of getting the gig. Just a waste of everyones time.

Was meant to award the contract on 1st June and it's still not sorted heading into December. Embarassing.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Is that old fashioned, or new fashioned in the name of transparency / accountability?

[Magic]

What's your next move?

I accepted a job as Head of Networks for a small CCTV company as they want to grow. Brand new department and they don't know anything about networks or tech.

However I've got a couple of other things on the back burner that are more exciting but if they don't come off at least I won't be unemployed.

[Manc]

What a tease.

[Baz]

Is that old fashioned, or new fashioned in the name of transparency / accountability?

It's a waste of time, whatever it is.

[Lofty]

It's transparency, we all have to do training about it our spot since we are technically government owned now, all tendering of contracts has to be open and transparent, and you basically can't accept anything more than tea and sandwiches off them due to bribery legislation.

[Jimmy Floyd]

I had a weird run-in with IT today. We're launching a new website and whatever country list they've imported (for when you submit your details at checkout) doesn't include Kosovo (or South Sudan, it must be from about 2006). I told them that they need to add Kosovo. IT shot back with a harrumphing 'Well, you should have included that in the original parameters and we could have included it in last fortnight's sprint' (whatever any of that means). I said look, it's pretty important because we're going live this week and if anyone from Kosovo logs in then they will a) not be able to place an order, and b) may well take away from this that we are a company that doesn't recognise Kosovo, which is, you would have to say, a slightly more senstitive issue than accidentally leaving out Luxembourg. They responded 'oh, well, that's very unlikely isn't it? We don't have any customers from Kosovo' and I said actually we have two and - imagine this as a revolutionary concept - we might want to attract MORE customers in the future! They harrumphed again and said that I should add it to the 'checklist' for the next fortnight's 'sprint', neither of which I have the first clue what they are talking about.

I just cannot stand the attitude of IT people. God complex, all process process process, don't give a shit about results. Terrible people.

[Magic]

So elaborate on why you didn't include it within the original parameters?

[Shindig]

Given how old the management is, count yourself lucky the Weimar Republic wasn't still on the list.

[Raoul Duke]

A sprint is just a two week (usually) commitment of a bunch of tasks.

Isn't there someone in charge of this lot who has a brain? It should be a tiny change relatively, so sounds like they are gimps.

[Foe]

“Sprints” are such a bag of shit. Someone has made millions telling people to stop getting distracted and focus.

[Jimmy Floyd]

A sprint is just a two week (usually) commitment of a bunch of tasks.

Isn't there someone in charge of this lot who has a brain? It should be a tiny change relatively, so sounds like they are gimps.

He's who I was having the argument with. Lord knows they wouldn't let sales anywhere near the borrowers actually writing the code, it would be like Cortes discovering the Aztecs.

I just hate how they refuse to change anything on the fly. You - must - complete - tasks - in - the - order - assigned - by someone else weeks ago.

[Lofty]

Just say 'if you haven't added them to list by tomorrow dinner time you can explain to the top brass why we've lost those orders,' laddo's balls will shrivel quickly then.

[Boydy]

He's who I was having the argument with. Lord knows they wouldn't let sales anywhere near the borrowers actually writing the code, it would be like Cortes discovering the Aztecs.

I just hate how they refuse to change anything on the fly. You - must - complete - tasks - in - the - order - assigned - by someone else weeks ago.

I assume this is an outside consultancy team?

And while this sounds like a simple case of making a quick fix, the reason they're coming across as process droids is because as soon as you let the "business people" start making changes on the fly, they want to change fucking everything and they really don't understand how much effort some changes take.

[Serj]

Plus they'll start to make/demand changes another department hates and then you're caught in an in-house political shitstorm because you just wanted to help.

Not that that applies to the balkanisation of a website country list.

[Jimmy Floyd]

My customers make ludicrous demands all the time, and I either just get on with it - because the customer pays my wages - or I politely explain why it's not possible. Having a huff about why making a change to something THEY got wrong was not in the original parameters just makes me want to blow up their office.

[Yevrah]

IT only works properly when you have someone at the head of it that can speak English as well as IT. If you don’t, it’s a complete shit show.

[SvN]

I had a weird run-in with IT today. We're launching a new website and whatever country list they've imported (for when you submit your details at checkout) doesn't include Kosovo (or South Sudan, it must be from about 2006). I told them that they need to add Kosovo. IT shot back with a harrumphing 'Well, you should have included that in the original parameters and we could have included it in last fortnight's sprint' (whatever any of that means). I said look, it's pretty important because we're going live this week and if anyone from Kosovo logs in then they will a) not be able to place an order, and b) may well take away from this that we are a company that doesn't recognise Kosovo, which is, you would have to say, a slightly more senstitive issue than accidentally leaving out Luxembourg. They responded 'oh, well, that's very unlikely isn't it? We don't have any customers from Kosovo' and I said actually we have two and - imagine this as a revolutionary concept - we might want to attract MORE customers in the future! They harrumphed again and said that I should add it to the 'checklist' for the next fortnight's 'sprint', neither of which I have the first clue what they are talking about.

I just cannot stand the attitude of IT people. God complex, all process process process, don't give a shit about results. Terrible people.

Kosovo isn't included in ISO 3166 list of countries, which pretty much every platform uses when showing any sort of "Country" input. Depending on the platform, it might not be trivial to add in a custom country, and probably requires some investigation.

I'm not surprised they were arsey with you trying to add in new requirements the week of launch. Have you not had any visibilty to the website before now? Or exposure to the initial requirements at least?

[niko_cee]

Jimmy throwing a grenade into the IT bunker.

Like digging up an ant nest. Here they come!

[Giggles]

Every customer thinks that the only thing you ever have to do is sit outside their gate waiting for them to call.

[Kikó]

IT geeks unite. Raise a jira ticket and we'll try to prioritize it mate

[Giggles]

I don't think I've ever had a response to one of those tickets. I've a list a mile long, all waiting on a reply.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Kosovo isn't included in ISO 3166 list of countries, which pretty much every platform uses when showing any sort of "Country" input. Depending on the platform, it might not be trivial to add in a custom country, and probably requires some investigation.

I'm not surprised they were arsey with you trying to add in new requirements the week of launch. Have you not had any visibilty to the website before now? Or exposure to the initial requirements at least?

The week of launch? Oh don't worry, we're six months overdue and counting. It will end up not being the week of launch, just like the last 5 weeks of launch haven't been.

I personally hadn't seen it until now, and clearly the geniuses above me who had hadn't noticed this was an issue. They just set me loose testing and then told me to report any issues straight to Mr Happy. You're going to tell me that this is an issue with our internal processes - well duh, we don't have any, we are ad hoc problem solvers, outcomes people, not process people.

[randomlegend]

So elaborate on why you didn't include it within the original parameters?

Why would someone know that you need to specifically state in your "parameters" that Kosovo needs to be included on the list of countries?

[-james-]

The fact that Kosovo isn't in ISO 3166 means that any Kosovans will be entirely used to not being able to locate their country when registering on a website. They don't exist on ebay or alibaba either. It would probably be a surprisingly big ballache to maintain.

[niko_cee]

A part of the world famed for the reasonableness of its peoples.

[Spikey M]

It's basically the same as me having to select United Kingdom as my country, when it isn't. Ingerland m8. But never mind, just send me a pack of tractor spark plugs ffs.

[niko_cee]

Please select Yugoslavia in the drop down menu.

Hello? Hello?

[Ben]

Google Maps even give it the ol' dotted line boundary to avoid upsetting the Serbs too much.

[Magic]

Why would someone know that you need to specifically state in your "parameters" that Kosovo needs to be included on the list of countries?

Because he knew there were customers there lol.

[SvN]

I'd argue that it's exactly the sort of thing that testing is meant to catch. I find it hard to believe that the product owner will know off the top of their head that Kosovo isn't included in ISO 3166 and that they have customers there.

[Jimmy Floyd]

We've got into massive hot water before when we put out some kind of marketing piece that showed the flags of the 160 odd countries we sell into, and Arab customers absolutely lost their shit that Israel's flag was included (this was about 5 years ago). So since that experience we always go out of our way to make each country feel special.

[Spikey M]

Made the (probable) mistake of making a department manager look like a knob earlier. They have decided we don't have enough data on our residents. Ethnicity, religion, sexuality, pronouns yadayadayada.

So, the empty head in the office pipes up: "But surely, if we have all that on their account, any racists could use that information to discriminate!"

Manager: "I don't imagine anyone here would discriminate like that, do you?"

Me: "Isn't that the main reason we want that data? To make sure there's no discrimination, be it on an individual or institutional level?"

Manager: "I guess so".

I mean if you want to push us down the EDI route, fair enough, we did well to get this far without being sucked in, but at least know why you're doing it.

[randomlegend]

Because he knew there were customers there lol.

So he was meant to list every country in the world they do or might in future have customers in?