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Admin
Your obviously not British
Admin
Ah yes, that night in 1983 when, after a hyped sporting victory over the yanks (we cheated more than they did), our Prime Minister - a famous drinker in his own right - proclaimed on live TV that "any boss who sacks someone for not showing up tomorrow is a bum".
Admin
Aren't those pre-requisites for finishing GRADE SCHOOL? Seriously, if you don't have either of those, there is no office-based job you're suitable for.
Admin
Admin
You are definitely not Australian.
Admin
Admin
"Believe it or not, that is not normal behavior. Most people have never missed work because of a hangover."
I've written some awesome code whilst blootered. However it often doesn't compile the next day which is a real pain ;)
Admin
OK, so replace your current secretary with a randomly selected grade school graduate. Clearly you expect no difference in performance - probably because you benefit from a skilled and efficient secretary who takes so many problems off your plate that you no longer realise they exist.
Admin
Have you read posts in internet forums? I doubt most people who post here are still in grade school, and yet so many posts exhibit simple grammatical error (then/than, your/you're, there/their/they're, etc.). You could try to claim that this is only an internet forum, but really, things that simple shouldn't need effort.
E'mails I recieve on a regular basis from the adults I work with don't always have correct grammar.
I would consider having good grammar a skill for a secretary or PA.
Look at the desks of those around you at where you work. Are these paragons of organisational abilities? That's just what you can see.
A good secretary or PA would need excellent organisational skills.
Also typing. Touch typing would be invaluable.
Being personable, as they would be the first point of contact for customers and employees wrt the person they are secretary or PA to.
4 skills. The list is not yet exhausted.
Admin
error -> errors recieve -> receive
Oh bitter irony.
Admin
Admin
Well the truth of the matter is, attractive people automatically get an advantage, both in hiring situations and promotions/salary. There's a (subconscious) tendency to assume that because someone is attractive, he or she has other desirable qualities as well. The same principle applies to height discrimination, especially in the US where there is a cultural bias against shorter persons. (Good luck proving it, but studies have shown it.)
Obviously the best you can do is be aware of your prejudices and try to evaluate people objectively. No one's perfect, but most management will probably fall into the trap. The surprising thing about this story is how quickly he got fired. I guess I'm too used to horror stories about companies that make it almost impossible to fire people, for fear of lawsuits.
Admin
Admin
Don't really see the problem with drinking...
Every major release we have we celebrate with a corporately sponsored dinner (last one with 14 people cost around 5000 dollars or so) where you get a 5 course dinner with wine and an open bar afterwards. The policy is that you can show up whenever the next day, people usually show up around noon.
We also have around 20 days of paid sickleave a year we can take whenever we feel like it without a note from a doctor. You can have as many sickdays with a note as you want and they are paid of course as well.
Though I don't think it's bright to waste sickdays on hangovers I do not find it morally wrong to wake up one day when work is slow and say "I'm taking a couple days off to stress down". The days are there to make sure you are well, mental and physical stress can be just as big a reason to take a sickday or 5 as a fever or throwing up blood.
Admin
My obviously not British what?
Admin
No, most I know have neither.
Admin
Um, they did tell you it was a joke.
About 50 times already.
I mean we'll cut some of the asperger's cases, or whatever they are, some slack for not getting it was a joke at first. But are you really telling me you still aren't sure, even after it has already been explained to be a joke?
Admin
I don't have any difficulty believing that 49% of people who work have missed a day due to hangover. Maybe even 2 over a 20 year stretch.
Admin
Double to start, now over triple, with bonuses. Was a good move.
Admin
Admin
we call those "weekdays"
Admin
English is such hard work, isn't it! I've heard about these American jobs. The pay sounds great, but then you learn more and discover that you get two weeks holiday a year, and if you're 5 minutes late more than 2 or 3 times ever you get sacked, and you're expected to go to dynamic team building or corporate events and shout and whoop and pretend to give a shit about your employers. Or maybe you're expected to actually give a shit - I forget.
Admin
Jon didn't know how to program at all! He couldn't have learned Java.
He thought pseudo-code sentences were real Java statements. Who would think that "if myobject is null then do something" is bona-fide code?
Admin
Awesome :)
Admin
I wonder what percent of sick days taken by people who work Mon-Fri are on Mondays or Fridays instead of All sick days (which would included non Monday-Friday workers).
Admin
WTF thats all i can say!!!! WTF
Admin
Wow, you can be fired for not knowing what your doing? What a novel idea. At the company I work at, that honor is reserved for showing up a minute late too often. Make it through the door and keep personal business to your cell and your pretty much safe.
If you lack sufficient motivation to actually try and also distract your coworkers while not working, that will get some attention. But that just indicates a poor fit. The solution is to shuttle you around the company until you feel like doing your job.
Hmm, I just forgot why I work so hard. I wonder if this could be related to the massive apathy and poor quality that pervades IT.
Admin
The sad thing is that if only the candidate had gone for a Business Analyst position rather than a measurably technical one, chances are they'd never have been rumbled if their BS was that good.
In due time they'd have been in a position to hire and fire techies, lecture them about development methodologies, scream at them for not understanding business needs, or whatever.
(I do value Business Analysts - good ones).
Admin
Yeah, you know what? I hear every programmer say this and every dev manager who thinks that they are a good dev manager but the HR process does not allow for this type of selection criteria. It is a freakin check list - that is all any HR dept has matching checkboxes. You can't prove those skills on a resume, HR can't check list "ability to learn and adapt". And you can't evaluate it in an interview with puzzles because it is not the same kind of problem solving skills - optimize for a bunch of internal corporate political criteria, work around insane security policies and meld incompatible technologies together while herding the lazy lolcats on your team (Im in yur dept, preventing progress on projectz) and create a working system vs why are man hole covers round = not the same skills.
The only other thing HR can do is work with upper management to whitewash things and trump up paper trails when they want to fire someone.
Admin
... so, they are even monitoring your forum posts now?
Admin
"Most people have never missed work because of a hangover." what planet are you from?
Admin
It lacks a comma, but wth. "O bitter irony" would suggest that the speaker is invoking some sort of goddess in charge of lack of knowledge, whom he's just pissed off, for some reason.
O. Wait...
Admin
Now. Tell me once more. In what way does "12% ... calls in sick the day after the Superbowl" relate to the weekly cycle, rather than to the annual cycle?
Most of us can divide two by five ... although, on this site, I'm not entirely certain of that assumption.
Most people blathering about percentages appear to have missed the point of the first relevant comment in the thread. That's called basic comprehension. Here in Britain, we used to teach it in around third grade or so.
Occasionally, it comes in handy in the field of computer technology -- although it's not common, and it doesn't pay too well.
But, no! I've missed your point entirely! I don't know how many sigmas 12% is out from 20% ... let me get my handy-dandy sigma calculator out ... why, it must be at least six! Six sigmas! The Magic Elixir of Project Management!
I must recommend to my boss that he suggests that they hold a Superbowl every Sunday. That should improve productivity no end.
Admin
Getting drunk a few times a year is fun, but... getting drunk every weekend is more fun. It's not problematic. It's thereaputic.
Didn't anyone goto college? In college, there's a saying. They drink every day that starts with a T: Today and tomorrow.
Graduation itself won't change that. Work might. Marriage might. It's character development. But if not, so what?
The reason for calling in sick does not matter; whether it's alcohol, midnight toking, late-night movies, depression, flu, job interview elsewhere, or flamewar, the end result is all the same: You called in sick.
If the reason is irrelevant, it shows there is a concensus that alcohol consumption is bad in itself, regardless of circumstances. But it's a lifestyle choice that does not harm anyone else. So that attitude that it is just wrong because it is wrong, is judgmental, narrow-minded, and intolerant.
Admin
Admin
High-functioning alcoholic? That's just silly. If you're functional, you don't have a problem.
Of course, in your line of work you have an incentive to find problems where they don't exist.
If you define deviance loosely enough, you can catch everybody.
Admin
Reminds me of when I was a gov contractor: I was the assistant design team leader for a horribly under-funded project and was re-doing the work that my predecessor had totally screwed, pulling 70 hour weeks and struggling through a mini-Everest of data flow diagrams. To get the after-images of circles and arrows out of my head, I went to a party and got way drunk. Next day I felt terrible but struggled to work, where I sat down in front of my computer and went to sleep.
We were working in trailers and there was no privacy. Fortunately (as I heard later), when the project manager came walking through my trailer the DBA (a friend of mine) happened to be there. He swiveled my chair to face away from the PM and had a "conversation" with me until the PM left.
Admin
They're for diseases, etc.
No, I'm not deluded enough to think that's the only time they're used.
Admin
Admin
Yes - it's a nightmare isn't it? People who are so dumb they just don't realise how stupid they really are...