- Feature Articles
- CodeSOD
- Error'd
-
Forums
-
Other Articles
- Random Article
- Alex's Soapbox
- Announcements
- Best of…
- Best of Email
- Best of the Sidebar
- Bring Your Own Code
- Coded Smorgasbord
- Mandatory Fun Day
- Off Topic
- Representative Line
- News Roundup
- Editor's Soapbox
- Software on the Rocks
- Souvenir Potpourri
- Sponsor Post
- Tales from the Interview
- The Daily WTF: Live
- Virtudyne
Admin
Success despite frist
Admin
I wish there were a "thumbs-up" or "Like" button so I could be the frist to approve this message!
Admin
I work for GiantCo in this exact situation. However we won't go out of business ever so nothing will ever get better.
Admin
I was actually in a similar situation once. I was part of a small military contractor working for a very large military contractor on a project that was behind schedule before the ink on the contract was even dry. At one point it got so bad that the customer sent one of its own PHBs to sit in our lab on Saturdays just to make sure people were there working.
I've long since moved on from that place.
Admin
Manadatory 50-hour weeks and sign-in sheets? I realize that there might be some poetic license, but how was everyone's response not, "Errr, no...I think I'll go find another job."
How about managers actually manage for a change, rather than "herp derp artificial date"?
Admin
If I'm reading it right, they didn't go "no, I think I'll find another job" because almost all of them were previously working more than 50 per week. The PHBs thought they were mandating more work, but were actually mandating less.
Admin
I think because these people were working for more than 50 hours and TRWTF here is that management was actually telling them to do less work, thinking they were telling them to do more work
Admin
Ding Ding Ding.
Or as Sun Tzu put it, "When your enemy is making a mistake, do not interrupt him."
Admin
TRWTF is we're apparently still using terms from Dilbert in 2018.
Admin
I also like that the acronym of the company name is wank co, although that's the 14 year old inside me talking
Admin
I think that "use it or lose it" policy was brought up by the bean counters, who complained that they didn't want to carry forward those paid hours as a future liability. Why, if those employees were to quit, because of the unpaid overtime demanded, then the company would have to actually PAY out cold hard cash to those folks! The Horrors....
Admin
Maybe that's because Dilbert is still using terms from Dilbert in 2018? Have you seen a better term than PHB?
Admin
"Use it or lose it" also prevents employees from taking 6 month vacations.
Admin
That's true, but there's a less evil reason too: to force people to actually take some time off to avoid burn out.
Admin
nice story. i love happy endings!
Admin
Companies that offer unlimited vacation time (with approval) don't have to worry about it carrying over, and as a bonus they spend less on it than ones that specify exactly how much they allow.
Admin
The small company I work for just got bought by a much larger company, who, in the modern way, combines sick time with vacation time, so I'm getting a kick out of this.
In addition to losing a couple of days of vacation time because the new owner's maximum annual vacation is 2 days less than what our former company gave, I lose 8 days of annual sick time, PLUS the 90 days I have conserved through my not using it (because the new company doesn't allow you to build up sick leave)
Wonderfulness. Made more wonderful by the fact that I'm nearing retirement age, so that shortly, all this silliness will be a pleasant memory.
Admin
That's Napoleon, not Sun Tzu.
Admin
Not just burn out. Mandatory vacations are an important business continuity and anti-fraud measure as well. If someone won't or feels they can't take a vacation its a good sing they have inserted themselves into a business process in away that is inappropriate.
Even if pretty small shops if a project cannot sustain the temporary loss of one engineer; its suggestive major problems exist. If not with company as a whole than very possibly with that person. Why are they not sharing knowledge/access/data/etc with others?
Admin
had been working evenings and weekends designing hardware and firmware and hadn't had a vacation for well over a year. In the EU that is a big NO NO
Admin
We're still using quotes from Shakespeare and Homer, too. Some things are just classic.
Admin
In most of the developed world, it's a no-no. But the USA always seems to want to be "special".
Admin
"I think that "use it or lose it" policy was brought up by the bean counters, who complained that they didn't want to carry forward those paid hours as a future liability... if those employees were to quit... " The accrued future liability is already on the books. It's already funded, even if the employee hasn't received the $$. When an employee takes leave from that accrual, the company temporarily stops paying new money for salary, and draws down the leave funding. Conversely, when employees /don't/ take a year's leave within a financial year, the company sees salary costs higher than budgeted. It reaches the bottom line.
Admin
Dilbert stopped being funny a long time ago. In fact it was immediately obvious when Scott Adams relinquished the daily cartoons to some ghost writers, the cleverness disappeared completely. Nowadays punchlines are a notch below Bazooka Joe.
So no, Dilbert references are no longer relevant.
Admin
https://media.makeameme.org/created/VACATION-YOU-MEAN.jpg
Admin
There is 'Company Policy' There is 'What Actually Works' And then there is 'What People Actually Do'. Ideally, all three are the same. Usually only two. But frequently all three are different.
Admin
On my first job in 1976 as a junior programmer the entire IT department was demanded to work over the Christmas holidays for a special year-end mandate of some sort, that I don't recall. We would be allowed to Bank the time and take it any time in the following year. In those days, this particular (Manufacturing) company shut down the entire Christmas week, and we wound up with an extra week of forced/paid vacation time. It felt like being back in school and going home for the holidays. In this particular case it was sort of a "Just be on site in case something blows up and we need resources". It wasn't the whole week, more like a Fri/Sat/Sun conversion. We all showed up and pretty much did little more than play card games all day and a few busy periods. The conversion went off without a hitch. One lazy obnoxious ass hat on the maintenance team that everybody hated did not show up. On Monday morning, we were all DELIGHTED to watch him escorted off the premises, yelling and screaming. HURRAY.
Admin
Before I moved into IT I worked at a large London Teaching Hospital which was piloting Clinical Directorates. The unholy union of Cardiothoracic S Surgeons and the Cardiology Physicians brought their respective teams of technicians under the same Business Manager. the former head off the CT technicians. I can't remember what the problem with the Cardiology Technicians was, however, the solution was clear and yet 'politically' impossible.
It was very frustrating.
My boss explained that we couldn't wade until the problem boiled over which was something as a young rationalist I found hard to accept. When the situation hit the fan the reforms just slid into place. One down, many more to go. There were too many brick walls to back my head against so I quit and built a modest career doing what I enjoyed, developing solutions that eliminated some of the crap.
I have worked with teams pushing for change in large corporates. In just about every case the good people left.
Now I am in a smaller organisation which ran for years a family business without any management infrastructure. No management may be marginally better than crap management. The emotional toll is about the same.
Having worked for small businesses before I knew it was just a matter of time before they embraced change and the need for management. Hopefully, I'll have retired before management becomes a dirty word.