Minor rant thread. Post your rants o' the day here!

Thanks to the resident "Superman" on our small team, we're being called to the carpet for causing several outages.

Dude, we've asked you to delegate, to spread the work around and to have the team validate your changes before you go live.

Instead YOU deployed a change to the field and caused another outage call and our new manager is wondering what in the hell we're doing.

Slow down, communicate and actually hand off work to other people before we all get berkeleying fired for causing an outage at the bank.

Those of you who enjoy playing "Superman" for your own teams or industries, understand that Superman still had a team of people helping him and that he still made mistakes.  So before you screw up monumentally, start trusting your team and pushing them to take more of the work over.

Stefan said:

Thanks to the resident "Superman" on our small team, we're being called to the carpet for causing several outages.

Dude, we've asked you to delegate, to spread the work around and to have the team validate your changes before you go live.

Instead YOU deployed a change to the field and caused another outage call and our new manager is wondering what in the hell we're doing.

Slow down, communicate and actually hand off work to other people before we all get berkeleying fired for causing an outage at the bank.

Those of you who enjoy playing "Superman" for your own teams or industries, understand that Superman still had a team of people helping him and that he still made mistakes.  So before you screw up monumentally, start trusting your team and pushing them to take more of the work over.

Ha! I'm dealing with cleaning up from a superman that abruptly left the company. Now she's back in a consulting capacity. Still near impossible to figure out what she was/wasn't doing.

In reply to mtn :

Sit in her cube/office and chat with her until she understands that she can't work in a vault.

If she works remotely, call her and chat routinely.  As someone who is an INFP and working in IT, I often forget to talk with other people regularly unless someone asks me a question, I have to make an effort to reach out to the rest of the team and that effort is often viewed as not worth the effort on my part.

Stefan said:

In reply to mtn :

Sit in her cube/office and chat with her until she understands that she can't work in a vault.

If she works remotely, call her and chat routinely.  As someone who is an INFP and working in IT, I often forget to talk with other people regularly unless someone asks me a question, I have to make an effort to reach out to the rest of the team and that effort is often viewed as not worth the effort on my part

Different continents. No phone for her. Not joking--she works only remotely, and only on a temporary basis to get us cleaned up.  She has another full time job, so only gets to us at random times during the week.

In reply to mtn :

I can't tell you much random junk that my MIL has dumped on us (rather than get herself a storage unit) promptly went into the huge construction dumpster across the street when we bought our house a year ago. it was enough to fill (literally) an entire 16x20 foot room in our old house. MIL never knew we did it and has never even wondered where all that stuff went.

Does it count as "superman" if your facility (of over 2000 people) downsizes your position to just one person?  If I get hit by a bus or win the powerball this place is so exquisitely screwed as I'm the ONLY person who knows how to do my job.

Not really, that's being forced on you and management should burn for that decision.

KyAllroad (Jeremy) said:

Does it count as "superman" if your facility (of over 2000 people) downsizes your position to just one person?  If I get hit by a bus or win the powerball this place is so exquisitely screwed as I'm the ONLY person who knows how to do my job.

In a way, you kind of did hit the powerball.  You're a one man union at this point.

This assumes that the management is aware of your job's requirements.  Which, from the sounds of it, they don't.

In reply to mtn :

Keep plugging away.  My wife and I have scrimped and saved for 31 years now and now things are freeing up for better days.  

KyAllroad (Jeremy) said:

Does it count as "superman" if your facility (of over 2000 people) downsizes your position to just one person?  If I get hit by a bus or win the powerball this place is so exquisitely screwed as I'm the ONLY person who knows how to do my job.

heavens forbid you take a vacation?

Hurt my back yesterday helping my mother move her giant palm plants inside. Must of pinched a nerve because I can't bear weight on my left leg without my back screaming. Slept like E36 M3 due to back, woke up with a motherberkeleyer of a sinus headache. I had the same type of headache 2 days ago that led to vomiting due to the pain, then went to bed at 7pm.

So, slept like crap, feel like crap, woke up a little behind schedule so I'm hustling.

Elderly driver decides to hog the left lane allllll the way to work. And then feels the need to put on his 4-ways while descending down the grade on the main road while doing 20 in a 35. The road was a little wet, thats all.

I kept my distance because I was still trying to figure out WTF he is doing and the he brake checks me!

What the berkeley?!

I swear, it will be a miracle if I don't end up in jail by the end of today but its still early.

berkeley everybody!

Knurled. said:

KyAllroad (Jeremy) said:

Does it count as "superman" if your facility (of over 2000 people) downsizes your position to just one person?  If I get hit by a bus or win the powerball this place is so exquisitely screwed as I'm the ONLY person who knows how to do my job.

In a way, you kind of did hit the powerball.  You're a one man union at this point.

 

This assumes that the management is aware of your job's requirements.  Which, from the sounds of it, they don't.

My father ran into this. All the other CNC programmers quit at his job and they would never let him train new people because they kept him too busy and were making his trainees run machines instead. But his boss (who once admitted "Nick, I don't even know what you actually do here") was unconcerned because he didn't realize how vital he was to operations. When he turned in his 2 month notice that he was leaving, they acted completely nonplussed and never had him train anyone because they weren't aware that he was the only person who could do any of their programming. He hears from people who work there and they say the place is in a freefall.

For what razor blades cost ya think they could throw in the plastic anti-theft box. I could do sumthin' w/ that, like a HotWheels display box.

Part II:

I started blood pressure meds today. Yay. 

fasted58 said:

I started blood pressure meds today. Yay. 

I started blood pressure meds about a month ago after my systolic went to 181 while having surgery to repair a dislocated thumb.  I’m 53 and my brother died suddenly from aortic dissection at 55 and my mom died suddenly from the same thing three months ago so we’re taking control of my blood pressure very seriously.

I quit a four year habit of chewing nicotine gum the night of my surgery as well and now my pulse runs way down between 45 and 55…I don’t know what it was before quitting but my energy and ability to focus is way off.  I’m having an EKG on Monday to determine if my aorta is enlarged and a DNA test is in progress to see if I’ve got a marker for aortic dissection.

There isn’t a lot I can do if any of the tests indicate that I’m going to blow a hose other than turn my risk tolerance up to 11 and have fun.

I am not a construction expert by any means, but I really thought that floor joists were supposed to be 16" on center.  I was installing a pole in our friend's new place today and the top mounts to an adapter that gets anchored into a joist.  Started with a point in the ceiling where I knew there was a joist and then measured across the ceiling to right where a joist should have been.  Nothing.  I put about a dozen little holes in the ceiling looking for the stupid thing and finally found it.  Turns out they're 15" on center.  Hurray for spackle.

Raining really hard out so every customer car is soaked. Whos bright idea was it to make a skidplate/belly pan out of what feels like molded carpet. Thats floppy nasty stuff when its soaked. 

My entire 2000 Miata engine build has ground to a halt for a week because of a stupid $3 blind plug that goes in the oil pump to block off where the dipstick would go on an FWD application. The factory pump doesn't even have hole in it, but replacement ones are set up to be used in FWD/RWD applications. What's irritating is that I bought the pump from a Miata-based company, so why don't they just automatically include the plug and raise the price $3, because I'm sure that 99% of the people buying pumps from them are using it in a RWD application.

Apparently all the standing water i splshed through on the way home managed to wash years of grit and oil around in my rangers starter. I didnt really need that snack run anyway!

Even more minor rant, whoever drove around for years with the leaky valvecover gasket either was real lazy or cheap.

Samsung decided I needed an update a few weeks ago, and forcibly updated. Chewing up more space on the phone.  No improvement of performance. Things are actually much choppier. Turned off all my auto-update blocks. Updated my internet browser without me knowing. Now, instead of clicking the top right of my screen to look at my tabs, I have to wade through 3 layers of crap to get to a tabs screen that looks worse and is clunker than it ever was. If I harbored distrust of updates before, I have a vehemate hatred of them now. What took 2 clicks takes 5. berkeley this. 

I live about 30 miles from an IMax theater. Do they choose to show movies from Hollywood? Only once in a while. Berk you, morons. Y'know, you could make a crapton more money if you actually showed movies people would pay to watch.

And yes, internet updates of any kind are the work of the devil. Let's take something that works very well and screw it all to hell. Just so some dweeb can attempt to justify his paycheck and/or existence.

Just learned yesterday that my Supervisor is pestering the Director of my department to make a new department wide rule disallowing us to take vacations during the summer months. In other words, we will not be allowed to take any time off from June 1 through September. Yes, we are a little busier in the summer with more (and bigger) concerts on the weekends, but other than an outdoor stage for local acts, we don't do a lot more during the summer than say, the middle of convention season in the spring and fall. He just does not want to do extra work trying to fill in for one of us if we take a week off to enjoy family and friends who have more free time during the summer due to their kids being out of school.

I hope we get a say in this: a good chunk of my friends are teachers who have much more relaxed schedules in the summer months, and that is the prime sailing season. I get 224 hours of PTO a year, I want to be able to use them ALL year, not just 2/3s of it

"Don't make your reports so technical, use plain language!"

Ok.  Good note, will do.

"Nope. Still too complicated!  Dumb it down so ANYONE can understand."

Good copy, done.

"Why are you treating us like we're idiots?!?  Do you think you're better than us or something?!?"

:dinosaur screams:

A LOT of applications went out today.  It's the only way I can stay sane.

Attention friends and family who will be joining us for the upcoming Thanksgiving meal at our home: Those individuals of you who like to help with either prep or cleanup, I genuinely appreciate the sentiment and the assistance. HOWEVER, this year not a single berkleying one of you will be allowed to handle our Henkel Zwilling Pro S kitchen knives. Not during cooking, not during cleanup. My knives cut as well as they do because I maintain them and care for them, and I can get quite pissy when I have to remove excess edge material to correct the edges that you people seem to have a gift for flattening and chipping. NO MORE cutting/slicing on plates. NO MORE using the wrong knife for the type of cutting you need to do. NO MORE tossing these knives in the sink. If you are not me or my wife, keep your hands OFF the Henkels.

Or is this more properly a First World problem?

In reply to WildScotsRacingCampbellCougarSeed :

Yuuup. Ever understood the desire to have such delicate tools. I have a nice-ish knife and my only rule is don't put it in the dishwasher. Ok not the sink either since I'm worried about losing a finger grabbing it in some soapy water. 

Knurled. said:

Too tired to sleep.

3 hours of sleep Friday night, 5 hours of sleep last night, most of the time in between spent in a car or driving one.  Feel like a zombie.  Can't sleep.