Its fun when people complain about the older generations disdain for modernity in business practice and younger people over embracing.
In my R&D division, its the retired in place that are so fond of the wasteful online meetings, chats, and useless features in a grasp to remain relevant; while everyone under 50 is just getting the job done by whatever means necessary.
Appleseed said:Hey...wait a minute, this is just a minor rant thread for desk jockeys.
Ding, ding, ding!!
Ranger50 said:In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :
That's an administration failure.
Yep. We our first CEO this year walk in and suddenly start the process, despite us supposedly getting EPIC for over 10 years. They're gone and now the newest CEO is presiding over the changeover. We've had so many CEOs at this hospital I can't even count or remember them all lmao
GIRTHQUAKE said:Ranger50 said:In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :
That's an administration failure.
Yep. We our first CEO this year walk in and suddenly start the process, despite us supposedly getting EPIC for over 10 years. They're gone and now the newest CEO is presiding over the changeover. We've had so many CEOs at this hospital I can't even count or remember them all lmao
Collecting paychecks while being a limpdick until you're fired for underperforming.Most CEO's can't run a lemonade stand.
This just reminds me of how every large business that wants to do business with us wants to use their platform or portal to get paid because it'll be so much better and it will help me gain business. The average location we do business with only generates $3500 in revenue per year, we don't want to pay $500-1000 to setup with the company that runs your portal.
Appleseed said:Hey...wait a minute, this is just a minor rant thread for desk jockeys.
I prefer to think of myself as a forklift operator in the data warehouse.
TR7 said:In my R&D division, its the retired in place that are so fond of the wasteful online meetings, chats, and useless features in a grasp to remain relevant; while everyone under 50 is just getting the job done by whatever means necessary.
Yep. There are two types of Teams Meetings:
1) Host a team meeting to avoid doing actual work.
2) Host a teams meeting to require that all the people you've sent emails to multiple times about a topic are getting one last chance to voice their opinions.
There are a lot old guys who tune out emails (unless from someone higher up) and whom tune out just about every other conversation on important business change topics. Then they get pissed when you make the change they agreed to in multiple formats because they had tuned you out.
I am somewhat flattered when a higher up invites me to lunch to talk specifically about the topics that I've emailed them about for months.
RE: Email, the problem is its so easy to be CCed on an email and your inbox floods with garbage you don't need to attend to. I was recently traveling with my hands full 15+hrs a day where I easily racked up 100+ emails a day. I don't have time to sort through all that on my phone (I had an auto-reply stating this also)
On teams, chats directly to me are things I need to address easy. Also in channels when someone @ tags me, that works as well. Both of those gave me a notification I could directly respond to via phone, or call the author back and have a quick discussion.
I don't think there is a right answer regarding communication, but there are definitely some wrong answers. Clearly we all work in different environments where different types of communication are useful. Zoom meetings are very useful to me. I even have them on site because I dont want to walk 500 yards to the other building to meet with someone face to face over simple stuff. Ad-hoc teams meetings are really useful also. They are a replacement of our old phone system with the bonus of screen sharing and video chat. Teams/channels I find easier to navigate and foster discussions vs email (think GRM Forum vs. an old mailing list). Etc.
Either way our company switched over to O365 as our main email/teams system. There are those that have embraced it, and those that stuck their head in the sand and complained about it. Those who have embraced it and figured out how to use it best to get work done are the employees I want on my team, thats for sure.
Andy Neuman said:This just reminds me of how every large business that wants to do business with us wants to use their platform or portal to get paid because it'll be so much better and it will help me gain business. The average location we do business with only generates $3500 in revenue per year, we don't want to pay $500-1000 to setup with the company that runs your portal.
I just told Aramark that I wasn't paying $1400 a year to sign up for their service so I could work for them unless they were going to guarantee me in writing I would get $10k in business per year, minimum.
They looked at the numbers and said we didn't do that much work in the past 12 months. My response was, "Exactly."
Private equity cuts staff to bone - the ONLY lady who knew the railroad invoices was jacked around so she said F U and walked out. (How to Upload to portal)
Accounting emails invoices (wrong) and 6 months later three Class 1 railroads haven't paid any invoices. PE geniuses puts them on credit hold and want to know why invoices aren't being paid.
What invoices? We need our stuff - send our open orders.
PE guys said no way and three pissed off railroads slowly go elsewhere throwing $750,000-$1,000,000 with of high profit business out the window.
PE manager to salesman; your numbers are not growing. You need to find more business.
In reply to Datsun310Guy :
That is a failure in your accounting department, not your management or PE guys. They should have started asking questions as soon as the account was 10 days past due not 180 days past due. This is the proper time to get on the phone and talk to someone. Not email, not text, not chat. Pick up the phone and call someone.
In reply to Toyman! :
You are correct but due to cutting and lack of staff nobody was calling on past due accounts.
ProDarwin said:What blows me away is the people who will message "do you have time to chat?". Umm, you are a chatting when you message me. If I respond, that means I've got time. If I don't respond, then I don't have time. Same with calling, you don't have to say "can I call you?". Call. If I don't answer its because I'm busy.
Maybe I am weird but I would 100% rather some one ask me via TEAMS if they can call rather then just calling.
In reply to Datsun310Guy :
Is it a lack of staff or just poorly trained staff with no clear understanding of what their job responsibilities are?
My admin does invoicing and collections as well as a host of other tasks. My expectation is she goes through the accounts receivable list every Tuesday morning and blows up everyone's phone that is more than 15 days past due. She knows it. She does it. If an invoice slips through the cracks and gets sent somewhere it's not supposed to, we know it before it's 30 days past due.
It all comes back to management at the end I guess. It is the management's job to verify that the staff is doing what they are supposed to do when they are supposed to do it. It's also the management's job to set up a system where it's easy to succeed instead of easy to fail and that frequently doesn't happen.
People that suck at their jobs are found at all levels.
93EXCivic said:ProDarwin said:What blows me away is the people who will message "do you have time to chat?". Umm, you are a chatting when you message me. If I respond, that means I've got time. If I don't respond, then I don't have time. Same with calling, you don't have to say "can I call you?". Call. If I don't answer its because I'm busy.
Maybe I am weird but I would 100% rather some one ask me via TEAMS if they can call rather then just calling.
Why? We used to have phones on our desks. Nobody emailed me to see if they could call my phone. If I am busy, I don't answer. Even better yet, I can just toggle on Do Not Disturb and the call wont even go through.
Toyman! said:It's also the management's job to set up a system where it's easy to succeed instead of easy to fail and that frequently doesn't happen.
100% this
ProDarwin said:93EXCivic said:ProDarwin said:What blows me away is the people who will message "do you have time to chat?". Umm, you are a chatting when you message me. If I respond, that means I've got time. If I don't respond, then I don't have time. Same with calling, you don't have to say "can I call you?". Call. If I don't answer its because I'm busy.
Maybe I am weird but I would 100% rather some one ask me via TEAMS if they can call rather then just calling.
Why? We used to have phones on our desks. Nobody emailed me to see if they could call my phone. If I am busy, I don't answer. Even better yet, I can just toggle on Do Not Disturb and the call wont even go through.
Exactly. And if you do call me and it's a really bad time, I won't answer. When I do answer, you then give a polite greeting, a quick estimation of the level of effort for the call, and ask if now is a good time. And that should take about three short sentences. "Hey Bill, this is Joe, thanks for taking my call. I needed to know what type of storage I should propose for an opportunity I'm working. Is now a good time or would you have some time later on?"
At this point I can decide if I have the time right now or I can schedule a time for later to call you back. I can even make things more efficient and tell you that I don't have time at the minute, but how about 1530? And if that time works for you, in the meantime just email me the rough details that you have and then when we get back together, I'll be sure to be prepared to discuss.
Frankly I think the "Can I call?" IM is far more rude - you've given me absolutely no information so I don't know if this conversation is going to be 20 seconds, 20 minutes, or 2 hours. You could at a bare minimum use the instant messaging to let me know what you need and then ask if it's a good time to call.
Or just put on your big boy pants and pick up the phone.
ProDarwin said:RE: Email, the problem is its so easy to be CCed on an email and your inbox floods with garbage you don't need to attend to.
The number of people (of all ages) who can't tell the difference between the Reply and Reply All buttons has always astounded me. 
Fortunately I only had to endure a year's worth of virtual meetings before I retired, I found them very unproductive.
I don't hate anything in particular as much as I hate how and why things are used. We have Slack, and I see how it could have been beneficial. One of the things we do with it is I can send unscheduled service changes to our communication people to notify the public almost instantly, and they can relay complaints that need to be addressed quickly to us to be handled. The problems I have are first, anyone can contact anyone from different departments and start making demands. Often these demands can't be met for a number of reasons that are above the requestors head. I once had someone tell me I needed to add more buses to a planned shuttle, it's not something I can do without approval so I looked into before asking. There was no need for it and the person making the request was a janitor who was tired of being asked questions by people waiting for buses. There's a chain of command for reasons. Another problem is that none of these new programs replace anything. I often have to send a text, email, slack, and teams message for an event because some people only check one or two of those things. As one of the few operations people out on the road, too much of our day can be eaten up by redundant communications.
A bigger problem I have with management is that they don't bother to get an understanding of the people they're working with. Most of us came up from driving buses, and had no computer skills prior to getting here. We're all self taught, some better than others and there's little interest in training people that could use it. It's pointless to ask certain people to do certain tasks, and when they have difficulty with them getting angry isn't as productive as explaining how to do said task. We're all bright enough to learn but don't have the time to do it on our own.
Another peeve is language. Having grown up here and been educated in a good school district my emails are generally well written. However we have people that picked up English as a fourth, sometimes fifth language. Their emails are going to be a bit rough. If you understood it, then it should be good enough. Correcting minor grammar issues in an internal update about a situation is pointless and just makes people self conscious. We have good workers who hardly say anything because they've been embarrassed in meetings and emails for poor word choice. If we were writing for the public or in an office setting all day I could see it, but not of something who is just getting out a quick memo.
ProDarwin said:93EXCivic said:ProDarwin said:What blows me away is the people who will message "do you have time to chat?". Umm, you are a chatting when you message me. If I respond, that means I've got time. If I don't respond, then I don't have time. Same with calling, you don't have to say "can I call you?". Call. If I don't answer its because I'm busy.
Maybe I am weird but I would 100% rather some one ask me via TEAMS if they can call rather then just calling.
Why? We used to have phones on our desks. Nobody emailed me to see if they could call my phone. If I am busy, I don't answer. Even better yet, I can just toggle on Do Not Disturb and the call wont even go through.
Because our calls come through TEAMS most of the time and I don't want whatever I am in the middle of to interrupted by a call. Also I would rather have a heads up that someone is calling so I can at least be a little prepared.
ProDarwin said:93EXCivic said:ProDarwin said:What blows me away is the people who will message "do you have time to chat?". Umm, you are a chatting when you message me. If I respond, that means I've got time. If I don't respond, then I don't have time. Same with calling, you don't have to say "can I call you?". Call. If I don't answer its because I'm busy.
Maybe I am weird but I would 100% rather some one ask me via TEAMS if they can call rather then just calling.
Why? We used to have phones on our desks. Nobody emailed me to see if they could call my phone. If I am busy, I don't answer. Even better yet, I can just toggle on Do Not Disturb and the call wont even go through.
We essentially removed all desk phones because everyone just set it on Do Not Disturb and never cleared out voice mail boxes, so the system was pretty much useless. I don't even have my desk phone on my business card anymore. Just my cell number. Of course, I don't have an assigned desk anymore either since the change to majority WFH.
Just because "that's how we used to it" doesn't mean that was the best or most efficient way, given changes in technology. I'm with 93EXCivic, I prefer to be asked via Teams if I can talk since often I cannot.
Phones are scary. People can reach through them and grab your testicles, or say words and stuff.
ProDarwin said:93EXCivic said:ProDarwin said:What blows me away is the people who will message "do you have time to chat?". Umm, you are a chatting when you message me. If I respond, that means I've got time. If I don't respond, then I don't have time. Same with calling, you don't have to say "can I call you?". Call. If I don't answer its because I'm busy.
Maybe I am weird but I would 100% rather some one ask me via TEAMS if they can call rather then just calling.
Why? We used to have phones on our desks. Nobody emailed me to see if they could call my phone. If I am busy, I don't answer. Even better yet, I can just toggle on Do Not Disturb and the call wont even go through.
Because I want an indication of how urgent or important the question is. Do I need to make this higher priority than what I'm in the middle of? Or is it low enough priority that it can wait until I reach a natural stopping point with whatever I'm in the middle of?
"Can I call ?" is just a useless pleasantry, "I need to ask you about ______, call me next chance you get or at XX:XX" is more helpful.
j_tso said:"Can I call ?" is just a useless pleasantry, "I need to ask you about ______, call me next chance you get or at XX:XX" is more helpful.
Not communicating how important the question is communicates how important the question is.
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