CUBE LIFE! Office Etiquette

rass · Post by **rass** » Fri Feb 08, 2019 5:29 pm

I had half a quality ... going for your (syb) rec tennis post yesterday but couldn’t stick the landing.

The Sybian · Post by **The Sybian** » Fri Feb 08, 2019 6:01 pm

rass wrote: ↑Fri Feb 08, 2019 5:29 pm I had half a quality ... going for your (syb) rec tennis post yesterday but couldn’t stick the landing.

I knew that post left an opening.

Post by **brian** » Thu Mar 14, 2019 5:32 pm

In case anyone wants to know how my day is going, here's a message I just sent to a co-worker on Slack. You don't need the context to understand my feelings right now:

Then they fuck up the “upgrade” to the new emails then they fuck up the fix of the fuck up.

degenerasian · Post by **degenerasian** » Thu Mar 14, 2019 5:46 pm

sounds fucked up

Post by **brian** » Thu Mar 14, 2019 6:01 pm

There's a couple of guys on my shitlist right now.

mister d · Post by **mister d** » Thu Mar 14, 2019 6:21 pm

brian wrote: ↑Thu Mar 14, 2019 6:01 pm There's a couple of guys on my ...t...i...t right now.

Giff · Post by **Giff** » Mon Mar 18, 2019 11:49 am

I'm the closest I've been in 14 years to quitting this place. I have one co-worker whose personality/attitude is so completely toxic and the sound of her voice makes my skin crawl. And my boss' boss talked to me on a phone call with numerous people on it in a way I have never been talked to in my life by anyone. I was off Thursday and Friday, and I pretty much ruined the end of the trip with my drinking and taking out my anger on my family. I haven't talked to my boss yet, but that conversation is going to be very interesting.

degenerasian · Post by **degenerasian** » Mon Mar 18, 2019 12:12 pm

Giff wrote: ↑Mon Mar 18, 2019 11:49 am I'm the closest I've been in 14 years to quitting this place. I have one co-worker whose personality/attitude is so completely toxic and the sound of her voice makes my skin crawl. And my boss' boss talked to me on a phone call with numerous people on it in a way I have never been talked to in my life by anyone. I was off Thursday and Friday, and I pretty much ruined the end of the trip with my drinking and taking out my anger on my family. I haven't talked to my boss yet, but that conversation is going to be very interesting.

How and when did it become so toxic? Can you pinpoint it?
If someone talked to me on a conference call or in a meeting like that, I would have walked out of the room.
Tell your boss you're an adult and you feel awful being embarrassed in front of others like that. This is a professional workplace, nobody has the right to talk to anyone else like that. (and you have witnesses)

Giff · Post by **Giff** » Mon Mar 18, 2019 12:21 pm

The issue with the co-worker is one of those things I've just had to deal with over the years. It's only been the last three where she's been a direct report.

phxgators · Post by **phxgators** » Mon Mar 18, 2019 1:54 pm

Giff wrote: ↑Mon Mar 18, 2019 11:49 am I'm the closest I've been in 14 years to quitting this place. I have one co-worker whose personality/attitude is so completely toxic and the sound of her voice makes my skin crawl. And my boss' boss talked to me on a phone call with numerous people on it in a way I have never been talked to in my life by anyone. I was off Thursday and Friday, and I pretty much ruined the end of the trip with my drinking and taking out my anger on my family. I haven't talked to my boss yet, but that conversation is going to be very interesting.

That's tough, when it start affecting your home life. I was in a similar situation, and I was getting to the point of just quitting and figuring things out from there. Time for a change of scenery?

Post by **Sabo** » Fri Mar 22, 2019 12:07 pm

So my colleague, who has taken at least three weeks off already this year because of back pain - a back pain so bad he says he'll need fusion surgery and will be off work 2-3 months post surgery - just informed me he's going to Maui while on vacation next week.

So, he has such crippling back pain to miss that much work, but he's suddenly well enough to go on a 5-6 hour flight to Hawaii.

Makes sense.

Steve of phpBB · Post by **Steve of phpBB** » Fri Mar 22, 2019 12:29 pm

Sabo wrote: ↑Fri Mar 22, 2019 12:07 pm So my colleague, who has taken at least three weeks off already this year because of back pain - a back pain so bad he says he'll need fusion surgery and will be off work 2-3 months post surgery - just informed me he's going to Maui while on vacation next week.

So, he has such crippling back pain to miss that much work, but he's suddenly well enough to go on a 5-6 hour flight to Hawaii.

Makes sense.

Eh. If your back is going to hurt anyway, might as well have it hurt in Hawaii.

Seriously, though, my tailbone hurt like hell for years after my bike accident, and the worst pain was on airplanes. But I still went to Europe every year.

Post by **Sabo** » Fri Mar 22, 2019 12:33 pm

Steve of phpBB wrote: ↑Fri Mar 22, 2019 12:29 pm
Sabo wrote: ↑Fri Mar 22, 2019 12:07 pm So my colleague, who has taken at least three weeks off already this year because of back pain - a back pain so bad he says he'll need fusion surgery and will be off work 2-3 months post surgery - just informed me he's going to Maui while on vacation next week.

So, he has such crippling back pain to miss that much work, but he's suddenly well enough to go on a 5-6 hour flight to Hawaii.

Makes sense.
Eh. If your back is going to hurt anyway, might as well have it hurt in Hawaii.

Seriously, though, my tailbone hurt like hell for years after my bike accident, and the worst pain was on airplanes. But I still went to Europe every year.

I understand your perspective, but it sucks from my perspective because I have to cover for his broke-back ass while he's out. I already have my own support cases to address, but now I have to cover his, too. Also I'm wrapping up one big project next week, have another big project in the works that will ramp up in the next couple of months and am about to start a third project that will likely cause me to work almost every weekend this spring and summer.

And it doesn't help that his work ethic lately has been utter shit. During our departmental conference calls, he overstates how long he's working on support calls. During one call, he said a procedure took 5-6 hours to complete when it's something we both regularly do. When I do it, it takes about 15 minutes. I asked him after the call why it took that long and he admitted he padded the time because he didn't have much going on that week. I wanted to fucking strangle him when he admitted that.

Nonlinear FC · Post by **Nonlinear FC** » Fri Mar 22, 2019 1:38 pm

My wife has had two major back surgeries in the last 3 years and they absolutely told her that flying and long car rides were problematic. Not that you absolutely can't do it, but you need to get up regularly and to avoid it whenever possible.

mister d · Post by **mister d** » Fri Mar 22, 2019 1:41 pm

I think its totally fair to be pissed if you're covering for someone who is too injured to work but not too injured to fly for a full work day.

Post by **Sabo** » Fri Mar 22, 2019 2:54 pm

mister d wrote: ↑Fri Mar 22, 2019 1:41 pm I think its totally fair to be pissed if you're covering for someone who is too injured to work but not too injured to fly for a full work day.

He was nice enough to mention that he would forward all of his support emails to me by 8:30 a.m. Pacific time, so I have that going for me.

The Sybian · Post by **The Sybian** » Fri Mar 22, 2019 3:44 pm

I was conducting a workplace investigation for a client that had a discrimination claim against them. The complaining employee was on medical leave for 3 months as a result of a high risk pregnancy, which her doctor supplied information requiring 3 months of bed rest. During the investigation, the Complainant's work cell phone bill came in. She took her work cell home during her medical leave, which she was instructed not to, and she was making calls from Greece, Turkey and France. They fired her for this. A couple weeks ago, I found out she filed a lawsuit for wrongful termination and discrimination. People fucking suck.

degenerasian · Post by **degenerasian** » Fri Mar 22, 2019 5:26 pm

That case has no chance.

You have all the the proof.

We've had a few cases like that here too, wrongful dismissal due to discrimination. They've never gone anywhere.

The Sybian · Post by **The Sybian** » Fri Mar 22, 2019 9:01 pm

degenerasian wrote: ↑Fri Mar 22, 2019 5:26 pm That case has no chance.

You have all the the proof.

We've had a few cases like that here too, wrongful dismissal due to discrimination. They've never gone anywhere.

I've been incredibly lucky in my investigations, as I have not been dragged into depositions once, and the handful of employees who have sued are too stupid to name my company as a codefendant. My company is a Professional Employer Organization (PEO), we handle all of the HR related functions for our clients, and we are the employer of record and have much deeper pockets than almost all of our clients (I think WhatsApp has deeper pockets now). I have a feeling my notes will get subpoenaed on a lawsuit that came in last week, but we will see. All of the suits were handled by lawyers too stupid to sue my company, but the one pro se lawsuit filed by a woman with severe paranoid schizophrenia did name my company and referenced me in her bat shit crazy 125 count lawsuit. From spying on her through her home computer, depositing empty vodka bottles under her apartment windows, hiring 2 truck drivers to run her off the road and kill her, serving her poisoned pizza and diet coke at a management training course I taught (and ate the pizza), somehow collaborating with her husband's ex-wife to help her steal the Plaintiff's identity, travelling back in time 7 years prior to conspire with her previous employer to intentionally drive her insane... The court dismissed that case before I was brought in.

It was actually really sad, as this crazy woman called me over the course of 3 years with increasingly insane paranoid delusions. The CEO of her former company was really caring and wanted to help, but was smart enough to stay away. She worked in the NJ office of a TX company, and they closed the NJ office, but kept her on, working from home. She was an accountant, and her work was always on time and done well, so they had very little interaction with her, and never realized she was in a severe mental decline until she went to their office for a week, and was convinced everyone was plotting against her.

Jerloma · Post by **Jerloma** » Tue Mar 26, 2019 1:50 pm

They changed the PTO format so instead of your vacation days and six sick days you just get PTO days and use them however you want. Of course because people are fucking ignorant assholes, this place is full of sick people trying to save their vacation days.

GoodKarma · Post by **GoodKarma** » Tue Mar 26, 2019 2:05 pm

The Sybian wrote: ↑Fri Mar 22, 2019 3:44 pm I was conducting a workplace investigation for a client that had a discrimination claim against them. The complaining employee was on medical leave for 3 months as a result of a high risk pregnancy, which her doctor supplied information requiring 3 months of bed rest. During the investigation, the Complainant's work cell phone bill came in. She took her work cell home during her medical leave, which she was instructed not to, and she was making calls from Greece, Turkey and France. They fired her for this. A couple weeks ago, I found out she filed a lawsuit for wrongful termination and discrimination. People fucking suck.

I didn't realize you worked for a PEO...I used to as well....a couple different ones actually. I think it's a great industry but it can be maddening dealing with some of the people. I had similar experiences to this and agree that this case has no chance but it is unfortunate that there has to be time & money spent to defend this. One of the things our in-house attorney always said..."People don't sue you because they have a case; they sue you because they're mad."

degenerasian · Post by **degenerasian** » Tue Mar 26, 2019 2:10 pm

Jerloma wrote: ↑Tue Mar 26, 2019 1:50 pm They changed the PTO format so instead of your vacation days and six sick days you just get PTO days and use them however you want. Of course because people are fucking ignorant assholes, this place is full of sick people trying to save their vacation days.

We went the reverse 4 years ago. PTO says to 5 and 5.

Post by **brian** » Tue Mar 26, 2019 3:11 pm

We get unlimited PTO.

The Sybian · Post by **The Sybian** » Tue Mar 26, 2019 9:04 pm

brian wrote: ↑Tue Mar 26, 2019 3:11 pm We get unlimited PTO.

Fucking bane of my existence, but mostly because California law makes it a pain in the ass.

Post by **brian** » Tue Mar 26, 2019 9:21 pm

The Sybian wrote: ↑Tue Mar 26, 2019 9:04 pm
brian wrote: ↑Tue Mar 26, 2019 3:11 pm We get unlimited PTO.
Fucking bane of my existence, but mostly because California law makes it a pain in the ass.

After I win the Powerball tomorrow I could just say I'm planning on taking a two-month vacation and dare them to call my bluff as far as not paying me for the time off, but that's something a Republican would do.

A_B · Post by **A_B** » Wed Mar 27, 2019 7:06 am

brian wrote: ↑Tue Mar 26, 2019 3:11 pm We get unlimited PTO.

I get four weeks of vacation (Based on being here 10+ years) and when we are sick, the rule is generally if you're contagious, stay home but it doesn't count against your time.

rass · Post by **rass** » Wed Mar 27, 2019 7:11 am

The Rob Base rule.

A_B · Post by **A_B** » Wed Mar 27, 2019 7:14 am

rass wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2019 7:11 am The Rob Base rule.

Not sure how big HR is into hip hop, but I suppose that works.

Giff · Post by **Giff** » Wed Mar 27, 2019 7:45 am

We just get PTO (and an optional holiday per quarter), so after nearly 14 years I'm up to 34 days. We're pretty much the same as AB, but people will typically WFH too.

A_B · Post by **A_B** » Wed Mar 27, 2019 8:01 am

Giff wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2019 7:45 am We just get PTO (and an optional holiday per quarter), so after nearly 14 years I'm up to 34 days. We're pretty much the same as AB, but people will typically WFH too.

YEah, that's part of it, too. I've always got my laptop, get the email on the phone, so if something comes up that needs attention I can get it done.

As an aside about work etiquette, I got an e-mail a couple of weeks ago after I had left for the day that was marked "URGENT" and "NEED THIS ASAP" so I fired the laptop up, made the changes (took about 15 minutes) and e-mailed that it was done. Next morning they e-mail me and say "Thanks for fixing that, but you didn't have to do it last night."

mister d · Post by **mister d** » Wed Mar 27, 2019 8:05 am

My company seems to have two groups, the "if I'm awake" and the strict 9-5. A 9-5-er would just mean close to 9:00.

The Sybian · Post by **The Sybian** » Wed Mar 27, 2019 9:37 am

mister d wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2019 8:05 am My company seems to have two groups, the "if I'm awake" and the strict 9-5. A 9-5-er would just mean close to 9:00.

I've fully morphed into no lines between work and off duty. I kind of like it now. I finally lost the guilt of working from home and not being at my desk, so I can coach a 3:30 weekday soccer practice or go to a kids' school event without thinking I should be working, and I have no problem scheduling calls on weekends on late night. I usually watch Netflix on my desktop with my work laptop next to me, so I answer emails that come in late. It's easier to just respond and not have it on my mind. My boss is nuts with her responsiveness. She is West Coast, and if I email her at 7:00 am Eastern, she responds within minutes.

On the flipside, some asshole sued my company claiming they should be classified as non-exempt, and won, so we have a large team who are on strict 9-5 duty with their email access blocked all other hours. It's a major pain in the ass, because we need to respond to clients whenever they have issues arise.

Post by **Shirley** » Wed Mar 27, 2019 9:47 am

I guess while we're talking about toxic work environments and getting fired...

So, nearly a year ago, I left Microsoft to take the VP of Engineering position at a small company. This company has an interesting history. It's actually been around for 18 years now, but for most of that time, it was essentially a one-man shop. The founder did mostly everything, but he brought on some devs and the occasional salesperson. Around 18 months ago, he decided to become a real company. He raised money for the first time ($10m), hired a CEO and then went about building the rest of a proper leadership team.

I should note here that the CEO he hired was his son-in-law, a young, smart guy with an MBA (Duke, same as me), but with no experience running a company or in tech (much less cryptography).

The new CEO was in Durham, so the plan was to grow the company here, while the original office would stay in Cupertino with the folks there (~10 people - devs, IT, accountant, QA, etc.). The founder moved to a CTO role so that he didn't have to manage people anymore. His role was to be as evangelist and forward-thinking idea guy.

We hired me to run the dev team (most of the company), a VP of Product, a VP of Sales, and a marketing manager - all in Durham.

Things were going fairly well. I've been working to modernize our engineering functions (the team had NO processes and few tools) while also refining and culling our product line which had grown over the years by whatever whims the founder had or what a customer had asked for. The team was very happy to be learning how to properly make software and we were starting to build a proper vision for what we'd build and sell going forward.

At the same time, the founder was a constant source of friction. Befitting a founder in this space (computer security), he's an ideologue and has a difficult time letting any detail go. It seemed like everything as a fight. He hates any software in the cloud (which knocks out about 90% of modern tools), he is uncomfortable giving any freedom or decision-making authority to devs, he didn't want people working remotely, etc. Basically, everyone on the management team had regular conflicts with him over EVERYTHING. And there would be regular history lessons about the way he'd always done things before, how things should be, etc.

Anyway, we'd all learned various ways to deal with him. Mostly, I just left him out of as many decisions and conversations as possible. Others did the same. It was just easier that way. We all thought (hoped?) he'd recognized the obvious forward progress the company was finally making and realize that things were actually working.

Nope.

On Thursday morning, he showed up in the office in Durham (he lives in California), declared that he was now the CEO again. His son-in-law was stepping down to be COO. And he was taking over all control of product and development again, meaning we no longer had need of a VP of Engineering or VP of Product.

So, like that, I was out. My first time being laid off.

I knew when I took the job that there were red flags, but I had hoped the traps could be avoided. I was obviously wrong.

A_B · Post by **A_B** » Wed Mar 27, 2019 10:20 am

That sucks, shirley.

Any good leads or taking some time to decompress?

Nonlinear FC · Post by **Nonlinear FC** » Wed Mar 27, 2019 10:26 am

Jesus, sorry man.

I have worked for (pauses to count) 4 different founders, one in tech and the 3 others in the non-profit space. (I almost count working for a congressman in this, because they carry a lot of the same characteristics as founders.)

It's just really tough because everything is just so incredibly personal to them. It's their baby, and NO ONE can understand its importance or exactly how it works better than momma/poppa.

It has it's rewards, because you really feel like you're in a mission-driven atmosphere. But it has a lot of downside, not the least of which is that quite often the organization is kind of rife with weird power cells driven by who the founder is currently favoring, which often supersedes the actual org chart/hierarchy.

And, yeah, the whim of the founder really jerks the place around by its tail.

rass · Post by **rass** » Wed Mar 27, 2019 11:21 am

GoodKarma · Post by **GoodKarma** » Wed Mar 27, 2019 11:30 am

Sorry to hear...sounds like a lousy experience. I work in software so if/when you're ready to start looking again reach out and I can see what my company has available. We're always looking for technical folks.

DaveInSeattle · Post by **DaveInSeattle** » Wed Mar 27, 2019 11:40 am

Sorry to hear that Shirley. Hopefully you are getting some kind of severance payout. You can always come back out to Seattle!

So here's my latest beef: At my new gig, they have about 24 software people (devs and test) crammed into a one room cube farm. And then along one wall are 8 small offices, with 3 people in each.

So the issue is the noise level. People start having conversations (work or otherwise) and it becomes impossible to concentrate. At one point yesterday, there were four separate conversations going on around me, so I ended up giving up and going and getting some coffee.

Really thinking about investing in a set of noise cancelling headphones, but not sure if that will really help that much.

degenerasian · Post by **degenerasian** » Wed Mar 27, 2019 11:43 am

Sybian: That's really stupid to lock networks. How did he win that lawsuit? your company must have a business case argument.

mister d: 9 to 5 is just a suggestion around here. By the time people get coffee and chat and 'don't give me anything, i'm going home in 30 minutes, 2 hours are knocked off.

Shirley: shit.

DaveInSeattle: shit.

The Sybian · Post by **The Sybian** » Wed Mar 27, 2019 12:00 pm

degenerasian wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2019 11:43 am Sybian: That's really stupid to lock networks. How did he win that lawsuit? your company must have a business case argument.

I don't know how the law works in Canada, but in the US employees are either classified as exempt (from overtime) or non-exempt. The test is extremely subjective for a lot of jobs, and depends on a number of factors. Employees are very often misclassified, and the test is so unclear, my company as a policy, even though we are the HR department for clients, does not advise on whether individual employees should be classified exempt. We give them the tools to decide, and tell them it's a legal question, and they need to contact a lawyer. I really think the employees in that role should be exempt, but one judge felt otherwise, so we have 100s of employees reclassified. My company had to pay millions in damages for lost OT wages for all employees in that one role going back several years. Since a lot of those people work from home, my company is subject to fines if they log into their emails and don't clock in for the OT hours.

The network itself isn't locked, everyone else can access the databases, we just need exempt employees to go in and do the job of non-exempt employees after hours.