The Swamp

The Sybian wrote: ↑Wed Jun 13, 2018 5:13 pm

degenerasian wrote: ↑Wed Jun 13, 2018 12:04 pm Thank you very much, that is great advice.

I have posted a bit about my situation earlier in the thread. The lead position has now been posted and I'm in the process of applying for it.
The outgoing lead was/is an asshole and has a favorite person to succeed her. They are always in cahoots hiding information from the rest of the team. Even right now as we speak they are in a meeting that I orchestrated without me.

I've always been more reactive than proactive and I've worked hard to change that. When I talk to my manager, I know what I reported to the lead was not making it up the chain so I started to self-promote myself, which was difficult for me. My manager now knows where I see myself in this department and we'll see what happens when I interview.

Good on you for going for it. Good luck.

sancarlos wrote: ↑Wed Jul 18, 2018 6:50 pm On a similar note, I was using the restroom at the airport today, and it never fails to surprise (and disappoint) me how many men leave a restroom without washing their hands.

Giff wrote: ↑Mon Jul 30, 2018 11:44 am Thought I'd post this here...wife may lose her job today. She accidentally communicated something that wasn't going to be announced for a couple days. Basically, she writes magazines for a local hospital which are physically sent out and also posted online before the physical copies are. Last month, for the first time in her 4 years there, there was time sensitive info on the re-naming of the hospital. The magazine was signed-off on because it was being printed after the scheduled announcement. However, the magazine was put online before, which led to questions before the offical announcement. She has to meet with HR to give her side of the story, but we are freaking out. Well, I'm acting like I'm not for her sake, but yeah, I am.

brian wrote: ↑Mon Jul 30, 2018 11:48 am

Giff wrote: ↑Mon Jul 30, 2018 11:44 am Thought I'd post this here...wife may lose her job today. She accidentally communicated something that wasn't going to be announced for a couple days. Basically, she writes magazines for a local hospital which are physically sent out and also posted online before the physical copies are. Last month, for the first time in her 4 years there, there was time sensitive info on the re-naming of the hospital. The magazine was signed-off on because it was being printed after the scheduled announcement. However, the magazine was put online before, which led to questions before the offical announcement. She has to meet with HR to give her side of the story, but we are freaking out. Well, I'm acting like I'm not for her sake, but yeah, I am.

Without knowing all of the nuts and bolts sounds like the kind of thing that someone else should have caught as well. Even in the stripped-down environments in which these kinds of publications are done, should be at least two, if not multiple sets of eyes on public-facing stuff like this. Unless your wife is the VP of Communications for the hospital (in which case she might be in some trouble).

All that said too, hopefully they'd take her full work record into account and not terminate for one mistake like this.

degenerasian wrote: ↑Mon Jul 30, 2018 12:02 pm That sucks.

Why is the re-naming of the hospital such a time-sensitive issue anyways?

Giff wrote: ↑Mon Jul 30, 2018 11:44 am Thought I'd post this here...wife may lose her job today. She accidentally communicated something that wasn't going to be announced for a couple days. Basically, she writes magazines for a local hospital which are physically sent out and also posted online before the physical copies are. Last month, for the first time in her 4 years there, there was time sensitive info on the re-naming of the hospital. The magazine was signed-off on because it was being printed after the scheduled announcement. However, the magazine was put online before, which led to questions before the offical announcement. She has to meet with HR to give her side of the story, but we are freaking out. Well, I'm acting like I'm not for her sake, but yeah, I am.

The Sybian wrote: ↑Mon Jul 30, 2018 12:57 pm

Giff wrote: ↑Mon Jul 30, 2018 11:44 am Thought I'd post this here...wife may lose her job today. She accidentally communicated something that wasn't going to be announced for a couple days. Basically, she writes magazines for a local hospital which are physically sent out and also posted online before the physical copies are. Last month, for the first time in her 4 years there, there was time sensitive info on the re-naming of the hospital. The magazine was signed-off on because it was being printed after the scheduled announcement. However, the magazine was put online before, which led to questions before the offical announcement. She has to meet with HR to give her side of the story, but we are freaking out. Well, I'm acting like I'm not for her sake, but yeah, I am.

Does your wife report to my wife, because this sounds really similar to something she dealt with a few weeks ago. My wife thought it was going to be a huge catastrophe, but the CEO basically shrugged it off saying timing problems happen. Hopefully this doesn't get turned into a big deal.

Nonlinear FC wrote: ↑Mon Jul 30, 2018 4:20 pm I mean, I can see that being a "big deal" if the hospital had a press conference or some kind of media event planned and this stepped all over some big announcement.

But if the main vehicle for getting this out is an in-house magazine: a) That's kind of lame and b) The online version going up early and a few people seeing it seems like a very small deal.

degenerasian wrote: ↑Mon Jul 30, 2018 4:22 pm

Nonlinear FC wrote: ↑Mon Jul 30, 2018 4:20 pm I mean, I can see that being a "big deal" if the hospital had a press conference or some kind of media event planned and this stepped all over some big announcement.

But if the main vehicle for getting this out is an in-house magazine: a) That's kind of lame and b) The online version going up early and a few people seeing it seems like a very small deal.

But it made the CEO look dumb. That's the thing that scares executives the most.
I've been through that many times. Ever set up equipment for an executive meeting? I have to test everything 100 times or really dumb it down.

Nonlinear FC wrote: ↑Mon Jul 30, 2018 4:44 pm

degenerasian wrote: ↑Mon Jul 30, 2018 4:22 pm

Nonlinear FC wrote: ↑Mon Jul 30, 2018 4:20 pm I mean, I can see that being a "big deal" if the hospital had a press conference or some kind of media event planned and this stepped all over some big announcement.

But if the main vehicle for getting this out is an in-house magazine: a) That's kind of lame and b) The online version going up early and a few people seeing it seems like a very small deal.

But it made the CEO look dumb. That's the thing that scares executives the most.
I've been through that many times. Ever set up equipment for an executive meeting? I have to test everything 100 times or really dumb it down.

I've worked directly for multiple CEOs and I get it (including a lot of event management, so I really really get it.) But what she did isn't a fireable offense in and of itself. And I've worked for some psychos and I've fucked up worse.

phxgators wrote: ↑Wed Jun 13, 2018 9:24 am Sounds like my product manager. He's not *really* my boss, and I am currently in a weird spot where I am moving from one role where I work literally in sight of my soon to be former boss to another role where my boss is in another state. This is a role change I really wanted. However when my product manager called me in to his office, my current boss was in the office too. I thought it would be rude to be over the top excited, and I'm pretty low key anyway, so I said something like "that's great, looking forward to getting started", etc.

Well, come to find out weeks later, my product manager decided I wasn't enthusiastic enough about getting what I wanted. I found this out from a coworker that goes out on smoke breaks with him. So I jokingly mentioned that to him at a team building event last week. Told him I didn't want to show up the guy that I was moving out from underneath and he knew how long I had been after that role. Turns out that he thought I should have immediately called my new boss and thanked him for the opportunity and not only that, he ran it up the fucking management chain that I wasn't enthusiastic about the new role.

I thought that was bad enough, but then he started giving me "career advice" about how I need to fix my perception around the office. Wait. What? Apparently he was the only one that doesn't know, despite me telling everyone around me, that I'm coaching both my boys' baseball teams. And yeah, I get changed in the locker room at work and leave at, as it turns out, the same time I leave every day. But he reads this as leaving a half hour early every day, nobody knows where I am, etc. Nobody is complaining about my work, quite the opposite actually. But he's spreading a "perception" issue around the office. Of course he says it's "not a real problem" but I have to "control my perception" because that affects raises, etc.

And of course none of this came out until I brought it up. But talking with my coworkers about it is apparently ok.

Best team building ever.

TL;DR; My product manager, who is not in my direct chain of command, is spreading bullshit about me because, in my perception, I didn't kiss his ass enough for getting the role change I wanted.

phxgators wrote: ↑Fri Nov 02, 2018 2:12 pm

phxgators wrote: ↑Wed Jun 13, 2018 9:24 am Sounds like my product manager. He's not *really* my boss, and I am currently in a weird spot where I am moving from one role where I work literally in sight of my soon to be former boss to another role where my boss is in another state. This is a role change I really wanted. However when my product manager called me in to his office, my current boss was in the office too. I thought it would be rude to be over the top excited, and I'm pretty low key anyway, so I said something like "that's great, looking forward to getting started", etc.

Well, come to find out weeks later, my product manager decided I wasn't enthusiastic enough about getting what I wanted. I found this out from a coworker that goes out on smoke breaks with him. So I jokingly mentioned that to him at a team building event last week. Told him I didn't want to show up the guy that I was moving out from underneath and he knew how long I had been after that role. Turns out that he thought I should have immediately called my new boss and thanked him for the opportunity and not only that, he ran it up the fucking management chain that I wasn't enthusiastic about the new role.

I thought that was bad enough, but then he started giving me "career advice" about how I need to fix my perception around the office. Wait. What? Apparently he was the only one that doesn't know, despite me telling everyone around me, that I'm coaching both my boys' baseball teams. And yeah, I get changed in the locker room at work and leave at, as it turns out, the same time I leave every day. But he reads this as leaving a half hour early every day, nobody knows where I am, etc. Nobody is complaining about my work, quite the opposite actually. But he's spreading a "perception" issue around the office. Of course he says it's "not a real problem" but I have to "control my perception" because that affects raises, etc.

And of course none of this came out until I brought it up. But talking with my coworkers about it is apparently ok.

Best team building ever.

TL;DR; My product manager, who is not in my direct chain of command, is spreading bullshit about me because, in my perception, I didn't kiss his ass enough for getting the role change I wanted.

So this is taking an interesting turn. I vented about this a little earlier this week on Twitter, so you may have seen some of it there...

My boss, that I recently transitioned to, called both my only other local developer coworker and me this week. Were were both told to cut the "negative water cooler talk" and were talked to, among other things, about our productivity, no longer being able to work from home, and expected to be at our desks 9-5 every day, little to no flexibility. The "negative water cooler talk" stems from us complaining, to each other, that we keep hearing about schedule concerns, but they keep changing what we are building to. We've essentially restarted our work 3 times in 6 months. I had also been previously asked to not ask him technical questions, because he was too busy. Or maybe we just hate teamwork here.

Since I have some things scheduled already where I needed to work from home (wife of out town, have to take kids to/from school, etc), I am being given a "chance to transition out of my behavior". Asked about what happens next time my wife is out of town - "you can take PTO". When asked about working from home during recovery from knee surgery, he says "I'll ask".

All of this is being passed up to my boss's boss from someone and given the people around here, it has to be my product manager and/or my old boss. My developer coworker and I finally got a quiet minute to talk today, and we have separately come to the same conclusion. We have 3 sites, with the smallest group here. If they get rid of us, our product manager has no local developers. Weird, right? Except he has been vocal about wanting to move back to the area of his hometown, which is near one of our other sites. We both think he's try to get us to leave so he can talk his way into having the company pay for him to move back home.

And our boss, who in my recollection has not visited here since I started this position, has talked about coming to town next week. We both wonder if he's coming here to let us go. I tend to think that's not the case, otherwise why have the call this week? But I'm prepared for the possibility. Luckily my resume is up to date and I have an iron or two in the fire.

Anyway, done ranting for now...

Shirley wrote: ↑Sat Nov 03, 2018 12:16 am That's awful. Life's too short and there are way too many jobs out there to put up with that kind of shit.

What kind of programming do you do?

Shirley wrote: ↑Sat Nov 03, 2018 12:16 am That's awful. Life's too short and there are way too many jobs out there to put up with that kind of shit.

What kind of programming do you do?

Shirley wrote: ↑Sun Nov 04, 2018 11:08 pm Well, I am looking for a Java developer. So, if you want to move to the Triangle and not make too much (I'm really looking for a junior-to-mid level hire) ... hit me up.

Sabo wrote: ↑Wed Nov 21, 2018 1:04 pm I'm writing a LinkedIn recommendation for someone who used to work at one of our papers. That individual is one of the funniest people I've met in my professional career. Should I mention that in my recommendation, or is that frowned upon for some reason? I would think it would help because it would impart personality, which is very difficult to do in a resume.

Also, are there any other suggestions for writing a recommendation? Anything I should highlight or avoid?

Thanks in advance.

Over the last 15 years, I worked with JOEBLOW on various print production projects while he was with the PAPERNAME. All of our projects were completed on time, in large part because JOEBLOW was prepared and motivated to do the job right the first time. His tremendous sense of humor also helped the PAPERNAME staff adapt to the changes brought by these projects. I would love to work with JOEBLOW again because I know our work will get done and we’ll have a good time doing it.

Shirley wrote: ↑Wed Nov 21, 2018 3:38 pm Agreed, saying something like a person is funny gives a strong sense that you liked working him/her. That goes a long way.

A_B wrote: ↑Wed Nov 21, 2018 2:13 pm If he was quick to light up your smoke, too, I'd have some suggestions.

(I think letting someone know about their personality is a good thing, yes)