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Bhodi posted:Walls. WALLS. Open floor plans are productivity killers. My last gig had this, one big cube with a person in each corner with half-height walls. Incredibly annoying but management said it increases collaboration between teams. 
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Jan 16, 2015 19:00
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Tab8715 posted:My last gig had this, one big cube with a person in each corner with half-height walls. And coincidentally increases floor density and lowers build costs.
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Jan 16, 2015 19:04
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Anything other than open-plan is a non-starter. The nature of truck brokerage is a lot of people that really need to be talking at each other all at once. Our sound masking solution is 101.1FM, which isn't bad these days now that they're playing stuff from the 80s. However, I wouldn't mind looking into something like this to mask background noise by our office. Chances are they'll nix it, which is fine, because headphones are kosher if I ever need to block out the world or my sleep apneatic co-worker's snoring (he's up to his third fall-asleep of the day, which is low for him). I might mention desk-level power outlets. Less cables to manage under the desk might cut down on the number of surge protectors in use.
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Jan 16, 2015 19:40
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Whether you can be more or less productive from working more closely with your peers depends on the nature of your job. I couldn't image a NOC with private offices, not overhearing each others calls. What is more important is that there are few interruptions from non peers.
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Jan 16, 2015 19:42
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MJP posted:I might mention desk-level power outlets. Less cables to manage under the desk might cut down on the number of surge protectors in use. Holy loving poo poo this has been my entire day today, I had to re-jig the whole half of the office since our poo poo manager was ousted so now everyone is getting properly lined up; - About 30 people this side of the office, all of them need moving, open plan - During work hours - Employment law gig so phones MUST be active - Have to leap frog staff like some kind of puzzle because of the lack of space keeping offline time down - Cabling is an utter nightmare because of the lack of equipment (Really hurting for power and data) and the fact that the cable trays are utter poo poo - Ravaging headache and eye pain all week - VOIP went down right in the morning, managed system so can't do poo poo - Higher ups want me to do customer feedback booklet printing bollocks - Delivery for additional surge protectors and Ethernet switches came in right at the end of the day when most of the cabling has been done - MD's new phone and new starter's kit came in and still untouched in boxes It's awkward and a little frustrating as I do have volunteers to help move stuff, but the problem is they aren't that techy and I don't have the time to explain/show them how networking works, how what should go where, and all the little lovely corners I've had to cut to compensate for the equipment. I also started musing to myself how much it fucks me off being grilled for IT costings when I find the absolute best deals in the time I have, and that they're necessary to make everyone's lives easier. If they gave me weekend pay I'd come in alone and recable the entire lot, armed with enough switches and nuts & bolts to get it nice and tidy. I want to crawl into bed, but I need to cook dinner...
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Jan 16, 2015 20:18
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lampey posted:Whether you can be more or less productive from working more closely with your peers depends on the nature of your job. I couldn't image a NOC with private offices, not overhearing each others calls. What is more important is that there are few interruptions from non peers. There's lots of other ways to synthesize real-time information, like keeping a live-updated status dashboard of the most recent issues. If your ticketing system can make effective use of semantic data, like JIRA, you can correlate together information on the most widespread problem reports very easily. Heavily-remote shops like Etsy do this all the time. It really isn't difficult. The key is that you have to have a management culture that's willing to actually foster good communication, instead of just hoping it happens by accident. IMO, that's the real reason why incompetent managers think open floor plans foster collaboration, creativity, and whatever else.
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Jan 16, 2015 20:18
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Open offices are terrible and everyone hates them, for good reason. This article has a link to a whole bunch of studies that basically say that they suck, in number form: http://www.fastcoexist.com/3021713/youre-not-alone-most-people-hate-open-offices Not that you can do anything about it personally, but hey. The real benefit of noise generators in the ceiling is that without them, the ambient noise level gets louder and louder because everyone tries to talk over each other and the sound just bounces around the space until people are basically shouting.
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Jan 16, 2015 20:25
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I know this has come up before, perhaps in another thread, but I can't find the info now and I was foolish and never saved URLs of the recommended sites. What sites do you guys frequent to stay up-to-date on technology or general websites you use in your IT life? I mostly use spiceworks forums and SA and then follow links to learn things/find out about stuff, but I'm looking to expand my list of sites to visit a couple times a week to look at discussions/news. Any recommended blogs, news sites, communities or whatever are very welcomed
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Jan 16, 2015 22:26
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MF_James posted:I know this has come up before, perhaps in another thread, but I can't find the info now and I was foolish and never saved URLs of the recommended sites.
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Jan 16, 2015 22:37
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MF_James posted:What sites do you guys frequent to stay up-to-date on technology or general websites you use in your IT life?
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Jan 16, 2015 22:40
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You can also subscribe to all sorts of newsletters, but that opens the game up for all sorts of opt-out spam from vendors... which is not necessarily bad, but you've got to be able to tell from news vs cleverly disguised ads. For example, theitbrief.com I also enjoy the Techsnap podcast, it gives me a pretty good snapshot of current IT events, and their show notes usually provide plenty of links to follow up on stuff that interested me.
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Jan 16, 2015 22:41
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Isn't slashdot dying or dead? On another note I also subscribe to MidRange-L a IBM i Mailing list.
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Jan 16, 2015 22:43
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MF_James posted:I know this has come up before, perhaps in another thread, but I can't find the info now and I was foolish and never saved URLs of the recommended sites.
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Jan 16, 2015 22:45
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Tab8715 posted:Isn't slashdot dying or dead?  It's owned by Dice, so of course it's a shitheap now.
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Jan 16, 2015 22:47
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I do most of my learning on here, twitter folks, and https://news.ycombinator.com/news. I still check slashdot but honestly I don't know why I bother anymore. Reddit is worthless for deep tech stuff unless it's front page news; too much chatter not enough deep info. I'm not super behind the times but I tend to consider bleeding edge as noise (I mean just look at this poo poo, who has time to even read a few paragraph blurb about every one of those?) I like twitter a lot, here are a few I follow. A lot of them are security related, though I don't do it professionally at the moment I find reading about it more interesting than reading about the next killer cloud app. @SwiftOnSecurity @badiotday @RanjibDey @lusis @stahnma @docsmooth @holman @matthew_d_green @infosecjerk @binarybits @timoreilly @adrianco @trevortimm @thedarktangent @csoghoian @ioerror Bhodi fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Jan 16, 2015 |
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Jan 16, 2015 22:57
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Misogynist posted:It's owned by Dice, so of course it's a shitheap now. Bennet Haselton isn't attracting those eyeballs for some reason
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Jan 16, 2015 23:01
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Slashdot is great if you want to shitpost over a bunch of libertarians.
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Jan 16, 2015 23:11
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My entire call center uses some Jabra and/or Plantronics wireless headsets that for the most part are fine, but I have users with serious interference issues, or headsets magically unpairing from the base station, and giving them new models out of the box doesn't fix anything. We're 2400sqft with 200 users who are all mostly on the phone, so pretty high density. Like 90% of people are on DECT 1.9 with 5% on DECT 6 (both of these standards are around the 1900mhz band) and 5% on 900mhz. Anyone have any hints to unfuck this place? Worst part is we're looking to hire another 200 people and put them on the floor directly below us.
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Jan 16, 2015 23:16
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I prefer cubicles over offices with locks. It is much easier over the course of a day to interact with other people when everyone is not in an office. It's like the difference between working at home or coming into the office. Sure you will get interrupted less at home/private office, but many of those interruptions are for the best. You miss out on physical cues. It takes less time to see what someone is doing, ask them a question, and get back to what you were doing before. Working remote a few days made me appreciate the office more. With an open office in this context, would you have the same space and computer every day?
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Jan 16, 2015 23:17
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Zero VGS posted:My entire call center uses some Jabra and/or Plantronics wireless headsets that for the most part are fine, but I have users with serious interference issues, or headsets magically unpairing from the base station, and giving them new models out of the box doesn't fix anything. Move to wired headsets. You can't throw that much radio traffic in a small band in that small of a space and expect everything to work properly. edit: How packed in there are you? We have 450 seats in our call center and the building is drat near 38,000 sf. We have multiple training and conference rooms, bathrooms and breakrooms but still, our cubes are 5ft x 5ft skipdogg fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Jan 16, 2015 |
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Jan 16, 2015 23:25
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Alfajor posted:I also enjoy the Techsnap podcast, it gives me a pretty good snapshot of current IT events, and their show notes usually provide plenty of links to follow up on stuff that interested me. drat, I'm halfway through an episode and I'm already sold. Nice find.
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Jan 16, 2015 23:37
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lampey posted:With an open office in this context, would you have the same space and computer every day?
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Jan 17, 2015 00:04
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skipdogg posted:Move to wired headsets. You can't throw that much radio traffic in a small band in that small of a space and expect everything to work properly. We have an open floor with long tables, 2x5 people, each with like 5'x3' deep of desk space. I actually did buy wired headsets for the whole place, and they're $20 each instead of $200 each, and they plug into the wireless headset base station and you can switch between them with . But I still can't get people to use them, some feel wired is beneath them especially since they started with the wireless. I'm going to grab a dozen or two of the 900mhz Plantronics headsets for the especially bitchy people, maybe having that many off the 1900mhz band will clear things up.
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Jan 17, 2015 00:20
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X HN is pretty once/if you know enough to greatseparate the wheat from the "Docker makes VMware its bitch", " JavaScript is awesome because it's the only language I know", "we built a website with 20 customers using this 10 second old framework" chaff. Hardly anyone on HN has a clue about what it takes to make it past your first 6 months on a 5 man team. There's good stuff every day, but filtering the trash takes effort
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Jan 17, 2015 01:06
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MJP posted:We just got the word that our main office - around 40 people - will be moving a few floors down. The space is brand new, around 15,000 square feet. We're going to have brand new everything built up - we're wiring for CAT6 (currently we're only running 100mbps just fine, but the option wouldn't hurt), doing a custom conference room buildout with better automation, etc. If the goal is future-proofing, don't do Cat6, do Cat6a--Cat6 won't do the full distance of 10GBaseT. If 10Gbps will never happen, Cat5e is just as good and may save on labor expenses as it is easier to terminate. Rack management: Don't be like my company and add switches piecemeal. 100BaseT is fine for many users, but what happens is many is not the same as all. Billy Bob wants Gigabit, and Timmy needs PoE. Your nice clean patch panels won't stay that way as you are constantly repatching users into switches with different capabilities. Get some gigabit+PoE 2960-Xs or equivalent, patch everything once, and label/dress/bundle everything. Threaten bodily harm to anyone who favors zipties over velcro, or suggests a patch panel is not necessary.
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Jan 17, 2015 02:03
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Contingency posted:suggests a patch panel is not necessary.  These people exist?
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Jan 17, 2015 02:35
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evol262 posted:X
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Jan 17, 2015 03:15
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Thanks Ants posted:
I'm pretty sure I recall someone mentioning in one of these threads that their server room was like that. I want to say it was the guy whose boss was obsessed with buying refurbed poo poo from Tigerdirect. Could be wrong though.
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Jan 17, 2015 03:21
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TWBalls posted:I'm pretty sure I recall someone mentioning in one of these threads that their server room was like that. I want to say it was the guy whose boss was obsessed with buying refurbed poo poo from Tigerdirect. Could be wrong though. Bob Morales I think.
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Jan 17, 2015 03:28
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Bhodi posted:The best part about HN is the hundreds of immediate dogpile comments once something like that shows up. Yeah, obviously as I said I have very limited patience for the framework of the second but HN tends to link enough really cool blog articles and such (unlike slashdot) that I still find it worthwhile. Plus, I like the minimalist format. Yeah HN is on the list, but less so the comment section. I've neglected mine lately, but my Feedly is currently set up for Hacker News, Krebs, Naked Security, SANS Pen Testing, Schneier on Security, Threat Research and Threat Post. General tech is mostly Ars Technica, Daring Football, Hackaday, and BBC-New - Science and Engineering. Honorable mentions goes to /r/netsec and /r/networking on Reddit. EDIT: How could I forget, Bugtraq mailing list. I used to have Full Disclosure in there as well, but the signal to noise ratio became too annoying (not sure if that's changed in the last few years). Proteus Jones fucked around with this message at 03:33 on Jan 17, 2015 |
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Jan 17, 2015 03:30
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What's HN?
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Jan 17, 2015 04:14
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hacker news, the site I linked. https://news.ycombinator.com/news Edit: Note that "hacker" is somewhat a grandiose term for what's on that page and it's hardly news. I feel like it'd be ironic except that there isn't a hint of self-awareness to the entire website. Bhodi fucked around with this message at 04:19 on Jan 17, 2015 |
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Jan 17, 2015 04:15
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Bhodi posted:hacker news, the site I linked. https://news.ycombinator.com/news Ah, you had a . at the end of your previous url.
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Jan 17, 2015 06:00
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If you mostly read Hacker News for the comedic value, YOSPOS's HN thread will save you some time: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3620458
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Jan 17, 2015 07:29
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Thanks Ants posted:
I visited one of my very remote offices and there was no patch panel, every cable was plugged directly into the switch. But even worse: in the destination offices, the cables were terminated with a plug instead of a socket. So.. congratulations, your computer has to be within exactly 4 feet of this spot on the wall, and I can't go down the street and buy couplers because you are a fly-in community.
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Jan 17, 2015 07:40
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Misogynist posted:If you mostly read Hacker News for the comedic value, YOSPOS's HN thread will save you some time:  This is good but there some cool things on HackerNews like this, What happens when you type Google into the browser
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Jan 17, 2015 08:20
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mewse posted:I visited one of my very remote offices and there was no patch panel, every cable was plugged directly into the switch.
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Jan 17, 2015 15:54
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Chickenwalker fucked around with this message at 03:00 on Mar 1, 2019 |
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Jan 17, 2015 16:37
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Chickenwalker posted:If you're massively underpaid at your job but you've been with the company less than a year when is it appropriate to ask for a raise? At the one year mark? Ten months? Eight months? Whenever you feel like it?
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Jan 17, 2015 16:41
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But more likely, you will not get a raise that fixes the underpaid situation unless you have a particularly proactive manager or are promoted (at least on paper). Typically, your manager will be working with a range of percentage increases for your review, and even at the top end it would take years of excellent reviews to catch up. And if they hired you on for poo poo pay to start with, who's to say they are even interested in correcting that? Not saying you shouldn't try, but the only reliable way to fix being underpaid is to seek new employment.
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