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skipdogg posted:First day back after 3 weeks off work. Not a single important email while I was gone. Some days I appreciate working with a good group of people and being in an org large enough where I can take 3 weeks off work without any issues, but other days I wonder why the hell they pay me if I can disappear for 3 weeks and have zero impact to the org at all (granted this was around the holidays where we go into a hard change freeze). I don't know if I should feel bad or pleased that the only emails I get are from our ISP and Solarwinds.
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Jan 2, 2020 21:01
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What should I buy the developers so that they eventually like me and tell me their secrets?
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Jan 2, 2020 21:16
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Woof Blitzer posted:What should I buy the developers so that they eventually like me and tell me their secrets? You do what they did, you half rear end learn a programming language or two and fake it until you make it.
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Jan 2, 2020 21:19
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Woof Blitzer posted:What should I buy the developers so that they eventually like me and tell me their secrets? the answer for anyone remotely computer-adjacent is always booze
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Jan 2, 2020 21:23
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Here is an half-effort post about anxiety. It is a little light on the IT, except for the fact I am an IT manager, and these jobs will put us all into an early grave if we let it.  Below are the books that I read this year that have helped me with dealing with anxiety and stress. 2019 was a year of anxiety inducing nonsense for me. From my former boss noping out after stirring the pot and making it *feel* like everyone was out to push my team out (they weren't, boss was just paranoid and toxic). To my wife having a nervous breakdown related to lady hormones going all out of wack (we eventually figured this out, before that, just breaking down for no reason!), and ending this year with being sued by my niece because... well your guess is as good as mine (families and money!). Just a lot of stuff. And I know that I am not the one on these forums with the most *stuff happening* that would cause anxiety and stress and depression. Edit: Totally forgot to point this out. I am also on meds for generalized anxiety and have been for the past 10 years. It's a low dose and helps take the edge off, and allows me to be calm enough to work through all the anxiety stuff. If you need meds, or think you do, please consult a doctor and make it happen. This is not a "you don't need meds, just exercise and a healthy outlook!" kind of post, this is the next step once the symptoms are controllable to sort through why you have the reactions to these things or re-aligning how you deal with stressors. So, without further ado, the books (along with counseling, thinking, talking with friends and venting on these here forums) that really helped me deal with this stuff in a proactive and healthy way (read: not drinking scotch and scarfing double cheeseburgers which was my go to for a long time).   Anxiety in General This one is a *little* new agey in the first chapter or so, "Here is the way, which I will talk about later! Keep reading!". But it worked really well for my wife who was encountering a lot of the symptoms of panic attacks. For myself, it drilled down into how I react to emotions and physical responses that make the anxiety spiral. It has a lot of knowledge about the physical and mental forms of anxiety and takes an interesting approach to anxiety and how to work with it instead of raging against it, which usually makes it worse. Stoacism as Philosophy of Life with Secondary References This one is a primer for stoicism as a philosophy of life. These two books above really do dovetail as the parts of stoicism that really connected with me were the ones where it spoke of dealing with your thoughts and how you react to outward stimuli. It also can blend into meditation if you are into that kind of thing ( observing your thoughts dispassionately, and choosing how you wish to outwardly react instead of letting them control you ). A distillation of stoic principals into an easy to read format. Translated into modern english vernacular. Recommended as nice little book to scan and reflect on the lessons. This one shows you how to create an empire and crush your enemies under you boot in a purge of blood lust and rage.  But in reality he was actually part of the golden age of Rome. And his writings, which were only to himself, exemplifies a daily practicing stoic and the continual striving to be a better person and work to accomplish the goals you have, not what anyone else is pushing you to do. ptier fucked around with this message at 15:04 on Jan 3, 2020 |
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Jan 2, 2020 21:58
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Double scotch and single cheeseburgers still on, right?
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Jan 2, 2020 22:21
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The big dent in my anxiety last year came from going on meds for my ADHD. Highly recommend
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Jan 2, 2020 22:41
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Mine was counselling. Please see a counselor, goons. Everyone has something they need to talk about, no one is perfect. Get on meds if you have to, just get the help you need. Life is short, we only have one go at this, and literally nothing we do in this absurd job field matters in the end. Take care of yourselves.
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Jan 2, 2020 22:44
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Docjowles posted:the answer for anyone remotely computer-adjacent is always booze I work with a lot of people who for various reasons don't drink at all. 
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Jan 2, 2020 23:01
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Counseling wasn't working so I got a large number of painful and invasive tests. Eventually, a pill got added to.my existing daily medication load. Turns out my brain doesn't make enough serotonin, which resulted in the magic of anxiety, depression, and self-destructive tendencies. But without the therapy I wouldn't have known that my brains are actual-broke. Hooray for therapy, invasive tests, and SSRIs.
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Jan 2, 2020 23:02
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October 17, 2018 My anxiety levels reached a new low, with the introduction of legal weed. Added to my bourbon / gin intake, I achieved perfect, rational self-actualization. October 22, 2018 I remember I can't be high at work and everything comes crashing down, but at least the evenings and weekends are nice.
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Jan 2, 2020 23:16
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ptier posted:Here is an half-effort post about anxiety. It is a little light on the IT, except for the fact I am an IT manager, and these jobs will put us all into an early grave if we let it. This translation of Meditations is one of the most powerful things I've ever read even if I completely lack the willpower and discipline to actually make positive changes in my life. Also I think stoicism is a very helpful base to look at things but a lot of modern poo poo bearing that name is charlatans and/or nazis, so be careful out there folks.
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Jan 2, 2020 23:18
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Antioch posted:October 17, 2018 Is that a "can't" when it should be a "shouldn't" or "some people might not like it if"? If you practice, you can do almost anything.
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Jan 2, 2020 23:20
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I figure getting high at work is a bad habit to start. But man it’s been tempting to smoke a joint at lunch or on my morning commute sometimes! No real difference to having a beer... but I’d look a bit askance at needing to have a beer every morning too. Company parties are fair game of course. I have been to exactly one corporate party not high on drugs and it sucked. We got $9 drink tickets we could only literally only use on the house wine. No thanks! The Iron Rose fucked around with this message at 00:36 on Jan 3, 2020 |
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Jan 3, 2020 00:34
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Cat Army
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The Iron Rose posted:Company parties are fair game of course. I have been to exactly one corporate party not high on drugs and it sucked. We got $9 drink tickets we could only literally only use on the house wine. No thanks! My last company did this at their annual party and had the audacity to call it an open bar.
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Jan 3, 2020 05:50
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Reminds me of the "4% 401(k) match" someone posted in one of these threads where they match 4% of your contributions. "The bar is open, you go to up to it and pay for your drink."
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Jan 3, 2020 06:47
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22 Eargesplitten posted:Reminds me of the "4% 401(k) match" someone posted in one of these threads where they match 4% of your contributions. "The bar is open, you go to up to it and pay for your drink." Yeah, and the benefits manager was legit hurt or something when people weren't enthusiastically thankful for a 0.04% contribution match.
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Jan 3, 2020 07:11
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Che Delilas posted:My last company did this at their annual party and had the audacity to call it an open bar. We had a ticket based system at an old company that did this for the bar. The problem was they bought tickets from the local craft store in a roll and didn’t check numbers. Once we figured that out we found an HR snitch to let us know the roll color every year so we could game the system.
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Jan 3, 2020 12:56
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Bigass Moth posted:I work with a lot of people who for various reasons don't drink at all. Tea seems to be very popular with the non-alcoholic dev crowd
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Jan 3, 2020 14:39
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ErikTheRed posted:Tea seems to be very popular with the non-alcoholic dev crowd Or Coffee depending on the dev.
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Jan 3, 2020 14:51
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Canuck-Errant posted:Double scotch and single cheeseburgers still on, right? Totally. Just make sure you drink lots of water. Vulture Culture posted:The big dent in my anxiety last year came from going on meds for my ADHD. Highly recommend CLAM DOWN posted:Mine was counselling. Please see a counselor, goons. Everyone has something they need to talk about, no one is perfect. Get on meds if you have to, just get the help you need. Life is short, we only have one go at this, and literally nothing we do in this absurd job field matters in the end. Take care of yourselves. Exit Strategy posted:Counseling wasn't working so I got a large number of painful and invasive tests. Eventually, a pill got added to.my existing daily medication load. Totally forgot to point this out and I will add to my post. I am also on meds for generalized anxiety and have been for the past 10 years. It's a low dose and helps take the edge off, and allows me to be calm enough to work through all the feedback stuff. If you need meds, or think you do, please consult a doctor. This is not a "you don't need meds, just exercise and a healthy outlook!" kind of thing, this is the next step once the symptoms are controllable to sort through why you have the reactions to these things. Inspector_666 posted:This translation of Meditations is one of the most powerful things I've ever read even if I completely lack the willpower and discipline to actually make positive changes in my life. I seriously did not know that. I have generally been looking at the teachings on the old, through historical contexts. In "A Guide to the Good Life" there is a lot of framing that the original stoics taught that stoics should be civically minded and work to better society (which is where it dovetails with my engineering education, first class they talk about betterment of society through applied science). I will definitely be on the watch for twisting of that message. Thank you for the warning. ptier fucked around with this message at 15:05 on Jan 3, 2020 |
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Jan 3, 2020 15:02
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What's the shortest amount of time you've stayed at a new job? Asking for a friend...
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Jan 3, 2020 15:30
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Hughmoris posted:What's the shortest amount of time you've stayed at a new job? Asking for a friend... 5 weeks! Give or take a few days. Shame that these guys have been the nicest bunch of folks ever and were super gracious even when I put in the news that I was leaving.
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Jan 3, 2020 15:36
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Hughmoris posted:What's the shortest amount of time you've stayed at a new job? Asking for a friend... Choosing to leave or getting pushed? I was let go after 5 days once. I advised a friend to quit their new job after 4 days and they did. If the fit is wrong, there's no point in staying any longer than necessary
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Jan 3, 2020 15:39
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I guess - 1 week since I accepted an offer and rescinded it after a better one came in prior to starting. It’s an uncomfortable call to make but it ended up ok. At least the manager was gracious about it.
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Jan 3, 2020 15:40
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3 months! They were a really nice group but it was a public highschool, the pay sucked, and it was my first job in a new area. They all understood why I left and wished me the best. But I think schools are pretty conditioned to people leaving them regularly sadly.
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Jan 3, 2020 15:40
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Been here 4 days. Everyone is nice but the onboarding is non-existent. Its turning in to one of those feelings where you say "taking this job was a mistake...".
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Jan 3, 2020 15:47
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ptier posted:I seriously did not know that. I have generally been looking at the teachings on the old, through historical contexts. In "A Guide to the Good Life" there is a lot of framing that the original stoics taught that stoics should be civically minded and work to better society (which is where it dovetails with my engineering education, first class they talk about betterment of society through applied science). I will definitely be on the watch for twisting of that message. Thank you for the warning. It seemed to be a pretty short-lived attempt to coopt it, but alt-right people who already idolize the Romans said stoicism meant you shouldn't have any feelings so if you were compassionate you were weak and loving up, etc. The usual poo poo. Pretty much beware people who have Roman emperor busts as their avatars. As far as I'm concerned, the point is to inspect your own feelings and consider why you're having them, really. It's very similar to the mindfulness lessons we get in Zen/Buddhist stuff over here. There's just something about Meditiations though, I mean this is the opening passage to the main body of the work and if it's not applicable to life in IT, I don't know what is: quote:When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own - not of the same blood and birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are unnatural. Inspector_666 fucked around with this message at 16:03 on Jan 3, 2020 |
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Jan 3, 2020 15:59
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Hughmoris posted:What's the shortest amount of time you've stayed at a new job? Asking for a friend... Couple weeks at Salesforce doing computer inventory/deployment. Going from Google's IT inventory management/deployment/ticketing system to Salesforce's was like going from a bicycle to a unicycle, and I accidentally deployed a laptop without marking where it went
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Jan 3, 2020 16:45
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I hadn't even started yet before I called and said I would not in fact be starting lol. I think I accepted the job on a tuesday or wednesday to start the next week and a better offer came in a day or two later.
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Jan 3, 2020 16:52
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Hughmoris posted:Been here 4 days. Everyone is nice but the onboarding is non-existent. Its turning in to one of those feelings where you say "taking this job was a mistake...". Onboarding is not always an indication of the job. Sometimes, companies are terrible at starting new employees because they have little experience because everyone loves working there so much that they never leave. (Conversely, sometimes they are terrible because they are terrible) I'd grab someone senior on a Friday afternoon and ask them what's up.
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Jan 3, 2020 17:00
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Hughmoris posted:What's the shortest amount of time you've stayed at a new job? Asking for a friend... 2 weeks. Job position was listed as a linux admin position, during the interview (phone interview only -- this should probably have been a red flag) they offered me a sharepoint admin position, with the promise of moving over to linux two months later. I showed up for the first day on the job and they told me grab a space in the call center here, here's your plantronics headset, and started trying to train me to open ADUC and reset people's passwords. Since this was a contract position I asked for the individual who was listed as the on site supervisor for the contract on my offer letter, and no one had any clue who the guy was. (2nd red flag.) Finally, I told them I had a dentist's appointment the Monday after I started, and the help desk lead literally called me stupid for making an appointment that soon after starting and that I would have to get permission from a government employee to do so. I told him I had made the appointment before I had even interviewed for the job, and I'm going to it, and sent in my resignation the same day. When I was leaving, they were remarking on why they didn't understand why they can't keep people for more than a few months and I told them straight up they're running an extremely unprofessional operation, breaking civil service laws by requiring me to request time off to a government employee, not through the contractor I actually worked for, etc. They were also scoffing heavily at the fact I need time off to go to my National Guard drill later that month, so I suspect if I had stayed there they would have violated USERRA as well.
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Jan 3, 2020 17:10
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Inspector_666 posted:It seemed to be a pretty short-lived attempt to coopt it, but alt-right people who already idolize the Romans said stoicism meant you shouldn't have any feelings so if you were compassionate you were weak and loving up, etc. The usual poo poo. Pretty much beware people who have Roman emperor busts as their avatars.   Jesus its like the exact opposite of the philosophy. Exactly! Like "hmm, I feel petty toward this person, is it because of me, or something in my perspective? Would acting on that pettiness assist me in my goals?" Inspector_666 posted:There's just something about Meditiations though, I mean this is the opening passage to the main body of the work and if it's not applicable to life in IT, I don't know what is: 
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Jan 3, 2020 17:10
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Onboarding has been wildly different for the couple people I’ve seen come through here. I had a pleasant experience with nice 30/60/90 day goals and training plan. The new Junior DBA that just got hired got some practice with SQL and that was about it. His boss is just swamped with other projects along with the holidays and can’t get something together for him. At least he has a computer
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Jan 3, 2020 17:16
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A guy I used to work with was hired under the pretense of some sort of contracted customer support for a phone company that implied he'd be working on VoIP and such. Turned out it was support for a phone sex line operator. He made it to his second day.
Sheep fucked around with this message at 17:39 on Jan 3, 2020 |
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Jan 3, 2020 17:21
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I started doing something for all the systems I manage. I add a bash alias: alias gerp="sudo rm -rf /" Makes day to day administration way more spicy.
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Jan 3, 2020 17:28
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mattfl posted:I hadn't even started yet before I called and said I would not in fact be starting lol. I did that once. Got an offer Friday, said yes, and had second thoughts over the weekend. Specifically: * They said yes when I asked if I was really supposed to interrupt database development work to celar a paper jam in a printer. * They lowballed me based on the salary range under discussion. No regrets. At current job we have a brand new onboarding process in place. Finally. The old way barely deserved the nmae "process", especially the horrific interface between Workday and Active Directory that meant that some AD accounts took a week and multiple escalations to get created. Then that happened to the new VP of HR. Six months later and now you get your laptop and your phone at orientation on the first day. In my group last month there were 17 completely new hires, and only one of them didn't have their AD account in place. That's a disturbingly high percentage, but, welp, Workday.
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Jan 3, 2020 17:41
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Shortest gig I've had that wasn't "side hustle" or whatever we wanna call it was about a year. It should have been way less but apparently I like to watch myself suffer.
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Jan 3, 2020 17:56
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Hughmoris posted:Been here 4 days. Everyone is nice but the onboarding is non-existent. Its turning in to one of those feelings where you say "taking this job was a mistake...". Normally on boarding issues are a bit of a red flag, but given the time of year we're in, I'd give them some leeway until next week. I know around the holidays we pretty much shut down, and many folks are still out of the office until next Monday. If it's still a poo poo show next week, that's not a good sign.
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Jan 3, 2020 18:23
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Shortest was 2 months as a consultant at a law firm. I had this one toxic coworker who had a chip on her shoulder and kept taking it out on me. Consultants were considered second class humans so I just bounced.
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Jan 3, 2020 18:25
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