Job and General Employment Thread

[NTP66]

I had a dream last night that I was interviewing for a gov't job, that dodint was also interviewing for it, and he sent the FBI to my house to disqualify me somehow. What the **** @dodint.

[dodint]

Gotta have connections.

[willeyeam]

I had a dream I got arrested for murder

[nocera]

I had a dream where a hamburger was eating ME.

[tifosi77]

Got a notification on LinkedIn this morning to congratulate my friend for starting a new role as "Vice Consul U.S. Consulate General Montréal at U.S. Department of State". That sounds like kind of a big deal.

[mikey]

[shafnutz05]

I am having an issue with one of my employees. I have been noticing that throughout large chunks of each day, it takes her a little bit longer to respond via email. When she does respond, it is readily obvious that she is emailing me back from her phone (signature, font, etc.)

Obviously I understand remote work because I've been doing it for a long time, but it is readily apparent that she is spending large stretches of the day away from her computer. Again, I take breaks as well, but this is starting to seem excessive. I really don't want to rock the boat and make this into a thing, but I'm afraid she's taking advantage of this.

[Orlando Penguin]

Perhaps she is busy with someone. WFH has its privileges!!

[faftorial]

Perhaps she is busy with someone. WFH has its privileges!!

Or posting on a message board.

[mikey]

If you want to come at that, I'd come at it from a check-in angle...do it with a few people on the team (assuming there are some), just check-in, and ask if they're having any challenges, how are they feeling mentally, do they have any technical deficiencies that they're coming around to realize, etc.

That might get the conversation going without them being defensive perhaps...

[Joegap]

I know one of the unwritten workplace rules is not to talk politics. I wish that also applied to LinkedIn. I see the Facebook conspiracy theories are also making their way onto it. Bad enough that I have to see a few of my coworkers liking the BS statuses.

[dodint]

Yes! LinkedIn has gotten a both too political and too personal. Seeing a lot of posts that are just random Facebook-style updates about their daily routine. Not a fan.

[mikey]

Yeah, I noticed that as well. I already viewed just a handful of times of year, that will be decreasing...

[dodint]

I've been trying to shift my footprint on there a bit. I have 103 connections and probably 80 of them are military-affiliated. So most of my feed is motivational bullshit from the USMC or Army. Been trying to 'rebrand' more as an attorney on there since I'm hoping this is my last gov job anyway.

[NTP66]

What kind of fool puts anything political on their LinkedIn page?

[count2infinity]

What kind of fool puts anything political on their LinkedIn page?

I've seen a few... all were either male academics or women after RGB died and Kamala were elected.

[mikey]

Give me some talking points that I might have missed here, boys...I'm formally appealing a piece of company policy that has been driving me crazy for years and I want to make sure I touch all the bases...

Current state: We get 16 days of PTO per year for the first three years of service, 21 days of PTO per year for any future years of service. However, the rule states that you can't carryover more than 30 into the next year. I have lost time on this policy since my second year with the company. I looked at my team, and all but one of them will lose time this year though because we're WFH, there's covid and no where to go...

I have:
- You're just punishing employees who are working more than others, that's counter-intuitive

- This company rewards time over production. But everyone produces work time at actually the same rate...yet, we reward people just for hanging on...the only exception where we don't find time to be the value that employees add is here, with PTO. Where it is randomly forfeited with no recourse. It's a logical inconsistency.

- We were told no raises this year, this would be a good trade-off to show some appreciation and improve management-employee relations (which aren't great)

- Highlighting the morale aspect

- If everyone piles in to the end of the year, we're gonna create a production domino effect that is gonna be felt in several areas. We can alleviate that by just allowing us to keep an asset we already accrued. The solution costs you nothing, the ridiculous policy costs you much more to enact...

- Extremes don't prove practical situations. The idea that I could accrue 100 days of PTO and then take five months off is stupid, we have management oversight on vacation requests. It's a complete nothingburger to lean on that. No one does that, tries that or anything of the sort.

What do you think I can add or maybe bolster...? I only get one shot at this...

[meow]

Tell them it is the 21st century and they should maybe join it.

Make sure you offer alternative solutions or else you’re gonna get eye rolled right out of the meeting. Unlimited carry-over, but have an accumulation cap at say 30 days or whatever. Or a cash-in opportunity that pays out at the last full pay period of the year.

[mikey]

Yup, that's in there too. I really, really make it a point not to pose a problem without a solution. In fact, in the odd chance that I do, I make fun of myself for doing so...so, I'm right there with ya...

[tifosi77]

The contract manager at my first job used her accrued PTO from over 10 years to work 4-day work weeks the final year she was there (which was the middle part of my time). It sucked from a bandwidth perspective, but it allowed me the opportunity to do a lot of work as a very junior guy that I otherwise probably wouldn't have been able to do.

[tifosi77]

I really, really make it a point not to pose a problem without a solution.

Right when we started dating, one of Mrs Tif's bosses said this to her. She came home and told me about the convo, and it was one of the best professional lesson's I've ever picked up.

There are time-critical exceptions ("Uh, boss, Naoki-san just sheared off a sprinkler head in the arcade, and I think our social media manager is live-streaming the flooding on our official YouTube channel...." -- actual conversation I had once), but this is generally a very good policy.

[count2infinity]

I'll be "attending" my first virtual conference next week... no clue what to expect, but we'll give it a go.

I have to "man the booth" through the mornings. Again, wtf? How does that work?

[mikey]

I saw one of those in my industry...it was pretty hodgepodge...

They had like a summary email come out afterwards that was like...

"HEY! Wasn't that amazing and fun and new! Hope you all learned a lot!"







...sorry. We'll do better next time...we just weren't prepared.

[shafnutz05]

I'll be "attending" my first virtual conference next week... no clue what to expect, but we'll give it a go.

I have to "man the booth" through the mornings. Again, wtf? How does that work?

I have done several virtual career fairs like that. It's especially annoying because you have to sit there staring at your damn camera for two hours waiting for someone to come into your room. You can't really get anything else done because you don't want to miss anything.

[count2infinity]

There's another conference in the spring that a co-worker is one of the committee members. He was saying about how they're going to do their best to make the show feel as much like a normal show as possible. I told him, "Stop. Stop that right now. Turn that idea on it's head. Acknowledge that it's not a real show. There's nothing you can do to make an attendee feel like they're actually at a show. Accept that it's virtual, and make it as best of a virtual show as you can."