I've almost never seen grades on a curve bottom out at anything lower than a C, unless someone flat out did nothing.
[Thread Game] Stories from Work
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I was reminded of a fun day I had at a job once:
I was working in the oil fields in the summer to pay for college. There was a weird atmospheric phenomenon where our East Texas pipeline company's radio cross talked with a NYC cab company.
Holy Shit! it was hilarious with Bronx accents and Hard Southern accents trying to talk over one another.
One cabby screamed out, "I'll answer you when we get these damned Hillbillies off the radio!"
Our secretary piped in, "Hunny we ain't Hillbillies, we're Red Necks!"
I was working in the oil fields in the summer to pay for college. There was a weird atmospheric phenomenon where our East Texas pipeline company's radio cross talked with a NYC cab company.
Holy Shit! it was hilarious with Bronx accents and Hard Southern accents trying to talk over one another.
One cabby screamed out, "I'll answer you when we get these damned Hillbillies off the radio!"
Our secretary piped in, "Hunny we ain't Hillbillies, we're Red Necks!"
I once took a job at a company, but before I started, the guy that hired me quit.
The new guy I was going to report to had no vision, and had no idea what to do with a computer programmer, so he put me in the tech support department--which I absolutely didn't want to do. He was also a micromanaging dick.
So, at 6 months, I found another job, and figured I could play off the short stay as contract work if it ever came up in an interview.
This is the kind of dick that guy was...when I came in to give notice, he didn't even say anything. Not one word. He just got up and walked over to the filing cabinet and pulled out my file (I had a file?) flipped through it and finally said "No employment contract. I guess I can't sue you for quitting."
So, he tells me that if I don't write a resignation letter that says I'm leaving for a better opportunity, more money, etc, and that emphases how it had nothing to do with him or his leadership, he was going to block my final check. I know he can't do that under Texas law, but sensing an opportunity, I write the letter anyway.
A full page--12 lines of text. He reads it and approves of it. When I handed it into HR, they were surprised I'd written so much and had such glowing praise. I told them "read the first letter of every line" on my way out the door. When viewed that way, the letter read: "Chuck is a dick."
The new guy I was going to report to had no vision, and had no idea what to do with a computer programmer, so he put me in the tech support department--which I absolutely didn't want to do. He was also a micromanaging dick.
So, at 6 months, I found another job, and figured I could play off the short stay as contract work if it ever came up in an interview.
This is the kind of dick that guy was...when I came in to give notice, he didn't even say anything. Not one word. He just got up and walked over to the filing cabinet and pulled out my file (I had a file?) flipped through it and finally said "No employment contract. I guess I can't sue you for quitting."
So, he tells me that if I don't write a resignation letter that says I'm leaving for a better opportunity, more money, etc, and that emphases how it had nothing to do with him or his leadership, he was going to block my final check. I know he can't do that under Texas law, but sensing an opportunity, I write the letter anyway.
A full page--12 lines of text. He reads it and approves of it. When I handed it into HR, they were surprised I'd written so much and had such glowing praise. I told them "read the first letter of every line" on my way out the door. When viewed that way, the letter read: "Chuck is a dick."
I have another story about the tech company I previously worked as a technical writer at.
The seats at this company were arranged in rows, in which desks would face each other. Sort of like this, except without the dividers:
Directly across from me sat two ladies in the sales department, "Cindy" and "Dana". They'd both worked there for a few years, and being in the same department they often worked closely with each other, and apparently they got along very well. This meant that they would often chat and joke with each other, and sitting directly across from them I'd be able to hear everything.
Now, Cindy and Dana were both young and very attractive women. However, Dana was the one who'd generally be considered a bombshell. Tall, great figure, beautiful face, and a fashion sense that allowed her to show off her assets. Since she sat directly across from me, this meant she was actually very distracting at times. Especially when she got a cup of bubble tea. Imagine trying to work while a beautiful woman sitting across from you is thoughtfully sucking on an oversized straw.
But this story is about a more specific incident. For several days or weeks, I could hear Cindy and Dana making noises about asking their boss, "Ed", the head of the sales department, for a raise. Ed had his own office, so he couldn't hear what Cindy and Dana were plotting. Apparently their plan was for one of them to get a raise first, and then the other one would go ask Ed for a raise to match the other person's new salary. Seemed like a solid plan, but the question was how they would get that first raise from Ed. So Dana said to Cindy, "I know, I'll wear... it."
I found out what it was the next day, when Cindy and Dana arrived at work, and Cindy asked, "So, are you wearing it?" And Dana removed her jacket to reveal an absolutely incredible top. It was tight, form-fitting, and low-cut, but more importantly it was blindingly fluorescent yellow, apart from the chest region, which was blindingly fluorescent pink. In other words, the bright yellow color meant that your eyes were drawn to her to start with, and then the bright pink color meant that your gaze would then head towards her chest area, which then meant your sight line would be caught by her decolletage and basically be trapped there forever. I'm pretty sure I heard my jaw bounce off the floor when I saw what she was wearing.
So Dana went into Ed's office, and about five minutes later she came out beaming and nodded at Cindy.
I got no work done that day.
The seats at this company were arranged in rows, in which desks would face each other. Sort of like this, except without the dividers:
Directly across from me sat two ladies in the sales department, "Cindy" and "Dana". They'd both worked there for a few years, and being in the same department they often worked closely with each other, and apparently they got along very well. This meant that they would often chat and joke with each other, and sitting directly across from them I'd be able to hear everything.
Now, Cindy and Dana were both young and very attractive women. However, Dana was the one who'd generally be considered a bombshell. Tall, great figure, beautiful face, and a fashion sense that allowed her to show off her assets. Since she sat directly across from me, this meant she was actually very distracting at times. Especially when she got a cup of bubble tea. Imagine trying to work while a beautiful woman sitting across from you is thoughtfully sucking on an oversized straw.
But this story is about a more specific incident. For several days or weeks, I could hear Cindy and Dana making noises about asking their boss, "Ed", the head of the sales department, for a raise. Ed had his own office, so he couldn't hear what Cindy and Dana were plotting. Apparently their plan was for one of them to get a raise first, and then the other one would go ask Ed for a raise to match the other person's new salary. Seemed like a solid plan, but the question was how they would get that first raise from Ed. So Dana said to Cindy, "I know, I'll wear... it."
I found out what it was the next day, when Cindy and Dana arrived at work, and Cindy asked, "So, are you wearing it?" And Dana removed her jacket to reveal an absolutely incredible top. It was tight, form-fitting, and low-cut, but more importantly it was blindingly fluorescent yellow, apart from the chest region, which was blindingly fluorescent pink. In other words, the bright yellow color meant that your eyes were drawn to her to start with, and then the bright pink color meant that your gaze would then head towards her chest area, which then meant your sight line would be caught by her decolletage and basically be trapped there forever. I'm pretty sure I heard my jaw bounce off the floor when I saw what she was wearing.
So Dana went into Ed's office, and about five minutes later she came out beaming and nodded at Cindy.
I got no work done that day.
At the previous school district I worked for, we had Dell laptops that we gave out to all of the students. They had some design flaws that meant we had a ton of issues keeping those laptops working. Stupid things like the screws would fall out of the bottom of the device (screw holes were aluminum while the screws were steel, aluminum heats up and expands faster than steel, so they'd just work themselves out over time).
We had a Dell rep come by with a new laptop design he was showing off, wanting us to buy it. Our Acquisitions person at the time, Chris, was allowed to handle it while the rep was going on about all the new features. Chris pinched the corner of the screen and was able to peel it back and completely off of the device in one swift motion. The rep stuttered for a bit and then exclaimed, "You can't do that! It's a prototype!" To which Chris calmly replied, "Do you really think our kids won't try to do that or worse? Fix it and then maybe we'll talk."
We did not buy the new design.
We had a Dell rep come by with a new laptop design he was showing off, wanting us to buy it. Our Acquisitions person at the time, Chris, was allowed to handle it while the rep was going on about all the new features. Chris pinched the corner of the screen and was able to peel it back and completely off of the device in one swift motion. The rep stuttered for a bit and then exclaimed, "You can't do that! It's a prototype!" To which Chris calmly replied, "Do you really think our kids won't try to do that or worse? Fix it and then maybe we'll talk."
We did not buy the new design.
I don't think this is as universal a problem as you think it is
This reminds me of a story.
I once worked with a lady that liked to wear very low cut blouses. One day she leaned way over to get something off my desk and I hadda go "Whoa...be careful there. I want to be respectful and all, but in the words of Russel Brand: 'I'm a man. I have instincts.' I can see everythng."
So a little while back we had a lady come in for an interview for a position in my department. There were three people in the interview: me, my higher-up, and my higher-up's higher-up. The lady was very suited to the position she was interviewing for, in fact I'd already decided to hire her pretty much off her resume alone. She also impressed in the interview, so afterwards the two higher-ups and me pretty much just nodded at each other and said, "Yeah, let's hire her." And then we went off to start excitedly planning what cases we'd assign her as soon as she started working here.
Three weeks later, our HR person messaged us. "Hey, the lady who came in for an interview just called, she was wondering if there was any follow-up?"
And the three of us sort of collectively facepalmed and went, "Okay, so none of us remembered to notify HR or the new hire that she'd passed the interview."
So we told HR to get back to her on the double, and fortunately she was still available to work for us, so it all worked out in the end. Well, apart from her leaving the company after just a couple of months.
Three weeks later, our HR person messaged us. "Hey, the lady who came in for an interview just called, she was wondering if there was any follow-up?"
And the three of us sort of collectively facepalmed and went, "Okay, so none of us remembered to notify HR or the new hire that she'd passed the interview."
So we told HR to get back to her on the double, and fortunately she was still available to work for us, so it all worked out in the end. Well, apart from her leaving the company after just a couple of months.
Dilbert today perfectly sums up how I feel about stacked ranking assessments.I was out of work for 3 years (except some occasional short-term contract work that mostly served to reset the clock on the unemployment benefits) after the tech bubble burst.
In 2003, Citibank offered me a job. They called me on a Friday, and asked me if I could start on Monday. "Absolutely." I say.
I was living in Houston at the time. Citibank's tech site was in Irving, 250 miles away. So, I get up at 4am on Monday, drive to Irving, do my first day on the job, and then immediately check into a long-term hotel. That hotel would be my home for 6 weeks until I could rent a house and get the rest of my family moved up.
I really enjoyed the job, and enjoyed the people, but quit after less than two years. They hired a new CIO, Mitchell Habib. He had just come from GE, where he saved the company a ton of money by outsourcing everything overseas. He promised he wasn't a "one trick pony" and that he wasn't coming to Citi to do the same thing--but, within a few months he instituted monthly staff ranking. The bottom X people on a team every month would be let go, and replaced by--you guessed it--offshore workers from India.
One one hand, this ranking can sound reasonable. Sure, every team has slackers, and getting rid of them can strengthen the team. But in practice, it sucks. It's political. You may be the best developer in the world, but if you piss the wrong person off at the wrong time, bam, bottom of the list. And it's stupid. If you have a team of 5, and all 5 are amazing, why should you be forced to fire the least amazing person to be replaced by offshore?
So, me and a couple other older guys saw the writing on the wall and got out of there ASAP. Everyone told me I was crazy, because I consistently scored at the top of the rankings. But I didn't want to work in that kind of environment...and no matter how good you are, eventually, the job is going overseas. Eventually the layoffs got more aggressive.
This Just In: Habib Resigns from Citigroup
I just got word that Mitchell Habib resigned from his post as CIO of Citibank North America "on or about 10/24/2006," according to my source, who says no reason was given for his resignation. His last day is November 1.www.cio.com
I can't find anything more substantive, but I remember at the time reading some articles that the board was upset that Habib had destroyed the corporate culture in IT, and that the speed and quality of software releases had gone down dramatically. But that's just my memory. I wish I could find one of those articles now.
He ended up an Neilsen...and you guessed it. One-trick-ponied up the outsourcing.
It still grinds my gears that this guy makes millions doing this.
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If you want to find Dilbert or Scott Adams, here are some leads.
Time to tell you all about Tom.
Working phone support like I did for a while, you tend to lead a sedentary lifestyle. I gained quite a bit of weight myself in my 8 years doing that. There were guys who had been doing that job for 20 or 30 years working at that site. Most of them hit some sort of equilibrium between weight and excercise to keep themselves in shape. Then there was Tom.
Tom is the single largest person I have ever seen. The hallways around the office were designed generally for two people to be able to pass each other by turning slightly, about a person and a half. Not if Tom was coming, though. He brushed both sides of the walls. You just had to get out of his way. You ducked into a cubicle or turned around because it was too hard for him to change direction. In the bathrooms, you could tell which stalls were the ones Tom used because the walls bowed outward.
It was in the bathroom that one of my colleagues reported that he had entered the bathroom for a quick pee. He saw Tom come out of a stall. He put his hands on the counter and just breathed heavily for a bit. A bit later as my friend was finishing, Tom picked himself up and went back in the stall. He had to take a break. FROM POOPING. He was pooping so hard, he had to stop, leave the stall, catch his breath, and then go back in.
Another time, I was in the bathroom, just washing my hands before returning to my desk when the door opened and in lumbered Tom. His breathing was heavy and he was sweating a bit. As he walked past me I heard him under his breath say "Oh dear..."
I have never run faster in my life.
Working phone support like I did for a while, you tend to lead a sedentary lifestyle. I gained quite a bit of weight myself in my 8 years doing that. There were guys who had been doing that job for 20 or 30 years working at that site. Most of them hit some sort of equilibrium between weight and excercise to keep themselves in shape. Then there was Tom.
Tom is the single largest person I have ever seen. The hallways around the office were designed generally for two people to be able to pass each other by turning slightly, about a person and a half. Not if Tom was coming, though. He brushed both sides of the walls. You just had to get out of his way. You ducked into a cubicle or turned around because it was too hard for him to change direction. In the bathrooms, you could tell which stalls were the ones Tom used because the walls bowed outward.
It was in the bathroom that one of my colleagues reported that he had entered the bathroom for a quick pee. He saw Tom come out of a stall. He put his hands on the counter and just breathed heavily for a bit. A bit later as my friend was finishing, Tom picked himself up and went back in the stall. He had to take a break. FROM POOPING. He was pooping so hard, he had to stop, leave the stall, catch his breath, and then go back in.
Another time, I was in the bathroom, just washing my hands before returning to my desk when the door opened and in lumbered Tom. His breathing was heavy and he was sweating a bit. As he walked past me I heard him under his breath say "Oh dear..."
I have never run faster in my life.
That's when people leave work on a gurney or in a body bag.
Oooh. I got a recent hotel story too.
A group of drunk-ass wedding guests were returning to the hotel. By this time we were already dealing with the usual suspects of drunks and hobos that we deal with on a Saturday night. I'd been keeping things professional up to that point.
As the wedding guests came in we were already dealing with getting some late night swimmers out of the pool since they had snuck in after hours. One of the wedding guests saw the girls in their swimwear and said "Oh! Let's get in the pool".
I'm literally standing behind the guy as he says this and watch as he attempts to use his key on the pool door which (surprise!) doesn't work. So he decides that's not going to stop him and he immediately starts climbing over the door, using the pretty fragile door handle as a step. As he's doing this one of his friends has become aware of my presence and is pulling the guy back down going "dude! Dude!". When his dumb-ass friend catches on and sees me he starts walking away.
I approach him, very sternly and open a conversation with him.
Me: Do you want to be thrown out?
Him: Huh?
Me: Do you want to be thrown out of the hotel?
Him: Um... no...
Me: Then don't climb shit.
Later I had to go deal with a hobo who was throwing rocks at valet cars. I earned my right to have a potty mouth that evening.
A group of drunk-ass wedding guests were returning to the hotel. By this time we were already dealing with the usual suspects of drunks and hobos that we deal with on a Saturday night. I'd been keeping things professional up to that point.
As the wedding guests came in we were already dealing with getting some late night swimmers out of the pool since they had snuck in after hours. One of the wedding guests saw the girls in their swimwear and said "Oh! Let's get in the pool".
I'm literally standing behind the guy as he says this and watch as he attempts to use his key on the pool door which (surprise!) doesn't work. So he decides that's not going to stop him and he immediately starts climbing over the door, using the pretty fragile door handle as a step. As he's doing this one of his friends has become aware of my presence and is pulling the guy back down going "dude! Dude!". When his dumb-ass friend catches on and sees me he starts walking away.
I approach him, very sternly and open a conversation with him.
Me: Do you want to be thrown out?
Him: Huh?
Me: Do you want to be thrown out of the hotel?
Him: Um... no...
Me: Then don't climb shit.
Later I had to go deal with a hobo who was throwing rocks at valet cars. I earned my right to have a potty mouth that evening.
You accept the shift, you accept the drawer. And if it's over or short, it is now YOUR problem. Why is that you know I count the drawer such a hard concept to grasp? You know I count the drawers first thing EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. So why do you think you don't need to when you come on? This position had ZERO transactions throughout the day, so why is it $7.50 short? You took in no cash on the desk, so why is *it* $10 short?
Anywhere else, such a discrepancy is cause for immediate termination. A shrug and an "I dunno" is unacceptable.
(Forgot to mention the ten or so items missing out of the cooler. Where did they go if there were no transactions?)
Anywhere else, such a discrepancy is cause for immediate termination. A shrug and an "I dunno" is unacceptable.
(Forgot to mention the ten or so items missing out of the cooler. Where did they go if there were no transactions?)
So, another from that place I used to work at.
One of the jobs I did there, in addition to tech support, was purchasing. I was solely responsible for all the computer purchasing for the company. As we were in an aggressive multi-year hardware rollout with our affiliates, I spent about $2 million a year on PCs and parts and $3 million a year on Mac products.
I almost exclusively went through MacWarehouse to do it. They had a branch that handled PC stuff (MicroWarehouse I think?), but I could purchase pc stuff through MacWarehouse with certain reps that had access to both systems.
Shortly after taking the job, I found a rep at that company that was perfect. She would get me items out with 2-day shipping, without fail. If I had a problem (dead on arrival part, etc), she would ship another one instantly, and give me a credit for the broken one while awaiting the return. I was usually on the phone with her 2-4 hours at a time, 2-3 days a week.
MacWarehouse didn't let their reps have direct lines, but whenever I called in, I would always request to be transferred to her and other reps were good about it.
We did this for nearly a year--and then she got a new boss. Her boss was all about micromanaging call volume, and she was told she was spending too much time on the phone with me. She'd been written up after she ignored him and gave me the standard time we usually spent. I tried to deal for a couple of weeks, but the other reps just didn't give me the same level of customer service that she did. So, one day, when I was annoyed at some rep not giving me the dead-on-arrival fast turnaround that I needed, I asked to speak to the supervisor.
Once I got him on the phone, I explained that I only ever wanted to deal with that one specific rep, and that if I couldn't work with them, I'd be taking my business elsewhere because there were cheaper alternatives if I couldn't get the VIP white-glove service that I'd become accustomed to. He laughed and told me that he was sorry that I felt that way, but we were listed as a "small business" and didn't rate a personal rep.
I laughed back. "We're listed that way, because this is a sole proprietorship, and the owner doesn't want to release his personal financials to you. Tell you what. I'll start ordering elsewhere, and you look over my order history and call me back in a week or two if you want to keep my business."
And, so I did. And, of course, it sucked. But no moreso than MacWarehouse when dealing with random reps.
Less than 2 weeks later, I get a call from the guy. He's super sycophantic and grovelling and begging us to come back to MacWarehouse. I guess he realized that 5 million dollars worth of combined purchases a year was a big deal after all. And so, among all the apologies and grovelling, he asked what he could do to earn my business. These were my demands:
Several months after that, I had to go do some installs in the same city that my sales rep worked out of, so we made plans to meet and have dinner. Over the course of dinner, I learned that the sales reps made commission, and that because of me, she'd had a *very* good year.
One of the jobs I did there, in addition to tech support, was purchasing. I was solely responsible for all the computer purchasing for the company. As we were in an aggressive multi-year hardware rollout with our affiliates, I spent about $2 million a year on PCs and parts and $3 million a year on Mac products.
I almost exclusively went through MacWarehouse to do it. They had a branch that handled PC stuff (MicroWarehouse I think?), but I could purchase pc stuff through MacWarehouse with certain reps that had access to both systems.
Shortly after taking the job, I found a rep at that company that was perfect. She would get me items out with 2-day shipping, without fail. If I had a problem (dead on arrival part, etc), she would ship another one instantly, and give me a credit for the broken one while awaiting the return. I was usually on the phone with her 2-4 hours at a time, 2-3 days a week.
MacWarehouse didn't let their reps have direct lines, but whenever I called in, I would always request to be transferred to her and other reps were good about it.
We did this for nearly a year--and then she got a new boss. Her boss was all about micromanaging call volume, and she was told she was spending too much time on the phone with me. She'd been written up after she ignored him and gave me the standard time we usually spent. I tried to deal for a couple of weeks, but the other reps just didn't give me the same level of customer service that she did. So, one day, when I was annoyed at some rep not giving me the dead-on-arrival fast turnaround that I needed, I asked to speak to the supervisor.
Once I got him on the phone, I explained that I only ever wanted to deal with that one specific rep, and that if I couldn't work with them, I'd be taking my business elsewhere because there were cheaper alternatives if I couldn't get the VIP white-glove service that I'd become accustomed to. He laughed and told me that he was sorry that I felt that way, but we were listed as a "small business" and didn't rate a personal rep.
I laughed back. "We're listed that way, because this is a sole proprietorship, and the owner doesn't want to release his personal financials to you. Tell you what. I'll start ordering elsewhere, and you look over my order history and call me back in a week or two if you want to keep my business."
And, so I did. And, of course, it sucked. But no moreso than MacWarehouse when dealing with random reps.
Less than 2 weeks later, I get a call from the guy. He's super sycophantic and grovelling and begging us to come back to MacWarehouse. I guess he realized that 5 million dollars worth of combined purchases a year was a big deal after all. And so, among all the apologies and grovelling, he asked what he could do to earn my business. These were my demands:
- Get my rep on the phone in a conference call, and apologize to us both.
- Put it in writing that I could talk to her as long as I wanted. Acknowledge that I spent enough at the store that if I wanted to spend 8 hours a day on the phone with my rep, 5 days a week, it was totally fine.
- Promise I'd never hear from him or about him again.
Several months after that, I had to go do some installs in the same city that my sales rep worked out of, so we made plans to meet and have dinner. Over the course of dinner, I learned that the sales reps made commission, and that because of me, she'd had a *very* good year.
Wow! How is that not cause for termination at your place of work?
If there were no transactions then someone took the cash/drinks?
I remember the catalogs with Julie on the cover and candids of the other reps near the page numbers. I even remember an article for “What is Julie up to these days?” some time after she left the company (but was still appearing on the covers). I also felt like the level of service declined about the same time they stopped including the rep portraits in their catalogs.
—Patrick
Unfortunately, I don't remember my rep's name as it was nearly 30 years ago
I genuinely would not have been surprised if this story ended with "And then we got married."
We spent a lot of time on the phone, and eventually started talking a lot after work, too. There was some interest there, but the distance factor made it non-feasible, especially in those early days of the internet. She ended up getting married a couple of years later.
Ready to put this on the boss' desk. Any changes you think I should make first?
Pay me more or I will quit and work at Walmart for $18 an hour.
If you can handle it, if you can handle unloading a grocery truck on the night shift *which obviously woundn't be a problem for you*, look for a kroger's or similar Union store around you. I worked at family owned printing for almost 20 years before they decided to close their doors in Dec. last year. He's been working 3rd shift at Krogers for , hmmm I have to ask for certainty, 10 ish, years, his pay is around a dollar more than mine was 14.50 to his 15.??, night shift bonus of somewhere around 2-3, quartely bonuses, Union Benefits, It takes a few months I think qualify for full time status, but they needed the help, they let you work more including overtime.
I decide to get back to working again, if the VA can't help find a living wage job, I'll probably start trying to get my endurance back up. There a nice 2 mile hilly course around my neighborhood, do little core, and upper body stuff.
I decide to get back to working again, if the VA can't help find a living wage job, I'll probably start trying to get my endurance back up. There a nice 2 mile hilly course around my neighborhood, do little core, and upper body stuff.
It really needs to be on his door, with a fucking dagger through it.
Counted the drawer when I came in tonight. $15 short. Counted again and again. $15 short. I document it and assume that something might have been missed in the afternoon, like boss ordering Chinese, paying from the drawer, and forgetting to note it. It happens.
I take a cash paying guest overnight, and get the drop ready for the end of my shift later this morning. As usual, I recount the drawer to make sure it's even.
I'm $15 OVER.
NANI!?!?!?
I take a cash paying guest overnight, and get the drop ready for the end of my shift later this morning. As usual, I recount the drawer to make sure it's even.
I'm $15 OVER.
NANI!?!?!?
Two people both came by to pay back the $15 one borrowed for the other and didn't write down?
The elves paid you back with interest?
Goblins playing with your mind?
Elves or goblins the most likely.
Used to work for a different school district than I do now. My friends still work there, so not going to mention which one it is. One of my friends used to work the board meetings. He'd go in, setup the mics and speakers and any projectors or anything else needed. He also worked at the main office where the school board members all had offices.
One Christmas he had one of the board members approach him and ask why the network was running so slowly. Well, most of the kids are watching movies right now, those can take up a lot of bandwidth. The response was, "Kids? What kids?" Uhm, the schoolkids, you know the ones this district is educating? "OH! Those kids! I forgot about them!" YOU'RE ON THE SCHOOL BOARD! It is literally what your entire job is for!
Cue next board meeting: "I just want to remind everybody that we are here for the children. It's easy to forget that it's all about them."
One Christmas he had one of the board members approach him and ask why the network was running so slowly. Well, most of the kids are watching movies right now, those can take up a lot of bandwidth. The response was, "Kids? What kids?" Uhm, the schoolkids, you know the ones this district is educating? "OH! Those kids! I forgot about them!" YOU'RE ON THE SCHOOL BOARD! It is literally what your entire job is for!
Cue next board meeting: "I just want to remind everybody that we are here for the children. It's easy to forget that it's all about them."
I'm going to tell another story about the tech company I worked as a technical writer at. (Man, I seem to have a lot of stories about this place given I only worked there for like four months.)
This company produced a wide variety of products and devices. Oftentimes these products came in discrete varieties. For example, let's say they made a thing called the Gadget. This product would be divided into three variants, Standard Gadget, Deluxe Gadget, and Budget Gadget. The Deluxe version would have the most features, while the Budget version would be the most bare-bones.
When I wrote the user manuals for these products, I would always have a prototype of the device on hand so that I could play around with it and have a good idea of how it worked. This would help me write accurate descriptions in the manuals. So one day I had the three Gadgets on my desk. I played around with the Budget version, and it worked pretty much exactly how it was described in the specs provided by the engineers. However, when I played with the Standard version, it had a bunch of features enabled that were supposed to only work on the Deluxe version. Sort of like, "If you hold down this button for five seconds on the Standard version, the Gadget will play La Marseillaise, but if you hold down the button for five seconds on the Deluxe version, the Gadget will play La Marseillaise while displaying an image of the French flag." But when I held the button down on the Standard version, I was getting both the anthem and the flag.
Huh, I thought to myself, they must have changed the specs on the Standard version at the last minute, so I played around with the Gadget and determined all the things that it could do, wrote them accordingly in the manual, and then submitted it.
Not long after that, the project manager came over to me, irate. "You made a bunch of mistakes in the manual for the Standard Gadget, these features only work on the Deluxe version!"
"Nuh uh," I replied, and demonstrated to her that these features worked on the Standard Gadget.
"Huh, that's not supposed to happen," the PM said, and took the Standard Gadget prototype from me and walked away. Then around 30 minutes later, she came back and said, "Try it now."
I tried it, and the extra features no longer worked, and everything now matched what was written in the engineers' specs. "What happened?"
"The firmware for the Deluxe Gadget was loaded on the device," the PM said, "now it's correct."
And so that's how I learned that the company made basically just one version of the Gadget, with all features enabled, and all the different features were purely from the firmware disabling or throttling certain features. This meant that the cost to manufacture the Gadget was around the Budget Gadget level, but the company could drive buyers to the more-expensive Standard and Deluxe versions by withholding features on the lower-tier versions of the product.
More importantly, though, I learned that consumers could just buy the cheapest version of this company's products and then manually load the firmware for the highest-tier version, and it would probably unlock all the features of the highest-tier version. This was possible because back then if you wanted to update or re-install the firmware on your device, you had to manually download an installation file from the company's website. I mean, I never had the need to put this knowledge into practice, because I never bought any of my company's devices. But still... I wouldn't be surprised if this is a widespread practice at tech companies.
This company produced a wide variety of products and devices. Oftentimes these products came in discrete varieties. For example, let's say they made a thing called the Gadget. This product would be divided into three variants, Standard Gadget, Deluxe Gadget, and Budget Gadget. The Deluxe version would have the most features, while the Budget version would be the most bare-bones.
When I wrote the user manuals for these products, I would always have a prototype of the device on hand so that I could play around with it and have a good idea of how it worked. This would help me write accurate descriptions in the manuals. So one day I had the three Gadgets on my desk. I played around with the Budget version, and it worked pretty much exactly how it was described in the specs provided by the engineers. However, when I played with the Standard version, it had a bunch of features enabled that were supposed to only work on the Deluxe version. Sort of like, "If you hold down this button for five seconds on the Standard version, the Gadget will play La Marseillaise, but if you hold down the button for five seconds on the Deluxe version, the Gadget will play La Marseillaise while displaying an image of the French flag." But when I held the button down on the Standard version, I was getting both the anthem and the flag.
Huh, I thought to myself, they must have changed the specs on the Standard version at the last minute, so I played around with the Gadget and determined all the things that it could do, wrote them accordingly in the manual, and then submitted it.
Not long after that, the project manager came over to me, irate. "You made a bunch of mistakes in the manual for the Standard Gadget, these features only work on the Deluxe version!"
"Nuh uh," I replied, and demonstrated to her that these features worked on the Standard Gadget.
"Huh, that's not supposed to happen," the PM said, and took the Standard Gadget prototype from me and walked away. Then around 30 minutes later, she came back and said, "Try it now."
I tried it, and the extra features no longer worked, and everything now matched what was written in the engineers' specs. "What happened?"
"The firmware for the Deluxe Gadget was loaded on the device," the PM said, "now it's correct."
And so that's how I learned that the company made basically just one version of the Gadget, with all features enabled, and all the different features were purely from the firmware disabling or throttling certain features. This meant that the cost to manufacture the Gadget was around the Budget Gadget level, but the company could drive buyers to the more-expensive Standard and Deluxe versions by withholding features on the lower-tier versions of the product.
More importantly, though, I learned that consumers could just buy the cheapest version of this company's products and then manually load the firmware for the highest-tier version, and it would probably unlock all the features of the highest-tier version. This was possible because back then if you wanted to update or re-install the firmware on your device, you had to manually download an installation file from the company's website. I mean, I never had the need to put this knowledge into practice, because I never bought any of my company's devices. But still... I wouldn't be surprised if this is a widespread practice at tech companies.