[Thread Game] Stories from Work

[PatrThom]

I wouldn't be surprised if this is a widespread practice at tech companies.

If I'm lucky, I'll end up with a used but working FLIR E4 camera which I can hack into an FLIR E8 camera (hardware is the same, software limitations only) which is worth $4,000, for almost 90% off.

Not only is it in fact a widespread practice, you might be surprised at just how widespread.

It has been suggested that this is one of the reasons some companies are fighting so hard against things like DMCA exceptions and the right-to-repair movement, since it would mean manufacturers will need to differentiate their product stack via more than just software differences. Otherwise the consumer process would just shift to one of always buying the cheap model and then obtaining/flashing the more "expensive" firmware into it, which will no doubt cause that manufacturer to whine that they are being "cheated" out of their rightful profit margins.

--Patrick

 

[bhamv3]

I just realized I never told the story of how I ended up working at my current translation company.

My current company is actually one of the premier translation companies in Taiwan. It has enjoyed a good reputation over the years, and generally speaking it's done well even though this is a very competitive sector. The company also had some links with my instructors at grad school when I was studying translation and interpretation, so working here was actually always a goal of mine. Around the time I was finishing up my studies at grad school, I inquired with some alumni who were now working at this translation company, and they said there's an opening in the Chinese to English editing department, so I submitted my resume. As expected, the company asked me to do a written test, which would be followed by an in-person interview if I passed.

Unexpectedly, however, I failed the written test. I heard from my alumni friends that "Harry," the senior C2E editor at the time, said I'd made some mistakes in the test, though he didn't specify what mistakes I'd made. Oh well, I thought, apparently this company has really high standards, that's in line with what I'd heard about this company, so I gave up. I then found a job with that tech company I'd worked for as a technical writer.

A few months later I heard that Harry had left the company. I decided to apply for a position again, since they would be even more short-handed now. I didn't even get to the written test stage this time, I was immediately rejected by the company's HR person, "Imelda." Oh well, I thought, that makes sense, they probably didn't want to constantly get spammed with the same job application.

However, a few days later, "Mr. Chang," the founder, CEO, and General Manager of the company contacted me personally. He said that he's heard that I would be interested in a position in his translation company, and he'd like me to come in for an interview, skipping over the written test stage. I said sure, I came in and talked to him, he liked me and offered me a job, and I've been at this company ever since.

However, after joining up, I finally learned from certain coworkers about why it took me 3 applications to get a job here. There was actually nothing wrong with my written test, in fact I'd performed immaculately on it. My translations had been beautiful and my editing had been flawless. As a result, Harry had felt insecure and threatened by the fact that I, a Taiwanese person, could do better than he could (Harry's American). He felt his position as senior editor could be under threat, so he claimed that my written test had been under par and rejected me.

Well it turns out Mr. Chang found out about what Harry did and fired him for it. Apparently Mr. Chang did not look kindly on rejecting a potentially useful employee just for your personal ego. He told the HR person, Imelda, to contact me and ask me if I was still interested in the position, but Imelda didn't. Why? Because she was dating Harry at the time, and she didn't like that Harry had been fired. Then later on I emailed the company to ask if there was still a position for me, and Imelda immediately replied telling me no. And then Mr. Chang found out about that as well, so he fired Imelda and emailed me himself.

Some time later I had the chance to thank Mr. Chang for thinking so highly of me, and asked him why he wanted me so much. He said he'd heard about me already while I was still a grad student, since I'd already made a name for myself as a translator and interpreter, and that he was already thinking of recruiting me while I was still a student. This was why he was so angry when he found out that not only had I not been recruited, two of his employees had actively conspired to keep me out. And that he would rather fire two employees just to make sure I was part of his company.

I think what he said has, at least in part, affected the sense of loyalty I feel to this company. It's why I'm constantly working long hours with minimal complaint. It's why I can deal with bullshit clients without losing my mind. It's why, when another company came headhunting for me, I still decided to stay here. I know we're not supposed to be loyal to corporations, but this corporation has, at least in some way, shown that it considers me to be important.

 

[PatrThom]

I think what he said has, at least in part, affected the sense of loyalty I feel to this company.

I have gone on record saying that I will work far harder and endure more BS for an immediate superior I respect and admire than I ever would for some faceless company.

—Patrick

 

[Tress]

That’s a wild story. It’s like something out of a movie. I’m glad it had a happy ending!

 

[Dave]

When my dad was in hospice and dying, my bosses at Bellevue University let me basically set my own hours and shielded me from any sort of reprisal. I was VERY loyal to that organization and would have stayed there until the end. Which came when said bosses left the company and my job was eliminated.

 

[Shawn]

Spoiler: Warning: Cadaver Story

Several years ago our overnight security guard found a dead body in a car that was parked in a tiny corner of the lot. Police determined he was a suicide victim via pills, however he had a gun beside him if he deemed it necessary. Through our own investigation we found that he was a troubled math professor from the East Coast who traveled here likely to see some old friends and to end things. Based on the housekeeping report of his room at the hotel being unused for a while it was realized he had been out in that car for about 3 days before he was found, due to his obscure location in the lot.
It is unfortunate, but thankfully we've never seen anything like that again at the hotel.

 

[Dave]

So last night at my work things were...interesting. It started with the weather. You know, tornadoes & stuff. But unrelated to that there was a pipe on one of the high pressure machines that decided it no longer wanted to be one long piece and instead became two shorter pieces. The problem with this is that as I said it was a high pressure machine. So the whole place went ka-splooie. Water ruptured, sending torrents throughout the building. This started, by the way, on the top level. The bottom level was pretty much inundated.

Now, while trying to fix that, a seal ruptured on another machine. This one didn't go ka-splooie but instead released a huge amount of off-gas into the plant. This off-gas normally gets cleaned and vented to the atmosphere but since it wasn't cleaned it instead filled the whole place. With high levels of carbon monoxide. The crew had to scramble into chem suits and red-tape everything off.

So here's me this morning walking into the plant knowing NONE of this. I see the red tape on the floor by the door and think, "Huh, that's weird." and on I go. I make it to the control room and the faces of the people in there were surprised to say the least. I would say horrified was more like it. And that's how THEY found out the DANGER TAPE had blown down. Thankfully by that time the levels had diminished and I was in no danger, but still...

That's my work story.

 

[Bubble181]

See, I'd always guess that the type of people who go "huh, safety tape, ah well, I'll just step over it and carry on into this factory full of dangerous machines" wouldn't be the type to live to a ripe old age, but.... Guess that's now definitively disproven.

 

[jwhouk]

We need a YIKES! Emoji for that, @Dave.

 

[ScytheRexx]

Starting to think my new Amazon job is trying to kill me.

When it comes to working at one of the distribution centers, you don't really know what job they assign you until you get there. The last week worth of shifts though they have been increasingly putting me in difficult positions as I show up.

Can't go into a whole lot of detail, but one of the jobs involves moving packages to a shelf so that other people can prep it for the morning deliveries. The job is probably one of the more chill jobs and during a normal shift has around 3-4 people handling a section of shelves, but almost every night I have been put into a lane where they don't assign anyone else. It ends up being me handling all 14 shelves. This may not seem like much, but they are big shelves that span a good distance of length side by side along the conveyer. You often find yourself running to the back shelves only to find out ten boxes that need to go on the first shelf are now half way down the conveyer. There have even been nights where I am the only lane that is soloing, all the others have two or more people. They never come assign anyone else to my lane.

Then last night, out of the blue, they assigned me to the hardest job in the entire warehouse, the diverter. Be aware, the normal job I do that night had THREE PEOPLE PER LANE, it would have been a nice relaxing work day with that much help had they put me in my usual position, but instead I had to divert a constant stream of packages for multiple hours straight all by myself. Felt like I wanted to die by the time my shift ended.

Either I am working so well that they think I can handle these jobs with no help, and thus put me into them for that reason, or one of the managers hates my guts and is trying to break me down. Don't really know which.

 

[DarkAudit]

The person I was supposed to relieve at the desk last night apparently walked out about an hour before I showed up. And was a no-call no-show today. So I'm in about 2-1/2 hours early tonight, and am prepared to miss my one night off of the week on Thursday if necessary.

So it goes, I guess. To be brutally honest, that person had no business at the front desk in the first place. And so once again, someone else's drama is my profit. If I work Thursday, that OT alone can buy a new motherboard for me to drop the 5800X into.

 

[DarkAudit]

I don't recognize your car. You're sus.

I don't recognize you. You're sus.

I recognize your dog. Carry on, honored guest.

 

[Shawn]

Dumbass tonight parks in the temporary parking and is going up to his room. I inform him that it is temporary parking and max of only 10 minutes. He says ok and thirty minutes later I have to call him. He says 10 more minutes. 30 minutes later I call him again and he swears he's coming down to move his car.
Guy comes to the desk and gets angry with me because he doesn't understand why he can't park his car there if there is no one else parked there.
No one is parked there because it's not for overnight parking, you dumb fuck.

 

[General Specific]

So I haven't told a story in a while. I think I will go with one I call "The Loop." I think I've told this before in other threads, but figured I rehash it here as well.

This is back to my call center days. I was taking calls from various stores and I get one call for a register that is down. More specifically the UPS that it is plugged into is beeping. This means it either has no power or the battery is bad. Standard procedure is to verify it was plugged in, the restart it, etc. So, I start by having them check the power cable. They find it and tell me that it is plugged into a power strip. Not a good sign. Why is it in the power strip and not into the wall? Well, turns out this is an older store and there are no outlets nearby, so they had to stretch some things over. Okay, probably should have the power strip plugged into the UPS and not the other way around, but we can fix that in a little bit. What is that power strip plugged into? Another power strip. Super, great, just the answer I really wanted to hear. Pray tell, what is this second power strip plugged into? Why a THIRD power strip? The hell you say!

By the way, do any of these strips have power? No? Well, we must be on our way to finding out what is wrong! Please continue! What is the third power strip plugging into? The UPS. A second UPS further down the line? NO! Of course not, otherwise why would I call this story what I did? It was the same UPS at the start, you know, the one that was beeping because it didn't have any power! They performed a loop!

I get them to check around under the counter and they find a power outlet within easy reach of the first power strip. I get them to wire it up so the UPS is into the wall and then only 1 strip over to plug the register in. Still not great, but a damn sight better than the other way around and the UPS is now happy and the register is working.

 

[Yoshimickster]

My sunday started out great, went to pick up an order at the 11th and Chestnut Taco Bell, a BEAUTIFUL store known for violence, where OF COURSE-a homeless man assaults me for no reason, struck me in the head and right hand. While I was waiting for the cops, I notice that my right ear-bud was missing from my headset. Looked around for like an hour, but couldn't find it.

Hours later, frustrated that I was given an order that was all ready taken, I said fuck it and went to see Spider-man again. At the end of the film, I noticed a sharp pain in my right ear, which at the time I thought was hard wax.

After a day of ignoring it, and using peroxide to try and loosen it, I finally got frustrated and used a toothpick to dislodge...my missing earbud, which was stuck in there for TWO days from when the homeless guy hit me in the face. Tip your delivery folks people, we deal with a lot of bull shit.

 

[Dave]

When I was 17 in between high school and the Marine Corps, I lived with my aunt & uncle and worked at a place called First Data Resources in Omaha. I was a late night call center guy who handled actual call in issues with credit cards. Yes, this was very long ago. It was me and about 10 older ladies. Of course, back then older was relative and they were probably late 20's early 30's but that's neither here nor there.

We started getting phone calls from a guy we called "Dirty Ernie". He would do the most stereotypical shit like breathing heavily into the phone or whispering creepy things to the women. They'd either just hang up or send it to the manager's phone. So the girls and I were talking one night and they all realized that I was completely game for fucking with this guy. That night when he called (which he did almost every night once he realized he had a captive audience) they silently transferred him to my phone. He was already in mid form when I picked up. I listened for a bit and then he whispered in the most movie-like creepy voice, "I'm dripping!" To which I responded, "Really? Me, too!" He promptly hung up.

Several nights in a row he called and each time they'd transfer him to me. I'd listen for a bit and then make a comment. He'd hang up. Finally he said to one of the girls, "And don't transfer me to that guy!" She's like, "Aw! Why don't you want to talk to Dave?" His amazingly self-aware answer was, "I'm a pervert, not gay!"

After that he moved on, probably realizing that he was always going to get me. Of course, it was only a month or two after that I left the job for good and went into the Marines, but poor, perverted, lonely Dirty Ernie didn't know that.

 

[Tinwhistler]

When I was in high school, I would call and talk dirty to a local doctor's office after-hours call in service.

But, it may or may not have been because their phone system was touchy and didn't handle transfers gracefully--after they hung up on me, I was still in their system, could dial 9, and then make long distance calls to out-of-state BBSes. But I did feel bad for the ladies.