We are working today solely because management doesn't want to give us a four day weekend (which they'd only be paying us for one day of anyway), so we're in here doing basically fuck all because we're out of shit to run.
We do have management in here on a Saturday for the first time since I've started working here. They're doing inventory, which is normally done in December when we're not running, because Korea is breathing down the front office's neck about where the fuck is all their money at. It's going to probably be worse when our sister shitshow of a plant across town has their inventory tomorrow, and heads will likely roll when the plant in Arkansas does theirs Monday.
it still baffles the fuck out of me that people can mismanage something this badly
cutting corners and shit doesn't even save money
letting machines fall into disrepair because you want to save a few thousand in repair costs ends up costing 10 times as much
it's like fucking bizarro world out there
The only people I've encountered with this management style were all farmers who narrowly lived through the Great Depression during their formative years.
They'd spend a hundred dollars on duct tape and JB weld so they could spend countless hours keeping a piece of equipment limping along at half capacity for years, but they would never imagine spending ten bucks on a proper replacement part that would get it back up to full capacity immediately and for the indefinite future. The bottom fell out of scrap prices in the 50s, so they'd let everything rust to pieces on a hill instead of getting what money they could, because like hell they're going to take a raw deal. They'd lose money on dryland wheat ten years in a row, and when they got a bumper crop that almost paid for ten years worth of seed money, they'd push all their chips right back on dryland wheat.
The only reason I don't think they're running Koro's plant is because they all died in the early '90s from unfiltered cigarettes and hoarded DDT.
Their kids likely kept the traditions going though.
"Pappy always taught me to save a buck even if it meant a lot of work! This is the kind of American work ethic the Millennials are killing with their safety requirements and working equipment!"
Their kids who went to business school call it "Lean Six Sigma" now. Because you can cut a body down the bone and the skeleton still holds together briefly, showing that all the skin and muscle were waste!
This is the closest approximation I can give for AJ & I's relationship.
I would have thought you'd be Charlie and AJ would be Fat Mac?
i don't care how old this post is
i'm still offended by how big of a swing and a miss it was
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TonkkaSome one in the club tonightHas stolen my ideas.Registered Userregular
Well, so much for this group of ~20 coming in at 4 and saving my shift from being a total disaster. The first 2 showed up at 4:15, 2 more about 10 minutes later. I am off in 40 minutes and there's just no way that I will be receiving enough orders in that time span to make any money today.
Unless the rest of them show up in a party, that is. Right now.
Well, so much for this group of ~20 coming in at 4 and saving my shift from being a total disaster. The first 2 showed up at 4:15, 2 more about 10 minutes later. I am off in 40 minutes and there's just no way that I will be receiving enough orders in that time span to make any money today.
Unless the rest of them show up in a party, that is. Right now.
My workplace is supposedly 5S, but it's been implemented in such a quarter-assed way, and management directs us to ignore it so often in the name of keeping production up that it's little more than a joke that gets brought up in meetings when they want to bitch about how dirty our permanently dusty and filthy plant is.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
Thanks to chronic attendance problems stemming from rock bottom moraleas well as the impending loss of personnel when this Samsung plant opens next door, management is now offering double the standard bonus and half a sick day back if you make perfect attendance for the month. If your sick days are maxed out, you get 1.5x the new perfect attendance bonus.
I just write "I am awesome" for literally everything but the attendance.
Why the fuck wouldn't I? It's obviously a sham to do self reviews, I'm not going to fuck myself over and give my boss more ammunition to "belittle" me.
If they want me to be honest, let me be honest on how awful self reviews actually are and make them worthless to my boss.
I always wrote "I am awesome" on any kind of self-review my employer would give me. Eventually they learned and stopped giving them to me.
I'm still pretty awesome though.
I'm sorry Mr. Sorce.
I'd like to believe you but I just don't seem to be able to find the paperwork to corroporate this supposed 'Awesome'ness.
You did fill out your 503-5/D self review form and file it in the maner directed on the back, correct?
My workplace is supposedly 5S, but it's been implemented in such a quarter-assed way, and management directs us to ignore it so often in the name of keeping production up that it's little more than a joke that gets brought up in meetings when they want to bitch about how dirty our permanently dusty and filthy plant is.
What, do they paint over the dust and dirt? :rotate:
Am I wrong for wanting to get out of my car and slap the couple I observed walking their dog off-leash in the middle of a poorly lit neighborhood during Americas explosion celebration?
I wish I could post pics of patients to scare people into wearing the proper gear on their motorcycles. Just take my word for it though, head to toe road rash is not fun at all.
My workplace is supposedly 5S, but it's been implemented in such a quarter-assed way, and management directs us to ignore it so often in the name of keeping production up that it's little more than a joke that gets brought up in meetings when they want to bitch about how dirty our permanently dusty and filthy plant is.
What, do they paint over the dust and dirt? :rotate:
You joke, but yes. Machines are given a dusting and then get painted, but it takes less than ten minutes for another visible layer of dust to settle back on it, so you end up painting over a thin layer of dust all the time.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
I quit my job! Had been there since April 2015, so gave a month's notice and had my last day on Thursday. The job was fairly terrible but there were good people there and it's done wonders for my confidence as a valuable employee. I'm planning on taking a couple of months to think about what I'd really like to do as a career and work towards that.
In the deep south, there is no such thing as a wrong time to set off fireworks, apparently. They've been going off here off and on since churches let out an hour ago.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
What, do they paint over the dust and dirt? :rotate:
You joke, but yes. Machines are given a dusting and then get painted, but it takes less than ten minutes for another visible layer of dust to settle back on it, so you end up painting over a thin layer of dust all the time.
To be honest, I'm always a little worried when I see you post in this thread. When you think 'surely it's as bad as it can get'...nope, there's always another layer in the onion of sadness.
I think you actually work at some sort of dystopian experiment.
Oh, come and shake me 'till I'm dry
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
isn't six sigma just for decreasing the probability of defects or problems in the product?
oh yea, I was thinking of 6S (or 5S, depending on where you work).
That works fine for a facility that does only one thing in it's entire space.
I can think of maybe.....one warehouse job I work in 10+ years that did only one thing.
Well the core of it is cleaning up and putting stuff back where it is supposed to go, and designating those areas. It should work pretty much anywhere. Like Korodullin says though, it can be pretty poorly implemented!
In my last place where we had some production lines that could change output on a daily/weekly basis we actually had a central tool board area that held the tools for each project, and depending on what that line was running that day the operators went and checked out that set of tools. It worked pretty well! The tools stayed super organized and the lines weren't a cluttered mess.
It was one of the cleanest, tidiest places I've ever worked, and also one of the places that had the least amount of "Wheres my tools/parts/documents". It was always a balancing act between 6S and production though. Too much production and not enough 6S and production and quality starts to suffer from the disorganization, too much 6S and it starts looking bureaucratic, with too many forms and processes. There is a fine line to strike and it takes a really good shop manager to walk it.
Well the core of it is cleaning up and putting stuff back where it is supposed to go, and designating those areas. It should work pretty much anywhere. Like Korodullin says though, it can be pretty poorly implemented!
Close. There is nothing overtly wrong with what you said but it is missing a big part of what is supposed to make 5S useful. Tools are tidy and put in there place. "Their place" is where you fucking use them. So if once every shift you need a 15/16th wrench to adjust this nut then a 15/16ths wrench should be within an arm's reach of that nut and it should stay there. Sure, you end up with more tools than the minimum but you also don't have people wandering around instead of making production all for want of fuck dollar wrench.
I know one of our 5S "implementations" at work was to make sure the brooms were all nice and centrally located, as far as possible from where they are actually used.
There is other stuff that requires management to actually do things, like encouraging a sense of ownership in your work area but they routinely fuck those up as well.
I took each shop (plastic, wood, composite), and broke them up into the various processes. For instance, plastic had three areas: raw material for part blanks, shaping, and metalwork. Each area had every tool it needed in a central shelving unit, with a bin for extra consumables (bits/blades). So a guy could just set up in one area, didn't have to walk anywhere to get his tools, and could just load up a cart with what he produced and wheel it over to the next stage.
It worked pretty well. Getting the boss to buy in on picking up extra jigsaws and such was a struggle, as is all purchasing forever.
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JedocIn the scupperswith the staggers and jagsRegistered Userregular
What, do they paint over the dust and dirt? :rotate:
You joke, but yes. Machines are given a dusting and then get painted, but it takes less than ten minutes for another visible layer of dust to settle back on it, so you end up painting over a thin layer of dust all the time.
To be honest, I'm always a little worried when I see you post in this thread. When you think 'surely it's as bad as it can get'...nope, there's always another layer in the onion of sadness.
I think you actually work at some sort of dystopian experiment.
What, do they paint over the dust and dirt? :rotate:
You joke, but yes. Machines are given a dusting and then get painted, but it takes less than ten minutes for another visible layer of dust to settle back on it, so you end up painting over a thin layer of dust all the time.
To be honest, I'm always a little worried when I see you post in this thread. When you think 'surely it's as bad as it can get'...nope, there's always another layer in the onion of sadness.
I think you actually work at some sort of dystopian experiment.
To be fair, some of the Vaults actually did protect their inhabitants so Vault-Tec is already ahead of the curve compared to Koro's employers.
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thatassemblyguyJanitor of Technical Debt.Registered Userregular
I've had this in my drafts for the past week and change, so in honor of both Canadia Day and 'Murica Day...
How well developed is your professional network? (this is useful not just for finding other places to work, but it's likely that someone without a vested interest will have an idea of how the work culture is at a perspective employer).
Nonexistent.
Setting aside if you'll be staying in the industry or not, reaching out to former coworkers that have left the company is a pretty solid idea. Of the ones that you liked and had a good working relationship with, if they left contact information when they left the company, when you have time send a quick e-mail or text. Ask how they're doing, and if they want to get lunch or go to happy hour sometime. You don't have to be their BFF, but staying friendly with folks is always a good idea.
I'm really bad about keeping up with this due to getting into the habit of the daily grind, personally, so I understand how it can be a thing that doesn't flow easy. The habit is pretty important in pretty much any industry though, so even if you switch to the trades, it'd be worth investing in developing a way that works for you to reach out and engage with professional folks.
It's actually really normal. Outside of SJC, I don't see a lot of job hopping in the industry. I'm not sure what the eastern coast market looks like though (folks I work with have been with the company for ever and there doesn't seem to be any reduction in team sizes other than if the functionality is moved to SJC or abroad).
Couple the sense of comfort we can get from having a steady paycheck, with the daily-grind and a constant brain fog, and you've got a recipe for not even considering if you should be out there interviewing. Personally, I have to work against the complacent funk that I get into sometimes and force myself every so often to submit a resume, or accept an invitation from a head-hunter/recruiter.
To nip a very common feeling in the bud, don't feel bad going to an interview at a place that you're not super excited about. Some people (usually HR or hiring managers) will try to shame folks for "wasting time" if they weren't "really interested in the position to begin with", but that's just a really toxic notion from the hiring-side folk to remove one of our negotiation levers. To them, having an ideal candidate that needs to be convinced to jump ship is really bad news because that means they're going to have to open up their pocket book and pay more cash for the employee.
Interview Prep
I'm sure you've been reading up on interview preparation, so I won't go into too much detail here:
Additionally, try to find a group of folks (either in person, or internet folk you trust via skype) to run 'practice' interviews. As we all know, there is a gap between theory and reality, and the only way to bridge that gap is by doing. Having a practice interview with, and receiving feedback from, people you trust and respect can help you be more centered and less anxious come a real interview (not gonna completely eliminate the anxiety but it can help). Being centered and less anxious helps you present as more confident.
[Please imagine I wasn't a lazy goose and I actually inserted bird-sock-interview.gif here]
Career Growth
Even if you don't believe it right now, you've amassed a large amount of knowledge and skills. It sounds like, however, that your current work place/environment has unintentionally undercut your confidence in your capabilities(maybe?), or at the very least amplified the impostor syndrome.
You have a treasure trove of lessons learned, and experience.
things are so disorganized here from a project management perspective that I don't feel like I've learned much other than how to deal with our own idiosyncratic codebase.
I've been helping prop up, maintain, refactor, and sometimes add new functionality to the software platform that is this company's product.
For reals y'all, knowing what doesn't work is just as valuable as knowing what does work. Sure, you might not have actually had a title of Technical Lead or Architect (or maybe you have: I'm making assumptions for sake of the point), but at this point in your career, even if you're just doing maintenance work, it's highly likely you can do those roles, especially if you are good at mapping different-but-related things together - like, the processes you've used at your job might be different than processes at other companies, but they're likely related in ways that allows you to weigh in at a new job on how to improve things.
Combine this with the fact that you actually know what does work, and have a strong sense of how things should work (i saw that post earlier this week, but I'm gonna be lazy goose again and not dig it back up)
I'm... honestly not sure how to answer this. I've been helping prop up, maintain, refactor, and sometimes add new functionality to the software platform that is this company's product. Sometimes one or more of those things generates a big enough task to call a "project," but I don't know if that's what you mean by the term.
A better way to ask what I was trying to find out, knowing now that it is basically an e-commerce site, was if you were given the opportunity get to move up-and-down the stack? Or were you pidgeon holed into a specific area? Were you given flexibilty to investigate new technologies (i.e., 'hey we're using django, but maybe we should think about trying some of this node.js stuffs')?
I guess I alias product and project together in my mind since my career so far has been in providing embedded software for things. Maintaining, propping-up, and even refactoring are what I consider subsets of a project life-cycle. Depending on the complexity, new functionality can be considered a project in and of itself (evolutionary changes vs. revolutionary architecture and design changes).
The TL;DR of this section was meant to converge on this point: We have to be able to scratch our engineering/science/tinkerer itch to maintain satisfaction with our jobs, and being stuck "solving" the same thing for 7 years can be a huge factor in not being happy with the work. It sounds like, maybe, you weren't being offered sufficient challenges within a healthy work environment.
No firm deadlines (or sometimes unmeetable deadlines, which are the same thing really). That and butt-in-seat makes me feel like it doesn't matter how much or how little I get done in a day; there will be exactly the same amount of work waiting for me the next day whether I knock out eight hours of productivity or just fritter that time away on reddit. Nothing is ever "done" regardless.
Have you done any contracting/consulting work on the side?
No. I don't feel qualified. I'm sure part of that is impostor syndrome; but also, things are so disorganized here from a project management perspective that I don't feel like I've learned much other than how to deal with our own idiosyncratic codebase.
We've also spent a lot of time in the past couple of years working on various projects that are 1) difficult to impossible to implement as planned, and 2) never actually used by the people who requested them, because by the time they're done the decision makers have moved onto the next shiny thing and forgotten all about the last thing they asked for.
I think you know, but I will explicitly point out, that these are signs of an unhealthy work environment. Even in a place that has continuous delivery, features should be always following a lifecycle that allows developers to challenge themselves with new opportunities, see the impact of their work products, and even spend time "owning" their products (maintenance..).
A healthy work environment (as mentioned in the previous section) will be able to challenge people and provide them with a buffer-zone that allows for risks to be taken when attempting to tackle the challenges. Any place that has a culture of punishing engineers or developers for trying an experimental approach to solving a problem is an unhealthy place to work.
Sometimes a really good project manager can overcome incompetence in upper management, but if the captain is steering the ship directly into the iceberg, there isn't much anyone else on the ship can do to stop it (for the peanut gallery: please just go along with the metaphore, all y'all know what I'm trying to say here). A good lesson learned to take away from this experience: Always be looking at how upper management is communicating their product roadmaps. If you don't get any waterfall communication from your manager about what the company plans to be doing ~2-3 years out (5 years is always fairy tails and unicorn-rainbow-farts), and if the 2-3 year road map doesn't make sense, it's time to be looking for the exit door.
Does doing gym/physical activity in the middle of the day (before or after lunch), and then coming back to work, work for you?/Was it allowed on a consistent basis?
It's not disallowed, I guess, but the only physical activity I've ever seen anyone do during the workday was walk some laps around the building. I live and work in suburbia; travel to and from a gym eats up most of an hour by itself. Regardless, there's no reason I couldn't take a walk every day; that's something I need to be more aware of.
So this is kind of what I was getting at, to some degree, I think if you found a place that was cool with you taking off in the middle of the day for 2-3 hours (not just 1 for lunch), you'd be able to do a thing (like Gym or nature walk) to take a break and come back and work the rest of the afternoon/evening. Places with "core hours" are blights in my opinion, but they are common, so that's a strike against you not going to the trades...
Usually twice a year. I've been spending a week with my family at Christmas, and then taking a more substantial chunk of time off for a vacation with friends or family elsewhere in the year. That's how it's worked out for the past few years, anyway.
This is about average then. I was worried that you weren't able to take any time off, or only at the end of the year. You've got more seniority now, though, so you could try negotiating extra vacation, or find a place with 'unlimited' vacation (but hopefully you don't have a horrible manager because then.. ugh)
Oof. Um. Learning? Being part of a community. Spending time outdoors. Creating. Having time and freedom to do that.
I added this for some completeness, but I really can't think of any value I can add right now with these. I'll keep noodling a bit on some of this because it's stuff that I actively try and fit into my life too, but so far, out side of creating (software/robuts) stuff, I don't feel like I've been very successful in fitting the rest into my life along side of work.
I want to do something useful, to help (try to) fix systemic/collective action problems like global warming, social inequality, etc. I know that's super vague. Right now I indirectly help companies sell luxury goods and construction equipment.
I'm picking up what you're laying down here. It's not enough to be like, 'Yeah, you know how your refrigerator tweets at you when the ice maker has made more ice? Yeah, totes did that." Being able to feel like you're improving the lives of many, or saving future generations from a lifetime of hardship, with the work you put in on a day-to-day basis is a really good motivator. I think trying to find good opportunities to assist, or make a living, in these spaces requires some time to build up a network of people doing the same thing. I'll try to keep my ear open and pass along any information I stumble upon, but for now, I again fail at being able to provide value for this section.
Funny thing: I actually used to be really interested in financial independence. I literally forgot about it as I became more focused on surviving the day-to-day stresses of working.
Like I said, brain fog.
If you need to talk about or get back into the swing of this, there is a Financial thread in D&D.
Generally, though, a good tactic that I use to combat the brain fuzzies when it comes to some long-term goals, is by setting a recurring reminder in my personal calendar for every 3 months or so to review various things. When the reminder comes up, I try to then block-out a weekend to sit down and review my FI plans, and other personal projects. Sometimes this is depressing, but a lot of times it reinvigorates me to try and push forward with things I had been letting slide.
Not sure if it'll work for you and your situation, but I figure I'd throw it out there in case you might get some value from it.
As a last thought, one thing that dawned on me the other day, was that if you land on the decision to change careers, I'd offer this additional thought: Wait. Currently, the economy is doing really really well. If you have to go back to two or three year trade school, you'd be missing out on the 'boom' years of right now, and likely end up graduating right when a new recession hits. Make some more hay while the sun is still shining right now, even if it doesn't match your ideal path, and then once things start hitting the fan in a few years, make the transition to trade school, and hopefully by the time you're ready to enter the market, things will be recovering, so you'll be in a great position to capture a lot of opportunities.
Again, personally, I hope that you can find a groove in the software industry that keeps you here because I hate losing good folks to bad environments. However, at the end of the day, I hope things can improve for you, what ever that means for your career path.
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
I took each shop (plastic, wood, composite), and broke them up into the various processes. For instance, plastic had three areas: raw material for part blanks, shaping, and metalwork. Each area had every tool it needed in a central shelving unit, with a bin for extra consumables (bits/blades). So a guy could just set up in one area, didn't have to walk anywhere to get his tools, and could just load up a cart with what he produced and wheel it over to the next stage.
It worked pretty well. Getting the boss to buy in on picking up extra jigsaws and such was a struggle, as is all purchasing forever.
I had a manager at one point start denying tool buys for whatever budgetary reason, but also want to ding the owners of the areas for not having all the tools they needed on their 6S scores. It was just like "Dude, what the fuck".
One of the biggest problem with all these implementations, especially the larger the company, is having an unbroken chain of management that are all behind the core concepts and willing to work to accomplish them. It only takes one person in the chain to tank the entire thing. That's were all these horror stories come from. It's enough to make a person cynical.
I have been able to take a lot of core concepts from 6S home though, and it can make for a well organized and efficient home.
MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
The hospital system where I work is trying to implement Lean 6S for some reason, and it doesn't work. All it ends up doing in a hospital setting is take away stuff that we need and leave us scrambling for supplies whenever things get busy, and we always get busy. It's idiotic.
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
:bro:
Whenever I hear something like that is I imagine some manager somewhere heard about lean and 6S and took away from it that they can cut the budget to the bone and they are being progressive. It really pisses me off. Busy times should be taken into account when implementing lean, especially hospitals where there are seasonal upswings like flu season. It just screams of a knee jerk reaction to some trend.
*also worked in a hospital that did a piss poor lean/6s implementation*
MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
Apparently, not being profitable enough.
Which makes no sense because it's a nonprofit hospital system.
Don't ask me; not only did I not get a business degree, but if I had my mom would've disowned me because she detests business school bullshit. Like, murder wouldn't be an instantly disownable offense, because maybe I had a really good reason for it, but there's no reason for me to learn buzzwords that end up hurting people to line my own pockets or even worse, some oligarch's pockets while I'm their disposable lackey.
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
.you don't know hell until you've been a patient in a hospital that is trying to cut costs
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
What, do they paint over the dust and dirt? :rotate:
You joke, but yes. Machines are given a dusting and then get painted, but it takes less than ten minutes for another visible layer of dust to settle back on it, so you end up painting over a thin layer of dust all the time.
To be honest, I'm always a little worried when I see you post in this thread. When you think 'surely it's as bad as it can get'...nope, there's always another layer in the onion of sadness.
I think you actually work at some sort of dystopian experiment.
Seriously. Korodullin, are you sure you aren't actually a character in a Kafka novel?
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
What, do they paint over the dust and dirt? :rotate:
You joke, but yes. Machines are given a dusting and then get painted, but it takes less than ten minutes for another visible layer of dust to settle back on it, so you end up painting over a thin layer of dust all the time.
To be honest, I'm always a little worried when I see you post in this thread. When you think 'surely it's as bad as it can get'...nope, there's always another layer in the onion of sadness.
I think you actually work at some sort of dystopian experiment.
Seriously. Korodullin, are you sure you aren't actually a character in a Kafka novel?
In a shocking twist, his manager is actually Kefka.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
Posts
Their kids who went to business school call it "Lean Six Sigma" now. Because you can cut a body down the bone and the skeleton still holds together briefly, showing that all the skin and muscle were waste!
The term makes me roll my eyes.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
i don't care how old this post is
i'm still offended by how big of a swing and a miss it was
Unless the rest of them show up in a party, that is. Right now.
I've been practising that.
Update: these people suck super hard.
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
oh yea, I was thinking of 6S (or 5S, depending on where you work).
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
That works fine for a facility that does only one thing in it's entire space.
I can think of maybe.....one warehouse job I work in 10+ years that did only one thing.
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
That might be the single funniest/horribly ironic thing to know about your workplace
I'm sorry Mr. Sorce.
I'd like to believe you but I just don't seem to be able to find the paperwork to corroporate this supposed 'Awesome'ness.
You did fill out your 503-5/D self review form and file it in the maner directed on the back, correct?
.
Island. Being on fire.
What, do they paint over the dust and dirt? :rotate:
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
Here, too.
You joke, but yes. Machines are given a dusting and then get painted, but it takes less than ten minutes for another visible layer of dust to settle back on it, so you end up painting over a thin layer of dust all the time.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
I think you actually work at some sort of dystopian experiment.
Well the core of it is cleaning up and putting stuff back where it is supposed to go, and designating those areas. It should work pretty much anywhere. Like Korodullin says though, it can be pretty poorly implemented!
In my last place where we had some production lines that could change output on a daily/weekly basis we actually had a central tool board area that held the tools for each project, and depending on what that line was running that day the operators went and checked out that set of tools. It worked pretty well! The tools stayed super organized and the lines weren't a cluttered mess.
It was one of the cleanest, tidiest places I've ever worked, and also one of the places that had the least amount of "Wheres my tools/parts/documents". It was always a balancing act between 6S and production though. Too much production and not enough 6S and production and quality starts to suffer from the disorganization, too much 6S and it starts looking bureaucratic, with too many forms and processes. There is a fine line to strike and it takes a really good shop manager to walk it.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Close. There is nothing overtly wrong with what you said but it is missing a big part of what is supposed to make 5S useful. Tools are tidy and put in there place. "Their place" is where you fucking use them. So if once every shift you need a 15/16th wrench to adjust this nut then a 15/16ths wrench should be within an arm's reach of that nut and it should stay there. Sure, you end up with more tools than the minimum but you also don't have people wandering around instead of making production all for want of fuck dollar wrench.
I know one of our 5S "implementations" at work was to make sure the brooms were all nice and centrally located, as far as possible from where they are actually used.
There is other stuff that requires management to actually do things, like encouraging a sense of ownership in your work area but they routinely fuck those up as well.
Edit: Five dollar wrench. Heh.
I took each shop (plastic, wood, composite), and broke them up into the various processes. For instance, plastic had three areas: raw material for part blanks, shaping, and metalwork. Each area had every tool it needed in a central shelving unit, with a bin for extra consumables (bits/blades). So a guy could just set up in one area, didn't have to walk anywhere to get his tools, and could just load up a cart with what he produced and wheel it over to the next stage.
It worked pretty well. Getting the boss to buy in on picking up extra jigsaws and such was a struggle, as is all purchasing forever.
To be fair, some of the Vaults actually did protect their inhabitants so Vault-Tec is already ahead of the curve compared to Koro's employers.
Continuing from the Big Post™.
Re-organized somethings here because there is a post size limit, and spoilered because, as you mention, it's a bit large.
Setting aside if you'll be staying in the industry or not, reaching out to former coworkers that have left the company is a pretty solid idea. Of the ones that you liked and had a good working relationship with, if they left contact information when they left the company, when you have time send a quick e-mail or text. Ask how they're doing, and if they want to get lunch or go to happy hour sometime. You don't have to be their BFF, but staying friendly with folks is always a good idea.
I'm really bad about keeping up with this due to getting into the habit of the daily grind, personally, so I understand how it can be a thing that doesn't flow easy. The habit is pretty important in pretty much any industry though, so even if you switch to the trades, it'd be worth investing in developing a way that works for you to reach out and engage with professional folks.
It's actually really normal. Outside of SJC, I don't see a lot of job hopping in the industry. I'm not sure what the eastern coast market looks like though (folks I work with have been with the company for ever and there doesn't seem to be any reduction in team sizes other than if the functionality is moved to SJC or abroad).
Couple the sense of comfort we can get from having a steady paycheck, with the daily-grind and a constant brain fog, and you've got a recipe for not even considering if you should be out there interviewing. Personally, I have to work against the complacent funk that I get into sometimes and force myself every so often to submit a resume, or accept an invitation from a head-hunter/recruiter.
To nip a very common feeling in the bud, don't feel bad going to an interview at a place that you're not super excited about. Some people (usually HR or hiring managers) will try to shame folks for "wasting time" if they weren't "really interested in the position to begin with", but that's just a really toxic notion from the hiring-side folk to remove one of our negotiation levers. To them, having an ideal candidate that needs to be convinced to jump ship is really bad news because that means they're going to have to open up their pocket book and pay more cash for the employee.
I'm sure you've been reading up on interview preparation, so I won't go into too much detail here:
Jedoc's poast (https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/37808210#Comment_37808210) is a great start.
Additionally, try to find a group of folks (either in person, or internet folk you trust via skype) to run 'practice' interviews. As we all know, there is a gap between theory and reality, and the only way to bridge that gap is by doing. Having a practice interview with, and receiving feedback from, people you trust and respect can help you be more centered and less anxious come a real interview (not gonna completely eliminate the anxiety but it can help). Being centered and less anxious helps you present as more confident.
[Please imagine I wasn't a lazy goose and I actually inserted bird-sock-interview.gif here]
Even if you don't believe it right now, you've amassed a large amount of knowledge and skills. It sounds like, however, that your current work place/environment has unintentionally undercut your confidence in your capabilities(maybe?), or at the very least amplified the impostor syndrome.
For reals y'all, knowing what doesn't work is just as valuable as knowing what does work. Sure, you might not have actually had a title of Technical Lead or Architect (or maybe you have: I'm making assumptions for sake of the point), but at this point in your career, even if you're just doing maintenance work, it's highly likely you can do those roles, especially if you are good at mapping different-but-related things together - like, the processes you've used at your job might be different than processes at other companies, but they're likely related in ways that allows you to weigh in at a new job on how to improve things.
Combine this with the fact that you actually know what does work, and have a strong sense of how things should work (i saw that post earlier this week, but I'm gonna be lazy goose again and not dig it back up)
A better way to ask what I was trying to find out, knowing now that it is basically an e-commerce site, was if you were given the opportunity get to move up-and-down the stack? Or were you pidgeon holed into a specific area? Were you given flexibilty to investigate new technologies (i.e., 'hey we're using django, but maybe we should think about trying some of this node.js stuffs')?
I guess I alias product and project together in my mind since my career so far has been in providing embedded software for things. Maintaining, propping-up, and even refactoring are what I consider subsets of a project life-cycle. Depending on the complexity, new functionality can be considered a project in and of itself (evolutionary changes vs. revolutionary architecture and design changes).
The TL;DR of this section was meant to converge on this point: We have to be able to scratch our engineering/science/tinkerer itch to maintain satisfaction with our jobs, and being stuck "solving" the same thing for 7 years can be a huge factor in not being happy with the work. It sounds like, maybe, you weren't being offered sufficient challenges within a healthy work environment.
I think you know, but I will explicitly point out, that these are signs of an unhealthy work environment. Even in a place that has continuous delivery, features should be always following a lifecycle that allows developers to challenge themselves with new opportunities, see the impact of their work products, and even spend time "owning" their products (maintenance..).
A healthy work environment (as mentioned in the previous section) will be able to challenge people and provide them with a buffer-zone that allows for risks to be taken when attempting to tackle the challenges. Any place that has a culture of punishing engineers or developers for trying an experimental approach to solving a problem is an unhealthy place to work.
Sometimes a really good project manager can overcome incompetence in upper management, but if the captain is steering the ship directly into the iceberg, there isn't much anyone else on the ship can do to stop it (for the peanut gallery: please just go along with the metaphore, all y'all know what I'm trying to say here). A good lesson learned to take away from this experience: Always be looking at how upper management is communicating their product roadmaps. If you don't get any waterfall communication from your manager about what the company plans to be doing ~2-3 years out (5 years is always fairy tails and unicorn-rainbow-farts), and if the 2-3 year road map doesn't make sense, it's time to be looking for the exit door.
So this is kind of what I was getting at, to some degree, I think if you found a place that was cool with you taking off in the middle of the day for 2-3 hours (not just 1 for lunch), you'd be able to do a thing (like Gym or nature walk) to take a break and come back and work the rest of the afternoon/evening. Places with "core hours" are blights in my opinion, but they are common, so that's a strike against you not going to the trades...
This is about average then. I was worried that you weren't able to take any time off, or only at the end of the year. You've got more seniority now, though, so you could try negotiating extra vacation, or find a place with 'unlimited' vacation (but hopefully you don't have a horrible manager because then.. ugh)
I added this for some completeness, but I really can't think of any value I can add right now with these. I'll keep noodling a bit on some of this because it's stuff that I actively try and fit into my life too, but so far, out side of creating (software/robuts) stuff, I don't feel like I've been very successful in fitting the rest into my life along side of work.
I'm picking up what you're laying down here. It's not enough to be like, 'Yeah, you know how your refrigerator tweets at you when the ice maker has made more ice? Yeah, totes did that." Being able to feel like you're improving the lives of many, or saving future generations from a lifetime of hardship, with the work you put in on a day-to-day basis is a really good motivator. I think trying to find good opportunities to assist, or make a living, in these spaces requires some time to build up a network of people doing the same thing. I'll try to keep my ear open and pass along any information I stumble upon, but for now, I again fail at being able to provide value for this section.
If you need to talk about or get back into the swing of this, there is a Financial thread in D&D.
Generally, though, a good tactic that I use to combat the brain fuzzies when it comes to some long-term goals, is by setting a recurring reminder in my personal calendar for every 3 months or so to review various things. When the reminder comes up, I try to then block-out a weekend to sit down and review my FI plans, and other personal projects. Sometimes this is depressing, but a lot of times it reinvigorates me to try and push forward with things I had been letting slide.
Not sure if it'll work for you and your situation, but I figure I'd throw it out there in case you might get some value from it.
As a last thought, one thing that dawned on me the other day, was that if you land on the decision to change careers, I'd offer this additional thought: Wait. Currently, the economy is doing really really well. If you have to go back to two or three year trade school, you'd be missing out on the 'boom' years of right now, and likely end up graduating right when a new recession hits. Make some more hay while the sun is still shining right now, even if it doesn't match your ideal path, and then once things start hitting the fan in a few years, make the transition to trade school, and hopefully by the time you're ready to enter the market, things will be recovering, so you'll be in a great position to capture a lot of opportunities.
Again, personally, I hope that you can find a groove in the software industry that keeps you here because I hate losing good folks to bad environments. However, at the end of the day, I hope things can improve for you, what ever that means for your career path.
I had a manager at one point start denying tool buys for whatever budgetary reason, but also want to ding the owners of the areas for not having all the tools they needed on their 6S scores. It was just like "Dude, what the fuck".
One of the biggest problem with all these implementations, especially the larger the company, is having an unbroken chain of management that are all behind the core concepts and willing to work to accomplish them. It only takes one person in the chain to tank the entire thing. That's were all these horror stories come from. It's enough to make a person cynical.
I have been able to take a lot of core concepts from 6S home though, and it can make for a well organized and efficient home.
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Whenever I hear something like that is I imagine some manager somewhere heard about lean and 6S and took away from it that they can cut the budget to the bone and they are being progressive. It really pisses me off. Busy times should be taken into account when implementing lean, especially hospitals where there are seasonal upswings like flu season. It just screams of a knee jerk reaction to some trend.
*also worked in a hospital that did a piss poor lean/6s implementation*
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
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it's a strategy defined for a completely different industry
why would you think it would help?
Which makes no sense because it's a nonprofit hospital system.
Don't ask me; not only did I not get a business degree, but if I had my mom would've disowned me because she detests business school bullshit. Like, murder wouldn't be an instantly disownable offense, because maybe I had a really good reason for it, but there's no reason for me to learn buzzwords that end up hurting people to line my own pockets or even worse, some oligarch's pockets while I'm their disposable lackey.
Seriously. Korodullin, are you sure you aren't actually a character in a Kafka novel?
In a shocking twist, his manager is actually Kefka.