To provide a bit more details, we put on a conference to train faculty and staff. Inside said conference are tracks on specific training topics, each of which pay participants to attend and provide the money to pay presenters and training materials (and also food for those who are attending for the 4 day conference). In exchange, those attending have to implement the training into their classrooms with a concrete deliverable (a specific certification we need for the purposes of our office for accreditation).
This guy's office made a track to copy our track for the purposes of having us pay for the presenters, participants, training materials, and concessions while they look like they are the ones running it and get to claim it as their annual reporting. Only thing is, they dont have the deliverable which means all this money will change hands without anything actually being implemented across campus. Because they DONT have the deliverable, all of the faculty who would normally attend our sessions are registering for theirs because its less work for the money they get paid for four half days of hanging around campus between semesters.
The only way we can meet our accreditation goals are to merge the tracks, take up the payments and costs, and (in return for doing so) bait and switch the faculty into needing the deliverable. Which the faculty won't like, and we don't like. But ~we~ will look like the badguys while ~they~ look like the people looking out for the faculty union. Its a garbage play. Done by a garbage person.
If I'm understanding this correctly, the deliverable is the entire reason for attending the training, and the faculty should know that, right? Like it sounds to me like the other track is (or should be) obviously shady (because no deliverable), and anyone who signed up for it should have known better.
Well, for our track. Plenty of tracks have no deliverable (and also have no meaningful benefit to completing usually). We're a special case because we actually report our track to accreditation as part of our initiative.
This may seem naive, but I just honestly don't know: Is there any way for you to spin it? In a way of "Look, I know you signed up for Garbage Joe's track, but it wasn't even complete so you would have missed out on (benefit)/it would have been a waste of time. Thankfully, we're here to make sure you have what you need to succeed, and unlike with Garbage Joe's track, you'll have something to show for it!"
Alternately, if people are pissed that they'll end up needing to do the deliverable... what would be the consequences of telling them about the bait and switch?
Not going into too much detail on this bit, but essentially my office works via goodwill between units. I have limited political capital and very little authority to change or improve things. However we are the most successful office in actually changing and improving things because of how we operate. It's entirely through good will, so yes we will spin it to be an unfortunate misunderstanding between friends, as they know we will, because to do otherwise will sully our good name and success.
Realtalk - Does your university have an open door policy? Because, if so? You should legit go straight to the highest office you can easily reach and just ... metaphorically! ... just whip it out and be like, "Look, are you like the others? Or do you actually wanna get some shit fixed around here? Because if you do, here's all the reasons I should be your new best friend."
Like
Seriously
It's better to burn out than to fade away, ya know?
Because tb-fuckin-h, you're really, really passionate about this. And it's pretty clear you understand the problem in a way they nobody above your level cares to.
I say go for it.
I believe they have an open door policy in that no-one bothered to shut them after management were evicted by the nice blue men in the noisy car.
Like, I can't see anyone in management caring to fix things, as it's all rotten from the top.
I suspect the only way it'll get fixed is if the taxpayers raiseenough of a stink that the governor or legislature steps in. The courts can only pick off one criminal at a time and only if there is evidence. A total shut-down and restart is the only solution but only if the taxpayers care.
Sadly with the contempt so many Americans have of education I just don't see the citizens giving a shit.
"Simple, real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time." -Mustrum Ridcully in Terry Pratchett's Hogfather p. 142 (HarperPrism 1996)
Anyone have any experience working as a night auditor/ working night shift during college?
I worked as a night auditor for a year, but not during college (I was 26)
Yeah I was wondering if it was something you'd recommend.
Any special life characteristics you think make the late hours work?
No idea if it would be right for me, other than I'd love some income
while also taking afternoon classes, and hanging out with friends.
How much do you value your circadian rhythm?
Are you the type of person that can sleep when it's light out?
With afternoon classes it might not be so bad, but there are really some things to pay attention to like mood and sleep habits. It's pretty cliche, but graveyard shifts can do some strange things to one's psyche, a few months in. You'll be on a different schedule than most other people so it also has the potential to inhibit one's social life.
When I worked overnights at the Grand Lodge in Crested Butte my only real daytime concern was what snowboarding runs to take. Even so, six months in or so the cold, bizarre hours combined with some brief sleep-deprived, waking hallucinations and one or two actual bear sightings eventually contributed to spiraling depression and alcoholism.
I can't say I would recommend an overnight shift for the hours, but if you have the right situation, constitution, and approach it may be a worthwhile life experience.
To provide a bit more details, we put on a conference to train faculty and staff. Inside said conference are tracks on specific training topics, each of which pay participants to attend and provide the money to pay presenters and training materials (and also food for those who are attending for the 4 day conference). In exchange, those attending have to implement the training into their classrooms with a concrete deliverable (a specific certification we need for the purposes of our office for accreditation).
This guy's office made a track to copy our track for the purposes of having us pay for the presenters, participants, training materials, and concessions while they look like they are the ones running it and get to claim it as their annual reporting. Only thing is, they dont have the deliverable which means all this money will change hands without anything actually being implemented across campus. Because they DONT have the deliverable, all of the faculty who would normally attend our sessions are registering for theirs because its less work for the money they get paid for four half days of hanging around campus between semesters.
The only way we can meet our accreditation goals are to merge the tracks, take up the payments and costs, and (in return for doing so) bait and switch the faculty into needing the deliverable. Which the faculty won't like, and we don't like. But ~we~ will look like the badguys while ~they~ look like the people looking out for the faculty union. Its a garbage play. Done by a garbage person.
If I'm understanding this correctly, the deliverable is the entire reason for attending the training, and the faculty should know that, right? Like it sounds to me like the other track is (or should be) obviously shady (because no deliverable), and anyone who signed up for it should have known better.
Well, for our track. Plenty of tracks have no deliverable (and also have no meaningful benefit to completing usually). We're a special case because we actually report our track to accreditation as part of our initiative.
This may seem naive, but I just honestly don't know: Is there any way for you to spin it? In a way of "Look, I know you signed up for Garbage Joe's track, but it wasn't even complete so you would have missed out on (benefit)/it would have been a waste of time. Thankfully, we're here to make sure you have what you need to succeed, and unlike with Garbage Joe's track, you'll have something to show for it!"
Alternately, if people are pissed that they'll end up needing to do the deliverable... what would be the consequences of telling them about the bait and switch?
Not going into too much detail on this bit, but essentially my office works via goodwill between units. I have limited political capital and very little authority to change or improve things. However we are the most successful office in actually changing and improving things because of how we operate. It's entirely through good will, so yes we will spin it to be an unfortunate misunderstanding between friends, as they know we will, because to do otherwise will sully our good name and success.
This is how/why you get taken advantage of.
Just saying.
He's basically in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation - he can't hit back without hurting himself more than the other guy, thanks to office politics and biases. That said, Enc will remember this, and said garbage person will find him less than interested in helping him in the long run.
So lets talk hypotheticals.
Lets say his office runs the conference, which is slowly dying as people are sick of the mismanagement. Last year (and most years) I ended up running my track and taking over their command of their logistics to make sure it happened appropriately (from personally setting up tables and running concessions plates, restocking coffee, to ensuring the undergrads helping out actually got paid). Hell, I even used my personal washing machine to clean their table cloths because they were so filthy year in and year out.
This year, whelp, it might just turn out that I'm too busy and don't do any of those things and use the mismanagement that will occur as a reason to pull us out from the conference moving forward. With us removed, they will have lost their final financial backer and the conference will pretty much collapse. That person will lose about 60% of their job description. Hopefully they will be able to find some way to make their conference continue, as without it the office will be down to very little programming.
And then, next year, a few months later, we make our own conference inviting people we have goodwill with and the programming gets replaced by something we control.
Of course, this is all hypothetical so who knows the future.
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EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
To provide a bit more details, we put on a conference to train faculty and staff. Inside said conference are tracks on specific training topics, each of which pay participants to attend and provide the money to pay presenters and training materials (and also food for those who are attending for the 4 day conference). In exchange, those attending have to implement the training into their classrooms with a concrete deliverable (a specific certification we need for the purposes of our office for accreditation).
This guy's office made a track to copy our track for the purposes of having us pay for the presenters, participants, training materials, and concessions while they look like they are the ones running it and get to claim it as their annual reporting. Only thing is, they dont have the deliverable which means all this money will change hands without anything actually being implemented across campus. Because they DONT have the deliverable, all of the faculty who would normally attend our sessions are registering for theirs because its less work for the money they get paid for four half days of hanging around campus between semesters.
The only way we can meet our accreditation goals are to merge the tracks, take up the payments and costs, and (in return for doing so) bait and switch the faculty into needing the deliverable. Which the faculty won't like, and we don't like. But ~we~ will look like the badguys while ~they~ look like the people looking out for the faculty union. Its a garbage play. Done by a garbage person.
If I'm understanding this correctly, the deliverable is the entire reason for attending the training, and the faculty should know that, right? Like it sounds to me like the other track is (or should be) obviously shady (because no deliverable), and anyone who signed up for it should have known better.
Well, for our track. Plenty of tracks have no deliverable (and also have no meaningful benefit to completing usually). We're a special case because we actually report our track to accreditation as part of our initiative.
This may seem naive, but I just honestly don't know: Is there any way for you to spin it? In a way of "Look, I know you signed up for Garbage Joe's track, but it wasn't even complete so you would have missed out on (benefit)/it would have been a waste of time. Thankfully, we're here to make sure you have what you need to succeed, and unlike with Garbage Joe's track, you'll have something to show for it!"
Alternately, if people are pissed that they'll end up needing to do the deliverable... what would be the consequences of telling them about the bait and switch?
Not going into too much detail on this bit, but essentially my office works via goodwill between units. I have limited political capital and very little authority to change or improve things. However we are the most successful office in actually changing and improving things because of how we operate. It's entirely through good will, so yes we will spin it to be an unfortunate misunderstanding between friends, as they know we will, because to do otherwise will sully our good name and success.
Realtalk - Does your university have an open door policy? Because, if so? You should legit go straight to the highest office you can easily reach and just ... metaphorically! ... just whip it out and be like, "Look, are you like the others? Or do you actually wanna get some shit fixed around here? Because if you do, here's all the reasons I should be your new best friend."
Like
Seriously
It's better to burn out than to fade away, ya know?
Because tb-fuckin-h, you're really, really passionate about this. And it's pretty clear you understand the problem in a way they nobody above your level cares to.
I say go for it.
Burning out doesn't solve the problems. Enduring and doing the work does. The executive-level collapse will eventually end when we get a permanent president and he, and the legislature, do a final culling sometime in 2021. The ashes of that fire will provide ample fertilizer to allow a lot of positive change to grow.
Patience fixes problems in bureaucracies, not epic gestures.
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Raijin QuickfootI'm your Huckleberry YOU'RE NO DAISYRegistered User, ClubPAregular
I really don't feel like doing any work today.
Seeing as how I have 10 hours left at work though... That could be a problem.
I am working from home for the first time today. I have never had a job where this was possible before.
How does anyone ever get anything done?? I have been permanently distracted for like 6 hours.
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KakodaimonosCode fondlerHelping the 1% get richerRegistered Userregular
Do you have an office or a room you can go to that doesn't have all the stuff that can distract you? When I'm working from home, I'll go down to my office and set a timer for 2-4 hours at a time and that helps get me into an "ok, I'm working now" mindset.
To provide a bit more details, we put on a conference to train faculty and staff. Inside said conference are tracks on specific training topics, each of which pay participants to attend and provide the money to pay presenters and training materials (and also food for those who are attending for the 4 day conference). In exchange, those attending have to implement the training into their classrooms with a concrete deliverable (a specific certification we need for the purposes of our office for accreditation).
This guy's office made a track to copy our track for the purposes of having us pay for the presenters, participants, training materials, and concessions while they look like they are the ones running it and get to claim it as their annual reporting. Only thing is, they dont have the deliverable which means all this money will change hands without anything actually being implemented across campus. Because they DONT have the deliverable, all of the faculty who would normally attend our sessions are registering for theirs because its less work for the money they get paid for four half days of hanging around campus between semesters.
The only way we can meet our accreditation goals are to merge the tracks, take up the payments and costs, and (in return for doing so) bait and switch the faculty into needing the deliverable. Which the faculty won't like, and we don't like. But ~we~ will look like the badguys while ~they~ look like the people looking out for the faculty union. Its a garbage play. Done by a garbage person.
If I'm understanding this correctly, the deliverable is the entire reason for attending the training, and the faculty should know that, right? Like it sounds to me like the other track is (or should be) obviously shady (because no deliverable), and anyone who signed up for it should have known better.
Well, for our track. Plenty of tracks have no deliverable (and also have no meaningful benefit to completing usually). We're a special case because we actually report our track to accreditation as part of our initiative.
This may seem naive, but I just honestly don't know: Is there any way for you to spin it? In a way of "Look, I know you signed up for Garbage Joe's track, but it wasn't even complete so you would have missed out on (benefit)/it would have been a waste of time. Thankfully, we're here to make sure you have what you need to succeed, and unlike with Garbage Joe's track, you'll have something to show for it!"
Alternately, if people are pissed that they'll end up needing to do the deliverable... what would be the consequences of telling them about the bait and switch?
Not going into too much detail on this bit, but essentially my office works via goodwill between units. I have limited political capital and very little authority to change or improve things. However we are the most successful office in actually changing and improving things because of how we operate. It's entirely through good will, so yes we will spin it to be an unfortunate misunderstanding between friends, as they know we will, because to do otherwise will sully our good name and success.
Realtalk - Does your university have an open door policy? Because, if so? You should legit go straight to the highest office you can easily reach and just ... metaphorically! ... just whip it out and be like, "Look, are you like the others? Or do you actually wanna get some shit fixed around here? Because if you do, here's all the reasons I should be your new best friend."
Like
Seriously
It's better to burn out than to fade away, ya know?
Because tb-fuckin-h, you're really, really passionate about this. And it's pretty clear you understand the problem in a way they nobody above your level cares to.
I say go for it.
I believe they have an open door policy in that no-one bothered to shut them after management were evicted by the nice blue men in the noisy car.
Like, I can't see anyone in management caring to fix things, as it's all rotten from the top.
University open door policies always make me think of that one arch chancellor of the Unseen University who had an open door policy. But he also routinely practiced crossbow archery with a target on the hall wall outside his office.
Anyone have any experience working as a night auditor/ working night shift during college?
I worked as a night auditor for a year, but not during college (I was 26)
Yeah I was wondering if it was something you'd recommend.
Any special life characteristics you think make the late hours work?
No idea if it would be right for me, other than I'd love some income
while also taking afternoon classes, and hanging out with friends.
Its a different world thats for sure. It was easier for me when I was single and young, but as I got older and got into a relationship with someone who wasn't a vampire, it was harder. Grocery shopping is great because theres like 2 other customers in the store, and if you have daytime errands, just wake up a little early and get them done. And the night is quiet and often I was alone on shift and it was peaceful.
Thanks for the info Orca. i've never done a night shift, beyond crunching for projects that had deadlines,
I'm finding myself awake till 4 am. Sleeping through the morning till my afternoon classes, or obligations.
Getting home at 9 or 10 pm, and killing time instead of sleep.
Designing Dnd Adventures, Doing Art, Doing Homework. Felt like I might be able to use that energy during that time slot for income
If your circadian rhythms naturally lead you in that direction, it may work better for you than for me. I naturally sleep on a 12am-8am schedule, and graveyard shift was a shit sandwich I had to eat every day. It's a good thing I wasn't dating because my evenings were shot unless I wanted to be a zombie.
Boss is coming in for my review. I'm at my pay-cap, so any raise i would get, I get as a one-time equivalent bonus instead. I think I'm being strongly incentivized to find another position in the company and stop draining mailroom rescources by just...existing here for ten+ years, but we'll see. There's been no where for me to go, but there are some big changes happening here with regards to another building closing.
I worked graveyard (11-9) while going to college. It takes a brutal toll on your body. If you're younger, maybe you'll notice it less. I was a returning student and it sucked.
I found the schedule that worked for me was to go to bed around 2pm and wake up at 10pm for an 11pm shift. That meant afternoons were fucked for me and evening classes were absolutely balls. Try going to class at 4am according to your body. It fucking sucks. Morning classes were okay though. But by early afternoon I was done. Didn't end up doing much hanging out due to the schedule.
YMMV. If you can comfortably go to sleep at 9am or whatever, your afternoons and early evenings will be free. But it's going to depend on what you're physically capable of.
I don't recommend graveyard to anybody. It stresses the shit out of your body. But if you need to make ends meet, it'll work. Just try to keep the length of time you're doing it bounded.
I worked 2nd and 3rd shift on the helpdesk for a few years. It was also weekends. I was in my mid 20s.
When I worked 2nd, I was as well rested as I've ever been, because it basically lined up perfectly with whatever my circadian rhythm was doing at the time. I went to bed around 3AM, slept till around 11 or 12, and worked from something like 3 to midnight. I woke up bright and chipper and never needed coffee. I also had precisely 0 social life because nobody is doing anything on Monday and Tuesday evening. But it was handy if I needed to to a bank or whatever during business hours.
3rd was okay. I could do evening activities before work. However traveling required flipping my schedule and the last time O did it before moving to first shift I never really recovered. For like 2 months after our trip I spent my lunch break sleeping on the floor in the conference room and usually nodding off at my station.
In both cases, blackout curtains were a must. Noise was a problem cause I had upstairs at my apartment and they'd mow the grass or have the garbage truck come by while I was asleep. And you can't exactly yell at people to stop walking at 3pm.
Unless it happens to line up with your circadian rhythm, don't do night shift more often than you have to. It's physiologically bad for you. Extended night shift, especially with frequent schedule flopping is linked to cancer at the same level s cigarettes.
It's a pain when we have times it's required, like with medical staff, but it's one of the places I hope we replace people with robots because it is absolutely bad for most people.
As someone who worked second for 10 years, and frequently worked over time during that period, I discourage everyone I come across from working second or third for any period of time
It's been clinically proven to be unhealthy, it's hell on your body and your mind, your immune system is often fucked up, because you're always exhausted, it's been linked to Actual Cancer
I had a 1400 - 2230 that was a pretty good shift, but it certainly locked me out from going to the grocery store on my drive home, since they all close at 2200 here. Getting off work in the evening is otherwise pretty damn nice.
I work overnights now. It sucks, but if you can get into and stay in the rhythm it's not the worst. My family doesn't understand and is really annoyed that they never hear from me but oh well. I worked 2nd before this and vastly preferred that.
The worst is deciding when you've got enough days off in a row to be worth flipping back to daywalking vs just staying on zombie hours. For me it's over 3 days I'll think about it, but sometimes I'll just shift over a few hours instead of fully flipping.
It's a bit easier for me because I've gotten fairly good at coming home and going to sleep (he said over an hour after he's supposed to be asleep)
My shift fluctuates between 5-1:30 and 6-2:30. And while it kinda sucks getting up that early, traffic barely exists and it doesn’t mess with what I can do with my free time too much, so I’m actually pretty okay with it.
I hate how trucks think they can ignore my car just because it’s small
Yay! Had to swerve out of the way of a truck that tried turning left across my lane. Luckily the road had a middle turn lane no one was using otherwise my instincts would’ve seen me swerve into oncoming traffic
The thing that super sucks the most about how insurance and fault works in the US is that if you had swerved into another car, you would be at fault. Adjustors will say if someone creeps into your lane or turns wide, it's in your best interest to just accept the hit, and everything about that is just super puzzling. How can people ignore a survival instinct? Like, literally how?
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Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
Do you have an office or a room you can go to that doesn't have all the stuff that can distract you? When I'm working from home, I'll go down to my office and set a timer for 2-4 hours at a time and that helps get me into an "ok, I'm working now" mindset.
Yeah, I do gardening work all week so when I'm at home the draw of television, the internet, and literally anything but more fucking gardening makes it very difficult to do any work at my own house. Yet my grass needs mowing and my gardens need pruning and weeding, so I have to remove all those distractions (just turn everything off and unplug it), put my gardening clothes on, and buckle down and spend a few hours fixing shit up every couple of weekends or so.
It's very similar to back when I was a mechanic, after working on everyone else's vehicles all bloody week long I couldn't be fucked even looking at minor issues on my own vehicles of a weekend. More than a few times I paid other people to fix my own and/or my partner's car because I just couldn't be bothered. Now of course I actually enjoy the work again I'm all for working on cars, in fact my partner has agreed that we need a bigger shed, something large enough to put a car hoist in so I can work on cars PROPERLY (i.e. not in the driveway), and that's honestly not too far away. We just have to fix up a few things around the house and then that's next in line.
I would have actively resisted such a thing back when I was a mechanic, there's just something about doing a job professionally that sucks every tiny little bit of fun out of it for me.
Yeah my papers at home are a complete mess and the only reason my finances aren’t worse is because I only have a couple of accounts and I make Mori be the one to remember to pay the bills, because I file and organize and pay bills all week at work
I had a 1400 - 2230 that was a pretty good shift, but it certainly locked me out from going to the grocery store on my drive home, since they all close at 2200 here. Getting off work in the evening is otherwise pretty damn nice.
I used to work that at Best Buy. I hated it too early to have a morning but too late to have an evening.
If I didn't have kids it might have been different but I wasn't able to sleep in everyday
Yeah grocery stores here are essentially 24/7 and I don't have kids. My sleep cycle is like 2am-10am though, so this would jive really well for me. I could easily take a later shift too, it did suck waking up at 2pm and hearing shit from my parents when I worked until 4am though.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
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L Ron HowardThe duckMinnesotaRegistered Userregular
Everything happens on first shift, whether you want it to or not.
I have friends that work weekends and/or are not on first shift, and I never see them. There's not even any common time for playing games together.
Another example, my sister works weekends, though first shift. We haven't done our family Christmas yet because we just can't get her time, and it's not right to not give the gifts in person. And her husband works 2nd shift, but has weekends off. I don't think it's doing great for their relationship because they just can't spend the time together.
I don't think it's worth the money just from that standpoint. Time is irreplaceable, and money comes and goes. And as the saying goes, as you get older, you lose a lot of friends. And I want to keep the few that I have.
Also, it probably took me 15 year to recover from doing 2 years of overnight shifts at a gas station where I became an assistant manager. The slightest slip up of sleeping, and I'd be up all night. I wonder if I still kind of have insomnia in part because of it. I just miss that tiny window of going to sleep, and then I'll be awake all night.
Also my experience was that come 8 AM I was dead to the world, so I'd sleep and miss the business day, and it made things harder if I had to deal with anything during normal business hours. It's hard to do phone calls or government things if you're a zombie on your feet because it's now 10 AM and you were dead to the world 2 hours ago.
It's one thing if you're up all night because you're on your computer, not doing anything. But when you get a job, you're expected to do things, like move and think and such, and it's different. I took the job because I was a (and still am a bit of a) night owl. But it's one thing when I was up programming or doing whatever at a computer or other screen, as opposed to cleaning the store, taking deliveries, watching the customers, restocking, etc.
Another thing is that if you're in North America, Summers are the worst. The little screamy kids are out all day, doing their thing. All the dogs bark constantly. All the day stuff happens, and is louder. And when it's nice out, you want to have your window open but you can't. And since you can't, you run the air conditioning a lot, so your power consumption is going to cost a pretty penny because the rates are higher during the day, because most people are at work.
Summer nights are great though. Spring, Winter, and Fall nights are all terrible.
Though being up in the Spring as the world is thawing and coming to life is just pretty magical. The first birds start chirping and it is amazing.
During the really nice days when you'd previously want to be outside, you'll just want to be sleeping, missing the wonderful days. Days when it would be nice to go to a park alone, or go up to a friend's cabin or whatever to hang out.
TL;DR, not worth it, don't do it, and they can't pay you enough. There's got to be some other, better, alternative.
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WeaverWho are you?What do you want?Registered Userregular
The people next to me in my row chatted the entire flight. I got no sleep.
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EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
Just left a budget meeting, and hoo boy.
I guess the plan for the future for our division is that everyone in every unit are "pieces we can move to where they are needed." So if your unit is down a person, they can look around and say "hey, we don't think you need THIS person in your unit anymore, and they have the same job title, so we're moving them to the new unit" without any say so for the career, specialties, work experience, or needs of the person in the job. Doesn't matter if in one role the person is doing high end data analysis and the new one is entering payroll, that doesn't matter. Not important, we are employees of the divison and they will "do with us what they see fit."
Naturally, there were some very strong objections to this edict.
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WeaverWho are you?What do you want?Registered Userregular
I bought a latte and then immediately found a dark room full of big comfy chairs. Oh, the irony.
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EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
Essentially, we're all on notice and most of the permanent staff is going to be reorged, it's time to look for city manager jobs.
So you're saying that in their "wisdom", they've decided to take the thing you've worked so hard to keep going and just break it up for parts?
I guess that fits for how you've described most of the other units, but yours sounds like it's one of the few that's still functional.
Commander Zoom on
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I ZimbraWorst song, played on ugliest guitarRegistered Userregular
Hey, job thread, I got offered a job yesterday so I guess I can start posting in here again.
I'm going to be doing admin and some light analysis for a company that sells stone.
I guess the plan for the future for our division is that everyone in every unit are "pieces we can move to where they are needed." So if your unit is down a person, they can look around and say "hey, we don't think you need THIS person in your unit anymore, and they have the same job title, so we're moving them to the new unit" without any say so for the career, specialties, work experience, or needs of the person in the job. Doesn't matter if in one role the person is doing high end data analysis and the new one is entering payroll, that doesn't matter. Not important, we are employees of the divison and they will "do with us what they see fit."
Naturally, there were some very strong objections to this edict.
In other words, it's very helpful to us, the entire reason for the problems in the first place, if we can institutionalize and formally document that employees are not people and should not be treated as such.
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I suspect the only way it'll get fixed is if the taxpayers raiseenough of a stink that the governor or legislature steps in. The courts can only pick off one criminal at a time and only if there is evidence. A total shut-down and restart is the only solution but only if the taxpayers care.
Sadly with the contempt so many Americans have of education I just don't see the citizens giving a shit.
How much do you value your circadian rhythm?
Are you the type of person that can sleep when it's light out?
With afternoon classes it might not be so bad, but there are really some things to pay attention to like mood and sleep habits. It's pretty cliche, but graveyard shifts can do some strange things to one's psyche, a few months in. You'll be on a different schedule than most other people so it also has the potential to inhibit one's social life.
When I worked overnights at the Grand Lodge in Crested Butte my only real daytime concern was what snowboarding runs to take. Even so, six months in or so the cold, bizarre hours combined with some brief sleep-deprived, waking hallucinations and one or two actual bear sightings eventually contributed to spiraling depression and alcoholism.
I can't say I would recommend an overnight shift for the hours, but if you have the right situation, constitution, and approach it may be a worthwhile life experience.
So lets talk hypotheticals.
Lets say his office runs the conference, which is slowly dying as people are sick of the mismanagement. Last year (and most years) I ended up running my track and taking over their command of their logistics to make sure it happened appropriately (from personally setting up tables and running concessions plates, restocking coffee, to ensuring the undergrads helping out actually got paid). Hell, I even used my personal washing machine to clean their table cloths because they were so filthy year in and year out.
This year, whelp, it might just turn out that I'm too busy and don't do any of those things and use the mismanagement that will occur as a reason to pull us out from the conference moving forward. With us removed, they will have lost their final financial backer and the conference will pretty much collapse. That person will lose about 60% of their job description. Hopefully they will be able to find some way to make their conference continue, as without it the office will be down to very little programming.
And then, next year, a few months later, we make our own conference inviting people we have goodwill with and the programming gets replaced by something we control.
Of course, this is all hypothetical so who knows the future.
Burning out doesn't solve the problems. Enduring and doing the work does. The executive-level collapse will eventually end when we get a permanent president and he, and the legislature, do a final culling sometime in 2021. The ashes of that fire will provide ample fertilizer to allow a lot of positive change to grow.
Patience fixes problems in bureaucracies, not epic gestures.
Seeing as how I have 10 hours left at work though... That could be a problem.
We do have a nursing mother's room and with my ample bosom I could probably get away with it
How does anyone ever get anything done?? I have been permanently distracted for like 6 hours.
I've heard having a separate room you dedicate just to work, with minimal distractions, can help
And mini-milestones with rewards.
If I get this done then I'll take a bath in the afternoon and eat two ice cream bars!
If I get this done then I can watch an episode of Columbo while in the bath!
If I get this done then I'll do the rest of my work in the bath!
University open door policies always make me think of that one arch chancellor of the Unseen University who had an open door policy. But he also routinely practiced crossbow archery with a target on the hall wall outside his office.
Its a different world thats for sure. It was easier for me when I was single and young, but as I got older and got into a relationship with someone who wasn't a vampire, it was harder. Grocery shopping is great because theres like 2 other customers in the store, and if you have daytime errands, just wake up a little early and get them done. And the night is quiet and often I was alone on shift and it was peaceful.
If your circadian rhythms naturally lead you in that direction, it may work better for you than for me. I naturally sleep on a 12am-8am schedule, and graveyard shift was a shit sandwich I had to eat every day. It's a good thing I wasn't dating because my evenings were shot unless I wanted to be a zombie.
Steam ID: Obos Vent: Obos
I worked 2nd and 3rd shift on the helpdesk for a few years. It was also weekends. I was in my mid 20s.
When I worked 2nd, I was as well rested as I've ever been, because it basically lined up perfectly with whatever my circadian rhythm was doing at the time. I went to bed around 3AM, slept till around 11 or 12, and worked from something like 3 to midnight. I woke up bright and chipper and never needed coffee. I also had precisely 0 social life because nobody is doing anything on Monday and Tuesday evening. But it was handy if I needed to to a bank or whatever during business hours.
3rd was okay. I could do evening activities before work. However traveling required flipping my schedule and the last time O did it before moving to first shift I never really recovered. For like 2 months after our trip I spent my lunch break sleeping on the floor in the conference room and usually nodding off at my station.
In both cases, blackout curtains were a must. Noise was a problem cause I had upstairs at my apartment and they'd mow the grass or have the garbage truck come by while I was asleep. And you can't exactly yell at people to stop walking at 3pm.
Unless it happens to line up with your circadian rhythm, don't do night shift more often than you have to. It's physiologically bad for you. Extended night shift, especially with frequent schedule flopping is linked to cancer at the same level s cigarettes.
It's a pain when we have times it's required, like with medical staff, but it's one of the places I hope we replace people with robots because it is absolutely bad for most people.
I missed a couple meetings due to various things, and the next time I got on the call, they weren't there.
Now, neither of us talk to each other and the meeting hadn't been canceled
So, every two weeks there's a reminder.
I refuse to blink first.
It's been clinically proven to be unhealthy, it's hell on your body and your mind, your immune system is often fucked up, because you're always exhausted, it's been linked to Actual Cancer
I used to work that at Best Buy. I hated it too early to have a morning but too late to have an evening.
If I didn't have kids it might have been different but I wasn't able to sleep in everyday
I had a 1400 - 2230 that was a pretty good shift, but it certainly locked me out from going to the grocery store on my drive home, since they all close at 2200 here. Getting off work in the evening is otherwise pretty damn nice.
The worst is deciding when you've got enough days off in a row to be worth flipping back to daywalking vs just staying on zombie hours. For me it's over 3 days I'll think about it, but sometimes I'll just shift over a few hours instead of fully flipping.
It's a bit easier for me because I've gotten fairly good at coming home and going to sleep (he said over an hour after he's supposed to be asleep)
Yay! Had to swerve out of the way of a truck that tried turning left across my lane. Luckily the road had a middle turn lane no one was using otherwise my instincts would’ve seen me swerve into oncoming traffic
Yeah, I do gardening work all week so when I'm at home the draw of television, the internet, and literally anything but more fucking gardening makes it very difficult to do any work at my own house. Yet my grass needs mowing and my gardens need pruning and weeding, so I have to remove all those distractions (just turn everything off and unplug it), put my gardening clothes on, and buckle down and spend a few hours fixing shit up every couple of weekends or so.
It's very similar to back when I was a mechanic, after working on everyone else's vehicles all bloody week long I couldn't be fucked even looking at minor issues on my own vehicles of a weekend. More than a few times I paid other people to fix my own and/or my partner's car because I just couldn't be bothered. Now of course I actually enjoy the work again I'm all for working on cars, in fact my partner has agreed that we need a bigger shed, something large enough to put a car hoist in so I can work on cars PROPERLY (i.e. not in the driveway), and that's honestly not too far away. We just have to fix up a few things around the house and then that's next in line.
I would have actively resisted such a thing back when I was a mechanic, there's just something about doing a job professionally that sucks every tiny little bit of fun out of it for me.
Yeah grocery stores here are essentially 24/7 and I don't have kids. My sleep cycle is like 2am-10am though, so this would jive really well for me. I could easily take a later shift too, it did suck waking up at 2pm and hearing shit from my parents when I worked until 4am though.
I have friends that work weekends and/or are not on first shift, and I never see them. There's not even any common time for playing games together.
Another example, my sister works weekends, though first shift. We haven't done our family Christmas yet because we just can't get her time, and it's not right to not give the gifts in person. And her husband works 2nd shift, but has weekends off. I don't think it's doing great for their relationship because they just can't spend the time together.
I don't think it's worth the money just from that standpoint. Time is irreplaceable, and money comes and goes. And as the saying goes, as you get older, you lose a lot of friends. And I want to keep the few that I have.
Also, it probably took me 15 year to recover from doing 2 years of overnight shifts at a gas station where I became an assistant manager. The slightest slip up of sleeping, and I'd be up all night. I wonder if I still kind of have insomnia in part because of it. I just miss that tiny window of going to sleep, and then I'll be awake all night.
Also my experience was that come 8 AM I was dead to the world, so I'd sleep and miss the business day, and it made things harder if I had to deal with anything during normal business hours. It's hard to do phone calls or government things if you're a zombie on your feet because it's now 10 AM and you were dead to the world 2 hours ago.
It's one thing if you're up all night because you're on your computer, not doing anything. But when you get a job, you're expected to do things, like move and think and such, and it's different. I took the job because I was a (and still am a bit of a) night owl. But it's one thing when I was up programming or doing whatever at a computer or other screen, as opposed to cleaning the store, taking deliveries, watching the customers, restocking, etc.
Another thing is that if you're in North America, Summers are the worst. The little screamy kids are out all day, doing their thing. All the dogs bark constantly. All the day stuff happens, and is louder. And when it's nice out, you want to have your window open but you can't. And since you can't, you run the air conditioning a lot, so your power consumption is going to cost a pretty penny because the rates are higher during the day, because most people are at work.
Summer nights are great though. Spring, Winter, and Fall nights are all terrible.
Though being up in the Spring as the world is thawing and coming to life is just pretty magical. The first birds start chirping and it is amazing.
During the really nice days when you'd previously want to be outside, you'll just want to be sleeping, missing the wonderful days. Days when it would be nice to go to a park alone, or go up to a friend's cabin or whatever to hang out.
TL;DR, not worth it, don't do it, and they can't pay you enough. There's got to be some other, better, alternative.
I guess the plan for the future for our division is that everyone in every unit are "pieces we can move to where they are needed." So if your unit is down a person, they can look around and say "hey, we don't think you need THIS person in your unit anymore, and they have the same job title, so we're moving them to the new unit" without any say so for the career, specialties, work experience, or needs of the person in the job. Doesn't matter if in one role the person is doing high end data analysis and the new one is entering payroll, that doesn't matter. Not important, we are employees of the divison and they will "do with us what they see fit."
Naturally, there were some very strong objections to this edict.
You tried your best, you really did, but...
It can always get a lot worse.
I guess that fits for how you've described most of the other units, but yours sounds like it's one of the few that's still functional.
I'm going to be doing admin and some light analysis for a company that sells stone.
In other words, it's very helpful to us, the entire reason for the problems in the first place, if we can institutionalize and formally document that employees are not people and should not be treated as such.