The Work Thread 2 - Get back to work!

Fed up talking videogames? Why?
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Green Gecko
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PostRe: The Work Thread 2 - Get back to work!
by Green Gecko » Wed Feb 27, 2019 2:02 pm

pjbetman wrote:
Green Gecko wrote:My procrastination is awful. Somebody [ACTION] me now.

This is what happens with a 10 day lead and like 3 jobs on the go at the moment. I spent all day yesterday sharpening chisels.

I don't use chisels. I have a giant strawberry floating cutting robot for that and I'm about to get a bandsaw as well for when I'm literally too lazy to program the computer and would prefer to just use skill instead... weird irony there.

What is work. My partner with a real job however has spent the past 2 days doing mostly crosswords. Ah the quiet periods, you either love them or you hate them or you're not fussed at all (well presuming you're getting paid).

Edit: Actually I just remembered what I was doing, grinding chisels fired steel dust strawberry floating everywhere so I had to hoover my entire workshop. Then I looked up hazard information for steel/iron dust (can cause cold-like symptoms which I had yesterday) as it's the first time I've done that and didn't bother hooking up extraction or wearing a mask. Now I'm shopping for measuring tapes since it's ebay money off time which is err totally important work.

Now place is dust free I can do moar T-shirts. Reeeally.

THANKS GRCADE

srs I should do some marketing or I'll complain when I have too much work to do and then complain I don't have time to do marketing etc etc

What does everyone else do in their slow periods? Do you literally just make up work (there's always something for me to do, which is probably the diligent thing to do) or just take advantage so you aren't stressed out when it gets busy again? It's horrible when it's super busy all the time but what's your ethic like when things slow down?

I've always been curious about how people deal with having too little to do differently. Some accept that is part of the nature of work and you should just chill, other get weird about it and find gooseberry fool to do.

Unfortunately I do have a habit of finding other gooseberry fool to do that is still useful but not really related to the thing I am meant to be doing, but it all comes around eventually, I think that's just part of managing your own time as you please so something I earn the right to do in the process. I end up learning different gooseberry fool everyday and stumbling across interesting ideas/projects I'd never think of if my mind was 100% focused on any given task. Seems super common with creative types, obvious if you worked on a factory line or call centre or something you'd get shot of pretty quick. I have an intuition for compensating for this and working insanely hard when necessary, but I can't seem to do that all the time, or work to a consistent rhythm like normal people.

Sometimes things like the pomodoro technique help. It's ticketing systems that do me in (and I have my own). Just the way they keep flooding in with requests. I can't deal with a high volume environment like that. I have to focus on quality not quantity.



You could start by looking in your PM box, as I asked you for some design work a few months ago :lol: :lol:

Hey man, I emailed your gmail account on 8 May 2018, followed up 3 times and closed the ticket on 23 November. I guess I should have replied to PM as looking again I wasn't getting read receipts, sorry :fp:

"It should be common sense to just accept the message Nintendo are sending out through their actions."
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Errkal
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PostRe: The Work Thread 2 - Get back to work!
by Errkal » Wed Feb 27, 2019 6:59 pm

Tit.

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Green Gecko
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PostRe: The Work Thread 2 - Get back to work!
by Green Gecko » Wed Feb 27, 2019 7:18 pm

To be fair I get a whole load of enquires, log 15-45 minutes against them for quotes/costing etc. and they never even get read. Usually from agencies and the like.

Probably about 30% of tickets I have to close after 14 days because nobody can be arsed to even reply.

"It should be common sense to just accept the message Nintendo are sending out through their actions."
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Errkal
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PostRe: The Work Thread 2 - Get back to work!
by Errkal » Fri Mar 01, 2019 6:17 pm

First time ever getting a bonus, found today I scored top marks for performance so am getting more than my target for bonus. Target is 5% salary and I’m getting 7% :D

Ya for working at profiteering companies and not public organisations.

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Qikz
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PostRe: The Work Thread 2 - Get back to work!
by Qikz » Mon Mar 18, 2019 12:01 am

Signed up to do a software update as overtime yesterday morning, completely forgot until about 10 minutes ago.

Just did it in time. :lol:

The Watching Artist wrote:I feel so inept next to Qikz...
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Bunni
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PostRe: The Work Thread 2 - Get back to work!
by Bunni » Wed Apr 03, 2019 4:04 pm

First day in my new job yesterday. Everything went better than expected given that most of the stuff I was ‘taught’ was stuff I’d done before just slightly different ways of documenting. So I wasn’t overwhelmed and it seems interesting enough. Was able to use some of my knowledge from working in A&E to our advantage too so that seemed to go down well.

It feels great being out of uniform, dressing smart like a proper person with responsibility. Also I get to sit more which is such a bonus as I’m not physically drained at the end of the day having shifted bodies twice the size of mine for 12 hours.

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mcjihge2
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PostRe: The Work Thread 2 - Get back to work!
by mcjihge2 » Wed Apr 03, 2019 6:38 pm

Got my Chartered Engineer certificate through the post today. :toot:

Xbox Live: GCE
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Green Gecko
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PostRe: The Work Thread 2 - Get back to work!
by Green Gecko » Sat Apr 13, 2019 3:44 am

Had a customer who approved a design (commissioning it a week beforehand) and asked for it to be printed for collection next day, which I did (total labour about 2.5hrs) and then the following morning said they wanted a cancellation and full refund. When probed they said they weren't really happy with it but had no feedback as to why. Wtf man.

I said no I can't refund it as it was agreed good and all done now. I can't refund custom items but I can offer to try again at my own discretion (to avoid time wasters and, well, fraud). Then they told me they had a bad day and they were sure the recipient will really like it. :|

Omg make up your mind!! It was a pretty nice end result honestly so totally mystified by that.

Yet more vetting of clients and protracted consultation to automate methinks. As an artist you generally expect people to come to you expecting a certain style based on your existing work and then when you follow their instructions is generally OK. If they want something more specific, say "copy this" or provide more reference etc but I can't draw stuff over and over for what amounts to about £12 quid.

Also had the cheek to suggest they could have gone somewhere else.. Well of course, how many commissioned works and refusal to pay/refunds is that going to be then? I know for a fact most competitors would just tell them to sod off or download an image from Google and print some pixellated shite inkjet transfer for the same price on a cheaper garment.

Btw customer came from Facebook messenger, big surprise.

"It should be common sense to just accept the message Nintendo are sending out through their actions."
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Dual
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PostRe: The Work Thread 2 - Get back to work!
by Dual » Sat Apr 13, 2019 10:06 am

R/choosingbeggars

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Green Gecko
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PostRe: The Work Thread 2 - Get back to work!
by Green Gecko » Sat Apr 13, 2019 11:06 pm

Lol that folder is great. Reminds me my partner recently sold her car for not much above scrap value on FB Marketplace (it was still running but barely, 2005 new beetle) , of course a slew of dickheads came along offering "£50 cash I'll get it to you tonight" assuming she's a total dolt. She knows enough about cars to know what one is worth as its her 3rd vehicle.

Some people just try their luck and as soon as you're nice to them and go the extra mile they take the piss.. It is really very tempting to do exactly what I describe, just have a load of stolen vector library images and be "like this" but then what's the strawberry floating point of running a design studio if you don't design anything. I'm not snappy snaps. The print shop in town is frankly gooseberry fool and they charge the same money.

Of course that increases the likelihood someone might not like something by virtue of it being new artwork but approving it and then changing their mind? strawberry float off. My mates doing similar jobs in London the other night would also have just told them "no" and that's that. But the tough thing about small businesses with a good track record is you live in fear of someone review bombing you because you looked at them wrong or they didn't read your policies. It's different if you work at an agency internally because it's no skin of your neck if your customer is being unreasonable and you tell them tough gooseberry fool.

It's the same as going into a restaurant and ordering a meal and then not even touching it, then refusing to pay. Essentially theft. For some reason this is A-OK for some types of work.

I might need to revise using Facebook as a sales funnel if people are that casual and whimsy about stuff. I would have been better off doing stuff for a queue of other people or getting ready for market, which I actually cancelled because I had too much going on.

"It should be common sense to just accept the message Nintendo are sending out through their actions."
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Gemini73

PostRe: The Work Thread 2 - Get back to work!
by Gemini73 » Mon Apr 15, 2019 10:22 am

Just need to get something off of my chest.

Last year our new employers (GMS) decided to bring some of our yearly wage increments forward in order to bring all porters wages more in line with each other. Instead of 7 years the timeline is now 4. Now while I understand it seemed unfair to those who have been here longer that porters who'd been here for less than 2 years would suddenly get a healthy pay rise (which they are entitled to irrespective of the timeline) recent events have really soured the mood.

Friday just gone every porter already at the top of their pay band where given a bonus of anywhere between £180-225. For the rest of us still not at the top of our band we received nothing and won't be recieving anything once our final increment comes through in 2020/21 (depending on ones time in employment). In short, those porters already at the top of their band were paid off with additional funds so they would shut up about some of us having our wage increment time shortened.

Worse still, some of these same porters are taking great pleasure rubbing our noses in it and feel they deserve the bonus and that we don't as we had a pay rise - a rise that they have failed to understand they've already received due to time employed with the NHS.

The whole thing stinks and, as you might imagine, has caused real division within the portering service here. A real sense of "we're all equal, but some are more equal than others".

Me? I feel like I'm being treated second rate. As such I'm keeping my ear to the ground for new employment elsewhere, either within the Trust or outside of it. In the meantime I'm keeping myself to myself and staying out of everyone's way as much as I can. Lunch breaks on my own, staying out of the porters lodge, not engaging with any others porters unless work related. A ghost.

Anyway, hope you're all well. Catch ya laters.

Gemini73

PostRe: The Work Thread 2 - Get back to work!
by Gemini73 » Mon Apr 15, 2019 12:28 pm

Update.

My manager saw it fit to ask me, over the radio so the whole hospital would hear, if I would share my bonus with him. Apparently this is a joke to him. I'm now a laughing stock here.

Workplace bullying is obviously acceptable.

Last edited by Gemini73 on Mon Apr 15, 2019 12:50 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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OrangeRKN
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PostRe: The Work Thread 2 - Get back to work!
by OrangeRKN » Mon Apr 15, 2019 12:49 pm

Are you in a union Gem? Seems like that would be the best place to talk through grievances about pay disparity. At the end of the day I'd just ask are you happy being paid what you are for the work you do? If not, look for another job. If you are, then don't worry too much about what other people are earning.

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Gemini73

PostRe: The Work Thread 2 - Get back to work!
by Gemini73 » Mon Apr 15, 2019 12:51 pm

OrangeRKN wrote:Are you in a union Gem? Seems like that would be the best place to talk through grievances about pay disparity. At the end of the day I'd just ask are you happy being paid what you are for the work you do? If not, look for another job. If you are, then don't worry too much about what other people are earning.


Now I'm being bullied at work and am the butt of other porters jokes, all fuelled by the manager.

I'm fuming inside but powerless to do anything about it. I'm seriously considering constructive dismissal.

common-law duties, including the duty of care, and the duty of mutual trust and confidence. Here, your employer has an obligation to ensure that you are not intimidated or humiliated, and are treated with dignity at work. They must deal with your complaint fairly and seriously.

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PostRe: The Work Thread 2 - Get back to work!
by OrangeRKN » Mon Apr 15, 2019 12:53 pm

Don't jump into anything and talk to HR, their job is to help you. Hopefully they can work it out.

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Jenuall
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PostRe: The Work Thread 2 - Get back to work!
by Jenuall » Mon Apr 15, 2019 1:11 pm

That doesn't sound like a particularly pleasant situation Gemini, bullying and these kinds of comments sound a bit gooseberry fool to be honest.

That said I have been in a similar situation to those people you describe as being at the top of their band. Several years back my company started wanting to accelerate the rate of increase in pay for new joiners as they felt they were falling behind the market rates and would fail to attract the best people or hold on to the people we have. A great idea and it was absolutely the case that we weren't paying people enough - but the result was that people who had only been in work for 1-2 years were suddenly experiencing a rate of pay increase that had taken myself and others who joined at the same time 5+ years to achieve. I can't say that this didn't make me at least a little bit miffed. If the company were to then offer a bonus or some kind of other change in remuneration to us slightly more senior employees I don't think that would have been a bad thing in the circumstances!

Ultimately I think you have to accept the reality that you can't make all of the people happy all of the time, that maintaining fairness in pay scales across a range of employees can be a tricky job and that sometimes things may not go your way. Either way everyone involved should try not to be dicks about it - comparing salaries and making jokes about the increase that others did/didn't get is never a good look (as your manager seems to be demonstrating :fp: ). If being paid below what you deserve becomes a trend then you can kick up a fuss and either get it corrected or look at moving on, but also I would echo OR's point from above - if you are happy with the work you do and the pay you receive then that is the main thing, danger lies in comparing yourself with others too much! As long as you are aware enough of the general "market rates" for people of your skill and experience then you can determine if you are being shafted or not without needing to get tied up in the details of what specific colleagues may be earning!

Gemini73

PostRe: The Work Thread 2 - Get back to work!
by Gemini73 » Mon Apr 15, 2019 1:30 pm

As I said in my first post I totally get why some were miffed given their extra time here, but if the company felt a bonus was in order to assuage hurt feelings then it should have been made explicitly clear it was not to be discussed on any level. Instead the situation I've found myself in has arisen, fuelled by the actions of an unprofessional manager who thinks it's perfectly acceptable to make me the butt of their jokes.

Now I've to once more do battle with my rising anxiety and depression - and my rising temper. My health is more important so I'll be draughting up another CV this evening.

Gemini73

PostRe: The Work Thread 2 - Get back to work!
by Gemini73 » Fri Apr 19, 2019 11:20 am

*update*

So I got chatting with one of the Estates (engineers) managers on the bus the other day, Stuart, who I get on really well with. He not a fan of my line manager at all, (my manager thinks it's appropriate to keep making Welsh jokes when ever Stuart is in the vicinity*). Anyway, Stuart has given me the heads up about a position coming up in July with his lot. It's an engineers assistant, provides on the job training and the chance to take a course should I choose to. It also allows me to carry my current contract across so no changes there. The position is actually what another one of my more decent work colleagues took up but who has now qualified as a plumber through Estates thus freeing up said position. Stuart is going to keep me posted along with the chief electrical engineer, Richard, (who I also have a good relationship with - we're both PC gamers and always shooting the breeze about PC gaming). So, fingers crossed I may be able to move into a new role, even learn a trade, without having to leave the hospital which I love.

In the meantime, and having since been dragged into the office for refusing to accept having he piss taking out of me and being told that I need to "man up", (yes, this is real!), I have been keeping a diary of daily events should I decided to approach HR as and when I move on.

Finally, yesterday was the funeral of a much loved and respected colleague. After work many of the porters went to the local to raise a glass to our departed colleague. I wasn't invited, which was quite hurtful being as I had a good relationship with the man. But I'm keeping my head down and my mouth shut. My time will come.

*If you're wondering how my line manager still has a job well it's because he's protected by his boss, who is also the boss of portering and domestic services. They're "mates" you see. It's actually quite appalling the culture of fear and intimidation they've created together. The level of homophobia, racism, bigotry and general unpleasantness that goes unchecked and is fuelled by my line manager is quite shocking. No one sticks together and are willing to join forces to deal with the situation. Step out of line and refuse to play ball and you'll end up in my position - an outsider. We've lost 7 good porters in the last two years as a result of this toxic environment.

Last edited by Gemini73 on Fri Apr 19, 2019 1:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Squinty
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PostRe: The Work Thread 2 - Get back to work!
by Squinty » Fri Apr 19, 2019 1:11 pm

Gemini73 wrote:Update.

My manager saw it fit to ask me, over the radio so the whole hospital would hear, if I would share my bonus with him. Apparently this is a joke to him. I'm now a laughing stock here.

Workplace bullying is obviously acceptable.


strawberry floating hell.

Gemini73

PostRe: The Work Thread 2 - Get back to work!
by Gemini73 » Fri Apr 19, 2019 1:29 pm

Squinty wrote:
Gemini73 wrote:Update.

My manager saw it fit to ask me, over the radio so the whole hospital would hear, if I would share my bonus with him. Apparently this is a joke to him. I'm now a laughing stock here.

Workplace bullying is obviously acceptable.


strawberry floating hell.


strawberry floating hell indeed.

This article from last year will give you an idea and shows mine isn't an isolated incident:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/201 ... g-billions


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