PiecePractical

@PiecePractical@midwest.social

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do remote workers actually work? Yes, but they also shop and shower⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  So, I work in a maintenance position that really isn’t possible to do remotely but we have a fair amount of desk work too. We’re in the process of setting up a workstation to program and new head ends for our systems. The first thing on everyone’s list when we were deciding on a location was “as far from everyone else as possible” because we all know that other people being around to make small talk is a distraction that will easily double the time it takes to get this shit done.

  In every maintenance position I’ve had, every one of us has had our own secret workspaces where most other guys didn’t know to look for us just so that we could get some desk work done in peace. Co-workers are a distraction more often than they are a help and I think we’ve all known this for years.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do remote workers actually work? Yes, but they also shop and shower⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  The thing is, you don’t even need to manufacture a good story. You could tell the true story of how companies have slashed overhead by reducing the amount of office space needed or how employees working from home turn out to be just as if not more productive than those working in the offices and happier with their jobs besides.

  There were companies planning to move more jobs to work from home even before the pandemic because it’s a model that just makes more sense for a lot of positions. The return to office crowd could be beaten simply by pointing out the for most positions, working on-site is a needless expense. The problem is, the media isn’t willing to tell that story.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨In 2021, my company laid off 100 people. Later that same year, they hire me and others to replenish this loss⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Ooof. Current job has a big problem with that.

  I’m in facilities for a company with 2 dozen buildings. We’re big enough that we have a drafting department who needs to sign off on all of our drawings and documentation. For reasons that are always changing, they never want to convert the contractors’ schematics for remodels into something that can be shared. If we’re lucky, the contractors are willing to share prints with us directly more offen, we just have to hope the labels are still there when it breaks and/or ring out individual wires. Huge waste of man hours on our end but every time we suggest fixing it, the drafting department insists that it can’t be done for whatever reason. Our department has offered to handle these schematics several times but, “that’s not in our scope”.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨In 2021, my company laid off 100 people. Later that same year, they hire me and others to replenish this loss⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  They will switch jobs before things come crashing down. All they want to show is a slight uptick in sales or revenue to take credit.

  I used to work in field service for a machine tool company. One of the machine brands I serviced had a couple years in the late nineties that hated to work on. The machines were always cheap but those years were egregious. Corners cut everywhere and the original parts were so shitty we’d usually have to retrofit shit from a different year. Eventually bumped into a guy who’d worked on them at the time who explained the history. The owners of the company at the time were about to sell out to another manufacturer and they wanted to jack up the profits before the sale so they cut every corner they that they didn’t think would be noticable before the sale.

  The brand stayed afloat for another ten years but everyone I know who was in the industry at the time said their was never any coming back from the damage two years of shit machines did to their image.

  Worst part about was, because the machines didn’t start having issues until after the company sold, the new owners got all the blame and got stuck with bill for all the warranty work. Literally no incentive for anyone else to not do exactly the same as the original owners.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What if employers could gauge the ‘moods’ of workers? A dangerous new tech gains ground in India⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, I was a field service tech at a machine tool distributor for 15 years. One day about 7 years ago I realized that more of our customers than not were involved in some kind of arms manufacturing. Everything from components to military armaments to places making parts for AR-15s. Didn’t start that way but the business drifted into that market over time.

  I decided to move on and it took me all of 5 years to find a position that; a) I was qualified for, b) paid enough that I wouldn’t lose my house and, c) was relatively safe from drifting into the customer base as the last company.

  I don’t even have kids and this whole process was absolutely terrifying. I can easily see how someone with a family to support or less stability in their life wouldn’t feel like leaving was a possibility.