Posts made by Carnival Boy

Is positive discrimination also illegal in the US then? What about the Rooney rule? I'm not sure what the rules are in Europe, but there are examples of legal positive discrimination, such as female only candidates in elections, and I believe in Denmark you have to employ a certain percentage of female executives.

I don't like wall-mounting TVs at all. Don't you find them too high? Aren't you having to crane your neck upwards? When I'm lying on the sofa I like the telly to be at eye level, so just stand it on a TV cabinet.

Bought the wife and kids new Fire tablets to replace the tablets they got for Christmas 3 years ago which are now dog slow. Didn't really want to but they were half price. They use them for several hours a week so they're not bad value.

My uncle ran a successful hardware distribution business employing dozens of people for over 30 years. His motivation was to generate work, security, and happiness, for owner and employees. He could have been more profitable, but chose not to.

I'll have to tell him he spent his life devoted to a hobby

But then he was a socialist. Maybe we just think about business differently in Europe? Scott likes to label things, but I'm not sure it makes any difference.

Plus, I'm not sure if Teams works with metadata. Which is the kind of thing that frustrates me a bit with Teams - its a front-end for SharePoint, but a hobbled front-end. Meaning you keep having to select "Open in SharePoint" to do anything complicated.

But generally I find the advantages of "going all in" with Microsoft outweigh the disadvantages.

I've also found Teams getting used more and more by companies compared with Zoom. At the start of the pandemic it was all Zoom.

@travisdh1 said in 75 User Exchange On Prem vs. Office 365 Cost Comparison:

I've yet to figure out how to manage file shares in it properly. They all just get dumped into the same bucket and good luck finding what you need.

It's essentially just a front-end for Sharepoint isn't it? With each Teams channel being a Sharepoint site.

I have to confess that I've never had success using metadata to organise Sharepoint files and still organise everything into folders and sub-folders. I then regularly use Windows Explorer to manage those files and folders, which I find much easier than Sharepoint (poor) or Teams (terrible). IIRC, @scottalanmiller has preached against using folders in Sharepoint, but it's the only solution that has consistently worked for me. Maybe I'm just too old to learn new tricks, but I think Windows Explorer is an awesome application and hasn't been bettered (on Windows), despite its age.

@jt1001001 said in 75 User Exchange On Prem vs. Office 365 Cost Comparison:

@EddieJennings Handle it now while you can. We did not and let's just say its the wild west trying to wrangle it all back in

Is that a weakness of Teams though, or a weakness in internal controls, training and workflow?

@scottalanmiller said in 75 User Exchange On Prem vs. Office 365 Cost Comparison:

Very hard to see and follow alerts and conversations. A lot more clicking around and searching for messages than with other platforms.

I agree, as a messaging app it seems very poor and MS definitely need to work on this.

@scottalanmiller said in 75 User Exchange On Prem vs. Office 365 Cost Comparison:

Teams is actively really inefficient

How so? We're using it more and more, including to collaborate with external people and everyone seems to like it now they've got the hang of it.

My kids also use it all the time at school.

I'd like a dumbphone that runs WhatsApp as 99% of the time that's the only way my family and friends communicate with me. Carrying around a smartphone all day just in case someone WhatsApps me feels like overkill.

It's so rare that someone actually calls me or sends an SMS. And when my kids call me, it's always through WhatsApp as they barely understand the concept of non-Internet calling.

I wasn't, but don't focus on the actual amounts - they were just arbitrary figures. Although salaries in Europe are a lot lower than the US.

But my point was that a lot of employers are flexible and will make exceptions for good candidates, regardless of experience. Specifying a salary can cast the net too narrowly. Finding a good developer is hard over here, there aren't many available.

@scottalanmiller said in Job postings with no salary listed:

@RandyBlevins said in Job postings with no salary listed:

I never understood the whole asking salary is taboo thing.

that's an excuse. It's not taboo to anyone. That's something employers claim in the hopes that people won't call their bluffs.

Discussing money generally is something of a taboo in the UK, but I understand it isn't in the US. I have some sympathy with firms not advertising salary if (and only if) it is because they are willing to look at a wide variety of experience and talent and will pay market rates depending on the candidate they offer the role to.

For example, let's say you want an experienced developer at $50k, but find an inexperienced one willing to work for $30k, and they are the stand-out candidate, you might prefer to employ the inexperienced one and train him up, with a view that he'll start on $30k but will eventually be paid $50k (or $60k). By advertising the role at $50k, the inexperienced candidate might not even apply.

Sure, you might advertise the role as "$30-50k depending on experience", but does that help? I can see that argument that says candidates know what they're worth, this is the job requirements, if you think you can make a difference then apply and if we agree we'll pay you what you're worth.

On the other hand, if you're on $50k then you're never going to take a job that pays $40k and you don't want everyone to waste their time just because money wasn't discussed early enough in the conversation.

But this is where a good external recruiter should be able to handle things.

@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Drinking:

@travisdh1 that's REAL Pilsner Urquel!

Wait, did America steal Pilsner Urquel as well as Budweiser?

Our local micro-brewery now does deliveries of cask ale. One of the brewers just dropped off 3 litres on the way home from her shift. So I'm fairly happy again, after all the pubs/bars have been closed here in England since March.

@Dashrender said in Microsoft Teams:

Thanks for this post - my early googles didn't land me on anything, but this morning got lucky.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/change-participant-settings-for-a-teams-meeting-53261366-dbd5-45f9-aae9-a70e6354f88e?ui=en-us&rs=en-us&ad=us

A good example of what's wrong with Teams. It's so complicated that even someone like you can't always figure it out. Bob the Sales Manager has no chance.

I've never understood how Microsoft manage to make products so convoluted. Then someone like Zoom comes along and shows how simple things can be.

Like I said above, he likes programming Python, nothing to do with gaming.

Thanks, he's going to take a look at solarus. He does like 2D, he loves Terraria.

His favourite game is Dota 2. He wants to become a developer, so anything that will teach him to code is great, but he's also studying art, so anything that helps develop his art skills is also educational. I'm trying to find something that he can get in to whilst stuck at home, but will also help him educationally.

Keep the suggestions coming please.

I'd like my 14-year old (a keen gamer) to develop a game, whilst he's off-school for the next few months. He's learnt some Python at school (which he enjoys), but that's it.

Can anyone recommend a good environment he can get into? Maybe something like Unreal Engine (first Google result). I'd like something that is quick and easy to get going ideally, as I'm having trouble inspiring him to give anything a go. As a kid, I loved writing games for my ZX Spectrum (in Basic, never got into Assembly). He's very artistic, so I'd like something that inspires him from a graphical design perspective.

Ideally, I'd love something that he could work on collaboratively online with his best mate.

@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

Installing a bath tub and working on system documentation.

Impressive multi-tasking there

@scottalanmiller said in Compare Azure to Windows On Prem for Normal Business Workloads:

Yes, it integrates with O365 which is nice, if you have O365 which they do with the customer that uses it. They don't like it, though. But they put up with it for the integration and price.

Integration with O365 is the only reason to use Teams IMO. But it is crap. I introduced it in our organisation and now most people hate me

However, Microsoft have spent a lot of money on slick TV adverts in the UK for it, so hopefully they'll invest in it and make it good.

We use it as a user-friendly front-end for Sharepoint, but I still end up opening Sharepoint if I want to do anything other than rudimentary document management, as Teams struggles.

We use it as a replacement for (consumer) Skype for messaging and screen sharing, but getting people to use it instead of Skype is a struggle. Skype is not great, but it's better. We use it for meetings, but free Zoom is much better.

I've never managed to get the calendar working correctly when organising Teams meetings. The chat is confusing, and we have lots of examples of people missing messages. To the extent that users sometimes send a Skype message that says "Did you get my Teams message?" Although I don't always get my Skype messages, so....

The embedded document editor is flaky, to the extent that I tell users to always select "Open in Desktop App" rather than "Edit in Teams".

I've tried using Microsoft Planner for project management (separate product but integrates nicely within Teams), but it's just not as good as the free version of Trello.

But, but, but.....I like the concept of a unified front-end interface to all our apps (Sharepoint, Planner, Word, IM etc etc), it's just not there yet. But it's still relatively new, and Microsoft have enough money to throw at it to make it work, eventually. I'm hoping my colleagues will eventually like me again

I'm all for flexible working, but wouldn't want a flexible salary. I get paid whether there's work or not. My bosses take my surplus labour (the revenue they earn from clients after paying my salary) as profit, but they also take the risk of not finding enough work.

I presume Jared's employee will be get extra compensation due to the risk he's taking on. But it wouldn't be for me. My bosses have an incentive to go and find work for me, because they don't have the option of not paying me. And finding work is something they're good at and I'm not (I'm not a salesman). I like that they do that and I like that they have an incentive to do it.

If I was going to take on risk in return for higher potential returns, then I would have started my own business, rather than being an employee.

But each to their own.

@JaredBusch said in Writing a Job Posting:

*We currently run on an hourly payment model. The time you bill to clients is what you are paid.
There is no vacation, but the hourly rate accounts for that. If you can't swing taking time off, it is your own fault.

Wow, seems like a tough gig.

@Jimmy9008 said in New IT Position UK, any advice/feedback?:

Competencies:
• Minimum eight (5) years’ experience within Information Technology

I might be wrong, but I'm not sure you're allowed to say this in the UK anymore, as it could be construed as age discrimination.

I was thinking of applying as I meet every criteria exactly, but then realised I wasn't a self-starter, so sadly will have to pass

I am surprised by the reaction on here. Maybe it's a cultural thing because it is so common and normal in Europe. Certainly over here you can't just fire people, as it is predicted will be the outcome in the OP's case.

@scottalanmiller said in How do you guys handle counter offers?:

2. We are saying that when people say it worked out, that's just something that people say but if you look at those situations, they have to lower the bar as to what "working out" means to make the claim.

By "lower the bar" you mean doing the same job but earning 50% more money. Yes, I think a lot of people would take that.

Anyway, it sounds like the OP handed in his notice and his employer is trying to persuade him to change his mind. That's not extortion. That's normal. It sounds like his mind is made up anyway, so fair play for sticking to his guns. I don't know if I would for that kind of money. I'd be tempted to stick around as I could then find another job if it didn't work out. But it is definitely not extortion.

I'm not recommending anyone takes a counter offer. I'm saying that there are occasions when it can work out. Calling people stupid when you don't know the circumstances is OTT.

@JaredBusch said in How do you guys handle counter offers?:

@Carnival-Boy said in How do you guys handle counter offers?:

I also don't agree with the negativity around counter offers. They can work out.

It can never work out unless the company is really that stupid.

Feels like anyone who doesn't conform to your world view must, therefore, be "stupid".

Maybe she just came up with a cunning excuse to avoid Scott? We’ve all been there!

You can get a dumb Nokia for, like, 20 bucks in Europe. I assume it's the same in the US. We have one that gets used everyone time a family member breaks their phone, which is quite regularly. It's also handy at festivals where you don't have to worry about theft or power to charge it (the battery lasts about a week!)

@magicmarker said in How do you guys handle counter offers?:

@JasGot Thank you for your insight.

My current employer left me as the sole IT department for 250 employees for over 10 years. I was doing help desk and project management. This was only ONE of the many factors I was looking for change. I believe the company never put a contingency plan in place if I were to leave, or get hit by a bus for that matter. When I put in my notice, they realized they had no job description for my title. I was asked to write a job description for them to use for recruitment. I was pretty shocked by that.

The company is simply trying to solve a problem now by countering and getting me to stay. They put themselves in a bind. HR mentioned that employees will want to leave if take another job. That is somewhat flattering, but what in the world does that say about the company then?

I think that's more common than you think.

I was a one man band for a few years and loved it. There's pros and cons with any job but I'm surprised by the negativity on here. My experience was generally positive.

I also don't agree with the negativity around counter offers. They can work out. You've ended up in a position where you are massively important to your employer and they have been forced to recognise that and they've responded in a positive way.

I don't buy the poisoned well argument. Not least because of the concept of confirmation bias. They would look back at the situation in a positive way rather than negative - "our employee is awesome and we expertly negotiated him to stay and averted a crisis". You might think they would then put in contingencies to dilute your importance (and maybe even fire you later) but companies are generally content to just kick the can down the road and carry on as if nothing happened. They might treat you with greater respect.

Ultimately you know what you want and you know your employer so none of us can say, I just think that staying "could" be good for you.

I've tried G Suite and struggled.