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[Thad]

Congrats! What will you be doing?

Don't know yet, but it's the department with the guys who work on the imaging server and who recently ended a test program for thin clients.

Popping into a forum once a month?

Actually, I'd probably spend some time working from home, meaning I could hit the forums on my breaks.  (They're blocked at work.)

I'll save my congratulations for when you get the job, if that's OK.

Not a bad call.  I'm cautiously optimistic but have learned not to take things for granted.

[Mongrel]

Today, we had a visit from one of the service managers passing though the office on his way to spend time with some of the field engineers. He was a friendly fellow and it was nice to meet him.

This visit came with a sort of a bonus experience. For the first time in my life I have seen with my own two eyes that truly frightening creature: The totally unconvincing toupee. I mean, wow. I though beasts this obvious became extinct in the mid-eighties.

At first, one might deride such a man for his choice of coiffure, but upon reflection one realizes the special unique combination of utter terror and balls-out courage it takes to wear those things and one stands corrected, impressed, and humbled.

[Spaco]

Got offered a paid internship this week at an economic policy research think tank as a Junior Analyst. Neato.

[Lottel]

Well shit.
Alright. A few weeks ago, my boss made us switch over to a system where the customers pay me and I hold on to all of the money, much like I did as a driver. The difference is that this is inconvenient for the customer AND me. Moreso for me, but still inconvenient for the customer as the have to pay me directly instead of going to the front counter and paying. Inconvenient, but tolerable.
Well NOW his two business partners (the guy who bought the building and the restaurant owner next door) gave him some... "advice" to improve the store. Now we are switching a lot of things around. In a bad way. For one, we are no longer organizing the tickets in the kitchen the same. See, we have this rack where we put tickets that are made, but in the oven. Then we take the tickets and deliver the food when it is ready. We are reorganizing them from Table Number to Time In. Which is bad but sounds good. See, Time In is never a problem. The only problems we have with time are when the cooks mess up on the food and they have to remake it. Having Time In isn't going to change that. And the reason it was Table Number in the first place is because if I am taking a table or something someone else can go out and take the pizza as well as other similar situations. The Table Number was there so OTHER people knew what food went were, instead of just me.  Now I am the only person who knows what food of mine goes where. Which is a problem if I spend 70% of my time on the floor, doing my job.
And we have a magician. He got paid differently than everyone else and we've changed it. Now he gets 20% of the tips of the tables he goes to. Which is understandable because tables he go to have a better time and should tip more. So they want me to give him 20% of my tips at the end of the night. But I know the magician. And I know the business. He's not going to go to every table. So I'll end up paying him more than I should. Especially if people tip him directly (which is what they usually do and will continue to do so). So this means I'm going to have to keep track of how much the table paid. How much they are tipping, whether or not they saw the magician, and whether or not they tipped him directly. Then take 20% of the tips on the tables applicable and give it to him at the end of the night. Then argue with him as to why it's not more than that.
We are also becoming a bit more... full service. Now I will go get drinks and all of that instead of just alcohol and food. This is a good idea and one I've been doing on my own for a while now.  So I think it's great. But it's another change in a sea of changes.

AND ANOTHER THING: The two partners (who my boss speaks highly of me to) came in and told me how to do my job better without actually seeing me work. THIS IS SOMETHING I CAN'T STAND. I do a good job. I am the best at it. I am the head server for a reason. They were saying things that are obvious and everyone should know. And things that I actually do better than what they are saying. My boss would step in "Sunshine actually does this and it works better for him and the customers appreciate that." The partners would look at me confused. And then say "Yeah. I guess. Do what he does." So tl;dr for this section? LOTTEL IS RIGHT AND PARTNERS ARE STUPID FOREVER.

tl;dr overall: Bunch of ill thought out changes will make Lottel's job less fun until the system crashes and a lot of customers (And Lottel) get trampled over in the process.


EDIT: And yes, I will bring up these things with the boss tomorrow when I work next.

[Lottel]

UPDATE: So we did the thing tonight.
I am making between 25-30% of my tips for doing a lot more work. The boss checked everything out and isn't happy with that. Who KNOWS what will end up tomorrow/
Tonight, I added everything up. I made $71 in tips, not the best, but pretty good. I left the store with $43.
Yeah.


Yeah.

[Brentai]

Clearly you are going to have to battle the magici-

The House of The Dead Magician's Theme

[Shinra]

Well shit.
Alright. A few weeks ago, my boss made us switch over to a system where the customers pay me and I hold on to all of the money, much like I did as a driver. The difference is that this is inconvenient for the customer AND me. Moreso for me, but still inconvenient for the customer as the have to pay me directly instead of going to the front counter and paying. Inconvenient, but tolerable.
Well NOW his two business partners (the guy who bought the building and the restaurant owner next door) gave him some... "advice" to improve the store. Now we are switching a lot of things around. In a bad way. For one, we are no longer organizing the tickets in the kitchen the same. See, we have this rack where we put tickets that are made, but in the oven. Then we take the tickets and deliver the food when it is ready. We are reorganizing them from Table Number to Time In. Which is bad but sounds good. See, Time In is never a problem. The only problems we have with time are when the cooks mess up on the food and they have to remake it. Having Time In isn't going to change that. And the reason it was Table Number in the first place is because if I am taking a table or something someone else can go out and take the pizza as well as other similar situations. The Table Number was there so OTHER people knew what food went were, instead of just me.  Now I am the only person who knows what food of mine goes where. Which is a problem if I spend 70% of my time on the floor, doing my job.
And we have a magician. He got paid differently than everyone else and we've changed it. Now he gets 20% of the tips of the tables he goes to. Which is understandable because tables he go to have a better time and should tip more. So they want me to give him 20% of my tips at the end of the night. But I know the magician. And I know the business. He's not going to go to every table. So I'll end up paying him more than I should. Especially if people tip him directly (which is what they usually do and will continue to do so). So this means I'm going to have to keep track of how much the table paid. How much they are tipping, whether or not they saw the magician, and whether or not they tipped him directly. Then take 20% of the tips on the tables applicable and give it to him at the end of the night. Then argue with him as to why it's not more than that.
We are also becoming a bit more... full service. Now I will go get drinks and all of that instead of just alcohol and food. This is a good idea and one I've been doing on my own for a while now.  So I think it's great. But it's another change in a sea of changes.

AND ANOTHER THING: The two partners (who my boss speaks highly of me to) came in and told me how to do my job better without actually seeing me work. THIS IS SOMETHING I CAN'T STAND. I do a good job. I am the best at it. I am the head server for a reason. They were saying things that are obvious and everyone should know. And things that I actually do better than what they are saying. My boss would step in "Sunshine actually does this and it works better for him and the customers appreciate that." The partners would look at me confused. And then say "Yeah. I guess. Do what he does." So tl;dr for this section? LOTTEL IS RIGHT AND PARTNERS ARE STUPID FOREVER.

tl;dr overall: Bunch of ill thought out changes will make Lottel's job less fun until the system crashes and a lot of customers (And Lottel) get trampled over in the process.


EDIT: And yes, I will bring up these things with the boss tomorrow when I work next.

I'm sorry, but the magician getting a cut of your tips is complete horseshit. If he wants to make a livable wage, he should go back to doing birthday parties. If he can't get work that way, he's obviously a shitty magician - which brings up why he's not making a livable wage, as he'd be making enough in tips on his own merits if he was any good.

I hate the idea of shared tips - I had a friend who worked at a pizza place where he was forced to split his tips with insiders. He quit after a month, because he was making barely minimum wage while the inside store staff were making over 10 dollars an hour after tip shares.

Moral of the story: You're doing all the work and the magician can go fuck himself.

[Lottel]

Well, it's not the magicians idea. He used to get tips separately. And he made a lot more money. This is the partners coming in, seeing all of this, and saying "How can we fuck this up?"  He's making less money, I'm making less money, and the store is exactly the same.
I talked to my boss and I have to deal with it tomorrow with whatever he came up with. But he said that if by the end of the day tomorrow, he'll do one of two things: Tell the partners that he's going to lose half the staff with these changes (which is actually a possibility. This is a lot more paperwork and stuff I have to do with a lot less money in my pocket) and that he's going back and they'll have to deal with it or pay the difference. Or he'll sit down with me and I'll come up with a solution for the store.

The magician can be kind of a dick, but he's not the bad guy here. And nor is my boss really. He's just trying to make everyone happy and it's kind of doing the opposite. Tonight we crunched the numbers and he SAW IN NUMBERS how shitty this system is. So he wasn't that happy either.

[Fredward]

I spend a lot of time looking at terrible terrible websites.

[Mongrel]

That is some high-end 1997 shit right there.

what on earth do you have to do with those things? Tell me the answer is "blow them up and rebuild them from the ground up".

[Fredward]

I wish. I'm putting together a mailing list of a ton of Quebec companies for the school, because they want to beg for moneys. It just so happens, a lot of these companies don't spend a whole lot on web design. My favourite is this one which is less ugly and more terrifying (just, read the words in the flash animation).

[Mongrel]

Yeah, saw that. It's kinda

[Dooly]

What the hell is the point of that Andromed site?  As far as I can tell, there are two pages, the front page with only cryptic information about what product or service they sell, and a contact page that doesn't even have an email address.

[Brentai]

So my boss put in his two weeks' notice today.  This is a bit more significant than it usually would be because, well, the team I'm on is basically just myself and my boss.  We were running way under required resources as-is - without getting too specific we were basically determined to need 4 people at present, and the scope of the work is constantly and rapidly expanding - and in two weeks all of that is basically going to be all me, in addition to all of the administrative and maintenance tasks that my boss had previously been responsible for.  It's going to be like that for a while until we're approved to hire again, because I'm really the only person in the testing department with the required background to do this stuff.

I'm not sure how to react to this.  Worst case scenario, I got stuck permanently in the same position doing things (or rather, continuing to do things) way out of scope of the job that I'm being paid for until I either quit or die of exhaustion.  Best case scenario, I stick it out for a while, get to hire and train my own personal lackey, and convince the higher-ups that if I'm going to be an administrator, a lead, and a four-man workforce, that my current status of second-from-bottom-paygrade contract worker isn't really appropriate.

Oh and, in all seriousness, if anybody's out of a job and has good software/avionic/testing experience and doesn't mind moving to OC California and taking a bunch of shit from me, let me know.  I've got something for you.

[Mongrel]

A: What are the consequences to the company if you quit (i.e. removing the last remaining structural support for your department)? and
B: Is the next level of management bosses sharp enough to understand those consequences (at least in vague terms)?

[Brentai]

A: What are the consequences to the company if you quit (i.e. removing the last remaining structural support for your department)? and
B: Is the next level of management bosses sharp enough to understand those consequences (at least in vague terms)?

A. The entirety of its infrastructure software goes completely untested.
B. No.  Or rather, they don't at this juncture, but are probably sharp enough to if I can figure out how to play these cards.

[McDohl]

...Hay, Brentai.

[Brentai]

That was actually kinda targeted at you and Max, yeah.

[McDohl]

If your higher-ups wish to get in contact with me on Monday through Thursday, please don't try until after 1:30 PM central, which is when I get out of class.  Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are pretty much open season.

[Brentai]

The best part is I get to pretend it's Data saying all that.