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The future of the updates.

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don256us

Uber Folding Senior
Joined
Jul 17, 2003
There is a possibility that in the near future I will be transitioning from an hourly worker to a salaried manager. Should that happen, I will discontinue the weekly updates for perhaps as much as a few months as I get a grip on my new role. I will be quitting many other things too but this is the one that affects you.

With that as a possibility, I am left to wonder what could be done to keep our team motivated, informed and perhaps (if only slightly) entertained? If you have an idea that you would like to do something, maybe your own thing and not my thing, please post it up to get some feedback. If you are interested in picking this up where I leave it, please express that too. Give it a thought.

I started doing this simply because I saw a need. My first updates were scant. My later updates were too bulky for me to keep up with. Eventually, I ended up where I'm at now with the weekly updates. You guys have been very kind to me and I know that if someone else steps up, we'll be good to them too. Except for WhiteHawkEQ. That good guy would nail me on any mistake and believe me when I say I gave him lots of room for it. :rofl:

Give it a thought and see what you think. If you find that our current weekly updates are the ticket and you think that you may want to start doing them, let me know. I'll help you with my formatting so you don't have to reinvent it. If you want to do a weekly update but you want to invent your own style, please do. If you have another idea altogether, please feel free to do that.

In the past, we had guys setup compititions with other teams. We've had guys informally competing with team themed wallpaper for the desktop. We've had various styles of weekly/monthly updates. The sky is the limit. It can be multiple people too doing their own thing separate from each other. If there is a thing that you can do and you see a potential for that thing to be a thing, do that thing. Clear?

Of course, I may not be selected in which case I just posted my embarrassment. In that case, maybe I'll just take a month off to lick my wounds. :chair:

Thanks guys.
 
Well: It took 'em long enough but they finally posted the job that I want. I'll get my Shtuff together this weekend and turn in my application on Monday. Monday is the first day that they will take the application. We'll see how it goes.
 
I'm just putting the finishing touches on my application and resume. (I'm actually procastinating by doing other chores that are only slightly less stressful than my application.) They could start interviewing as early as next week but it could be two weeks. Of my compitition internally, I think that they all bowed out. This job went up last year and four of us applied internally. The guy who got it, and thus became my boss, was subsiquently hire to become our department director thus opening this position yet again. One of the other two guys got promoted into the slot that was evacuated by my boss a year ago and he is happy there. The other guy probably never had a chance and I think he diecieded to sit this one out. At 50, I still have 15 years in me (17 if I want full social security benefits) so I don't see that as a problem.

They may open up the job externally but I bring a large volume of institutional memory and political understanding of the company that I have worked at for over 17 years. I've been the Union lead for about 15 of those years. I think that they'll just be glad to get me out of that position as I have had a fair amount of sucess.

We'll see. Maybe they'll just like me where I am presently and while I'll be devistated, It wouldn't be a bad life.
 
Good luck Don! I hope the best outcome for you is what happens for you. :thup: :cheers:

Now I'm off to the basement to get at least one of my GTX970s folding again.
 
Good luck with the job application, hope everything goes well.

With regards to the weekly updates I'm sending a PM as i have a few questions.
 
As of Monday I officially became a candidate. I don't know when they will start the interview process. I've been with the company for over 17 years. The joke is that I'm 17 years in to a 5 year plan. As in I was going to work here for 5 years and move on. 17+ years later, I'm still here. The benefit is that I know everyone at every level and every department. My point is that I've heard rumor that my competition has at least "touched" a computer at some point in the past. As this is the Operations Manager for an IS department, that don't get it. My biggest saving grace is that because this is a local government, the pay for truly qualified people is low and benefits aren't much better than private industry any more like they used to be.

TL;DR The competition is between me and a pool of unqualified folks. I'm liking my odds as I understand them.
 
Looks like they are holding the job open for another two weeks and then holding interviews for the next two weeks. At least another month before I find out.
 
Well, the job posting was out longer than expected. Today should be the last day to submit. Then two weeks to interview and hopefully I get the offer. Time will tell.
 
I already started work on automatically generating some stuff from the stats. Writing the AI to inject humorous statements is beyond me though :p
 
I spoke to my boss yesterday for about a second. He said that he would start the process in about two weeks time *if* he can find time for it. I was hoping to know for sure by today at the latest. Oh well. At least my wife got a big promotion. Besides, I'm not doing poorly at all. I just want that Powa!
 
There has been other interest too in taking this over. My parameters for the updates have basically been this:
Always be positive. Post about the gains never the losses.
Be interesting to yourself. I found the stats that I thought were interesting and dropped those that were either too much work or redundant or dull.
Be amusing to yourself. As long as it does not offend, my go to jokes have dealt with Simpsons material or other pop-culture that make it relatable.
Remember that the other teams are our friends. Don't vilify anyone.
I tried to make it sterile and professional but you guys really didn't like it. So be conversational in tone.

The "funny" in the updates is really only funny to me. If you find it to be funny.... bonus. I write to amuse and interest myself and hope that you find it to be the same. Whenever I've asked for input to make changes, I've gotten none so it must at least be OK enough or you guys would have said something. I write the first paragraph (if any) and title last. The sub-title is usually a reference to something that I wrote somewhere giving you guys something to hunt for. Again, it's just something that I find amusing.

Seeing a pattern here? If you write to amuse and interest yourself, there is a good chance that we will find it interesting and funny too. Use what I have as a template or create your own style. Never make someone else feel bad and give as much praise as you can without getting nauseated. If you mistype something, WhitehawkEQ will send you a correction in the replies. :)

Like one of the tag lines states: If you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong.
 
I didn't check on Monday but they finally stopped advertising the position. I have no idea how many people I'm competing against but I only have one internal competitor. While I would hate to loose, he's a good sort and would retire before me thus giving me another run at it in a few years. That said, I think that I have more relevant experience than he. We are all still waiting for an interview date which could come at any moment. I hate suspense so I'm just wanting this to be done. I've bitten my nails to the point that every finger is bloody and grotesque. Once I get that job, I'll start my plan to take over the world.... so we've got that going for us.
 
As it would happen, I was asked to pick from a list of dates and times for the interview. I picked the 1st one. Monday morning 9AM. I'm gonna' set the bar as high as I can for the rest to follow.
 
As it would happen, I was asked to pick from a list of dates and times for the interview. I picked the 1st one. Monday morning 9AM. I'm gonna' set the bar as high as I can for the rest to follow.

Best of luck with the interview :D
 
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