Author Topic: Overheard at Work  (Read 13252558 times)

RetiredAt63

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5100 on: November 01, 2014, 05:40:27 PM »
What's Firefly?  For me a firefly is a flashy beetle.  My DD is 25, is this something that is in now for the kids?  And where did the name Kaylee come from for Firefly? Sorry, I know we are getting OT.  It could be worse, think of being named after a jewellery store (Tiffany).

When we were expecting, names were tough - names I didn't like, names he didn't like, names that would not work well in a bilingual milieu - boys' names were harder than girls'.  Even so, DD's name got spelled wrong a lot by Francophones.

My friend's daughter is named Kaylee after the character in Firefly.

arebelspy

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5101 on: November 01, 2014, 06:13:09 PM »
It's the best TV show ever made, cancelled after one season. If you have Netflix, watching it is now your number one priority.
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sekritdino

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5102 on: November 01, 2014, 06:40:02 PM »
Total face palm worthy discussions with co-workers this week.

On Tuesday, one co-worker was telling me how he waned to buy a used Honda S2000 to commute to work. He lives 45 mins away (with absolutely no traffic, so it usually takes him 1.5 hours EACH WAY to drive to work) but he does take the work-paid-for bus most of the time. I imagine once he gets a car he would drive basically every day though. Also, he insisted that since he has to drive so far he "needs" a fun car. My eye roll was so big that I think it disrupted the planet's gravitational pull for a few seconds.

Thursday comes around and the same co-worker, I, and a few others were having a discussion based on the question "If you had a billion dollars, would you quit and never write software again?" (we're all software engineers). He said hell yes, as did a few others, and I said "um hell yeah, I've been working on doing that already!" as they all know I'm quite the little Mustacian. The guy who wanted to buy the car $20k car to drive 3 hours to and from work each day didn't even comprehend how stupid that was he was spending money to buy a car to drive to work so he could pay for the car he wanted to buy to drive to work in. When I said that to him, he just gave me a blank look.

What I don't get is that this guy is actually quite good with his money, no debt, quite responsible, has lots of investments, but he just spends so damn much on stupid stuff!

tmac

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5103 on: November 01, 2014, 08:10:43 PM »
It's the best TV show ever made, cancelled after one season. If you have Netflix, watching it is now your number one priority.

+1

MikeBear

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5104 on: November 01, 2014, 10:45:04 PM »
It's the best TV show ever made, cancelled after one season. If you have Netflix, watching it is now your number one priority.

Nope, sorry. "Dead Like Me" is the best tv series ever, and it did two seasons, and had a movie a few years ago..

I'll grant Firefly 2nd best series though...

bigalsmith101

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5105 on: November 02, 2014, 01:01:57 AM »
My friend today told me that he's currently at a 40% savings goal. He just signed up for MINT and he's getting his shit sorted out. His goal is to obtain 60% savings goal, so as to hit FIRE in 12 years at age 40. He's a business analyst with a law degree. He's got everything else together, why not his finances?
 
This all sounded good. Until I asked him where he thought he could cut down. Maybe his food?

MINT told him he was spending about $700-$800 a month on food. WHAT!

Oh, wait, it was miscategorized and didn't include his debit card. Actually, it's closer to $950-$1100/mo. HOLY SHIT BATMAN!

Are you fucking kidding me! He's a single MALE. I facepuched him and then none to graciously told my long term friend that my wife and I budget for $300 a month on food. It's possible to cut down dude. At LEAST cut down 50%, and that's GENEROUS. Do yourself (and your waist line) a favor!

He boggled his own mind when MINT laid it all out. He eats every nearly every single meal OUT. He admitted that he hates cooking, but that he also hates working even more. I mentioned that he might love money more that he hates cooking. He agreed on that as well.

I've got faith in him. He's a success story already, so no reason to doubt that he can learn to cook. ANYONE can cook.

lizfish

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5106 on: November 02, 2014, 05:31:12 AM »

Email from my boss:
I'm on vacation today, but will have my blackberry with me and will be returning calls and emails.

Dude.  That's not a vacation. 

And the higher-ups can't figure out why I don't want that job...

This is one of the reasons I left my last job.  Told my boss I was going on a week long vacation camping and he flipped out.  "How will you answer emails and texts?!? Will you have your laptop with you?!?"

I hope at some point you explained to him what a "vacation" was. Compared to "working remotely" or "on-call".

That sh*t ain't even funny. I live in the UK where we have more of a "take your damn holiday" culture but still. I've worked places where it was much more subtext than that. I always used to tell people to deliberately not return email or login at weekends to force their pointy-haired boss to ask why they hadn't been fulfilling their unpaid on-call time. He got paid 4 times what some of them do. Let him be answering email at the weekend. (Wow, you can't tell I get ticked off about this stuff can you?)

lizfish

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5107 on: November 02, 2014, 05:49:28 AM »

It's the best TV show ever made, cancelled after one season. If you have Netflix, watching it is now your number one priority.

Yes. A thousand times yes. Also, if they can get a kickstarter going for salad dressing or whatever, surely they can get one for firefly season 2? Right?

nawhite

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5108 on: November 02, 2014, 06:39:04 AM »

It's the best TV show ever made, cancelled after one season. If you have Netflix, watching it is now your number one priority.

Yes. A thousand times yes. Also, if they can get a kickstarter going for salad dressing or whatever, surely they can get one for firefly season 2? Right?

How would they have a season 2? The movie takes place at the end of season 1 and [spoiler alert] they kill multiple major characters in the movie. Any season 2 just wouldn't be the same.


Prairie Gal

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5109 on: November 02, 2014, 07:41:27 AM »
A 62 year old co-worker was telling me one day last week that she can't afford to retire, and she will probably have to work forever. Earlier in the week she was talking about taking a vacation to Toronto to see her son and was thinking about staying at the Trump for $500/night because she deserved to be pampered. 

mm1970

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5110 on: November 02, 2014, 07:48:59 AM »
It's the best TV show ever made, cancelled after one season. If you have Netflix, watching it is now your number one priority.
Probably my husband's favorite show of all time.
I saw the movie?

lizfish

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5111 on: November 02, 2014, 08:19:20 AM »


It's the best TV show ever made, cancelled after one season. If you have Netflix, watching it is now your number one priority.

Yes. A thousand times yes. Also, if they can get a kickstarter going for salad dressing or whatever, surely they can get one for firefly season 2? Right?

How would they have a season 2? The movie takes place at the end of season 1 and [spoiler alert] they kill multiple major characters in the movie. Any season 2 just wouldn't be the same.

Ah you got me. Loved both the series and the film but I almost instantly forget details after watching stuff. Like you know, key people being dead. It's great for re-reading books etc. No idea what the ending is even though I've already read it. :-)

civil

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5112 on: November 02, 2014, 08:20:33 AM »
The commissary does have some savings, but it's really hit-or-miss.  Mostly because everything is name-brand.  Store-brand things at other stores will often be cheaper than the commissary.

It probably depends on where you live, too. We are near DC. But we visited friends in Florida recently and found negligible commissary savings down there.

For the DC area, we have figured out which items are good deals, and it has become habit to buy mostly (only?) those items. Most of the produce, all the meat and dairy, most non-perishables are 30-60% cheaper. My fiance recently took the kids to get ice cream at a "normal" store and came home empty-handed. He said it was cheaper to drive to the commissary, buy one carton of ice cream, and drive back.

You will pay more (quite a bit more!) for a specific brand/flavor of candy or chips - but we don't buy these, at any store.

arebelspy

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5113 on: November 02, 2014, 08:30:58 AM »

It's the best TV show ever made, cancelled after one season. If you have Netflix, watching it is now your number one priority.

Yes. A thousand times yes. Also, if they can get a kickstarter going for salad dressing or whatever, surely they can get one for firefly season 2? Right?

How would they have a season 2? The movie takes place at the end of season 1 and [spoiler alert] they kill multiple major characters in the movie. Any season 2 just wouldn't be the same.

Joss Whedon, the creator, has already said the movie Serenity wouldn't be canon if they restarted Firefly (it'd be like it never happened).

They won't restart it. It's not a money thing at this point - it's been over a decade.

There would be no way to recapture the magic, it'd ruin it.  I wish there was more made at the time, but I don't want more made now.

Those of you who haven't seen it - notice how many people are saying it's the best ever. Not just good, but literally best ever. Watch it!  :)
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CabinetGuy

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5114 on: November 02, 2014, 11:24:41 AM »
I've never seen it, but this always cracks me up.

WildJager

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5115 on: November 02, 2014, 01:15:57 PM »
For any fans of Firefly that like to read, check out the Tales of the Ketty Jay series.  Obviously inspired by Firefly.  Some notable differences (takes place on a planet with airships instead of in space for example), and it will take you a little bit to start caring about a new crew, but still a fun ride.

arebelspy

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5116 on: November 02, 2014, 01:57:11 PM »
For any fans of Firefly that like to read, check out the Tales of the Ketty Jay series.  Obviously inspired by Firefly.  Some notable differences (takes place on a planet with airships instead of in space for example), and it will take you a little bit to start caring about a new crew, but still a fun ride.

Will do, thanks for the recommendation!  :D
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FoundPeace

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5117 on: November 03, 2014, 12:57:34 AM »
Loved Firefly! Dead Like Me, was good, but it definitely not on the same level as Firefly.

I made the mistake of telling a German colleague about my FIRE plans, after talking about someone retiring at 65. I told him there was no way I was working past 40, let alone 60.

He told me that it may be possible in the USA, because there you can buy cheap land and live in the woods. Of course you can retire when you hunt and garden for all of your food, but who wants to do that?! I didn't know how to respond.

He and his girl friend both drive matching Mercedes Benz M-classes, he has an i-phone 6 with a titanium and carbon fiber case, eats out every day for lunch, etc.

Anyone here ever watched Whedon's Dollhouse (Netflix)? Super bizarre, bad acting too, but it was so different that I couldn't help but like it. It was one of the very few TV-shows to surprise me with a plot twist!

theadvicist

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5118 on: November 03, 2014, 05:37:00 AM »
Overheard at work:

"I bought something on Amazon. I needed delivery quickly! I tried the Prime trial... and I forgot to cancel. So that 'free' delivery cost me £79.99! Ha ha! You can bet I'm going to be use that for everything!"

So he was pretending to be annoyed at Amazon (for what? Sticking to their word? You should have cancelled it you idiot!), and his idea of revenge was... to buy everything in the future from Amazon.

kyanamerinas

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5119 on: November 03, 2014, 06:08:35 AM »
Overheard at work:

"I bought something on Amazon. I needed delivery quickly! I tried the Prime trial... and I forgot to cancel. So that 'free' delivery cost me £79.99! Ha ha! You can bet I'm going to be use that for everything!"

So he was pretending to be annoyed at Amazon (for what? Sticking to their word? You should have cancelled it you idiot!), and his idea of revenge was... to buy everything in the future from Amazon.

i did this and was kicking myself so i sent them a quick email explaining the situation. they immediately cancelled my prime account and refunded the money as i hadn't used prime since the payment went through (a week or so earlier).

my sister made the same mistake but wouldn't email them even when i told her to give it a shot. she also has netflix which she won't cancel (she was cross about the £79.99 and I said that prime comes with video streaming so cancelling netflix would somewhat compensate for that). o, she lives at home, still at school, does work on saturday but never has enough money (i can see why!)

otherbarry

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5120 on: November 03, 2014, 07:20:11 AM »
A 62 year old co-worker was telling me one day last week that she can't afford to retire, and she will probably have to work forever. Earlier in the week she was talking about taking a vacation to Toronto to see her son and was thinking about staying at the Trump for $500/night because she deserved to be pampered.
Hey she works hard, she can afford to splurge every now and then. In fact, she'll visit the hotel spa while she's there, too.

Seriously though I can't think of anything worse than being three years from normal retirement and the numbers not adding up for you to be able to.

theadvicist

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5121 on: November 03, 2014, 07:57:43 AM »

my sister made the same mistake but wouldn't email them even when i told her to give it a shot. she also has netflix which she won't cancel (she was cross about the £79.99 and I said that prime comes with video streaming so cancelling netflix would somewhat compensate for that). o, she lives at home, still at school, does work on saturday but never has enough money (i can see why!)

Ha ha, I said, "Don't you get some free TV shows or something with Prime?" to try to soften the blow. His response: "Ah, but when you've already got the full Sky TV package you end up with more channels than you can watch..."

Threshkin

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5122 on: November 03, 2014, 09:17:41 AM »

It's the best TV show ever made, cancelled after one season. If you have Netflix, watching it is now your number one priority.

Yes. A thousand times yes. Also, if they can get a kickstarter going for salad dressing or whatever, surely they can get one for firefly season 2? Right?
It was all just a dream........(Bobby isn't dead after all.)

How would they have a season 2? The movie takes place at the end of season 1 and [spoiler alert] they kill multiple major characters in the movie. Any season 2 just wouldn't be the same.

frugalnacho

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5123 on: November 03, 2014, 09:38:07 AM »
They can't withdraw their own money though?  Or just the matched money?

Just the matched money.  But that would negate all the incentive to do the plan you proposed.  Apparently some companies don't have vesting periods (according to recent posts in this thread), but as far as I know a 3 year vesting period is typical.  Usually you get a certain percentage of the employer contribution after a year or so, and it increases with each passing year (or some other arbitrary length of time) until you are "fully" vested and all the matched contributions are yours.

Mr. Nacho, I don't follow why taking out your contribution with a 10% penalty would negate the incentive as you state. It's a bad idea to pay a penalty at all, but you would come out ahead the way rebs proposed. Contribute $1,700, get a $1,700 match for free, withdraw your $1,700 contribution, pay $170 penalty and $400ish tax. You are left with $1,130 cash and $1,700 in your 401k waiting to vest. So you'd have $2,830 total instead of $1,300 (1,700-400 tax). Not perfect, but it makes more sense than doing nothing right? All you need to do to come out ahead is vest at least $171 to cover the penalty + $1.

Yea if he sticks around long enough to be vested and get his matches he will come out ahead still - so long as the company match still counts and stays in his account (does it? or does that get rescinded? This is something i've never thought about or encountered).   Something tells me the guy that is upset about $65 per pay period going to his 401k isn't thinking this through all the way to the end and doing the math to end up in the most optimal financial situation, so it's kind of a moot point anyway.  If he was I doubt this would be his plan.

Elderwood17

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5124 on: November 03, 2014, 10:40:30 AM »
Y'all have some shitty bosses, or you're in very high management positions.

There's "working from home" and there's "feeling sick but answering emails" and there's "taking a day to run errands" but a real vacation means "find people to take over your responsibilities entirely". I've yet to have a boss who doesn't understand this.

Besides which, the reason a company gives you vacation isn't because they're super nice - it's because they need you to occasionally get rest and come back recharged so you can keep working at a high level for years. A non-vacation vacation just means burnout, not giving a fuck, and/or leaving jobs..

I smack my head whenever someone in authority goes on vacation but either doesn't leave the area or stays connected.  I know a lot of folks don't mind staying at home during a vacation, but if you're in the kind of work where they're always trying to get a hold of you it just seems like you're asking for it to keep yourself available.

In my company you do NOT disconnect without some very high permission and for special situations.  People routinely list on their automated out of office messages what time of day they will be checking emails and returning calls.  I don't dare check out for more than a few hours on evenings or weekends but generally only check email twice a day if on vacation....but I am low enough down the chain to get away with it.  My boss routinely conferences in for meetings while on "vacation".  It is only getting worse and I cannot wait to call it quits!

RyanAtTanagra

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5125 on: November 03, 2014, 10:55:43 AM »
In my company you do NOT disconnect without some very high permission and for special situations.  People routinely list on their automated out of office messages what time of day they will be checking emails and returning calls.  I don't dare check out for more than a few hours on evenings or weekends but generally only check email twice a day if on vacation....but I am low enough down the chain to get away with it.  My boss routinely conferences in for meetings while on "vacation".  It is only getting worse and I cannot wait to call it quits!

Jeez, I wouldn't even wait for FI to get out of that, I'd be looking around today

MgoSam

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5126 on: November 03, 2014, 11:27:47 AM »
Weighing in on the concept of vacation while working. I'm the VP of a small business, we have a total of 8 employees, half of whom are in the warehouse, so if anyone in the office goes on vacation then it means that everyone has to work harder to make up the other person's duties, and that's ok, we are happy to do so. That said, there are some things that cannot be made up, for instance I receive far more calls on my cellphone than I do on my office phone, and some of those calls are from customers that cannot be put off, if they are looking to order you can either take their order then (or at least try to assist them) or if you call them back the next day, there is a good chance that they have placed an order from your competitor, so vacation for me isn't an issue about myself, it means turning down a lot of money. So yes when I am on vacation or a break, I do keep my cellphone on me to answer quick questions from a customer, and found that it works best to answer their call and patch in someone else from the office to finish it up.

galliver

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5127 on: November 03, 2014, 12:23:49 PM »
Weighing in on the concept of vacation while working. I'm the VP of a small business, we have a total of 8 employees, half of whom are in the warehouse, so if anyone in the office goes on vacation then it means that everyone has to work harder to make up the other person's duties, and that's ok, we are happy to do so. That said, there are some things that cannot be made up, for instance I receive far more calls on my cellphone than I do on my office phone, and some of those calls are from customers that cannot be put off, if they are looking to order you can either take their order then (or at least try to assist them) or if you call them back the next day, there is a good chance that they have placed an order from your competitor, so vacation for me isn't an issue about myself, it means turning down a lot of money. So yes when I am on vacation or a break, I do keep my cellphone on me to answer quick questions from a customer, and found that it works best to answer their call and patch in someone else from the office to finish it up.

There definitely exist office phone systems that can forward calls to other phones, e.g. your cell phone. If you set that up, you can stop giving out your cell # to customers, and forward your phone to a colleague's phone, etc. while you're gone, removing yourself as the middle man. And allowing you to go camping/out of country/out of phone range. Which is a healthier, more rejuvenating vacation.

Albert

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5128 on: November 03, 2014, 12:27:31 PM »
Isn't this often about trust? The big boss simply doesn't trust anyone else to make even minor decisions in his/her absence.

Beaker

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5129 on: November 03, 2014, 12:29:20 PM »
I receive far more calls on my cellphone than I do on my office phone, and some of those calls are from customers that cannot be put off, if they are looking to order you can either take their order then (or at least try to assist them) or if you call them back the next day, there is a good chance that they have placed an order from your competitor, so vacation for me isn't an issue about myself, it means turning down a lot of money. So yes when I am on vacation or a break, I do keep my cellphone on me to answer quick questions from a customer, and found that it works best to answer their call and patch in someone else from the office to finish it up.

Vacation/sanity issues aside that seems like a bad idea. What's going to happen if you drop your cell phone in a river, or end up in the hospital, or are otherwise not able to handle calls? Sounds like your business would take a serious hit at the worst possible time. You should figure a way around that purely for business continuity sake - getting to take an actual vacation is just a nice bonus.

Albert

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5130 on: November 03, 2014, 12:32:13 PM »
It's not all roses working for a large multinational, but there are also advantages and one big one is being able to take a vacation whenever I wish. Most of the time my boss doesn't care when exactly I'm gone and the same goes for those who report to me.

HairyUpperLip

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5131 on: November 03, 2014, 01:00:32 PM »
OK, let's go back to stupid names for people's children.  Specifically Kaylee in all its variations.  The legitimate word is Ceilidh (Scots Gaelic) or sometimes Ceili (Irish Gaelic) and it means a party with alcohol and music and dancing and basically having a grand time.  Do the people using this as a girl's name have any clue as to the original meaning?

Guys, please, start a different thread about box colors, it's getting annoying now.

Mkay?

Please

I noticed that there seem to be far fewer names for boys than girls, particularly in the sweet spot we were looking for: not so common that they'll be one of three Thomases in their class, but not so rare that people won't be able to spell it, or so trendy that it'll sound super dated (Jayden) or ethnic/religious for something other than our culture/religion (Mohammed, etc.). We had an easy time finding a girl's name we liked that met that standard, but it's a much harder bar for boy's names. This baby is going to be Matilda if she's a girl and Martin if he's a boy.

As an Indian family in America we wanted our daughter to have a name that would sounds beautiful in both English and the mother tongue and have meaning in both language. It took a lot of effort but we finally found that we loved and used. Sucks that it was considered one of the more popular names from her birth year, found out after, because of the TV shows using it at the time.

But my real point I was trying to make is that we had a much harder time of even thinking of boy's names that worked. Not sure that there is necessarily less choices, but maybe too many bad choices. :-P

gimp

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5132 on: November 03, 2014, 01:07:24 PM »
This is why startups are generally for young folks. Sure, part of it is age discrimination, and part of it is the reverse - anyone older, especially with a family, really doesn't want to be working 50-60 hours a week without a real vacation for a year and a half. Some startups which are run by non-20-somethings are much smarter about splitting work up and allow people to take a vacation once in a while and work more reasonable hours...

As someone else said, sending things to a cell phone is a system that very much needs a backup solution. For example, sending to a business-owned phone number that is set to redirect to your cell, but can easily be reset to redirect to any other phone number (office, another cell, your coworker to cover you on vacation, etc.)

That, and weaning customers off phones and to a web service.

MgoSam

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5133 on: November 03, 2014, 01:28:00 PM »
I receive far more calls on my cellphone than I do on my office phone, and some of those calls are from customers that cannot be put off, if they are looking to order you can either take their order then (or at least try to assist them) or if you call them back the next day, there is a good chance that they have placed an order from your competitor, so vacation for me isn't an issue about myself, it means turning down a lot of money. So yes when I am on vacation or a break, I do keep my cellphone on me to answer quick questions from a customer, and found that it works best to answer their call and patch in someone else from the office to finish it up.

Vacation/sanity issues aside that seems like a bad idea. What's going to happen if you drop your cell phone in a river, or end up in the hospital, or are otherwise not able to handle calls? Sounds like your business would take a serious hit at the worst possible time. You should figure a way around that purely for business continuity sake - getting to take an actual vacation is just a nice bonus.

Yeah I hear ya, I have mentioned the office number to nearly all customers, but many of the customers I work with still continue to call my cell. An actual vacation would be awesome, the last thing I had that was close to it was 9 days in Colorado, of which my weekend was spent hiking in Golden, and then spent 4 days on the road writing orders and then spent the weekend in Idaho Springs.

My phone doesn't ring that excessively, I rarely get a call past 6 pm and if I need to ignore it I will. Usually if a customer does want to order something after hours, he'll want to know if I have it in stock, and that's usually a quick phone call to tell him/her yes/no, and that I will call him/her back in the morning. If I need to be alone, I turn my phone on silent.

That said, this is something that does drive me towards retirement, can't wait for the day when I can avoid thinking of work.

Elderwood17

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5134 on: November 03, 2014, 01:29:11 PM »
Isn't this often about trust? The big boss simply doesn't trust anyone else to make even minor decisions in his/her absence.
I would say that is pretty true for my situation.  I have no trouble trusting my team but cannot control those above me who insist on knowing details I don't even care about.

lemanfan

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5135 on: November 03, 2014, 01:35:38 PM »

Yeah I hear ya, I have mentioned the office number to nearly all customers, but many of the customers I work with still continue to call my cell.

Give your cell phone to a co-worker to handle these calls during your vacay time. Then get a burner phone and only give the burner phones number to close friends and family and possibly a few trusted coworkers.  :)

MgoSam

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5136 on: November 03, 2014, 03:22:16 PM »

Yeah I hear ya, I have mentioned the office number to nearly all customers, but many of the customers I work with still continue to call my cell.

Give your cell phone to a co-worker to handle these calls during your vacay time. Then get a burner phone and only give the burner phones number to close friends and family and possibly a few trusted coworkers.  :)

Yeah, I've spoken about this with the owner and he would be open to do this. The sad part is that I haven't had a desire for a vacation in a few years, I have taken weekend trips and other things, and those are generally enough for me to be happy. I haven't had a desire for a foreign vacation in some time, but if I wanted to take a vacation I would do so, but just keep my phone on me and tell anyone that called that "I am on vacation," and I know that nearly all would understand, because I've called my customers when they're on vacation and they'll tell me who at the office to call and speak to, no problems there.

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5137 on: November 03, 2014, 05:57:42 PM »
I COULD NOT wait to get home from work and post this.

I am working on a second master's degree in administration and my field supervisor came to visit me today.

He has been in administration for about 35 years (earning six figures for at least 20 of them). He often gets off topic and discusses boring, irrelevant details about his life with me. I'm obligated to listen and nod and put in a minimum amount of hours with him because he serves as a sort of "mentor" to me.

Well today he's droning on and on...."My daughter is getting married in AZ next month....I had surgery on a bone spur last spring...my home and land are valued around 500K (I perked up a little for this)...my wife works at XYZ...I took Hwy 51 here but will probably take 181 home..."

Anyway, I'm just staring at the clock, blank look upon my face, waiting for it to end, wondering when he'll get to a point - ANY point.

Finally, he says to me after all this random blabbering, "And you, you'll likely never be able retire."

I must have given him some sort of LOOK because he paused briefly, blinked at me, then after several long moments, continued on about something else.

My husband was cracking up. He said I should have set the 60+ old fart straight. I said I didn't want to spend another minute with him, let alone the hours and hours it would take explaining FIRE to him. It was easier to just keep my mouth shut, nod along with his rambling, and bike home as fast as I could to post this.



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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5138 on: November 03, 2014, 06:06:01 PM »
Half a year ago, before I got my current job, I took a job at a call center. I went through training with a class of other newbies. We would be paid $7.50 an hour for our work there. I heard this in our very first class:

"Man, I can't wait for Friday. I'm going to get my paycheck and roll into the lot and get me a new car!"

VirginiaBob

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5139 on: November 03, 2014, 09:39:00 PM »
A coworker of mine near retirement was boasting that he had $300k saved in his retirement account, and mentored me that with disciplined savings for many years, I'd be able to achieve the same thing when I retired.   I didn't have the heart to tell him that I hit $300k several years ago.

LennStar

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5140 on: November 04, 2014, 02:11:21 AM »
A coworker of mine near retirement was boasting that he had $300k saved in his retirement account, and mentored me that with disciplined savings for many years, I'd be able to achieve the same thing when I retired.   I didn't have the heart to tell him that I hit $300k several years ago.
That was right. If he is so near to retirement as it sounds, it would just have made im unhappier if you told him things like that. let him go peacefully (ahem... into retirement I mean ^^ ) You can try to "train" people if they have time, but to talk about FIRE a year before they go is not a good idea.
You could try to go deeper into the "disciplined savings" if you want. You need that in retirement, too.

Caella

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5141 on: November 04, 2014, 04:31:00 AM »
A coworker of mine near retirement was boasting that he had $300k saved in his retirement account, and mentored me that with disciplined savings for many years, I'd be able to achieve the same thing when I retired.   I didn't have the heart to tell him that I hit $300k several years ago.

Shh, just take the advice and keep with disciplined savings!

Sadly I don't think he is so near retirement if he just have 300k saved after many years =x

VirginiaBob

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5142 on: November 04, 2014, 05:20:16 AM »
A coworker of mine near retirement was boasting that he had $300k saved in his retirement account, and mentored me that with disciplined savings for many years, I'd be able to achieve the same thing when I retired.   I didn't have the heart to tell him that I hit $300k several years ago.

Shh, just take the advice and keep with disciplined savings!

Sadly I don't think he is so near retirement if he just have 300k saved after many years =x

Luckily, we do have a pretty generous pension, and with SS as well, he actually should be ok, and is probably a lot better off than some of his peers.  Figure SS will be around $2,000-$3,000 per month (including non-working spouse benefit), Pension will be around $1,500-$2,000 per month, the $300K should result in result in another $1,000 per month (with 4% withdrawal).  So he should be pulling in $4,500 to $6,000 per month, and hopefully with a paid off mortgate (not sure if this is the case), he'll be livng ok.  If I wasn't considering ER, being in his situation wouldn't be that awful.

That said, yes, I did keep my mouth shout, but had to fight the smile.

GardenFun

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5143 on: November 04, 2014, 06:03:55 AM »

Finally, he says to me after all this random blabbering, "And you, you'll likely never be able retire."

I must have given him some sort of LOOK because he paused briefly, blinked at me, then after several long moments, continued on about something else.

My husband was cracking up. He said I should have set the 60+ old fart straight. I said I didn't want to spend another minute with him, let alone the hours and hours it would take explaining FIRE to him. It was easier to just keep my mouth shut, nod along with his rambling, and bike home as fast as I could to post this.

Funny how bosses always think they are in a better financial situation than you.  Had a similar conversation with my former boss when he tried to explain going from two incomes to one was nearly impossible.  Just smiled and continued to turn in my resignation. 

Malaysia41

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5144 on: November 04, 2014, 06:17:21 AM »

Finally, he says to me after all this random blabbering, "And you, you'll likely never be able retire."

I must have given him some sort of LOOK because he paused briefly, blinked at me, then after several long moments, continued on about something else.

My husband was cracking up. He said I should have set the 60+ old fart straight. I said I didn't want to spend another minute with him, let alone the hours and hours it would take explaining FIRE to him. It was easier to just keep my mouth shut, nod along with his rambling, and bike home as fast as I could to post this.

Funny how bosses always think they are in a better financial situation than you.  Had a similar conversation with my former boss when he tried to explain going from two incomes to one was nearly impossible.  Just smiled and continued to turn in my resignation.

For weeks after I told my boss, "nah, I'll pass on that _____.  I think I'll just stop working.  We've saved enough to live off of," he often commented, "I'm so jealous." 

Spudd

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5145 on: November 04, 2014, 07:48:24 AM »
Today I overheard 2 co-workers talking. CW1 bikes to work and brings his lunch. CW2 I have never seen before, don't know her.

CW2: So you're still biking to work? That must save a lot of money.
CW1: Yes, it's great.
CW2: The parking fees here are killing me. It's $15 to park for a day, and then $10-15 for lunch on top of that, it's $25-30 a day just to come to the office.
CW1: Yeah....

Miamoo

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5146 on: November 04, 2014, 08:29:00 AM »
Excessive boring foam.

Indeed.

Indeed again.  Enough with the counting cards and casino nonsense.  Start a different thread for that.  Isn't this thread supposed to be for us to read, be aghast of, amused by (maybe horrified by as well) and make fun of stupid people?

skunkfunk

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5147 on: November 04, 2014, 08:31:36 AM »
Excessive boring foam.

Indeed.

Indeed again.  Enough with the counting cards and casino nonsense.  Start a different thread for that.  Isn't this thread supposed to be for us to read, be aghast of, amused by (maybe horrified by as well) and make fun of stupid people?

This is the internet! We don't need your rules.

That said the black box thing made me want to gouge my own eyes. Figuratively.

Pooperman

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5148 on: November 04, 2014, 08:36:35 AM »
Excessive boring foam.

Indeed.

Indeed again.  Enough with the counting cards and casino nonsense.  Start a different thread for that.  Isn't this thread supposed to be for us to read, be aghast of, amused by (maybe horrified by as well) and make fun of stupid people?

This is the internet! We don't need your rules.

That said the black box thing made me want to gouge my own eyes. Figuratively.

You get a black eye if you box yourself, then again, it might be orange.

Or Red.

HairyUpperLip

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Re: Overheard at Work
« Reply #5149 on: November 04, 2014, 08:38:24 AM »
Excessive boring foam.

Indeed.

Indeed again.  Enough with the counting cards and casino nonsense.  Start a different thread for that.  Isn't this thread supposed to be for us to read, be aghast of, amused by (maybe horrified by as well) and make fun of stupid people?

This is the internet! We don't need your rules.

That said the black box thing made me want to gouge my own eyes. Figuratively.

You get a black eye if you box yourself, then again, it might be orange.

Or Red.

hehehehe