Imagine all the poor souls about to get lost in China's social credit system.
The Machine Fired Me
131–140 of 578 posts
Re: The Machine Fired Me
#132I had a somewhat similar, but much less serious experience at Google. I resigned just after I had gotten a promotion, but before the date when the promo was effective. Much to my surprise, the resignation (slated to be effective after the promo) somehow cancelled the promo via some automated system. However, a promo at Google is a huge deal. I really wanted the promotion to go through, so that I would have that level…
What made you think that you were entitled to something that you were supposed to receive on a date which was later than the date on which you resigned?
Because large companies give the promos as trailing indicators of performance, meaning that to be promoted requires an acknowledgment of prior sustained performance at that level. Entitlement to the level is actually accurate and above board.
Re: The Machine Fired Me
#133I had a sort-of related experience with PayPal where the machine said "No." I've been using it for at least 10 years at that point. What I did was try to pay for some cheap VPS hosting in Italy. The transaction was denied. I thought there was some problem with my CC, so I immediately tried to do a $1 transaction with some other company and it went without a hitch. So I contacted PayPal support about it and the next d…
I tried to delink my bank account from PayPal, so I could close it, and it refused cos I apparently owed $1.27 even tho my balance said $0. I tried to add a credit card but it was flagged as suspicious. Contacting PayPal they said I needed to go into the bank and put some money, my account so PayPal could take it. But I had already closed the bank account.
After PayPal refusing to help. I resolved it by opening a new PayPal account. Adding my credit card (not flagged suspicious) and transfer $2 to the account. Then I could delink the bank account and close it. Then I closed the new account I opened.
Re: The Machine Fired Me
#134On the other hand, when I left my previous job, I had access to the company Github for 3 weeks, Codeship for 6 weeks (I only realised when I started at my new job and saw the dashboard for my old job when I logged in and had to email them to remove me), and the company Google apps (including Google docs) for 7 months.
Having access to my company email for several months was useful, as I unwisely signed up to a couple of services on my work email and needed to change them over, and a couple of them didn't change to my personal email properly and I had to redo it again a month later.
Needless to say, my former supervisor, while a brilliant programmer, was not very good at getting bureaucratic stuff done.
Re: The Machine Fired Me
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
I resigned effective the 2nd of a month, and the promo was effective the 1st of the month. See above "resignation (slated to be effective after the promo)". So the resignation was scheduled for the day after the promo. I actually stayed an extra week to receive the promo.
I'm not going to lie; that type of thing -- resigning right after getting promoted -- seems like something from some alternate reality fantasy world.
It is entirely possible they weren't planning on getting promoted.
I was due for a performance review about a week before I handed my notice in at my old job. The review didn't happen because my boss was incapable of communicating with his employees and actually scheduling appointments with them, but had it happened, I was fully prepared to push for a payrise, even though it would only be a couple of dollars an hour, and for only 3 weeks.
You wouldn't turn down a promotion because you know you're about to hand your notice in. You act like everything is normal and you're going to be working at the company for the foreseeable future, right until the day you hand your notice in, which should be at the minimum notice period.
Otherwise what would happen if you decline a promotion, then your new job offer falls through? You'd be left looking like a prize dick.
Re: The Machine Fired Me
#136Engineers need to read The Trial by Franz Kafka. I don't think people fear soulless beurocracy without any possible resolution enough.
It's the first thing hat crossed my mind as I read this.
Re: The Machine Fired Me
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US largely migrated to chip and signature in 2015. I think a large majority of credit card uses today are chip in the US because the issuers quickly sent out chip cards, most terminals got updated to use them, and swipe is rejected often if chip is available. To be clear, this is chip (and sometimes signature for large purchases) but not chip-and-pin, so the original statement of no passwords generally holds true…
> swipe is rejected often if chip is available. It's the other way around. If you try the chip 3+ times, and it doesn't work, you can swipe the card, and the swipe transaction will work. When the more secure method fails, it falls back to the less secure one. It's lunacy.
The retailer either accepts swipes or not, ditto for your bank, the fact that there is a fall back feature if chip fails isn't a security failure unless it opens up a new avenue. (Someone could just print a magic strip unless one or both blocked mag strip charges)
Re: The Machine Fired Me
#138I had a similar experience but in reverse.
About six months ago I left my long-time enterprise-y employer for a startup in another city. So we sold our house, packed up the family, bought a new house and moved in.
After 3 months it became obvious I had made a terrible mistake, so we sold the new house, packed up the family again, and bought another new house in the same city we had just left 3 months ago so I could return to my previous employer. They were happy to have me back and I ended up in the same desk and chair I had just vacated 3 months previous.
Only it took awhile. Since I was already in the system as a terminated employee it required manual intervention and code changes to the employee management system to get me added back in. It took about 3 weeks before I could do anything besides go to meetings.
If anything needs disrupting, it’s the employee management systems in use by pretty much all the large enterprise shops. It’s a mess.
Re: The Machine Fired Me
#139They didn't even give him a bonus to make up for those three weeks? Jesus.
Re: The Machine Fired Me
#140I had a sort-of related experience with PayPal where the machine said "No." I've been using it for at least 10 years at that point. What I did was try to pay for some cheap VPS hosting in Italy. The transaction was denied. I thought there was some problem with my CC, so I immediately tried to do a $1 transaction with some other company and it went without a hitch. So I contacted PayPal support about it and the next d…
That's just the thing. Once we let the machines make the decisions, and rely on them to do a "better job" there will be cases like this where it's just cheaper and easier to just follow the program and explain what happened. Actually we are building a zoo for ourselves where humans will make no decisions at all about anything of consequence!
Remember when the United Airlines system flagged specific passengers for removal? Throughout every step of the process employees were blocked or discouraged from exercising common sense to come up with a creative solution and bargain with passengers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Express_Flight_3411_inc...