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The Machine Fired Me

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Re: The Machine Fired Me

#211

Post by davedx »

astura wrote: post #106
isostatic wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely a 3 year contract means the company is in breach of it by not paying you?

Their account got cancelled because the contract did not get renewed. Sounds like the company fulfilled the terms of the original contract, just (accidentally) didn't renew it. Many long term contracts require periodic renewals and/or options. >Some of that work included renewing my contract in the new system... When my contract expired, the machine took over and fired me.

That's weird though. Was it a three year contract or wasn't it?

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#212

Post by gaius »

romwell wrote: post #199
gaius wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The next day I came back to see a pristine desk. With all my stuff gone. Something like this happened to me too at a previous employer, some things I recovered but many were just gone, the cleaning staff apparently help themselves to stuff that “former” employees leave behind, so my fancy headphones for example were just gone. Fucks given by HR/facilities? Zero. One of many similar incidents for me and my cow-orkers.…

A paper/protocol machine is still a machine, though. Sucks that it ate your headphones!

I am normally big on Solidarity with fellow Workers but the humans in this loop really should be automated away, because they knew what they were doing was a mistake and did it anyway, so what value were they adding? In fact they were worse than automation because at least that can be debugged, but there is no fix for the bureaucratic mindset.

Especially since you could tell them to stop and they would say "yes" and then carry on anyway...

Another story from the same company, group A would enter their requirements into system 1, group B would pick up work tickets from system 2. Group A thought that group B were idiots who could never do anything right, and group B thought that group A were idiots who could never make up their minds what they wanted.

But the real problem was group C who maintained systems 1 and 2 and "integrated" them with people in India manually rekeying from one to the other with frequent typos. They thought they were saving money but never considered the cost of delays and re-work in groups A and B...

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#213

Post by fouc »

gaius wrote: post #181
romwell wrote: post #44

I have a story in a similar vein, although a much less scary one. In that instance, The Machine Cleaned Out My Desk. I had a cubicle at the company HQ, but was for some period of time working from home in another state. I still kept quite a few things in the cubicle (notebooks, mugs, etc), which I used when I was in the area. When I finally came back, I noticed, after a month or two, that my office number has not bee…

The next day I came back to see a pristine desk. With all my stuff gone. Something like this happened to me too at a previous employer, some things I recovered but many were just gone, the cleaning staff apparently help themselves to stuff that “former” employees leave behind, so my fancy headphones for example were just gone. Fucks given by HR/facilities? Zero. One of many similar incidents for me and my cow-orkers.…

Did you threaten to call the police about theft? Could've followed through with the threat also.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#215

Post by fouc »

davedx wrote: post #211
astura wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their account got cancelled because the contract did not get renewed. Sounds like the company fulfilled the terms of the original contract, just (accidentally) didn't renew it. Many long term contracts require periodic renewals and/or options. >Some of that work included renewing my contract in the new system... When my contract expired, the machine took over and fired me.

That's weird though. Was it a three year contract or wasn't it?

Perhaps he should've written it as an "adding" instead of "renewing" since it's an existing contract with the merged company that needed to be properly added to the take over company.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#216

Post by Spooky23 »

This is what happens when dozens of systems are chained together and sync data in a circular way.

It’s becoming really common now in biggish enterprises with systems with Service Now or similar solutions. It works well enough that all sorts of convoluted Rube Goldberg process can be built.

It was better for the humans before with old crap like Remedy because it was so much harder to do anything, no project (other than upgrading Remedy) could be completed within the tenure of any executive.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#217

Post by gaius »

fouc wrote: post #213
gaius wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The next day I came back to see a pristine desk. With all my stuff gone. Something like this happened to me too at a previous employer, some things I recovered but many were just gone, the cleaning staff apparently help themselves to stuff that “former” employees leave behind, so my fancy headphones for example were just gone. Fucks given by HR/facilities? Zero. One of many similar incidents for me and my cow-orkers.…

Did you threaten to call the police about theft? Could've followed through with the threat also.

I escalated it to building security, where I had some mates, and they reviewed what CCTV evidence there was but couldn't find anything.

I don't even really blame the cleaners; people left expensive electronics, phones, wallets, whatever on their desks all the time, never any issues at all, I don't think any of them would have taken anything that wasn't from the pile, it was probably at least tacitly sanctioned by their management (who probably helped themselves first too).

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#218

Post by Spooky23 »

rectang wrote: post #81
jacobsenscott wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like he's contracting at a huge company. His contracting company isn't going to make waves over this. I would guess the contracting company is making $300+ an hour off this guy, paying him $50 an hour, and they have 200+ other contractors in the building.

So, wage theft. Now we're not just talking about a lost opportunity to reward a loyal worker. If you're right, somebody ought to be going to jail.

Its not wage theft. Contractors aren’t humans, from a human resource pov.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#219

Post by Spooky23 »

davedx wrote: post #211
astura wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their account got cancelled because the contract did not get renewed. Sounds like the company fulfilled the terms of the original contract, just (accidentally) didn't renew it. Many long term contracts require periodic renewals and/or options. >Some of that work included renewing my contract in the new system... When my contract expired, the machine took over and fired me.

That's weird though. Was it a three year contract or wasn't it?

With contract staff, the duration is usually a not to exceed. Also, it’s typically a contract to deliver a person with specific skill, not a specific person.

There are exceptions, but they are pretty rare in tech.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#220

Post by kamaal »

drewg123 wrote: post #11

I 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…

Generally in cases like these, they don't want to waste the promotion(the new position) and they give it to whoever is next in line and wants to stay longer.

A very logical thing to do. In big companies it takes time to build a case for a promotion(position). If you were not going to use it, it was always a good thing to give it to somebody else.

Plus asking somebody to sustain a position for somebody who was promoted and still wants to leave seems like bonkers even from the HR perspective.

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