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The absolute worst scenario happened

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Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#211

Post by WJW »

ghaff wrote: post #184
tw04 wrote: post #88

I actually don't see any issue that isn't simply a matter of money. Everything they list that's an issue seems to revolve around the fact that the employees with domain knowledge for the system have left the company. Reach out to them and hire them on as contractors. If they left under bad terms because the business was a bunch of dicks, expect to pay 10x market rate. If this is truly "fix this or the business is out…

Even if you open a checkbook wide, there's no guarantee that someone remembers the specifics of some kludgy system they worked on years ago. And if things are really snafu-d, there's no guarantee that even someone who does have domain knowledge can recover things.

And, of course, there's the scenario where the people with domain knowledge are already dead. Money won't help in that case.

Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#212

Post by SilasX »

kolbe wrote: post #186
NewLogic wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The exact same thing is happening in Australia in regards to farmers and fruit picking labour. With international borders shut they are unable to exploit foreign workers and complain that young adults are refusing to relocate for $5 an hour hard labour jobs.

Farming is low margin. Farmers don’t get to set the price of their products, and they aren’t handed billions in capital to burn through or 1000x multiples on their profit in the public markets. When most businesses say they can’t hire someone and the reason is because they don’t pay enough, the underlying cause of their low pay is usually because that’s what the company can afford. Sure, farmers could pay $10/hr, but…

Not sure that’s the best example to use, since food costs are a trivial fraction of the retail price of a bag of Doritos, and harvesting labor is a trivial fraction of the price of food.

Edit: that was just based on my general memory of non-perishable food economics. But I googled it and found this (sorry, quora) from someone who would know, a 2 oz bag of potato chips costs 15 cents to produce and bring to (retail) market. Of that, a fraction is potato prices.

https://www.quora.com/How-much-does-a-bag-of-57g-of-Lays-act...

Edit: fix Verizon math.

Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#213

Post by shireboy »

On a personal level, this may be a little self centered, but I use cases like this to put my own problems in perspective. Recently I had to troubleshoot lots of IT issues during a winter storm. It was a bad outage for the organization during high load important scenario. I distinctly remember thinking during the thick of it “this is bad, but imagine being the poor engineers in TX responsible for the power grid.” This helped me not panic and focus on the problem at hand.

I feel like this ability to step back and not take a problem more seriously than necessary can be an asset. In this case, it’s pretty bad, but “at least people aren’t in immediate danger of their life.” Think it to yourself, but probably not best to share with others until after the problem is mitigated ;)

Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#214

Post by detaro »

hef19898 wrote: post #188
IgorPartola wrote: post #4

What exactly happens if you break a three month resignation period? I don’t advocate doing this in generally but as a hypothetical exercise if this person just stopped showing up for work, what exactly could the company do?

Depends on the contract and jurisdiction. I had one contract that stipulated a fixed penalty, which made any attempt of ignoring notice periods a calculated risk (the fine wasn't that steep). In any other case, in Germany, I would expect a law suite, incurring costs, stress and time, followed by some kind of agreement between the two parties. As an employee, you don't necessarily have the time nor the money (there's…

At least in Germany, while it's in principle possible to sue the employee for damages, it is very difficult to succeed with that if it isn't downright sabotage. You can't force the employee to work, it quickly goes into negligence on your part if you can't handle an employee going missing, ..., so you'll probably not reach much more than the salary - and for that just terminating the contract early would be easier, either in agreement with the employee or one-sided after they stopped showing up.

Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#215

Post by alistairSH »

tkgally wrote: post #159
ACS_Solver wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my EU-centric worldview, the US system of at-will employment, and of two-week notices as the standard courtesy, is crazy. Three months is the typical notice period for tech workers and other highly-skilled jobs. One month is the legal minimum in Sweden, and certainly several other countries. Of course it goes both ways, in fact it's even more difficult for the employer to get rid of an employee. An employee doesn'…

I remember reading many years ago that employees in the U.S. have the right to quit at any time because being penalized for quitting would make the employment “involuntary servitude,” which is forbidden by the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I can’t find any confirmation of that explanation on the web now, though.

Yup. Most states are "at will", which effectively means both parties can leave the arrangement without notice or repercussion.

There are federal laws that limit this, typically applied to larger employers making entire business lines redundant (closing a factory, etc). State laws very, some with zero extra protection, some with a bit more, but AFAIK none with European-style rules.

In professional jobs, it's traditional for an employee to give 2+ weeks notice. Most employees will try to stay long enough for a reasonable transition - depending on position/project status, that could be 2 weeks or a month or two.

It's traditional for employers to give 2+ weeks severance. Most white-collar employers have periods that start at 2 weeks and grow with tenure. Including benefits is hit or miss, and a HUGE issue because health insurance/care in the US is so expensive.

Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#216

Post by ghaff »

playing_colours wrote: post #168
alistairSH wrote: post #89

Tangent Alert! I have a 3 months resignation period, so I can't even leave... Maybe it's my (US) American experience, but being unable to quit a job strikes me as a terrible policy. This guy(gal?) is really required to submit 3 months notice or face some sort of repercussions (financial, I assume)? Does this 3 month period apply in reverse (employer can't fire employees without a full 3 month warning)? Not that the A…

I guess US fire-at-will system should make contracting even more attractive option for good engineers: you do not get any social protection from being fired at any time unlike say Germany. One solid benefit less to justify pay difference. Is it the case?

Yes and no.

First of all, you get benefits as a full-time employee that contractors don't get, like healthcare, disability insurance, and paid time off. (This all mostly boils down to money of course.)

Probably more importantly, yes, a company can in general simply tell you your services are no longer needed one morning. However, in reality, absent either company downsizing or a documented performance issue, that is unlikely to happen out of the blue. Whereas not renewing a contract at the end of some project is commonplace.

Employee status vs. independent contractors is actually something of a political football at the moment as contractors include both the stereotypical gig economy workers and freelance writers who want to freelance as well as contractors of other sorts.

Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#217

Post by meowface »

munchbunny wrote: post #125
paulz_ wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've thought about that before. You get the call. "It's 30 minutes away. I'll be there in 10" If anyone happens to know of a career path or company that does that sort of work I would be interested to hear about it. Bonus points if the pay is half decent.

Blue teaming in big company cyber security teams will get that for you. Not everything is a true positive but it’s always urgent. Pay is decent too.

I've worked such a job at a large enterprise. It really does feel like firefighting (minus all the smoke inhalation and physical strain and death risk).

However, not only is not everything a true positive, probably only about 0.001% of things are true positives, among a sea of alerts and reports and dashboards across myriad systems. Some coming from your SIEM, some generated by security appliances and products, some from internal employee reports.

An ideal place will have people who continuously work on trying to reduce alert fatigue and false positive noise - but, in practice, at most big companies it's probably like working at a fire station and getting hundreds of dispatch calls per hour, every hour, every day, each about a potential fire at a different residence. And then you drive up and see they just used the stove for a few minutes or a character said the word "fire" in a TV show they were watching.

But you have to urgently show up every time no matter what because, occasionally, the house actually is engulfed in flames and might be on the verge of igniting the whole town.

Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#218

Post by omgJustTest »

tw04 wrote: post #88

I actually don't see any issue that isn't simply a matter of money. Everything they list that's an issue seems to revolve around the fact that the employees with domain knowledge for the system have left the company. Reach out to them and hire them on as contractors. If they left under bad terms because the business was a bunch of dicks, expect to pay 10x market rate. If this is truly "fix this or the business is out…

If business not make money, close business. Business make money, big boat of money.

Engineers not make money.

Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#219

Post by [deleted] »

artursapek wrote: post #179
obedm wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

European here. Having 3 months written in your contract (and in many countries by law, like France) is pretty common. You can still quit if both parties agree. I've done it before. The clause is there to avoid this type of scenario where a key employee just says fuck it and leave. It works both ways. So a company can say fuck it and fire you just because they want to. It's a fantastic system. It can be exploited, but…

> The clause is there to avoid this type of scenario where a key employee just says fuck it and leave. If they are at the "fuck it" point, what's going to force them to be useful and productive during the forced 3 month notice period?

[deleted]

Re: The absolute worst scenario happened

#220

Post by unionpivo »

artursapek wrote: post #179
obedm wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

European here. Having 3 months written in your contract (and in many countries by law, like France) is pretty common. You can still quit if both parties agree. I've done it before. The clause is there to avoid this type of scenario where a key employee just says fuck it and leave. It works both ways. So a company can say fuck it and fire you just because they want to. It's a fantastic system. It can be exploited, but…

> The clause is there to avoid this type of scenario where a key employee just says fuck it and leave. If they are at the "fuck it" point, what's going to force them to be useful and productive during the forced 3 month notice period?

It's not really a fuck it point (usualy).

If you reach that you just put in the notice, take whatever vacations you have and then put in sick leave.

But 3 months notice is used for, so the company can hire a replacement for you, and you can help train him, and transfer knowledge.

A lot of people reading this site work in companies that have huge teams, but most people in IT I know from EU (where I live) are one or two person IT teams. 3 or 4 person team is considered almost medium sized.

In such situations you need yo hand of your task responsibly.

And that the one thing that will get you burned, if you leave your previous employer hanging.

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