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Forgotten Employee (2002)

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Re: Forgotten Employee (2002)

#91

Post by [deleted] »

agent008t wrote: post #40
shubhamjain wrote: post #3

I read it a while back. The story is probably fiction, but I have no trouble believing there must be shitload of people who must have worked an arrangement like that for themselves—taking paychecks without work. What surprises me is that almost always these people don't use their free time to do something productive—like picking up a hobby or up-skilling, they squander most of it. Ex: a programmer who outsourced his…

> Lacking objective, or structure in the day, I found myself playing video games or surfing web pretty much all day. I think the key is to identify these timesinks and to eliminate them one-by-one. Often these are dopamine-hijacking activities. So, suppose you decided to yourself that you are not going to be surfing the web at all, or limit it to a strictly scheduled timeslot, or only use the web when you have a spec…

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Re: Forgotten Employee (2002)

#92

Post by MrVandemar »

shubhamjain wrote: post #3

I read it a while back. The story is probably fiction, but I have no trouble believing there must be shitload of people who must have worked an arrangement like that for themselves—taking paychecks without work. What surprises me is that almost always these people don't use their free time to do something productive—like picking up a hobby or up-skilling, they squander most of it. Ex: a programmer who outsourced his…

See also: "I am taking a year off to write a novel". Seldom successful.

Re: Forgotten Employee (2002)

#93

Post by golergka »

shubhamjain wrote: post #3

I read it a while back. The story is probably fiction, but I have no trouble believing there must be shitload of people who must have worked an arrangement like that for themselves—taking paychecks without work. What surprises me is that almost always these people don't use their free time to do something productive—like picking up a hobby or up-skilling, they squander most of it. Ex: a programmer who outsourced his…

If they would be the kind of person to always thrive to do something productive, they probably wouldn't end up with such a job in the first place.

(Clarification, just in case: I'm not saying that this kind of person is better or worse than the other.)

Re: Forgotten Employee (2002)

#94

Post by tra3 »

gs17 wrote: post #33
natural20s wrote: post #11

This happened to someone I knew back in 2014 or so. We were hired together at C** Consulting and I was immediately shipped off to Dallas to help with an eCommerce program at a famous Watch & Accessory brand. My buddy from orientation in NJ kept in touch and was jealous I was on a project so quickly. He went back to his home and went into the C** office dutifully for the first month and just did training, enablement a…

My dad had a friend who did similar at an even larger company. The way the story was passed down to me, his whole floor was laid off while he was on some sort of leave/vacation and so the paperwork didn't get filed right, leaving him disconnected from the organizational tree but still in payroll. It's amazing the mistakes bureaucracy can make.

Come on. That's Milton's plot line from Office Space.

Re: Forgotten Employee (2002)

#96

Post by cmeacham98 »

xivzgrev wrote: post #71
deanmen wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://thedailywtf.com/articles/We-Use-bobX

Brian sounds like the drag on the company, not Bob. Bob is simply offering a deal that is in his best interests. Brian is the enabler, and I'm surprised HE wasn't fired. Developers are expensive to recruit and train. If your department keeps losing them, because of the environment, then maybe you need a different environment.

Bob isn't just "offering a deal", he abused his position to try to get an employee fired and is blackmailing the company to force them to stay with BobX.

Re: Forgotten Employee (2002)

#97

Post by woooooo »

sirmarksalot wrote: post #73
Lammy wrote: post #16

For history's sake, here are 3 of 5 parts of the original story preserved in the SA Goldmine for anyone who wants to read 2002 forum comments: Part 1: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=18... (dead link) Part 2: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=20... (dead link) Part 3: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=26... Part 4: https://forums.somethingawful…

I remember when that happened. "Sir" or "kind sir" had become a cliche, and the mods added a replacement filter to discourage people from using it. Understand that SA at the time lived by the edgelord ethos, "if I don't mean it literally, it's not offensive," so this kind of thing wasn't seen as homophobic, even though it totally was.

To be fair, (to be fairrrr), that was actually mainstream rather than edgelord in 2002. It was completely normal for straight bro friends to call each other the word as a gag even if they'd be horrified at using it as a slur against a gay person.

Re: Forgotten Employee (2002)

#98

Post by bdowling »

stevage wrote: post #86
harryvederci wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you regret asking them? Sounds like you missed out on a lot of free cash, but I guess this stupid thing called "conscience" might have spoiled the fun of that eventually anyway..

Severance = free cash. You earn more taking the severance and immediately getting another job.

Severance is usually given only in exchange for a waiver of all legal claims (e.g., harassment, discrimination, unpaid wages) you may have against the company.

Re: Forgotten Employee (2002)

#99

Post by DonHopkins »

jvm___ wrote: post #6
shubhamjain wrote: post #3

I read it a while back. The story is probably fiction, but I have no trouble believing there must be shitload of people who must have worked an arrangement like that for themselves—taking paychecks without work. What surprises me is that almost always these people don't use their free time to do something productive—like picking up a hobby or up-skilling, they squander most of it. Ex: a programmer who outsourced his…

"The water in your body is just visiting. It was a thunderstorm a week ago. It will be the ocean soon enough. Most of your cells come and go like morning dew. We are more weather pattern than stone monument. Sunlight on mist. Summer lightning. Your choices outweigh your substance." - The CryptoNaturalist We think ourselves as a stone monument "I'm productive" "I'm this or that", but the truth is what we do daily defi…

“You aren't what you eat - you are what you don't poop.” -Wavy Gravy

Re: Forgotten Employee (2002)

#100

Post by spaetzleesser »

shubhamjain wrote: post #13
iamjackg wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious: how long were your breaks? I've had two rather long (>6 months) breaks in my career, and I've enjoyed them immensely and have been very productive: finished personal projects, made music, YouTube videos, learned new skills. However, both times it took at least a couple months of passive life before I could do anything productive at all: I just slept, cooked, read, played video games, and scrolled Reddit.…

My break was almost 5-6 months. It's not like I didn't do anything. I revamped my website, shipped a puzzle game, wrote articles. But I had months where I basically didn't do anything. And it was hard to climb out of the stretch of unproductivity. The main issue was that I didn't have any concrete goals. And while theoretically I could have done anything, my mind was digressing everywhere and ended up doing nothing.…

I have a plan to semi retire and do nothing until j get bored out of my mind and start doing something. I feel years of being a corporate employee in high stress function takes away your ability to do self directed things and to know what you really want to do. I would love to find that again.
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