Humor Random Comments Thread

[MaverickSawyer]

What the hell did NASA research there? :blink:

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19820010784.pdf

It appears that NASA was called in as an expert in autonomous systems in harsh environments by the Department of Energy. Such inter-department contracts are not unheard of, especially with DoE.

 

[PhantomCruiser]

Rumor control has us starting a feed pump tonight some time around 0300.

And it looks like I'm still going to lose 127 hours of leave. That's a lot of money down the drain. But hey, we're from the government and we're here to help, right? Also, this won't make you pregnant.


One of the contractors has expressed the nuclear maintenance philosoply as he's observed it, we are trying to come up with Maintenanca Law #1: "For every task you are given by a supervisor, there will be two (or more) supervisors from other departments placing barriers in your way."

Manager asked me if the feed pumps were ready, since I'm being blocked (currently by ops) my response was "Don't know, don't care", he asked what kind of attitude was that to have and I pointed to my missing leave in late Dec and early Jan and asked if that was his doing. He got kind of sheepish and walked away. Strangely enough he will be off for the next several days, his leave it seems is unaffected.

For any other Rick and Morty fans... I wanted to do the Morty rant; "Well get your together, get it all together and put it in a backpack, all your so it's together. And if you want to take it somewhere, you know, take it to the store and sell it, or put it in the museum. I don't care what you do you just gotta get it together. Get your together.

He knows I could go elsewhere inside TVA, and if I lose $5K plus dollars because of his ineptitude I think I might to do it. The mechanism for reclaiming "use it or lose it" leave it difficult and colvoluted (on purpose might I add). Next time I get an opportunity to transfer outside the protected area I'm going to apply for it.

My advice for anyone looking at working in the nuclear industry is, go for it, just stay miles the hell away from this place. I've got a 47 page document from the Office of the Inspector General and another document from the NRC that can explain why.

 

[jedidia]

And it looks like I'm still going to lose 127 hours of leave. That's a lot of money down the drain.

I don't quite get how that works. I mean, I know the concept of "you can't take your overtime off because there's too much work", but all that means is that you'll have to take it in cash.
I'm also familiar with the concept of "overtime doesn't exist, and if you mention it you can get yourself a new job", but nobody can afford to do that with skilled labour, as it's illegal.

 

[Quick_Nick]

I don't quite get how that works. I mean, I know the concept of "you can't take your overtime off because there's too much work", but all that means is that you'll have to take it in cash.
I'm also familiar with the concept of "overtime doesn't exist, and if you mention it you can get yourself a new job", but nobody can afford to do that with skilled labour, as it's illegal.

At my job, you can only carry a limited amount of Paid Time Off into the next year. Any excess has to be used by about mid-January or it disappears. I know some particularly busy coworkers who sacrifice a bit of PTO since they can't find time to use it during the year, or unexpectedly become busy at the end of the year as with PhantomCruiser's situation.
Also, as a salaried employee, overtime isn't a legal right for me. It does exist, but doesn't legally have to as I am considered exempt from those labor laws.

 

[PhantomCruiser]

...but nobody can afford to do that with skilled labour, as it's illegal.

It's illegalish I am trades and labor, and under contracted negotiated agreement, but the bottom line is TVA is an independant government corporation and when push comes to shove, they can do whatever they want. If I fight it, they can delay-delay-delay until I just get tired and give up, leave for a new job or (in more than one example I have) die. Seriously they waited until the two guys died to admit wrongdoing.

2A main feed pump started up. Smooth and slick as snot on a doorknob. I do love standing atop that much horsepower and being in manual control. One of the cooler SRO (Senior Reactor Operator) was leaning over the railing as I was finishing up going "Tag me! Tag me" like Donkey from Shrek. I tagged out. Ops has control of it now. I'll probably be off shift when 2B gets handed over. They will need it before 15% power.

 

[Linguofreak]

At my job, you can only carry a limited amount of Paid Time Off into the next year. Any excess has to be used by about mid-January or it disappears. I know some particularly busy coworkers who sacrifice a bit of PTO since they can't find time to use it during the year, or unexpectedly become busy at the end of the year as with PhantomCruiser's situation.

Indeed, I've never worked anywhere where I could accumulate as much as 127 hours of leave.

Of course, the loss of exactly 127 hours of leave could also be that his employer stores his number of hours of leave as a 7 bit signed integer, and he currently has 63 hours of leave and will soon accrue one more hour.

   63 = 0x3f = 111111b
+   1 = 0x01 = 000001b
---------------
  -64 = 0x40 = 100000b

Sure, the same concept works with unsigned integers too (127+1 = 0), but the scenario where he ends up with negative vacation time remaining sounds more consistent with what PhantomCruiser has told us about his employer.

 

[PhantomCruiser]

I can carry over 240 hours of leave each year. Additionally I earn 208 hours, so 26 days. Leave requests go onto a resource calendar for the idiots to write the work schedule based on man-hours available to them.

I call them idiots because they don't use the resource calendar and have been known to schedule our week at 280%. That's the highest workload I can remember, but normally it's 150-180% overloaded.

I love it when they complain that we didn't meet the schedule. Now there is a meeting I'll never be invited to attend again.

Sick leave is earned at 4 hours per pay period, last I looked I had just over 1000 hours. It can accumulate to as high a number as you can earn (or want to earn I suppose). It's got zero value towards retirement, the only reason I have that much is if there was a reason for me to be hurt in an accident or something, my sick leave would stretch out until long term disability could kick in. So I could be out for quit some time with no lost wages.

 

[Urwumpe]

Well, I don't know US laws there, but German law is pretty strict in this case.

Either you keep all your overtime, or you have to be compensated financially for it.

The idea of "overtime comes for free" is still pretty common here, but it can end very expensive for the companies if they are caught and firing the wrong employee can mean you will get caught quickly. This works especially since here, the employees are responsible for documenting their work hours. You can't just declare that your employees are leaving the universe for a few hours after work before arriving home. Even volunteering for overtime does not stop the law there - if the company does not want to pay you for that time, they should tell you to go home.

For example: It was once common that doctors had to sit around waiting for emergencies in readiness, but without getting paid for that time. When it became excessive, it went to a court and was quickly decided there: When this readiness is ordered by the employer, the employer has to pay for it.

BTW... Nobody explained some guy here, that iterative sprints have to take place in sequence and not parallel with the same resources... According to him I was supposed to work 300% as developer in three sprints and 25% as third level support in parallel. (Plus 10% for special projects of my own department) Solution: We ignored him, finished work one sprint after another... Still, this year was the year too much for all of us.

 

[jedidia]

At my job, you can only carry a limited amount of Paid Time Off into the next year.

We usually have that rule too, since you don't want to end up with an employee taking months of overtime. But in this case the employer has to pay you for it.

Also, as a salaried employee, overtime isn't a legal right for me.

Just... how?

Nobody explained some guy here, that iterative sprints have to take place in sequence and not parallel with the same resources...

Maybe you should make a gant, just for him :rofl:

 

[PhantomCruiser]

Hey we just went to mode 1!

Part of me is expecting a forced outage to start here any second.

Edit - - - -

Unit two grid sync!

 

[C3PO]

I've just had a life-changing experience.

SPINTIRES FIXED THE CAMERA!!!!!!!!:woohoo:
:10sign:

 

[MaverickSawyer]

:rofl:

 

[Notebook]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42272554

Several cm of nearly snow has surprised us. Country in chaos.

N.

 

[Urwumpe]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42272554

Several cm of nearly snow has surprised us. Country in chaos.

N.

Same seems to have happened at the north sea coast here. Had reports of 5 new car accidents at the A29 in just 20 minutes.

 

[Notebook]

That's the "Not-Funny" part of this. We get caught out every year, even with good fore-casting, we just don't take any action. Except re-action.

N.

 

[Urwumpe]

We just had the third bad accident on the same segment of road today... a 68 year old SUV driver with trailer collided with a heavy truck, when he tried to pass a young woman on the left side, which was waiting because she wanted to enter a farm road to the left and had to wait for the approachig traffic... he was badly injured, the truck driver lightly, the road is completely blocked again.

 

[MaverickSawyer]

Joy. My car dies when I try to step on the gas, and upon researching possible causes, the list of possible culprits ranges from "dirty air filter" to "clogged catalytic converter" and there's no real diagnostic other than "try everything until it gets fixed".

Reaaaaal helpful, Google. :dry:

 

[Urwumpe]

Joy. My car dies when I try to step on the gas, and upon researching possible causes, the list of possible culprits ranges from "dirty air filter" to "clogged catalytic converter" and there's no real diagnostic other than "try everything until it gets fixed".

Reaaaaal helpful, Google. :dry:

How does it die? RPM lower than normal in idle and goes down when you step on the pedal? Or simply off without any warning?

Don't trust Google too much, like by asking it for medical advice, its a BAD idea. Same with most car forums. If you post your symptoms there, the first recommendations will be you need a new car, your old one sucks....

---------- Post added at 20:34 ---------- Previous post was at 20:23 ----------

BTW, a small aircraft went missing here on the way to Brunswick airport. Somewhere in the Weser hills, without a trace so far.

 

[Artlav]

Several cm of nearly snow has surprised us. Country in chaos.

Hm. Roads i can understand, since it's not worth the while for you to adapt and train for a week of snow every year.

But what is all that stuff about power cuts?
How can a little snow do that?

 

[Urwumpe]

But what is all that stuff about power cuts?
How can a little snow do that?

Weight and wind forces on badly maintained (because of capitalism) overland lines. Like it happened also in Germany.