Humor Random Comments Thread

[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.

 

[Andy44]

badly maintained (because of capitalism)

Huh?

 

[Urwumpe]

Huh?

Well, the companies that build and maintained the masts had been state owned until 1965, most of them had even been founded by the states of the Weimar Republic. The tax payer build the masts, replaced them, many of them had been brand new around 1960 because of WW2.

Then, the companies got privatized for a bargain with the power lines, but the companies did no longer invest into the existing lines from the 1970s on, except after 1978, when another snow storm destroyed many masts in northern Germany and the government paid extra. Then, with still good maintenance, some masts had still been standing despite 10 Bft winds and 30 cm (one foot) thick ice around the power lines.

In 2005 far less extreme weather was enough for causing much extreme damage to the power lines. Thats directly related to the age of the masts and the lack of maintenance, but the companies did get away with it. More so, many masts build new after 1970 had been build with sub-quality Thomas steel, that became extremely brittle in cold weather. In 2005, the masts already failed at 19 kg/m additional weight on the lines. The oldest existing masts are from 1940 BTW.

 

[MaverickSawyer]

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....

It's a 1990 Honda Civic. Enough mileage on the factory engine to get it to the moon and well on the way back home. :lol: As I step on the gas, coming off idle, it just sputters and dies, but (and I just found this out) only when the engine has warmed up to operating temperatures. I'm thinking fuel injectors or air in the fuel line, tbh.

---------- Post added at 13:47 ---------- Previous post was at 13:32 ----------

Some further digging indicates it's probably the ignition control module.

 

[Notebook]

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?

Generally roads aren't bad, if you live on a school run local council gritters will keep it passable. We aren't used to snow-chains or stuff like that.

https://www.westernpower.co.uk/Power-outages/Power-cuts-in-your-area/Power-Cut-Map.aspx

Typical power outage types.
Its not lack of generation, its usually high winds getting branches on lower level distribution lines. Not the National Grid or Super Grid.

Used to live in a village of a few hundred about 10 miles from the nearest town. Drifting snow would block the rural roads at a few inches(hedges, no footpaths). Lots of trees close to low tension lines.
Just the way it was.

N.