AJ Sadauskas @ ajsadauskas @aus.social

Australian urban planning, public transport, politics, retrocomputing, and

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343

Joined

3 yr. ago

@geillescas @jajabor @asklemmy That, and also making files/emails/calendar events synced across your computer and your phone.

@denshirenji @asklemmy On photos, does NextCloud Photos or Memories play nice with Digikam or any other desktop photo gallery applications? And what about Immich?

@msdropbear42 @TinyBreak @Seagoon Greasy lukewarm dead bird in a cardboard bucket, as a friend used to call it.

@Seagoon @TinyBreak Totally.

Honestly, I feel icky just thinking about KFC food, it's just so greasy.

Unless you have a specific craving for the greasiest thing imaginable because you're pregnant/emotionally eating/have cramps/have a hangover/are really drunk/are six-years-old, I don't know why anyone would want it?

@tombruzzo Out of curiosity, roughly how large is this organisation? Is it closer to 10 staff, 50 staff, or 1000?

Also, you mentioned something I found interesting.

You said the business wants everything done now, but also everyone needs to give their input and approval.

Is that an issue just with the website? Or is it across the board in your business?

@StudChud @Seagoon Nawww

Sweet little Mickey is soooo cute 😻

@Nath @StudChud Nath, it's great you had a good job experience.

But not all call centre jobs are like that.

Many call centres are micro-micromanaged.

Adherence to work hours. Conformance to schedule. Call handling time. Calls per worked hour.

There's often caller feedback forms, and those irrational or malicious customers basically decide if you keep your job.

The calls are recorded, and your team leader or dedicated contact centre staff listen in randomly.

In many commercial organisations, there's a mandate to upsell or cross-sell, even if it's an angry customer who wants to close their accounts.

In those cases, you also get judged on the average value of products you sell, and the percentage of calls you upsell on.

You have already angry people who have just been on hold for up to an hour, and have been transferred across different departments and teams.

And there are some men who are either creepy or misogynistic when dealing with women over the phone. And yes, clearly it's a small minority of men. But that small minority exists, and they're shitty.

@tombruzzo @SituationCake The other thing is to keep in mind is that it's not necessarily IT that is the "business owner" of the website.

Sure, IT might be responsible for keeping it online. But the main decisions about it, and the responsibility for maintaining the content, belong to a different person/team/department.

Depending on where I've worked, that's been operations, content, comms/PR, and marketing.

Even in small orgs, it's often the CEO rather than IT who has the final say.

And sometimes different parts of the website are managed by different people/teams/departments.

The second thing to be mindful of is it's not just about whether you have the WordPress skills.

There's often a lot of office politics in many organisations.

People quite rightly don't enjoy feeling like their jobs or responsibilities are being undermined.

And they don't want changes made in an area they're ultimately responsible for without them knowing.

That's where business processes and procedures come into play.

It might be as simple as emailing a particular person to get their sign off on you making a particular update, or notifying them afterwards.

You also need to think about what the benefits to them are of granting you this access. Perhaps it frees up their resources for more meaningful tasks?

And the third thing to be prepared for is if you get the admin privileges you want, suddenly other people might ask you to make changes as a shortcut around IT. You might want to push back against that.

If I were in your position, I'd plan out the case for:

What the problem you want to solve is.
Your proposed solution. That's not just gaining access, but also the approvals or notifications around it.
Restrictions and safeguards. You are only to have this level of privileges and make updates in situations x, y, and z. This helps you push back if someone else wants you to make other changes — I'm not authorised to do that.
The benefits to the business, including improved productivity, or customer experience.

I'd have a chat with your boss to get them on board.

I'd find out who the business owner(s) of the website are.

I'd organise either an informal chat (maybe buy them coffee one day?) or a meeting to talk through the case with them.

And finally, I'd be prepared for the answer to be a no. That's ultimately their call. If that's the case, your decision is whether you stick with your current job, or find a different one that makes better use of your skills.

@Seagoon Overheard in the office...

Colleague one: "As you are aware, we've decided to postpone event until August or September. Can you change the dates on the website please?"

Colleague two: "No, I was not aware, thanks for letting me know. When was the decision made? I'll update the website."

Colleague one: "I am very sorry, I thought you were aware."

The "Manager" strikes again.

@Gibsonisafluffybutt @Seagoon Lovely post-modern art piece by Gibson 😸

@Baku Another really great video by @philip 😊

He's done a number of interesting videos on the history of Melbourne — definitely recommend subscribing to his channel on YouTube.

https://youtu.be/3THrXcrST6E?si=ZwHfg1imoD5SS1Sp

@StudChud @Seagoon Congratulations! 😊

Many years ago I worked in a call centre and it was utterly soul destroying.

You'll feel so much better once you're out of that toxic environment.

@calhoon2005 @Seagoon Sort of.

Basically, when the first 4G and 4G LTE networks were first being rolled out, the technology to make voice calls over 4G networks wasn't quite ready yet. So the earliest 4G phones dropped back to 3G for calls, but used faster 4G networks for internet and data.

Eventually, the telcos rolled out a technology upgrade that allowed calls to be made on 4G LTE mobile networks, called VoLTE (voice over LTE).

But it only worked on newer 4G/4G LTE phones that supported VoLTE for calls. Older models still dropped back to 3G for voice calls

Sounds to me like your MIL has an older 4G LTE phone that still falls back to 3G for calls, instead of making them over the 4G LTE network.

If that's the case, she'll no longer be able to make calls with that phone once Optus 3G shuts down.

Time for an upgrade.

@Seagoon ICYMI, the 7:30 Report had a story about why Melbourne's Star Observation Wheel failed.

I mean, aside from the breathtaking views of Coode Island and the Docklands car parks, the fact it was barely ever working probably didn't help...

https://youtu.be/Sc14bgfp9o?si=-vxV7Llu6b4MKI4O

@Seagoon @ajsadauskas@lemmy.ml Thank you 😊

The good news is that she got home and had dinner and a bit of a play. Hopefully, after a couple of days of eye drops, she makes a full recovery 😸

@CEOofmyhouse56 She was so brave when I took her down to see Dr Paul though.

Sat still while Dr Paul weighed her, did the eye drops, and gave her an injection.

He was very impressed.

No way would I be that brave in the same circumstances 😂

@CEOofmyhouse56 @ajsadauskas@lemmy.ml You were correct.

Poor Mimi 😿

@Seagoon @msdropbear42 I think she's saying she woke up this morning and listened to Radio National. PK is Patricia Karvelas, FK is Fran Kelly, and...

I don't listen to Radio National so I have no clue who SS is?

@Thornburywitch @bacon To all whom this may concern,

I am writing to express my strong and sincere recommendation for Mr. Simon Fluffybutt as a candidate for this position.

In his previous role, Simon unlocked substantial value, leading both directly and indirectly to a strengthening of the sales pipeline, while leveraging and fully capitalising on synergistic new opportunities for revenue growth.

In a dynamic, fast-paced, lean, and agile environment, Simon demonstrates a natural flair for delivering outcomes while expertly liaising across multiple internal and external stakeholder groups with divergent expectations, while diligently managing competing priorities.

He is both a dynamic self-starter who thrives when taking ownership of projects to drive strategic results, as well as a collaborative team player who works efficiently towards shared goals and KPIs.

I have full confidence in Simon's extensive expertise, knowledge, and skillset, which will contribute meaningfully and substantively to the long-term growth of your organisation going forward.

If you have any questions in regards to this letter, please don't hesitate to reach out.

Kindest regards,

AJ

@StudChud Even though I'm not directly in his department (thankfully!), I am affected by his decisions.

I mentioned to a colleague today: "Have you noticed manager has a habit of springing decisions on people, and not taking things into consideration even if they have been explained to him?"

She said yes, and gave me some of her own examples.

So it has been noticed by people — although unfortunately the people who he answers up to are new in the role as well.

Earlier today, I was in a meeting with Manager and some people from the business sales team.

Marketing had wanted to run an end of financial year promotion for business customers.

Manager overruled them and decided that they should instead run a discount campaign aimed at consumers. (It's a small team that doesn't have the resources to do both.)

(This despite the fact that he said himself a couple of months ago that he wanted to focus more on business sales.)

(Manager's idea is the stupid campaign they don't want to do.)

I explained to the sales team that because the consumer discount campaign was happening — the one marketing doesn't want to do — there wouldn't be a promotional campaign for business.

This apparently hadn't occurred to Manager, even though it was clearly explained to him. (I was in the meeting when it happened.)

"Well, ummmm, maybe we can do both?"

And then this afternoon I had a meeting with a colleague. One of Manager's brilliant ideas is for her to cross-promote a product from Manager's division with a product from another division.

"Okay, well before you go too deep into this, you might just want to be aware that the IT systems in Manager's division aren't integrated with the systems from the other division."

She gives me a mildly horrified look. What do you mean not integrated, she asks?

"Many years ago, Manager's division used to be a completely separate organisation. So it has its own separate IT systems. That means its own customer database, its own accounting package, its own content management system. Many of the platforms are different to the ones the rest of the organisation uses.

"Nothing is integrated.

"IT is planning to eventually move everything across to the same systems, but in the meantime any data that you want to move from one system to the other has to be done manually.

Her face dropped as she realised her workload was now at least triple what she had expected. Why didn't Manager tell me any of this?

And that's a very good question...