Stuff. Not good. Not bad. Just...stuff.

[Ramsey]

My band had an 18 minute long epic on our last album. I'd be happy to send it to you. It's a great punishment...ask my kids.

[Gonzo]

I'd sing something incredibly long (Stairway? Tangled Up in Blue?)

Everyone must suffer.

Paradise by the Dashboard Light is always a crowd pleaser.

 

Hell, the entire Meat Loaf catalog would work.

[Ryan]

Make them sing Fallout Boy, they'll never be late again.

[Ramsey]

Make them sing Fallout Boy, they'll never be late again.

Jesus.....ya fuckin' sadist...

[Matt D]

I can't even begin to express the hours and hours of anti-bullying training we'd have to go through if we tried anything even vaguely like that here.

[Tabe]

OK, basically what this boils down to is this:

When it comes to meetings, people will come to them and be on time for one of three reasons:

1) Because they're "supposed to"

2) Because the meeting is compelling and they can't miss it

3) Because they will get punished if they don't

Clearly, we're talking about people for whom #1 & #2 don't apply and have moved into #3. The problem is that the punishment chosen - karaoke - doesn't really fit the need. It further delays the meetings and emphasizes that the meetings aren't compelling. If the meeting was super-important, and the information relevant, there wouldn't be time in the middle of the meeting to stop and have people sing, would there? No. In addition to that, you're now subjecting the folks who were on time to the punishment of the person who was late. You're wasting their time. Nothing screams "I don't value you" quite like wasting the time of a whole bunch of people at once, such as by forcing them to listen to karaoke.

So, now that I've restated my objections to the punishment chosen, what are my recommendations? Well, obviously ditch the karaoke punishment. Second, get over the "I want everybody to hear this information" thing and don't repeat stuff for people who are late. If they can get by without you repeating the info, the meeting wasn't all that compelling to begin with. If they can't get by, they'll start showing up on-time. Third, although you stated you don't want to get into formal punishments, you need to do just that. Next time, someone is late for a meeting, ignore their presence and then hold that person back after the meeting is over. Give a stern "be late again, even by 15 seconds, and I'll be writing you up" - and mean it. Fourth, start your meetings on-time and with relevant information. No fluff, no BS, dive right into the meaty stuff. When you combine this with the "don't repeat yourself" suggestion, you force people to be on-time. Fifth, just in general, the karaoke punishment is a bad idea. Consider what happens if somebody refuses to sing. You said you would write them up. When you write them up, you're now writing them up for not singing - not for being late. That's a touchy area legally - punishing somebody for not performing a duty outside the bounds of their job description.

Bottom line: what's going on here is that the staff sees you and your meetings as kind of loosey-goosey and think they can walk all over you. I work in the tech industry as well and I know how "flexible" and "loose" environments can be. But...you can't be that way with meetings. You just can't. And so that means projecting a better image of professionalism and being firmer with your staff. So tighten up the meetings and stop being reluctant to actually punish people if that's what it takes.

Good luck! Before I worked in the tech industry, I was a high school math teacher and I've dealt with this exact same type of thing (having to tighten up behavior and expectations). It can be very difficult. It's much easier to loosen up than to tighten up.

[OSJ]

Allow me to cast a disagreeing vote. In my experience, any meeting that is held at the same time in the same place and has been for a considerable duration of time is probably an unnecessary meeting. Every sales organization I've worked with seemed to believe that a Friday afternoon meeting to "review the week" and a Monday morning meeting to "forecast" were somehow essential and beneficial things. Why on Earth would we need to "review the week"? We were fucking there! We know what happened. "Forecasting" has never been anything but bullshit for a sales manager to pass on to his superior leaving someone else to blame when none of it comes true.

 

Before scheduling a meeting ask these questions: 1. Is it necessary? 2. Is there a more efficient way of disseminating the information? I particularly like #2, as I almost always come to the conclusion that drafting a memo and distributing by e-mail is ALWAYS better than a meeting. There are no excuses for not having the information, there are no ambiguities as to what was said and what was meant. Everyone is on the same page, because everyone has the same page. 

 

If you must have a meeting, real basic, it starts on time with a locked door and finishes on time. If someone is greeted by a locked door and is missing critical information, they'll just have to jolly well humble themselves by coming to the supervisor or a colleague and begging to be filled in. The appropriate response is that you don't have time for them just now, but if they come back at 5PM you'll be happy to get them up to speed. (Yeah, so you have to stay late too, that's why you get the big bucks.) ;-)

 

Anyway, once the genie is out of the bottle (as it appears to be in this case), there's no putting it back in. This particular meeting is toast. If you must have a regularly scheduled meeting, do the locked door thing or warn the staff that you know a wrestler named "Big Fresh" who does butt stuff with bears and who might come by to do a ride along with any who miss a meeting. That'll scare the bejabbers out of 'em.

[Cristobal]

Can't do it. I might have to follow through, and I don't want to bring racists into the building.

[AxB]

 warn the staff that you know a wrestler named "Big Fresh" who does butt stuff with bears and who might come by to do a ride along with any who miss a meeting. That'll scare the bejabbers out of 'em.

 

See, it works better if you use his Wrestling name and get the order wrong.

 

Vinyl Johnny.

 

 

 

... and the bear says, you don't come here to hunt, do you?

[Ryan]

I give a third option, quit your job and open a karaoke bar, it may be your true path in life.

[Red is Dead]

So someones emailed me outta the blue with a potential job offer for a london media firm looking for a manager of a third tier helpdesk...

 

I'm currently lounging in obscurity doing not a lot and the pay packet there is more than twice what I'm getting now...be a fools errand not to at least try for it, right?

[Technico Support]

Shit yeah man, go for it.  Managing IT can be cool or a nightmare, depending on if you have a good team and whether your higher-ups give two shits about technology vs "let's just keep running Server 2003 and Vista."  You can probably get a feeling for both of those in the interview.

[Red is Dead]

I manage a support desk at the moment, handling a transition from one ticketing system to another. 90% done - once thats up they've pretty much said theres nowt for me. 

 

So yeah...applied. heard of salesforce? a crm tool? could be them.

[Cristobal]

Yeah, my company uses Salesforce. It does a lot, and the sales managers love it, but it's expensive, and doesn't integrate with a lot of what the rest of the company is using.

[Red is Dead]

That could be it. they're looking for a support operations team manager.

 

I *think*...

[CrazyMax46]

Greetings.

My name is James Matthews, I am 31 years old, and I'm am officially "Old"

Maybe not old. Maybe I'm just smarter with old age, but a recent decision made me feel old. As many of you might have seen in the Video Game thread, I asked about the PS4 and if it was worth the money. While the lot of you were very helpful and informative, I was eating my lunch today when I had what alcoholics referred to as a moment of clarity.

"So let me get this straight. I'm gonna pay $400. For the ability to pay $60 for a new major release game."

And for the first time ever, I decided that video games were not financially viable.

While in the long run this is going to be a good decision, I can't help but feel a part of me is gone now. I've been playing games since I was four. 16 year old me bought a PS2. 25 year old me bought a PS3. 31 year old me...wants to spend his money in a better way.

Being an adult kinda sucks.

[Super Ape]

Tomorrow the church that runs my daughter's school will have a congregation meeting to determine whether the school will be closed after this school year or not.

 

As a resident of Philadelphia who can't move out because of my wife's job, I'm worried about where we'll put the kiddo if her school, that we tried to hard to enroll her in and get her accepted, gets shuttered after one year.

 

If the school gets closed I'm sure I'll be ranting in the BAD thread.

[Ramsey]

Greetings.

My name is James Matthews, I am 31 years old, and I'm am officially "Old"

Maybe not old. Maybe I'm just smarter with old age, but a recent decision made me feel old. As many of you might have seen in the Video Game thread, I asked about the PS4 and if it was worth the money. While the lot of you were very helpful and informative, I was eating my lunch today when I had what alcoholics referred to as a moment of clarity.

"So let me get this straight. I'm gonna pay $400. For the ability to pay $60 for a new major release game."

And for the first time ever, I decided that video games were not financially viable.

While in the long run this is going to be a good decision, I can't help but feel a part of me is gone now. I've been playing games since I was four. 16 year old me bought a PS2. 25 year old me bought a PS3. 31 year old me...wants to spend his money in a better way.

Being an adult kinda sucks.

Take it from a 42 year old. That childhood comes back. I play video games. I bought an Xbox One. I went back and purchased (now antique) the Dungeons and Dragons books of my youth. Oh, and I've never stopped buying guitars despite the fact that my entire musical "career" has left me buried in the red. You live once, be a kid when and how you can.

[Kevin Wilson]

 

Greetings.

My name is James Matthews, I am 31 years old, and I'm am officially "Old"

Maybe not old. Maybe I'm just smarter with old age, but a recent decision made me feel old. As many of you might have seen in the Video Game thread, I asked about the PS4 and if it was worth the money. While the lot of you were very helpful and informative, I was eating my lunch today when I had what alcoholics referred to as a moment of clarity.

"So let me get this straight. I'm gonna pay $400. For the ability to pay $60 for a new major release game."

And for the first time ever, I decided that video games were not financially viable.

While in the long run this is going to be a good decision, I can't help but feel a part of me is gone now. I've been playing games since I was four. 16 year old me bought a PS2. 25 year old me bought a PS3. 31 year old me...wants to spend his money in a better way.

Being an adult kinda sucks.

Take it from a 42 year old. That childhood comes back. I play video games. I bought an Xbox One. I went back and purchased (now antique) the Dungeons and Dragons books of my youth. Oh, and I've never stopped buying guitars despite the fact that my entire musical "career" has left me buried in the red. You live once, be a kid when and how you can.

 

Yep. Plus money situations change. Last gen my money was tight so I waited years to get a PS3. This generation, money is around, so I got a PS4 at launch. So it may not be a permanent change, by next year they will be under $300, two years around $200. And I never pay full price for a game. By then the games you want to play now will be $20

[Kuetsar]

My bar manager used to be in a band where the lead singer was a Flat Earther. You know: people who believe the world is really flat and the sky is a giant LED screen and there's no such thing as space exploration. The guy is the nicest dude you'll ever meet, but don't get him started...and never talk to his weird Flat Earth friends about ANYTHING.

Assuming they don't know about Terry Pratchett, try to convince them about the four elephants and the turtle too, and have some fun with the stupid. . . .

[CrazyMax46]

Greetings.

My name is James Matthews, I am 31 years old, and I'm am officially "Old"

Maybe not old. Maybe I'm just smarter with old age, but a recent decision made me feel old. As many of you might have seen in the Video Game thread, I asked about the PS4 and if it was worth the money. While the lot of you were very helpful and informative, I was eating my lunch today when I had what alcoholics referred to as a moment of clarity.

"So let me get this straight. I'm gonna pay $400. For the ability to pay $60 for a new major release game."

And for the first time ever, I decided that video games were not financially viable.

While in the long run this is going to be a good decision, I can't help but feel a part of me is gone now. I've been playing games since I was four. 16 year old me bought a PS2. 25 year old me bought a PS3. 31 year old me...wants to spend his money in a better way.

Being an adult kinda sucks.

Take it from a 42 year old. That childhood comes back. I play video games. I bought an Xbox One. I went back and purchased (now antique) the Dungeons and Dragons books of my youth. Oh, and I've never stopped buying guitars despite the fact that my entire musical "career" has left me buried in the red. You live once, be a kid when and how you can.

Yep. Plus money situations change. Last gen my money was tight so I waited years to get a PS3. This generation, money is around, so I got a PS4 at launch. So it may not be a permanent change, by next year they will be under $300, two years around $200. And I never pay full price for a game. By then the games you want to play now will be $20

You both are right. But it's not so much the games. It's my decision making. Normally I would just buy the console and fake it for a while. Nowadays I seem to be acting more *gasp* mature.

Maybe it's not so much the decisions I make. But the realization that my decisions I made when I was younger were dumb or not as viable.

[Cliff Hanger]

Put in an application for a detail (temporary reassignment) at work. I know for a fact that I won't be considered, as I'm not trained on one of the tasks our unit performs (it's a type of work Austin only does when the Brookhaven NY office gets backed up, and they haven't trained anyone new on how to do it in at least 7 years), and one of the tasks would be QA review on everything 10 other TEs turn in. But as dumb as it is, I feel like I need to assert myself; my job was only intermittently stimulating at the best of times, and since 2014 everything that brought me any kind of happiness has either been eliminated or streamlined to the point of George Jetson push-the-button-wait-push-the-button-again stultifying bullshit.  I need to show some ambition and make it clear that I'm going to take my old manager's advice when he retired, and go up or out, period.

[Ramsey]

Well, we interviewed a dude that, last week at least, was gung ho about auditioning for the drummers chair in our band.We were there 15 minutes when he admitted the material was too technical for him to play. Filling this position is going to be a long slog, methinks. The guy we let got was a miserable prick but, when he wanted to be, he was a hell of a drummer.

[Cristobal]

Yeah but who needs miserable pricks?

[Ramsey]

Agreed, Thus, the search continues!