The Bitching Thread

[Animeniax]

You'd be amused at how often it is the other way around.

Some people just can't write or communicate no matter what experience level or age.

The junior employee writes it so it can be understood and conveyed intelligently. The experienced employee or manager proofreads it to make sure nothing incorrect was said, and is thrown on cc to make sure it isn't ignored by the recipients.

I imagine it depends on what field we're talking about. I've worked in IT for a while and messages sent for company-wide purposes or to external groups are usually vetted/cleaned up by a PR group within the company. At my last job, there was an entire department titled "Strategic Communications." Basically anything the tech staff wanted to put out to the userbase had to go through SC before it could be distributed.

The junior employee writes it so it can be understood and conveyed intelligently.

Again it depends on the field I guess. Technical employees write messages that other technically minded people can understand, but not your average secretary or even manager can decipher.

[Ryllharu]

Again it depends on the field I guess. Technical employees write messages that other technically minded people can understand, but not your average secretary or even manager can decipher.

I realize it isn't what you meant, but that is a ridiculously snobby and elitist way to put it.

Which is kinda the point I was making when I said some just don't know how to communicate.

There's a different way to put a lot of things. An email might get forwarded to a executive depending on what it is on, so you don't want to get too into the weeds of technical lingo, nor do you want it misinterpreted, or ultimately come off as an arse.

"Executive-Level write up" means "high level" which in reality means a summary that is easy to understand without getting too much into technical details. At the same time, sometimes you really have to make it simple for other technically minded people, because otherwise they won't understand and will just end up calling you a dozen times anyway.

[Animeniax]

Yeah it sounds snobbish but it's how it is. Technical jargon or not dumbing something down can turn a simple message about an email server maintenance outage and 5 minutes of downtime into a huge mess when your average non-IT person reads it and thinks all systems will be down and they won't be able to do their important work. I've been in IT 14 years and it hasn't changed.

[Ryllharu]

You don't need to include technical jargon in a statement that says:

"The print server will be down for maintenance at 4:45pm today.
This outage only affects the ability to print, and is expected to last for 15 minutes. Please plan accordingly. "

It's not as hard as you're making it out to be.

[Animeniax]

Yet we'll still get calls complaining about the downtime, asking if it will affect email, mainframe, or application access. It shouldn't be that hard, true, but somehow it is. I think you give other people too much credit because you're not a dimbulb yourself. Like I said, 14 years in IT and people still amaze me with their fear of computing and IT. Your message seems self-explanatory, but people will still ask does this mean printing from email only or from Word or from some mainframe app? (legitimate question since mainframe print queues are handled by a separate system). You have to be more specific with your email, but this is self-defeating because at that point people stop reading and just flood the phone queue to ask what you mean.

IT folks aren't that helpful in this because they often refuse to send email like the one you posted. Why explain that a print server outage means users won't be able to print? That seems obvious enough.

But back on topic, I feel a complete college experience requires students to take courses in areas where they are weak. At UT, there is a writing core requirement and an ethics requirement, among others. You can take classes that apply to your major, but they have an emphasis on writing and researching or on ethical issues in your field.

[shinta|hikari]

I agree that people can be unfathomably stupid. A coworker once complained that the word document I sent her was incomplete because it was missing data. I went over to her desk to take a look at it, and had to use all of my self control to not go berserk as I told her, "Please scroll down."

[Sapphire]

Holy shit EVERYONE makes shit here. *basks in everyone's presence*

Late-ass reply, but I wanted to gush (reverse-bitch?) about making these today.

[Kraco]

Late-ass reply, but I wanted to gush (reverse-bitch?) about making these today.

Good tools and good results. That's how it's supposed to be. But really, a wrong thread, since it looks like the frames are perfect.

[Animeniax]

Late-ass reply, but I wanted to gush (reverse-bitch?) about making these today.

Wow, you made those yourself?? They look great. Are they frames for paint canvasses? And what college course teaches you shop skills? Last time I had a class like that was in high school.

[Abdula]

*claps hands* Nice Job Sapphire. Way to go team Sapphire.

@Ani

I can't believe I missed this entire discussion. I can't believe Dark Dragon said that learning for the sake of learning is stupid (-_-) I have issues with pretty much everything he said.

Anyway not why I am here. I am with Shinta, people can be unfathomably stupid. In my case I think people just need to be able to take somethings at face value without looking too much into it. Sometimes you just have to accept that the sky is blue and water is wet. I think I need to take up a relaxing hobby like wood carving again. I used to do it when I was younger and it was very therapeutic. Cut down a nice piece of mahogany(hack it to pieces), decide which piece you want to use and want for, strip it, sand it, carve it, varnish it and you just feel so much better. And since I was fond of making staffs, if that doesn't help any then at least you have a nice weighty blunt instrument to use.

[David75]

May I bitch by saying those frames are fine at 95%?

But it might be totally useless going 100% depending on what those frames are for, and canvas seems one of those cases

[Animeniax]

I have issues

Newsflash right here.

[Abdula]

Great, great, that is just great. Care to elaborate mister psychoanalyst. It should be entertaining if nothing else, in a different thread though.

[Animeniax]

I agree that people can be unfathomably stupid. A coworker once complained that the word document I sent her was incomplete because it was missing data. I went over to her desk to take a look at it, and had to use all of my self control to not go berserk as I told her, "Please scroll down."

Weird, I had that happen to me once too, except it was with a buddy and I felt kind of bad having to explain to him that he needed to scroll down. He was cool about it though, bonking himself on the head for not figuring it out on his own.

[Kraco]

I don't think that's so rare. I have also needed to give the same advice (though the document wasn't made by me). The chances are highly increased if the beginning of the document is in fact a blank page for some mysterious reason, and the stuff only starts from page 2 (if not even further down). The person opening the document saw only emptiness and thought that's it and something's wrong.

[shinta|hikari]

I forgot to mention that this coworker is a software tester.

[Animeniax]

I forgot to mention that this coworker is a software tester.

The guy I had to help is an IT support person as well.

[Edort4]

From my experience I have to say that those people arent stupid. They are geniuses. Masterminds! They get everyone to do their jobs or explain all to them cause they look so "helplessly stupid". They make their coworkers (rivals) get mad, frustated and distracted from their work in many ways.

The peak of those masterminds are the young pretty girls mid 20s-30s. Bosses look at them as if they were some kind of adorable puppies and cant imagine the real evil that lurks behind those "innocent" minds. I may be biassed here cause I lost to one of those and made my life hell for a few months.

[Xelbair]

My friend was working as a software tester... he said(and it was noticeable) that his IQ was dropping proportionally to the time spent testing(plus he was testing soft for disabled(mentally) children, middle school teaching soft etc).

[Dark Dragon]

I can't believe I missed this entire discussion. I can't believe Dark Dragon said that learning for the sake of learning is stupid (-_-) I have issues with pretty much everything he said.

I still read this thread, debate away.