Things we'd be talking about if the forum wasn't deadFollow

Watched the first episode. Definitely need to watch the second to decide whether I'll stay with it or not since so much of the first was introducing a dozen characters and general weirdness. It's very much just "inspired by" the novels -- aside from a few Easter Egg style remarks, there's precious little connecting it to the books. In a sense, that's fine with me since it's almost better than feeling like "Well, THAT'S all wrong... and that ain't right". Adams' stuff doesn't seem to translate well into film in my opinion so not even trying for a direct conversion is probably the right choice.

My wife is into the BBC Sherlock & Dr Who stuff and watched it with me with largely the same reaction; not instantly hooked but willing to give it another episode and see if it'll be something we follow.

Yeah, she was good. I think there's some good ideas in there, I just need to feel as though they're going someplace as opposed to week after week of randomness.

Also, the first episode felt like The Todd Show with Gentley as a guest star although I'd assume that'll change a little as the two characters' stories become more integrated.

You have to be proficient with long range weapons to watch Dr. Strange? Shit. Wish I knew that before I bought a ticket.

I guess everyone is watching Game 7, like me. Right now I'm happy as the Cubs are ahead 4 to 1. I want to see them win. I may have only lived in Chicago for 14 months, but I was born there and that is were my family is from.

Like me, My parents were both born in Chicago, but raised in different towns in Ill and Ind. Still we always spent at least one day visiting family in Chicago, as that is were my mom's relatives lived. Dad's Parents lived in Sandwich Ill and mom's parents lived in Michigan City, Ind.

Game now is 5 to 1, Cubs!

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO CUBBIES!!!!

Wow. Regular ol' Cubs fan club in here.

What a game!

A coworker of mine gambled at work and lost big time (no, not on the World Series).

He stumbled upon (somehow) access to some of our HR resources. Either through our corporate record system or through ADP's Portal, I'm not sure exactly what or how. In it, he found the pay of many of the people working in the offices. Including the various engineers. Both Contracted and Company Employed.

We have engineers working for us (like myself) and also contracted "temporary" engineers. These contracted employees are self employed. They have no benefits through the company, no vacation, etc. This guy saw the pay of the two classifications. As expected, the contracted employees were paid quite a bit more than the company employees. To compensate for lack of benefits and the whole self employed and all the extra taxes that come with that.

So he goes to HR about it, and HR explains the deal with contracted employees. He wasn't happy with the answer. So he goes to the COO. Same thing. Still not happy with the answer, he goes around to every employee and starts telling them the pay difference and trying to get them to join him in a "revolt" of sorts to get pay equalized with contracted employees. They suspend him indefinitely. Then 3 days later they fire him. Not sure what their exact reasons were, but I'd guess it officially would be the way he accessed the HR resources originally, that he wasn't supposed to be doing.

All this happened as another guy tried to play some games with the company. He took 2 weeks vacation, and while on the vacation, he planned on going to test another job to see if they would hire him, and if he liked it. Then if it worked out, he'd quit. If not, he'd come back to work after his "vacation". Sounded good on paper, but he told his friends (coworkers) and word spread. Then on the day before his vacation they fired him. And then he didn't get the job that he planned on going to. So he was left without a job. And he was pis[u][/u]sed...

Second guy does seem like a dick move. But it is company policy that if you tell them you are quitting, they will ask you where it is you plan on going to for another job. If you choose not to tell them, they will let you go right then. If you tell them, they will decide based on who the company is whether they will allow you to continue working until you decide to go, or whether they will let you go right then.

Sounds fairly reasonable. If you're leaving XYZ Accounting to go to ACME Accounting then there's no reason to let you hang around a week and potentially take something useful with you. If you're leaving to pursue your dream of becoming a union pipe-fitter then it's less of a concern.

Anyway, the first guy was a moron start to finish (looking at HR records, admitting to it, not understanding it and then trying to start a revolt). The second guy was dumb for blabbing about it.

My old Tank driving buddy would say that if you can still recognize that it was a truck, you weren't firing the right ammunition.



It was endangered, right? I'm sure of it!



This x1000. With a sprinkling of "maybe pick better friends" as well.

As to the first guy, wtf? One of the first rules of a workplace is you don't talk about salary. That's private information between employee and employer, and for very good reason. There are a zillion different reasons why pay may vary from one employee to another, and making a big deal about it is never going to end well. Trying to force pay raises by revealing you have somehow obtained payroll information is employment darwinism in action. He's frankly lucky he only got fired. HR information about employees is considered confidential, and depending on how he obtained it and what legitimate access he had, he could potentially have been violating the law by revealing said information to anyone else (or by obtaining it without permission in the first place). Wow. That's just... dumb.

In the "Zam is Dying" file, we find the following:



I'm the reason you can all post here, so...You're welcome, I guess?

So, last night we lost Leonard Cohen, and today, I find out we lost Robert Vaughn. R.I.P. gentleman.