What makes you happy?

We had some previously, but it all melted months back. This might hang around for a little bit.

 

Probably not a popular opinion but pre mixed coolant. That's right.

I used to be in the camp of "why the hell would I buy that, half of it's water!"

Over the weekend, I used the pre mixed for the first time. It was pretty damn convenient. I didn't need another container to mix it. I didn't have to second guess what I poured in. Didnt have to write down "has water" on the left over in the bottle. Plus I didn't have to go find distilled water, sometimes that itself is a pain.

 

3 months ago the development team who I work with decided to let go of the main developer I've been working with for the last 4 years. The reason was that the manager didn't like his work. His work got things done, maybe wasn't the cleanest of code, but hew knew the platform inside and out and could get things done rapidly.

They replaced him with a guy who came with high credentials. I started working with the new guy and quickly noted how much more I need to be involved. The new guy was so lost that when I ask a simple question like "how many new loans hit our pipeline today?" He would ask me to write him a query to find out. That should be as easy as checking what time it is to a developer. My life got way harder at work.

This morning I was asked to join a zoom with the developers and saw they brought my old friend back. I couldn't believe my eyes. The new guy was asking me questions and my old guy kept saying he will take care of it, all these things are second nature to him.

It made me appreciate what I refer to as "tribal knowledge". That's stuff that people within a specific group learn over time, over repetitions, and from having to solve problems together. For example, how many of you know the biggest size tire you can fit on a Tundra? That isn't common knowledge, it's tribal. Our new guy has no tribal knowledge, but our old guy has a wealth of it.

 

This was one of my greatest fears when I was working at a manufacturing site where, due to retirements, we went from our most experienced folks having 30+ years to the senior guys having 10-15 years.

 

Unfortunately, most management teams really have no understanding of this, even if they say they do. They say their personnel changes save money, but they have no clue how much more they are paying, for less productive work, when they make those changes.

 

Exactly. Our new guy spent 2 months doing what our old guy would do over night, and it still isn't done. That put us behind and I'm in a tight spot now with two new products that I can't provide support for. That delay is losing days until the deadlines and it will lead to the impacted line of business having to hurry up and do their process before deadlines hit. Kind of a chain of events caused by this.

 

Took a minute for it to get to the part that makes you happy. I thought I was in the wrong thread.

Tribal knowledge is a thing and management seldom sees it.

It's a catch 22 though. When people have that knowledge and management DOES know it, those people can be bastards and get away with it because management isn't willing to lose them. The real crappy ones don't teach or train and the company is hurting when they retire/quit.

 

I'm in that bastard camp

But, I have trained others and do my best to teach them every little thing I know. I don't hold the knowledge to stay valuable.

My first protoge at this company was far too smart and had more potential than I've ever encountered. He learned from me, then the master became the student. He would have stuck around but our projects were placed on hold so he quit and went to greener pastures. Great guy, I'm still friends with him.

My second... I won't call her protoge, I did my very best with. I spent more hours training her but that bird never flapped her own wings and eventually got kicked out of the nest.

My new protoge is very reminiscent of my first. She's smarter than me, better than me with SQL and a few other things. She just lacks the business knowledge and experience but she's getting there. She's growing into her role very fast and I love it. Seeing a return on my investment of time is like watering a plant and seeing it flower. She is actually making me consider taking a management role again, something I swore I would never do.

 

Ah, no. When I said bastard I meant they act like they own the place. Berate other people, scream and yell, and try to boss people around while having zero actual authority. You're the fun kind of bastard. They're the shitty human being kind of bastard.

 

Thanks, I definitely don't do any of that stuff. Even when I'm hard on developers or vendors I'm very polite about it and ask if there's anything I can do to help them get done. It takes quite a bit for me to be a dick to anybody at work.

 

Cleared out my ticket cue today. Coast mode till the end of the year.

 

Have you received these yet? How do they look?

 

Boy did I jinx that! Shit blowing up everywhere.

 

Unfortunately, that's the way it usually works.

 

New socks.

 

We hit 5 hours of daylight today, tomorrow we start gaining a little bit everyday. And that makes me happy.

 

Voice and sound effects make it fun to use.

 

Had a 2-fer Tundra specific the other day. 1st was watching shop guy drive my truck. Truck looked good and suspension looked good. 2nd, buddy calls and said saw you driving, can I come over and look at your bumpers? Yes you can.

 

Well now you have to post up pics of your bumpers in here. You can't just tease like that.

 

Oh, well the front is a Coastal Offroad. You have seen it - but I'm going to mod it. The rear is a one off. I'll add pics in a minute. @AzureNightmare

 

Shutting down at 2pm and knowing I don't have to even look at my work phone until Jan 4. Heaven.

 

Did a drive by at our old house we moved out of back in July. There was a large wooded track facing the road to the back of us, 300 acres. It's been clear cut and we hear it got zoned high density residential. Only roads in and out of there is by our old house. And we never heard a word about the zoning changes. Talk about getting out just in time!

 

Teddy finding his stocking.

 

ROB, Brother you need to see a doctor for real and be honest with him or her, even by Telemed. You may have low seretonin levels cause it can have a terrible effect on your ability to feel joy and happiness. Todays world and environment destroys the serotonin level in the brain.
Just sayin.

 

Apparently I need to be happy that I have tow hooks. Because…daaaaaaamn some are pissed.

 

I walked around a '22 tundra yesterday. Really looks like a GMC to me. The bedliner looked cheap, I know it's supposed to be bigger but it doesn't look it. Reading the thread about mileage it's not getting anything more than what I'm getting.
Doing some rural driving on a fresh tank of gas I got this on the read out.

It's gone down since I got to town and stop and go but still. I haven't seen numbers like that since I did the cruise to DC in the 18 tundra.

Bottom line, I'm happy I got a '20 tundra and I'm stickin' with it even without a tranny cooler.

 

What makes me happy? Lots of things.

Sometimes it's the simple stuff in life... just tossing a ball with Coondog and a sip of whiskey.

 

Well said, you do you boo....

 

A guy from the business I support was pinging me about this new app we are using. "Hi, this feature doesn't work, why not?" and "hey I tried to use this but it does nothing", and "I can't even save my progress".

I've been questioning and giving answers as I could while in meetings. Its always hard to tell them hold on, I'm in a meeting. Finally I broke free of meetings and said let's do a zoom so I can see whats up.

2 minutes into the zoom, he was right. All these things didn't work, even saving didn't work. Wtf? Oh, hes using Internet Exploder, what an odd choice. I asked him to copy that link and open it on Chrome....

Holy shit it all works now! all day he's been frustrated. Now he can work.

 

I get to go back to work tonight. Hate using sick time and losing OT.