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All this mini-golf talk reminds me of the one time me and some friends almost got kicked off a mini-golf course because we were taking shots at other holes instead of the one we were at -- and actually doing pretty well at it.
Of course, that was clothed. *throws on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt*
LM, hopefully things improve for you soon.
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Being Wrong Isn't the Problem; It's How You React to Being Wrong
A couple of weeks ago, an instructor contacted us about having submitted the incorrect lesson for publication. It's a Fairly Big Deal, as students were getting the wrong lesson for a couple of weeks, and everyone in the entire publishing process missed it.
So my manager checked her records, and she'd handed off the wrong file, apologized, let the correct people know, and sent the correct file. I checked my records, and publicly acknowledged that I'd handed my manager the wrong file, so the original fault was mine, and I'd be more careful in the future.
Case closed. A mistake happened, we tracked down what happened, it was human error, we were done. There were no calls for my head, disciplinary action, or anything else. It was just, "OK, thanks for clearing that up. Now let's move on."
It would only ever be an issue if I did it with some frequency.
Move forward to now: Impus Major is taking his first math class in 18 months, and it's integral calculus, pretty much the granddaddy of all math courses that make students cry. We've been working together for 1-2 hours a day, and we were looking forward to getting the sample exam for this week's midterm.
The instructor sent out an announcement that it was up, but it wasn't; he must have failed to set a flag or something.
So Impus Major texted him. "I don't see the sample exam under Assignments, either in the class page or the homework site. Can you point me to it?"
The instructor responded, "It's under Assignments."
Impus Major texted back with a screenshot of the blank Assignments page.
The instructor went dark, choosing to shun Impus Major rather than admit he'd made a rather trivial mistake.
And I see it over and over and over again. People make completely reasonable errors. And rather than admitting their error, they escalate to the point of open hostility.
And I have to wonder, "WTF?"
If you never make a mistake, you cannot learn. If you refuse to admit you made a mistake, you're refusing to learn. It's such a fundamental, underlying concept that it baffles and saddens me that most people I encounter professionally are of the, "Never admit you made a mistake" ilk.
Oh, how I HATE working with them, because *I* have to document all of their mistakes in case things go sideways, because they're the same people who make the same mistakes with great regularity.
Because they never learn.
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Fantasy NPC: Eik Stavsson, a son of a magic staff, and maker of more magic staves!
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Being Wrong Isn't the Problem; It's How You React to Being Wrong
And I see it over and over and over again. People make completely reasonable errors. And rather than admitting their error, they escalate to the point of open hostility.
And I have to wonder, "WTF?"
If you never make a mistake, you cannot learn. If you refuse to admit you made a mistake, you're refusing to learn. It's such a fundamental, underlying concept that it baffles and saddens me that most people I encounter professionally are of the, "Never admit you made a mistake" ilk.
Oh, how I HATE working with them, because *I* have to document all of their mistakes in case things go sideways, because they're the same people who make the same mistakes with great regularity.
Because they never learn.
This is part of the reason my forum title is 'the Learner'.
I make mistakes, and try to learn from them.
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Being Wrong Isn't the Problem; It's How You React to Being Wrong
A couple of weeks ago, an instructor contacted us about having submitted the incorrect lesson for publication. It's a Fairly Big Deal, as students were getting the wrong lesson for a couple of weeks, and everyone in the entire publishing process missed it.
So my manager checked her records, and she'd handed off the wrong file, apologized, let the correct people know, and sent the correct file. I checked my records, and publicly acknowledged that I'd handed my manager the wrong file, so the original fault was mine, and I'd be more careful in the future.
Case closed. A mistake happened, we tracked down what happened, it was human error, we were done. There were no calls for my head, disciplinary action, or anything else. It was just, "OK, thanks for clearing that up. Now let's move on."
It would only ever be an issue if I did it with some frequency.
Move forward to now: Impus Major is taking his first math class in 18 months, and it's integral calculus, pretty much the granddaddy of all math courses that make students cry. We've been working together for 1-2 hours a day, and we were looking forward to getting the sample exam for this week's midterm.
The instructor sent out an announcement that it was up, but it wasn't; he must have failed to set a flag or something.
So Impus Major texted him. "I don't see the sample exam under Assignments, either in the class page or the homework site. Can you point me to it?"
The instructor responded, "It's under Assignments."
Impus Major texted back with a screenshot of the blank Assignments page.
The instructor went dark, choosing to shun Impus Major rather than admit he'd made a rather trivial mistake.And I see it over and over and over again. People make completely reasonable errors. And rather than admitting their error, they escalate to the point of open hostility.
And I have to wonder, "WTF?"
If you never make a mistake, you cannot learn. If you refuse...
With respect, you are pretty irreplaceable at your company. If you make a serious mistake you will definitely get a smack for it, but not much beyond that in all probability. There are people who are far from replaceable, and will do everything they can to protect their job. I have seen people get fired for mistaking one person for another and asking them the wrong question. It breaks down 50/50 between people being dicks and the company policy(and HR, sorry HR folks) being dickish.
Fantasy NPC: Eik Stavsson, a son of a magic staff, and maker of more magic staves!
I really like this one.
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Today I angrily hung up on an end user. He was being a dick to me, which I can handle, but before that he had been a dick to the front desk lady. The front desk lady is a super nice older lady.
Dude, you mess with her you mess with all of us.
Woran gets cookies.
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Two Things That Amused Me This Friday Afternoon:
(1) My Firefox GetPocket feed showed, "How to Make Classic Chicken Marsala at Home", and my immediate thought was, "If you can't even spell it right, why the heck should I trust you to make it right?"
Which tells you that I cook Asian food rather than European food.
Chicken Masala and Chicken Marsala are indeed both delicious dishes. One is Asian. One is Italian. I'll let you guess which one I know how to make from scratch.
Chicken Marsala is a signature of mine. If we were to combine our powers - with your knowledge of Asian cuisine and my arsenal of European dishes - we would be unstoppable.
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Chicken Marsala is a signature of mine. If we were to combine our powers - with your knowledge of Asian cuisine and my arsenal of European dishes - we would be unstoppable.Two Things That Amused Me This Friday Afternoon:
(1) My Firefox GetPocket feed showed, "How to Make Classic Chicken Marsala at Home", and my immediate thought was, "If you can't even spell it right, why the heck should I trust you to make it right?"
Which tells you that I cook Asian food rather than European food.
Chicken Masala and Chicken Marsala are indeed both delicious dishes. One is Asian. One is Italian. I'll let you guess which one I know how to make from scratch.
Already married GothBard, who's a mistress of fine Italian cuisine and amazing desserts.
The latter wins.
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It may be an East vs West Coast thing. West Coast is far more influenced by Asian and Latin foods, in my experience.
When I lived in L.A., I remember inviting folks over one time and saying I was going to make boeuf bourguignon. The general reaction was: “Impossible. Surely NOBODY knows how to make such a thing.”
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...With respect, you are pretty irreplaceable at your company. If you make a serious mistake you will definitely get a smack for it, but not much beyond that in all probability. There are people who are far from replaceable, and will do everything they can to protect their job. I have seen people get fired for mistaking one person for another and asking them the wrong question. It breaks down 50/50 between people being dicks and the company policy(and HR, sorry HR folks) being dickish.
For me, that's a sign of management so bad it's time to flee.
I suspect it's also an East Coast/West Coast thing.
I worked at a video store. Clerks would give customers the wrong movies. Customers would return blank tapes and clerks would return them to the shelves. If the clerk made the mistake once or twice a month, they got a gentle, "Be more careful," lecture. It wasn't until you got to several mistakes a week that you'd be fired.
And that's typical of my experience around here. Waiters bring you the wrong dish. Salespeople bring you the wrong size. Hardware guys give you the wrong advice. You complain. They fix it. They don't get fired for any of that.
From everything I've heard about New York, it's supposed to be way more high-strung and cutthroat than California. Around here, if a company started firing people for single mistakes, they'd quickly run out of employees.
EDIT: Yep. Just checked with GothBard. Neither of us have ever known nor heard of anyone being fired for a single mistake -- around here you have to establish a pattern of screw-ups before being let go.
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It may be an East vs West Coast thing. West Coast is far more influenced by Asian and Latin foods, in my experience.
When I lived in L.A., I remember inviting folks over one time and saying I was going to make boeuf bourguignon. The general reaction was: “Impossible. Surely NOBODY knows how to make such a thing.”
That's better than the far more typical, "Oh? What's that?"
(Seriously -- telling people you're going to make Beef Stroganoff makes them think you must come from Russian heritage, because "Stroganoff" sounds Russian and they've never otherwise heard of it.)
It may be an East vs West Coast thing. West Coast is far more influenced by Asian and Latin foods, in my experience.
When I lived in L.A., I remember inviting folks over one time and saying I was going to make boeuf bourguignon. The general reaction was: “Impossible. Surely NOBODY knows how to make such a thing.”
That's better than the far more typical, "Oh? What's that?"
(Seriously -- telling people you're going to make Beef Stroganoff makes them think you must come from Russian heritage, because "Stroganoff" sounds Russian and they've never otherwise heard of it.)
I loved having stroganoff on dinner as a kid (here written as strogonow), which happens to be somewhat popular.
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Chicken Marsala is a signature of mine. If we were to combine our powers - with your knowledge of Asian cuisine and my arsenal of European dishes - we would be unstoppable.Two Things That Amused Me This Friday Afternoon:
(1) My Firefox GetPocket feed showed, "How to Make Classic Chicken Marsala at Home", and my immediate thought was, "If you can't even spell it right, why the heck should I trust you to make it right?"
Which tells you that I cook Asian food rather than European food.
Chicken Masala and Chicken Marsala are indeed both delicious dishes. One is Asian. One is Italian. I'll let you guess which one I know how to make from scratch.
Already married GothBard, who's a mistress of fine Italian cuisine and amazing desserts.
The latter wins.
That's it. When If I ever win millions of dollars, I am funding a big FAWTLY gathering and we are having a big cook off between NobodysHome and Celestial Healer...
Possibly for multiple days in a row.
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For me, that's a sign of management so bad it's time to flee.I suspect it's also an East Coast/West Coast thing.
I worked at a video store. Clerks would give customers the wrong movies. Customers would return blank tapes and clerks would return them to the shelves. If the clerk made the mistake once or twice a month, they got a gentle, "Be more careful," lecture. It wasn't until you got to several mistakes a week that you'd be fired.
And that's typical of my experience around here. Waiters bring you the wrong dish. Salespeople bring you the wrong size. Hardware guys give you the wrong advice. You complain. They fix it. They don't get fired for any of that.
From everything I've heard about New York, it's supposed to be way more high-strung and cutthroat than California. Around here, if a company started firing people for single mistakes, they'd quickly run out of employees.
EDIT: Yep. Just checked with GothBard. Neither of us have ever known nor heard of anyone being fired for a single mistake -- around here you have to establish a pattern of screw-ups before being let go.
My experience over the course of the past ten years (and it had been getting a lot worse even before the pandemic) is that while a 'single' mistake won't 'screw' someone, a series of honest different mistakes makes Management clamp down on associates so hard that associates will start repeating mistakes under the pressure.
Because Management isn't there to win friends or keep the store running anymore, it's to MAXIMIZE profit$ and reduce co$t$ by any means necessary -- and payroll is a co$t that directly impacts Management's end-of-year bonuses.
Due to a lack of confidence in Management, associates therefore do not get disciplined save for the most grievous of offenses, and due to that lack of discipline, even less work gets done.
When less work gets done, and not disciplined, it encourages further degradation of the leadership structure.
When less work gets done it keeps getting shifted to 'trusted associates' who are believed to be able to handle NOT ONLY their inherent workloads (which have quadrupled in the last five years) but also all the workloads of those who are not doing their work.
And that's BEFORE we get into Maagement going "Well, you've been here so you're *effectively* a supervisor so we're just gonna off-load all THAT onto you, too."
Pro-Tip: Do Not Dump Unto Others That Which They Are Not Trained Nor Qualified To Do. It Never Gets Done.
Manager has been magically assuming that because I have so much experience that I'll automagically know how to be a supervisor.
I'm not, have not been, and do not want to ever be in charge of other people at work -- I have enough problems keeping up with my shit to try and keep track of other people's shit.
If they try to make a big deal of it come review time that'll be it, I'll bring in the Union and ask why I'm being asked to do all the jobs for job roles I'm not being paid for nor trained for, nor have any desire to partake of.
tl;dr: I'm not a daycare provider.
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Mine friend hath bought himself an most lengthye and beautiously and finely wrought Spanysshe rapier, and that, plus ye facte that he hath arms like unto Mr. Tickle, makes him quite ye challenge to fygtte.
Also, when axe (on its own) fighteth sword (on its own), sword generallye hath the better tyme of itte.
Dammit.
I binge watched eight season of RWBY and of course it ends with a cliffhanger. And more will take a few months to arrive. Though likely I will wait until the next year to watch whole season at once.
Fell off the wagon around season six, need to find time for it again.
Taking into account the individual episodes whole seasons are much too short, it won't take a lot time.
What is RWBY? I only know GBBO.
I still need to watch season 5 of BCS.
RWBY on Rooster Teeth website. Great animated series. Starts as a funny monster-hunting action story about friendship, then gets more heartwarming, heartbreaking, funny, sad, deep, and world-shattering...
It has a great music. The animation gets better with time.
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Tis the General's birthday today!
Tis the General's birthday today!
Happy birthday to her!
I think you mean Moon-shattering.RWBY on Rooster Teeth website. Great animated series. Starts as a funny monster-hunting action story about friendship, then gets more heartwarming, heartbreaking, funny, sad, deep, and world-shattering...
It has a great music. The animation gets better with time.
The music is awesome!
~gets halfway through the song~ Ummm... Perhaps not!
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Because we're sharing music AND the previous discussion topic was RWBY.
...and I needed an inspirational anthem to start off today.
That is my favorite RWBY song and I like them all.
Hopefully your day goes better.
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Tis the General's birthday today!
*Stands up and salutes*
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Happy B-day, General!
It's funny; for all my years of tutoring, mentoring, and teaching, one of the most difficult things to overcome was test anxiety: Students getting so anxious about a test that they couldn't perform at all. I watched as students took a sample test in my office and scored an 80%, then took the real exam and scored 40%. Test anxiety is real, it's brutal, and it's why I hate courses where test scores make up the supermajority of the grade. (For example, Impus Major's calculus class has 90% of the grade from tests.)
On the other hand, I wish Impus Major would care at least a little about his upcoming midterm. We've been preparing for it for a week now, and he's still got some serious weaknesses I'm trying to help him address. Except he's stopped caring. Last night he was out 'til midnight at a Labor Day BBQ and game session. Tomorrow night he's planning on being out 'til 1:00 am at a going-away party for a friend. And the midterm is on Thursday.
So basically, "Yeah, I've done what I can, I don't care any more, and I'll be out at a party 'til 1:00 am the night before the midterm."
I'm glad he's not panicking, but I'd like to see him care at least a little more...
Preparation a day or two just before the exam is rarely worth it. Learning retention is better with longer periods of pause.
While intense learning and repetition just before the exam is a viable way to pass (here it is called "forging") it also is a flawed method that means that the knowledge learned is easily lost (in fact a typical Student motto based on the aforementioned "forging" nickname, is "learn, pass, forget").
If he had been learning with your help long enough, relaxation before the exam is actually a more valuable help than cramming some more learning, especially if his short-term memory is not that good.
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Preparation a day or two just before the exam is rarely worth it. Learning retention is better with longer periods of pause.
While intense learning and repetition just before the exam is a viable way to pass (here it is called "forging") it also is a flawed method that means that the knowledge learned is easily lost (in fact a typical Student motto based on the aforementioned "forging" nickname, is "learn, pass, forget").
If he had been learning with your help long enough, relaxation before the exam is actually a more valuable help than cramming some more learning, especially if his short-term memory is not that good.
We've been doing an hour a day since the semester began, and he's WAY better than he used to be; if this were a straightforward, "Can you apply the concepts that were taught in class?", he'd get at least a B, and possibly an A.
Instead, there's a lot of, "Do you remember math trivia from other classes?" such as the angle addition formulas for sine and cosine. Asking a student to remember such a formula isn't testing their knowledge, it's testing their memory.
I hate such questions, but from the sample exam the instructor's going to have at least 60% of the exam based on what you remember from previous classes. Considering Impus Major hasn't HAD any classes in 18 months, I'm concerned that he could drop as low as a 40% if he doesn't get more memorized.
So yep. This test is of the "memorize and forget" variety.
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Ah, nothing like being invited to present at a VP-level meeting, starting work at 5:45 am to prepare, and having them yammer their way through the entire meeting so you don't actually present.
The worst part?
This was a specially-called meeting just for my presentation -- the regularly-scheduled meeting where they're supposed to hash things out is on Thursdays.
But they couldn't refrain, they opened the floor, the discussion was off to the races, and I may or may not present on Thursday.
So yep. This test is of the "memorize and forget" variety.
Ugh... I think it's better to refresh that material during classes instead of having it tested that way.
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OK, sometimes being the "uber-senior old guru" can end up biting other people in the a$$.
I'm trying to demo a piece of software. I found the demo instructions. I didn't have the permissions I needed. So I sent out a general question, "How do I get these permissions?" and the response was a very quick and harsh, "You don't! Only VPs and higher can grant those!"
So I pinged the appropriate VP because we have a really good working relationship and I figured he'd just tell me, "No," and we'd move on.
Unfortunately, it turns out that the instructions are telling us to grossly violate corporate security policy in a way that could get us fired (if we'd had the permissions).
The author of said instructions is now in some hot water. Not "firable" hot water, but definitely, "You really messed this one up, dude," hot water.
And he's in hot water at the VP level, not his manager level, because I went ahead and used my personal connections instead of wasting a couple of days filing tickets.
Feel kind of bad about the whole thing.
Happy birthday to The General!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO GENERAL