Red Dwarf on the brain. I sometimes do a post for pi day, but a nerdy reference should be enough.
70 thoughts on “March 14, 2017: Fun, Fun, Fun”
After a series of "I thought I worked at 1, not 11" excuses and showing up hung over to the point that he was haggard and weak, my immediate supervisor at work, who was otherwise a good guy, has destroyed his once-promising career in our company. Now I'm back to the point where I have to decide if store leadership is really something I want, as the position would pay me a pittance more for the privilege to be far more stressed, and working in the kind of spot that always gets eliminated during our restructures.
See, occasionally my job isn't so boring.
A mere pittance more for significant added stress and the likelihood they'll cut your position when somebody higher up screws up or corporate decides to "restructure"? I'd say that was an easy call.
It is an easy decision if you focus on 2-3 year timeframe. Much tougher if your focus is 10+ years.
Plus, human nature means that at some point you'll be "typecast" as floor sales guy and not "management material."
Probably depends on one's desire to remain with the organization too.
Also on one's desire to show up at 1 instead of 11. Sounds like that wouldn't be a possibility any more.
That doesn't matter to me. I have almost zero interest in money beyond having enough to live.
Then I think I'll agree on "easy call."
I currently work in a field where the limited opportunities for advancement are usually into positions with significant supervisory duties. Beyond my near-total lack of interest in supervising other (presumed) professionals, I have never understood this model.
"Hey, you're really skilled at X, but unfortunately we can't pay you what you're worth doing that job. But if you take this other job that does pay you closer to what you're worth, we'll need you to supervise people who do X instead of doing X yourself. You already know how to do their job upside down underwater, but unless you learned how to manage people when you had nobody to manage, you actually aren't prepared to do the supervision job. LOL."
unless you learned how to manage people when you had nobody to manage, you actually aren't prepared to do the supervision job.
Ding ding ding!
Tell me more, tell me more, did you get very far?
No. They said goodbye to Sandra D.
Yes. And your field isn't alone in this.
Sounds pretty familiar to me....
(Minus the not getting paid what I'm worth. I'm pretty happy with my current pay scale, but any advancement means becoming a dean, which is clearly a big change in job duties.)
Thank God there is a "staff" track besides the "management" track that I can happily park myself in.
Ditto.
Yay management!
we'll need you to supervise people who do X instead of doing X yourself
I do like it much better when supervisors and managers work their ways up through the ranks (I am biased because that's what I did, I guess). Also, I've been around supervisors who were only interested in the position for the money and couldn't do the jobs their direct reports were doing, and it is a disaster.
And not everyone who is good at their job is cut out for being a supervisor, and I don't think most businesses do a good job of recognizing that.
I am very pleased with my (long time) supervisor; I joke that she goes to the meetings so I don't have to. There is a little truth in that.
All the meetings are belong to us.
It's kind of a running joke around here that upper management doesn't recognize that not all great salesmen are going to make great leaders. I actually haven't had a competent direct supervisor in at least three years, though the management above them have all been great in their roles (outside of these decisions).
working in the kind of spot that always gets eliminated during our restructures
That fear is one thing that contributed to my decision to leave a job a few years ago, in hindsight I really regret allowing it to be such a big factor. Couldn't get it out of my head that if I was doing the restructuring my job would be near the top of the list in my organization.
Of course the company had a big turn-around right after I left, which stopped the cycle of layoffs I survived over the years...so glad I sold all of my stock when I left before the valuation went up over 500%.
I guess it was worse than I thought. He didn't actually have the conversation about leaving - he apparently just abandoned when he knew he had a chance to be fired. Now he can't get a single recommendation from the only company he's ever worked for.
I do hope he takes something from this. Now what do I do with his two new boxes of business cards?
Now what do I do with his two new boxes of business cards?
You need to drop them into drawings at every restaurant in town. It sounds like he could use a free lunch.
I'll admit this is tempting.
I found another (huge) box of his business cards after I mentioned the first two. With our department's customer flow, these would have lasted him a couple of years.
anybody have experience with home equity loans or HELOCs? We are visiting a local credit union today, but I'm also interested in BoA (which holds our mortgage) and LendingTree.
the main problem I see with BoA is that we have to borrow for a minimum of 36 months, with significant fees if we pay off early. Our local credit union has a 24 month minimum.
If I recall correctly, lending tree has a pretty negative reputation because shady lending practice, but I'm not sure if I'm remembering correctly.
As my property law professor said mocking Lending Tree for it's role* in the mortgage crisis, "When banks compete, everyone loses!"
*Not them specifically, but that idea that they need to approve everyone for everything to get more, more, more summed up in that scene in The Big Short where Steve Carell travels to Florida.
If Lending Tree sucks, are there any similar, decent alternatives? Or best just to shop around?
We have a home equity line of credit through BoA now. Pretty seamless for transferring back and forth with bank accounts, since we already bank with them. We originally went through one of the big aggregating sites (Bankrate? Credible? not sure, my wife is the main finance person in the house...) to look for the best rates, and BoA was one of the best ones for the amount we were looking for, and easiest to deal with. Our local credit union ended up the exact same rate as BoA, and was more complicated for us.
I'm not sure what the minimum term is, but 3 years sounds about right. We figured there was no chance we'd pay it off earlier than the minimum term, so that wasn't a big concern for us.
with BoA, they waive the closing costs and give you a discount up front. 10-year draw period, then 20-year period in which you only pay back. By draw period, they mean the period in which you can draw on the HELOC. Once you do draw, you have to start servicing the loan amount and that service period can be no less than 36 months or they charge a $450 early termination fee PLUS charge you closing costs (that they otherwise waive). You have to have at least a $100K line of credit and draw at least $20K to get the better initial rates (variable rate loan; for a fixed rate.
our local CU has fewer constraints and a 24-month minimum pay-back period (or consequences) but, I think, a slightly higher initial rate. They charge a $50/year fee (no annual fee with BoA). Not sure about closing costs yet.
Never had a minimum pay-back period, that I know of, or a yearly fee.
We've done HELOC with a couple different CU's in the past; no problems.
You should move to Washington state. Pretty sure prepayment penalties are illegal here.
Yea, that won't help me get my house repaired so that I CAN sell it.... 🙁
Had a conversation with Trueblood recently regarding Sano's defense. My point was essentially "My eyes tell me his isn't as bad as all that. I don't know how to measure it, but it feels like his errors often tend to be inconsequential and/or made up for by some really great plays." Trueblood's position was essentially "No.".
I've sent him this link.
Sano also got to play a brand new position for the first time ever, so that will color a lot of people's opinions of him. It's hard for us to separate that out, and that assumes Sano could switch back perfectly when he resumed playing third.
Defensive metrics are overrated. They need a long time for adequate sample size.
Heh. Trueblood made this point in response to the +8 range according to UZR, when I brought that up.
I'm pretty excited to be able to watch the Twins this summer, and it had better come with a full season of Sano because my eyes similarly tell me he was pretty great when completely healthy.
Miguel Cabrera's best rWAR season came at the age of 30 when 3B was his primary position.
His best fWAR season came then, along with his lowest fielding number ever. rWAR places his 2013 season second, narrowly behind his 2011 season.
I actually agree with the main thrust of Cameron's argument here. And I think this actually shows something cool about where good defensive metrics could lead us. I think it's possible to get too caught up in the WAR/uber-metric rat race of only looking for stats to tell us the one true ranking of all players. Here, the Catch Probability metric did an interesting job at pointing us to two quite good plays from Sano without us having to look at all the video through the season or remember when he had good catches. And I think these types of plays don't generally stand out for an outfielder because not much ground was covered--the kinds of plays I think of for good outfielders are the ones where the run deep into gaps making jumping catches at the wall or diving catches where the infield couldn't really get there.
The total picture we seem to be getting from the metrics that exist seems to match what you'd think from someone a bigger converted third baseman--good reactions but not the type of range you'd like to see in the outfield on plays he has to run farther for. It's possible he occupies a middle ground where he has the reactions and instinct for third base, but not the sure-handedness that you'd like to see, and he doesn't have the speed for outfield. It's also possible that even at third base, he doesn't have the kind of range you'd like to see. Think Batista vs. Punto at third base. Batista could actually make some decent plays at third--when he could get to the ball. I would have pegged Punto as better at SS--more fast than quick--but his defense there was good (unlike his hitting.)
But with Sano's ceiling a lot higher at third base, I don't see what would really be stopping the Twins from giving him more time there. Even if he's an awful defender there, if he hits well at third base, you might be able to convince a team that they can fix his defense and get good return value in a trade.
It'd be interesting to see his missed plays marked as well.
I see from the graph he's got two much-longer "4-star plays", but I wonder out of how many opportunities.
It'd also show if his weakness is the long-distance plays (which would be another point towards better defense at 3B).
There was something I mentally noted needed mentioning here, as I was surprised it hadn't come up...but now I can't actually recall what it was. This happens more than I care to admit.
did it have to do with the recent death of Dave Brubeck?
I'm going with First Amendment atrocities in England.
Did someone say, "stricken with influenza and on day 4 of being confined to bed?"
No? Oh good, because that would suck.
Here's hoping the rest of you are able to more fully enjoy "Did someone say pi" day!
Anyway, here's my favorite pi day pie I've seen this year.
You have what I had last month!
Heh, I was going to blame you for it; I was feeling fine until you brought up sickness in last Friday's CoC.
This weekend was some weird month-late aftershock. Same crap, slightly smaller scale.
The OOTP league bjhess and I (and TDO) are in needs an owner for Charlotte. We're entering 1995. Here's Charlotte's team page. Let me know if you're interested.
A-Rod, Bagwell, Shawn Green, Bobby Abreu, Albert Belle, Jason Giambi. Man, they've got some Mashers.
Woah. I didn't realize Charlotte was up for a new owner again! Must have been on the book face.
I don't know. If I'm the GM of a basketball team and some dude tells me that I shouldn't trade for him, I might listen. But, that's me, I'm just a guy in his wife's basement.
WBC Update:
Pool D Tiebreaker: VEN 4 - 3 ITA
Venezuela scored 3 in the top of the 9th and Italy one in the bottom.
Miguel Cabrera HR tied it at 2 in that inning.
Round 2:
Pool F: CUB 5 - 8 JAP.
Was tied at 5-5 at the middle of the 8th.
Tonight: NED-CUB
Tomorrow morning: ISR-JAP
Winners and outcomes:
NED and ISR: Cuba eliminated, 3-way tie for two spots NED-ISR-JAP*
NED and JAP: Winners advance, losers eliminated.
CUB and ISR: Israel and Japan advance, Cuba and Netherlands eliminated.
CUB and JAP: Japan advances, 3-way tie for one spot NED-ISR-CUB*.
*In a 3-way tie for two spots, one team advances on tiebreakers and the other two play for the right to advance.
In a 3-way tie for one spot, one team is eliminated on tiebreakers and the other two play for the right to advance.
Israel is in a distinct disadvantage in a tiebreaker on account of its 10-run loss to Netherlands.
Two of her books we've particularly enjoyed are Spoon and Little Pea.
Oh man, I didn't realize she wrote Little Pea. Whenever we ended that book, the Valet, to quote Little Pea when he was playing on the spoon, would say, "Again! Again!"
Her recent essay in the New York Times absolutely wrecked me.
After a series of "I thought I worked at 1, not 11" excuses and showing up hung over to the point that he was haggard and weak, my immediate supervisor at work, who was otherwise a good guy, has destroyed his once-promising career in our company. Now I'm back to the point where I have to decide if store leadership is really something I want, as the position would pay me a pittance more for the privilege to be far more stressed, and working in the kind of spot that always gets eliminated during our restructures.
See, occasionally my job isn't so boring.
A mere pittance more for significant added stress and the likelihood they'll cut your position when somebody higher up screws up or corporate decides to "restructure"? I'd say that was an easy call.
It is an easy decision if you focus on 2-3 year timeframe. Much tougher if your focus is 10+ years.
Plus, human nature means that at some point you'll be "typecast" as floor sales guy and not "management material."
Probably depends on one's desire to remain with the organization too.
Also on one's desire to show up at 1 instead of 11. Sounds like that wouldn't be a possibility any more.
That doesn't matter to me. I have almost zero interest in money beyond having enough to live.
Then I think I'll agree on "easy call."
I currently work in a field where the limited opportunities for advancement are usually into positions with significant supervisory duties. Beyond my near-total lack of interest in supervising other (presumed) professionals, I have never understood this model.
"Hey, you're really skilled at X, but unfortunately we can't pay you what you're worth doing that job. But if you take this other job that does pay you closer to what you're worth, we'll need you to supervise people who do X instead of doing X yourself. You already know how to do their job upside down underwater, but unless you learned how to manage people when you had nobody to manage, you actually aren't prepared to do the supervision job. LOL."
unless you learned how to manage people when you had nobody to manage, you actually aren't prepared to do the supervision job.
Ding ding ding!
Tell me more, tell me more, did you get very far?
No. They said goodbye to Sandra D.
Yes. And your field isn't alone in this.
Sounds pretty familiar to me....
(Minus the not getting paid what I'm worth. I'm pretty happy with my current pay scale, but any advancement means becoming a dean, which is clearly a big change in job duties.)
Thank God there is a "staff" track besides the "management" track that I can happily park myself in.
Ditto.
Yay management!
I do like it much better when supervisors and managers work their ways up through the ranks (I am biased because that's what I did, I guess). Also, I've been around supervisors who were only interested in the position for the money and couldn't do the jobs their direct reports were doing, and it is a disaster.
And not everyone who is good at their job is cut out for being a supervisor, and I don't think most businesses do a good job of recognizing that.
I am very pleased with my (long time) supervisor; I joke that she goes to the meetings so I don't have to. There is a little truth in that.
All the meetings are belong to us.
It's kind of a running joke around here that upper management doesn't recognize that not all great salesmen are going to make great leaders. I actually haven't had a competent direct supervisor in at least three years, though the management above them have all been great in their roles (outside of these decisions).
That fear is one thing that contributed to my decision to leave a job a few years ago, in hindsight I really regret allowing it to be such a big factor. Couldn't get it out of my head that if I was doing the restructuring my job would be near the top of the list in my organization.
Of course the company had a big turn-around right after I left, which stopped the cycle of layoffs I survived over the years...so glad I sold all of my stock when I left before the valuation went up over 500%.
I guess it was worse than I thought. He didn't actually have the conversation about leaving - he apparently just abandoned when he knew he had a chance to be fired. Now he can't get a single recommendation from the only company he's ever worked for.
I do hope he takes something from this. Now what do I do with his two new boxes of business cards?
Now what do I do with his two new boxes of business cards?
You need to drop them into drawings at every restaurant in town. It sounds like he could use a free lunch.
I'll admit this is tempting.
I found another (huge) box of his business cards after I mentioned the first two. With our department's customer flow, these would have lasted him a couple of years.
anybody have experience with home equity loans or HELOCs? We are visiting a local credit union today, but I'm also interested in BoA (which holds our mortgage) and LendingTree.
the main problem I see with BoA is that we have to borrow for a minimum of 36 months, with significant fees if we pay off early. Our local credit union has a 24 month minimum.
Home what-now?
I was gonna go with "pay off what-now?"
#whiterprivilege #emptynest #haven'ttakenavacationlikeever
If I recall correctly, lending tree has a pretty negative reputation because shady lending practice, but I'm not sure if I'm remembering correctly.
As my property law professor said mocking Lending Tree for it's role* in the mortgage crisis, "When banks compete, everyone loses!"
*Not them specifically, but that idea that they need to approve everyone for everything to get more, more, more summed up in that scene in The Big Short where Steve Carell travels to Florida.
If Lending Tree sucks, are there any similar, decent alternatives? Or best just to shop around?
We have a home equity line of credit through BoA now. Pretty seamless for transferring back and forth with bank accounts, since we already bank with them. We originally went through one of the big aggregating sites (Bankrate? Credible? not sure, my wife is the main finance person in the house...) to look for the best rates, and BoA was one of the best ones for the amount we were looking for, and easiest to deal with. Our local credit union ended up the exact same rate as BoA, and was more complicated for us.
I'm not sure what the minimum term is, but 3 years sounds about right. We figured there was no chance we'd pay it off earlier than the minimum term, so that wasn't a big concern for us.
with BoA, they waive the closing costs and give you a discount up front. 10-year draw period, then 20-year period in which you only pay back. By draw period, they mean the period in which you can draw on the HELOC. Once you do draw, you have to start servicing the loan amount and that service period can be no less than 36 months or they charge a $450 early termination fee PLUS charge you closing costs (that they otherwise waive). You have to have at least a $100K line of credit and draw at least $20K to get the better initial rates (variable rate loan; for a fixed rate.
our local CU has fewer constraints and a 24-month minimum pay-back period (or consequences) but, I think, a slightly higher initial rate. They charge a $50/year fee (no annual fee with BoA). Not sure about closing costs yet.
Never had a minimum pay-back period, that I know of, or a yearly fee.
We've done HELOC with a couple different CU's in the past; no problems.
You should move to Washington state. Pretty sure prepayment penalties are illegal here.
Yea, that won't help me get my house repaired so that I CAN sell it.... 🙁
Miguel Sano, defensive superstar
Had a conversation with Trueblood recently regarding Sano's defense. My point was essentially "My eyes tell me his isn't as bad as all that. I don't know how to measure it, but it feels like his errors often tend to be inconsequential and/or made up for by some really great plays." Trueblood's position was essentially "No.".
I've sent him this link.
Sano also got to play a brand new position for the first time ever, so that will color a lot of people's opinions of him. It's hard for us to separate that out, and that assumes Sano could switch back perfectly when he resumed playing third.
Defensive metrics are overrated. They need a long time for adequate sample size.
Heh. Trueblood made this point in response to the +8 range according to UZR, when I brought that up.
I'm pretty excited to be able to watch the Twins this summer, and it had better come with a full season of Sano because my eyes similarly tell me he was pretty great when completely healthy.
Miguel Cabrera's best rWAR season came at the age of 30 when 3B was his primary position.
His best fWAR season came then, along with his lowest fielding number ever. rWAR places his 2013 season second, narrowly behind his 2011 season.
I actually agree with the main thrust of Cameron's argument here. And I think this actually shows something cool about where good defensive metrics could lead us. I think it's possible to get too caught up in the WAR/uber-metric rat race of only looking for stats to tell us the one true ranking of all players. Here, the Catch Probability metric did an interesting job at pointing us to two quite good plays from Sano without us having to look at all the video through the season or remember when he had good catches. And I think these types of plays don't generally stand out for an outfielder because not much ground was covered--the kinds of plays I think of for good outfielders are the ones where the run deep into gaps making jumping catches at the wall or diving catches where the infield couldn't really get there.
The total picture we seem to be getting from the metrics that exist seems to match what you'd think from someone a bigger converted third baseman--good reactions but not the type of range you'd like to see in the outfield on plays he has to run farther for. It's possible he occupies a middle ground where he has the reactions and instinct for third base, but not the sure-handedness that you'd like to see, and he doesn't have the speed for outfield. It's also possible that even at third base, he doesn't have the kind of range you'd like to see. Think Batista vs. Punto at third base. Batista could actually make some decent plays at third--when he could get to the ball. I would have pegged Punto as better at SS--more fast than quick--but his defense there was good (unlike his hitting.)
But with Sano's ceiling a lot higher at third base, I don't see what would really be stopping the Twins from giving him more time there. Even if he's an awful defender there, if he hits well at third base, you might be able to convince a team that they can fix his defense and get good return value in a trade.
It'd be interesting to see his missed plays marked as well.
I see from the graph he's got two much-longer "4-star plays", but I wonder out of how many opportunities.
It'd also show if his weakness is the long-distance plays (which would be another point towards better defense at 3B).
There was something I mentally noted needed mentioning here, as I was surprised it hadn't come up...but now I can't actually recall what it was. This happens more than I care to admit.
did it have to do with the recent death of Dave Brubeck?
I'm going with First Amendment atrocities in England.
Did someone say, "stricken with influenza and on day 4 of being confined to bed?"
No? Oh good, because that would suck.
Here's hoping the rest of you are able to more fully enjoy "Did someone say pi" day!
Anyway, here's my favorite pi day pie I've seen this year.
You have what I had last month!
Heh, I was going to blame you for it; I was feeling fine until you brought up sickness in last Friday's CoC.
This weekend was some weird month-late aftershock. Same crap, slightly smaller scale.
The OOTP league bjhess and I (and TDO) are in needs an owner for Charlotte. We're entering 1995. Here's Charlotte's team page. Let me know if you're interested.
A-Rod, Bagwell, Shawn Green, Bobby Abreu, Albert Belle, Jason Giambi. Man, they've got some Mashers.
Woah. I didn't realize Charlotte was up for a new owner again! Must have been on the book face.
Manna from heaven
Presented without comment other than "SBG bait".
He's as delusional as Kahn.
I don't know. If I'm the GM of a basketball team and some dude tells me that I shouldn't trade for him, I might listen. But, that's me, I'm just a guy in his wife's basement.
WBC Update:
Pool D Tiebreaker: VEN 4 - 3 ITA
Venezuela scored 3 in the top of the 9th and Italy one in the bottom.
Miguel Cabrera HR tied it at 2 in that inning.
Round 2:
Pool F: CUB 5 - 8 JAP.
Was tied at 5-5 at the middle of the 8th.
Tonight: NED-CUB
Tomorrow morning: ISR-JAP
Winners and outcomes:
NED and ISR: Cuba eliminated, 3-way tie for two spots NED-ISR-JAP*
NED and JAP: Winners advance, losers eliminated.
CUB and ISR: Israel and Japan advance, Cuba and Netherlands eliminated.
CUB and JAP: Japan advances, 3-way tie for one spot NED-ISR-CUB*.
*In a 3-way tie for two spots, one team advances on tiebreakers and the other two play for the right to advance.
In a 3-way tie for one spot, one team is eliminated on tiebreakers and the other two play for the right to advance.
Israel is in a distinct disadvantage in a tiebreaker on account of its 10-run loss to Netherlands.
Pool F:
Tonight: DOM-PUR
And now we get the real story.
Longer interview with Breslow on his "reinvention".
I had my Twins ticket draft this past Sunday. I think everyone else in the group has a cabin but me. 5 of my 6 games are Fridays.
RIP children's author Amy Krouse Rosenthal.
Two of her books we've particularly enjoyed are Spoon and Little Pea.
Oh man, I didn't realize she wrote Little Pea. Whenever we ended that book, the Valet, to quote Little Pea when he was playing on the spoon, would say, "Again! Again!"
Her recent essay in the New York Times absolutely wrecked me.
FTW.
Yeah, that's pretty great
Agreed.