So, how is this different from an overheating xbox? It just stops responding after a while too. And if I've zoned out too much, the smoke brings me back to reality...
Do you think one might have something to do with the other?
No, not really... it's pretty much ads from the moment you enter the theatre until the film actually starts - which is often 10 to 15 minutes after the advertised time, and regardless of the film.
You can't even enjoy a conversation with your companions before the film starts because the ads and pointless trivia games (designed to ensure the ads have sunk in) make so much fucking noise.
So, lets see... $10 for a ticket, $7.50 for a coke and popcorn, traffic, idiots in the parking lot, all so I can sit for 40 minutes and watch ads to finally see the movie. Oh yeah, double that if there's a date.
No thank you. Who wants to put up with that.
If I just HAVE to see a movie, I go to one of the 2nd-run theatres that show movies for $3.00 while I enjoy a pizza and beer.
It was always the long term intention of government to price people out of cars and on to public transport.
My guess is that the US does not do this because we have a fairly substantial automobile manufacturing industry. They probably have a powerful enough lobby, with plenty of bribes/campaign contributions to keep those kinds of policies from being enacted here.
Of course, it's not like they actually produce much here any more, and they have a bad history with public transportation (eg buying up subway lines in LA and scrapping them before the could even be put into use).
Or even better, default installations of the more popular OS's and Web servers (you know who you are) so that these security professionals-to-be get a taste of the real world!
What that's missing, of course, are the users internal to the server/network that do everything they can to break the security of the network so they can run their favorite chat/game/interactive screen-saver.
It will be able to exactly the same job, just as well in 3 years.
Actually, after you've been dragging it from place to place, and getting banged up, spilled on, scratched, smeared, and people poking their fingers on the screen (oooh, I hate that!), there's a darned good chance that it will be physically unable to perform as well as it does new.
In three years, plugs will be looser, the monitor will be scratched, the battery will be worn out, touch pad will be less sensitive... damn, sounds a lot like me as I'm getting older.
I'm no fan of the income tax, for a variety of reasons (privacy among them).
But there's a big difference between sending my personal data to a government agency that is legally required to protect that data, and sending it to a private political party who can do what they please with it.
I don't care what party does it, it's damn slimy to send off someone's personal data without first asking permission and making it clear that the data will be sent off.
I appeciate your response and your poinst of view.
It seems to me, though, that in any project, there is probably room for people who are good hobbiest programmers who aren't professionals. It doesn't even have to be programming tasks, but stuff that requires someone to understand programming.
For example, I might not be very good at programming the database aspects of a program. But I could certainly help in setting up help-context-ids on forms and creating the text for those IDs.
Reading an unskilled person's code can be a nightmare. AMEN! I used to tutor Fortran classes back in the day. I remember a student who came to me with 9 pages of code for a project to print a circle made out of x's on a page. Yikes!
So, yes, not every unskilled Joe on the street can help with a project. But I don't think every project requires professionals either. Depending on the project, there is probably a good place for amateur/hobbyist programmers to make a good contribution.
I was a programmer and systems administrator long before I was an MBA, actually.
And nobody sits through my presentations, because I don't do them. And I hate using powerpoint on the rare occasion when I do. But, when the boss wants a report in a powerpoint slide, that's what you make it in - until you can make a case for doing it somewhere else.
It depends. Simply recording a set of steps and attaching that to a button hardly counts as programming.
But, I, for example, created an Excel "macro" that spawns a Powerpoint application/presentation, copies in a template slide, then changes some text on the slide. It then populates the slide with a bunch of squares made up of 2 triangles, where this is a main number in the square (representing "current value"), and each triangle of the square is colored red, yellow, or green based on comparisons of the current-value to the target-value, and last-year-value. Oh yeah, and it reads positions for each object off the template by looking for lines of a certain color. Since the lines may not be arrange in index-order, I then sort the locations, and once everything's in place, I delete the guide-lines.
I built it with several subroutines, functions, declared variables, and control statements like if..then, select case (switch), do..while, and for..next.
Given all that, I would say I was programming. I looked at the input data and the desired output, and came up with a method/algorithm to have the computer do that work. I then coded that method, tested, debugged, and deployed.
Maybe the idea is that some parts of coding in a project don't need the super-brains of software engineers. Just like putting together chemical processing equipment.
I would imagine that most of the physical labor of building a chemical processing facility is probably done by people who are not chemical engineers. The guy who welds a pipe to a vat does not have to be a ChemE - he just has to know how to weld to the standard specified by the project definition. (in fact, I wonder how many ChemEs COULD do a proper weld job). The ChemE does the inspections afterwards to make sure the job was done correctly and to standard.
Likewise, if the standards for a software project are properly designed (the job of the software engineer), I would imagine that skilled Joes could contribute code to the project that could be successful. Again, the SoftE would check that code to make sure it was done correctly and to standard.
In fact, I think it would be highly inefficient to have an entire software project done by only software engineers. It would be an inefficient use of resources to do so. That would be like hiring mechanical engineers to build cars.
Just do a search for "Arabic Keyboard". There are actually several layouts, but they're mostly similar. Some of the positioning comes from matching the morse-code for an Arabic letter and its Latin letter equivalent.
The number of letters is not an issue, since there are no capital letters in Arabic. Plus, there's only 28 letters in the Arabic alphabet, plus a few odd symbols.
It's a good movie, and I recommend it to anyone who can look critically at their religion.//spoiler//
Actually, in the movie, he did act on the tempation: to end the suffering and live life as a normal man
(the x-tians love to focus on the idea of Jesus having sex as being so heretical - but that wasn't the actual "tempation")
He got the chance, at the end, however, to see that he had been fooled by Satan and got the chance to re-make the decision to stay on the cross and "die for our sins". The life he lived post-cross, though, may have just been a hallucination.
If you're a Christian and hate the movie for being heretical, I suggest you think about it again. Here, Christ is depicted as being human - and suffering from all the things we all suffer from - including tempation, and the desire to live a "normal life". The story even presents the idea that he had a choice - at the moment of truth. End the pain and live normally. When he finally chooses to return to the cross and live out his "mission", that shows a true sacrifice.
If Jesus is just a god-man, who can easily deny his humanity and desires, how is he like me at all? What kind of an example is that for me? I'm not like that at all. I suffer pain and live with tempations. If my "example" doesn't have these same frailties, then how is he really an example for me at all? So really, I think the movie could serve as quite an affirmation of faith.
Of course, I'm pretty much an athiest now. It takes more than a book and a movie to make me into a believer.
I now have a job at a corporation, and that's cool.
We had an "intern" come to our office for 2 weeks. It was unpaid, and almost unofficial. She was put in contact with my boss because she is going to school where my boss is an alumni network. It was not much more than a "bring your student to work" day, but for her, it was a great experience. We got her meetings with a variety of people across campus so she could get a feel for the different business functions. We also gave her some work so she could get her hands dirty on some "real world" stuff.
So, if you're still in school, see if there's an alumni network, and tap it if possible. You might not end up with formal opportunities, but it can give you a chance to get out there and meet people in the business world. The person yo u meet might not be hiring, but he may know someone else in the company who is - and maybe you can get a recommendation, or an informal meeting.
I know that this girl who worked with us will get a good recommendation from any of us in the office. And that's better than someone who has the same qualifications but had never been out here before.
1099-R's come when you are taking a distribution from your retirement fund - and that's a bad idea if you're younger than 60 (unless you like giving the government 10% of that distribution right off the top).
That's not always the case. There are various reasons you can take money out of a 401k/403B that don't incurr penalties, even if you are younger than 60. For example, I pulled out some money to help keep me in school full-time. You still have to treat it as regular income. In my case, I didn't pay any fees/penalties because I was going to school full-time. Even better, even treating it as regular income left me with no taxable income (after standard deductions), so I paid no tax on it at all.
It's paid off as well, since my new salary is quite a bit higher than my old salary, already making up for the money I would have made by leaving the money in place.
There are other reasons, besides eduction, that you are allowed to take out retirement before retirement as well.
You're right. You need to be able to follow instructions, and ask help when you don't understand. Doing one's own taxes requires the dramatic requirement of a high school degree.
And $9.96 to get H&R's "Taxcut" software from Walmart (http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product _id=4347458) if you can't handle the questions and the math. It even does a decent job if you own a house, go to college, adopt a child, etc.
Yep. I hate the W-4, and the pre-calculator way income taxes are withheld in general. (Why not a flat percentage of gross wages, after a deduction equal to the taxpayer's expected deduction divided bu the number of paychecks?)
It's not so hard to do on your own. If you have a steady job, you can practically tax this year's "tax due", and divide it by the number of pay periods. Make your W-4 withholding number larger than you need, see what your paycheck looks like, and then have them hold out an extra mount on top of that.
What's even better is to do a little budgeting and figure out what your tax bill will be next year. Then, figure out what your witholding should be so that you end up breaking even, or paying just a little.
That way, you have your money all year long, instead of waiting for a refund - or paying money to get an e-file, or even worse, paying fees for a refund loan. You can do your taxes at your leisure and pay the small amount you owe whenever you feel like it.
Why let the government have your money any longer than they should? They don't pay interest on it. Everyone likes to respond, "Well, I really like getting a big refund check". Still, why are you letting the government be your savings account - that pays no interest?
Most people with a steady job can pretty easily calculate what their taxes will be next year. Hell, you can practically use the same numbers. Take your "tax due", and divide by your number of pay periods. Ask your payroll to only take that number out. That might mean setting a higher number of deductions, and then having them hold out an extra amount. For example, I'm single, and I have 4 exemptions on my W4. I also have them take out another $80 per paycheck, and it all balances out.
We were fortunate in that we had more people interested in the pretty-easy labaide job than we could possibly schedule. I had a system (inherited from my boss) of scheduling them each term based on their requested hours, longevity, and how good they were.
Basically if you were a senior, and had worked all 4 years, and did a good job, you'd get your pick of the hours. Those who did not do their jobs well tended to not get many hours in the next term (if any), and if they messed up enough during a term, I'd fire them. That only happened once, thankfully.
It sounds like you're in fire-fighter mode all the time. I know it's hard, but try to squeeze a few minutes with each labaide to ask things like: "Did you check the printers during your shift today?" "Did you make sure all the computers are turned on?" "The printer in Lab X is not working, can you go check it out and try to fix it"
For a while, I even instituted a checklist that they had to check off as they checked each lab. They didn't enjoy it, but it made them realize that it was important to me. Maybe this would work in your case - make a specific list of each piece of equipment they're supposed to check. Maybe for printers, they have to print a diag page and write down the page-count, etc.
They already have the carrot - that they already have a pretty "cake" job. Sometimes you have to bring out the stick - but sometimes just carrying it helps.
You have a workforce that can help with your workload. The trick is to find a way to keep them motivated to do their work.
Often a private talk like "We both understand that this job is not very demanding and that we don't ask much more of you than to simply be here to handle things that come up. That's why it's really important that you do these few things that we ask you, like checking printers and cleaning monitors."
Sometimes it hepls to get them involved on projects they can handle that are extraordinary, yet easy for you to explain and hand-off. For example, suppose you're trying to find a hard-drive cloning/duplicating tool. Assign one of your (better) labaides to research the available options and give you a report of the types, features, advantages, sources, and costs. Or, if you're running network cables, have one of them help out. Sometimes, being more invested in what is going on can help them do a better job too.
Anyway, I know how it can suck to be eternally behind because of an impossible workload. Hopefully there are a few small things you can do to get more benefit out of your labaides.
When I worked in a university, we had a small budget to hire lab assistants. They were lowly-paid students (many on work-study) who had the job of sitting in the main lab and handling problems like printers being out of paper, etc.
seem to think that not only is it my job to comply with their every request, but to anticipate it or detect it remotely
While the students are probably bratty, it IS a good thing if you can anticipate problems and solve them before they become someone else's problems. Of course, if you are always fighting fires, then you have no time for this.
I don't know your exact situation, so maybe none of this will help, but here's what I did:
- check each lab every day.. check paper levels in printers; tap the spacebar on each machine to make sure it comes out of hybernation, etc.
- do a quick check (I made a script to e-mail me this) of the file server and space left.
For the first one, I actually had the student labaides do that at the beginning of each shift - and I would leave little "problems" for to make sure they were doing their job.
Anyway, with some luck, you CAN get ahead of the problems and solve them before people notice. That leaves more time for the priorities, like reading slashdot.
not to be condescending, but thats the same point DeepFreeze accomplishes./I.
Except that my solution did it for $0 licensing per computer...
We were in a tight budget situation (see my reply below), having laid off IT staff and teachers. I had no money to spend on "frills" like DeepFreeze. But I was also tired of a couple middle-school labs requiring constant attention. I added menu items to lilo so that the computer didn't rebuild on every reboot - but instead as a lilo option. That way, the librarian who "ran" the lab could just reboot and hit "rebuild" to fix the damage caused by the cretins/students.
I agree with you about the updates and such. It was best to just turn off all automatic updates in all the software. Otherwise, it nags the user everytime it reboots.
Let's see... 3000 computers x $14 = 45,000. This was at the same time we laid off two IT people, in addition to several teachers.
I wasn't going to get anywhere by asking to spend $45,000 on this software. So, I made due with what I had and could afford.
Deepfreeze is great, but I couldn't afford to use it. I also didn't want to waste all my time re-installing machines when I came up with a solution that took care of the problem.
Slashdot Mirror
So, how is this different from an overheating xbox? It just stops responding after a while too. And if I've zoned out too much, the smoke brings me back to reality...
Do you think one might have something to do with the other?
No, not really... it's pretty much ads from the moment you enter the theatre until the film actually starts - which is often 10 to 15 minutes after the advertised time, and regardless of the film.
You can't even enjoy a conversation with your companions before the film starts because the ads and pointless trivia games (designed to ensure the ads have sunk in) make so much fucking noise.
So, lets see... $10 for a ticket, $7.50 for a coke and popcorn, traffic, idiots in the parking lot, all so I can sit for 40 minutes and watch ads to finally see the movie. Oh yeah, double that if there's a date.
No thank you. Who wants to put up with that.
If I just HAVE to see a movie, I go to one of the 2nd-run theatres that show movies for $3.00 while I enjoy a pizza and beer.
It was always the long term intention of government to price people out of cars and on to public transport.
My guess is that the US does not do this because we have a fairly substantial automobile manufacturing industry. They probably have a powerful enough lobby, with plenty of bribes/campaign contributions to keep those kinds of policies from being enacted here.
Of course, it's not like they actually produce much here any more, and they have a bad history with public transportation (eg buying up subway lines in LA and scrapping them before the could even be put into use).
The American politician to try and push a substantial gas tax will be crucified
In most states, the gas tax is about 50 cents/gallon. Even at $2.00/gal, that's a 25% tax. Isn't that already substantial?
If I were a Christian, I would be doing anything I can to hasten the return my my God.
And that explains so much of the Bush foreign policy. Starting civil wars, giving out nukes, it all makes sense in this context.
What were the records doing in China in the first place?!?
To keep them safe from warrantless searches in the US?
Or even better, default installations of the more popular OS's and Web servers (you know who you are) so that these security professionals-to-be get a taste of the real world!
What that's missing, of course, are the users internal to the server/network that do everything they can to break the security of the network so they can run their favorite chat/game/interactive screen-saver.
It will be able to exactly the same job, just as well in 3 years.
Actually, after you've been dragging it from place to place, and getting banged up, spilled on, scratched, smeared, and people poking their fingers on the screen (oooh, I hate that!), there's a darned good chance that it will be physically unable to perform as well as it does new.
In three years, plugs will be looser, the monitor will be scratched, the battery will be worn out, touch pad will be less sensitive... damn, sounds a lot like me as I'm getting older.
I'm no fan of the income tax, for a variety of reasons (privacy among them).
But there's a big difference between sending my personal data to a government agency that is legally required to protect that data, and sending it to a private political party who can do what they please with it.
I don't care what party does it, it's damn slimy to send off someone's personal data without first asking permission and making it clear that the data will be sent off.
c:\ is not even required.
I'm not sure how it happened, because I certainly didn't want it to, but I once installed XP on a laptop, and the "root" drive was assigned I:\.
You can't change that back to C:\ and still have anything work. What a pain... and a waste of a day.
I appeciate your response and your poinst of view.
It seems to me, though, that in any project, there is probably room for people who are good hobbiest programmers who aren't professionals. It doesn't even have to be programming tasks, but stuff that requires someone to understand programming.
For example, I might not be very good at programming the database aspects of a program. But I could certainly help in setting up help-context-ids on forms and creating the text for those IDs.
Reading an unskilled person's code can be a nightmare.
AMEN! I used to tutor Fortran classes back in the day. I remember a student who came to me with 9 pages of code for a project to print a circle made out of x's on a page. Yikes!
So, yes, not every unskilled Joe on the street can help with a project. But I don't think every project requires professionals either. Depending on the project, there is probably a good place for amateur/hobbyist programmers to make a good contribution.
I was a programmer and systems administrator long before I was an MBA, actually.
And nobody sits through my presentations, because I don't do them. And I hate using powerpoint on the rare occasion when I do. But, when the boss wants a report in a powerpoint slide, that's what you make it in - until you can make a case for doing it somewhere else.
But is writing an Excel macro programming?
It depends. Simply recording a set of steps and attaching that to a button hardly counts as programming.
But, I, for example, created an Excel "macro" that spawns a Powerpoint application/presentation, copies in a template slide, then changes some text on the slide. It then populates the slide with a bunch of squares made up of 2 triangles, where this is a main number in the square (representing "current value"), and each triangle of the square is colored red, yellow, or green based on comparisons of the current-value to the target-value, and last-year-value. Oh yeah, and it reads positions for each object off the template by looking for lines of a certain color. Since the lines may not be arrange in index-order, I then sort the locations, and once everything's in place, I delete the guide-lines.
I built it with several subroutines, functions, declared variables, and control statements like if..then, select case (switch), do..while, and for..next.
Given all that, I would say I was programming. I looked at the input data and the desired output, and came up with a method/algorithm to have the computer do that work. I then coded that method, tested, debugged, and deployed.
Not to bad for an MBA...
Maybe the idea is that some parts of coding in a project don't need the super-brains of software engineers. Just like putting together chemical processing equipment.
I would imagine that most of the physical labor of building a chemical processing facility is probably done by people who are not chemical engineers. The guy who welds a pipe to a vat does not have to be a ChemE - he just has to know how to weld to the standard specified by the project definition. (in fact, I wonder how many ChemEs COULD do a proper weld job). The ChemE does the inspections afterwards to make sure the job was done correctly and to standard.
Likewise, if the standards for a software project are properly designed (the job of the software engineer), I would imagine that skilled Joes could contribute code to the project that could be successful. Again, the SoftE would check that code to make sure it was done correctly and to standard.
In fact, I think it would be highly inefficient to have an entire software project done by only software engineers. It would be an inefficient use of resources to do so. That would be like hiring mechanical engineers to build cars.
Just do a search for "Arabic Keyboard". There are actually several layouts, but they're mostly similar. Some of the positioning comes from matching the morse-code for an Arabic letter and its Latin letter equivalent.
The number of letters is not an issue, since there are no capital letters in Arabic. Plus, there's only 28 letters in the Arabic alphabet, plus a few odd symbols.
http://www.zeitun-eg.org/keyb.htm gives a good example of a common layout.
It's a good movie, and I recommend it to anyone who can look critically at their religion. //spoiler//
Actually, in the movie, he did act on the tempation: to end the suffering and live life as a normal man
(the x-tians love to focus on the idea of Jesus having sex as being so heretical - but that wasn't the actual "tempation")
He got the chance, at the end, however, to see that he had been fooled by Satan and got the chance to re-make the decision to stay on the cross and "die for our sins". The life he lived post-cross, though, may have just been a hallucination.
If you're a Christian and hate the movie for being heretical, I suggest you think about it again. Here, Christ is depicted as being human - and suffering from all the things we all suffer from - including tempation, and the desire to live a "normal life". The story even presents the idea that he had a choice - at the moment of truth. End the pain and live normally. When he finally chooses to return to the cross and live out his "mission", that shows a true sacrifice.
If Jesus is just a god-man, who can easily deny his humanity and desires, how is he like me at all? What kind of an example is that for me? I'm not like that at all. I suffer pain and live with tempations. If my "example" doesn't have these same frailties, then how is he really an example for me at all? So really, I think the movie could serve as quite an affirmation of faith.
Of course, I'm pretty much an athiest now. It takes more than a book and a movie to make me into a believer.
I agree as well.
I now have a job at a corporation, and that's cool.
We had an "intern" come to our office for 2 weeks. It was unpaid, and almost unofficial. She was put in contact with my boss because she is going to school where my boss is an alumni network. It was not much more than a "bring your student to work" day, but for her, it was a great experience. We got her meetings with a variety of people across campus so she could get a feel for the different business functions. We also gave her some work so she could get her hands dirty on some "real world" stuff.
So, if you're still in school, see if there's an alumni network, and tap it if possible. You might not end up with formal opportunities, but it can give you a chance to get out there and meet people in the business world. The person yo u meet might not be hiring, but he may know someone else in the company who is - and maybe you can get a recommendation, or an informal meeting.
I know that this girl who worked with us will get a good recommendation from any of us in the office. And that's better than someone who has the same qualifications but had never been out here before.
1099-R's come when you are taking a distribution from your retirement fund - and that's a bad idea if you're younger than 60 (unless you like giving the government 10% of that distribution right off the top).
That's not always the case. There are various reasons you can take money out of a 401k/403B that don't incurr penalties, even if you are younger than 60. For example, I pulled out some money to help keep me in school full-time. You still have to treat it as regular income. In my case, I didn't pay any fees/penalties because I was going to school full-time. Even better, even treating it as regular income left me with no taxable income (after standard deductions), so I paid no tax on it at all.
It's paid off as well, since my new salary is quite a bit higher than my old salary, already making up for the money I would have made by leaving the money in place.
There are other reasons, besides eduction, that you are allowed to take out retirement before retirement as well.
You're right. You need to be able to follow instructions, and ask help when you don't understand. Doing one's own taxes requires the dramatic requirement of a high school degree.
t _id=4347458) if you can't handle the questions and the math. It even does a decent job if you own a house, go to college, adopt a child, etc.
And $9.96 to get H&R's "Taxcut" software from Walmart (http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?produc
Yep. I hate the W-4, and the pre-calculator way income taxes are withheld in general. (Why not a flat percentage of gross wages, after a deduction equal to the taxpayer's expected deduction divided bu the number of paychecks?)
It's not so hard to do on your own. If you have a steady job, you can practically tax this year's "tax due", and divide it by the number of pay periods. Make your W-4 withholding number larger than you need, see what your paycheck looks like, and then have them hold out an extra mount on top of that.
What's even better is to do a little budgeting and figure out what your tax bill will be next year. Then, figure out what your witholding should be so that you end up breaking even, or paying just a little.
That way, you have your money all year long, instead of waiting for a refund - or paying money to get an e-file, or even worse, paying fees for a refund loan. You can do your taxes at your leisure and pay the small amount you owe whenever you feel like it.
Why let the government have your money any longer than they should? They don't pay interest on it. Everyone likes to respond, "Well, I really like getting a big refund check". Still, why are you letting the government be your savings account - that pays no interest?
Most people with a steady job can pretty easily calculate what their taxes will be next year. Hell, you can practically use the same numbers. Take your "tax due", and divide by your number of pay periods. Ask your payroll to only take that number out. That might mean setting a higher number of deductions, and then having them hold out an extra amount. For example, I'm single, and I have 4 exemptions on my W4. I also have them take out another $80 per paycheck, and it all balances out.
The funny thing is... how would they find the other websites infringing on their works without searching for them on Google?
I can definitely sympathise with that.
We were fortunate in that we had more people interested in the pretty-easy labaide job than we could possibly schedule. I had a system (inherited from my boss) of scheduling them each term based on their requested hours, longevity, and how good they were.
Basically if you were a senior, and had worked all 4 years, and did a good job, you'd get your pick of the hours. Those who did not do their jobs well tended to not get many hours in the next term (if any), and if they messed up enough during a term, I'd fire them. That only happened once, thankfully.
It sounds like you're in fire-fighter mode all the time. I know it's hard, but try to squeeze a few minutes with each labaide to ask things like:
"Did you check the printers during your shift today?"
"Did you make sure all the computers are turned on?"
"The printer in Lab X is not working, can you go check it out and try to fix it"
For a while, I even instituted a checklist that they had to check off as they checked each lab. They didn't enjoy it, but it made them realize that it was important to me. Maybe this would work in your case - make a specific list of each piece of equipment they're supposed to check. Maybe for printers, they have to print a diag page and write down the page-count, etc.
They already have the carrot - that they already have a pretty "cake" job. Sometimes you have to bring out the stick - but sometimes just carrying it helps.
You have a workforce that can help with your workload. The trick is to find a way to keep them motivated to do their work.
Often a private talk like "We both understand that this job is not very demanding and that we don't ask much more of you than to simply be here to handle things that come up. That's why it's really important that you do these few things that we ask you, like checking printers and cleaning monitors."
Sometimes it hepls to get them involved on projects they can handle that are extraordinary, yet easy for you to explain and hand-off. For example, suppose you're trying to find a hard-drive cloning/duplicating tool. Assign one of your (better) labaides to research the available options and give you a report of the types, features, advantages, sources, and costs. Or, if you're running network cables, have one of them help out. Sometimes, being more invested in what is going on can help them do a better job too.
Anyway, I know how it can suck to be eternally behind because of an impossible workload. Hopefully there are a few small things you can do to get more benefit out of your labaides.
Good luck!
When I worked in a university, we had a small budget to hire lab assistants. They were lowly-paid students (many on work-study) who had the job of sitting in the main lab and handling problems like printers being out of paper, etc.
seem to think that not only is it my job to comply with their every request, but to anticipate it or detect it remotely
While the students are probably bratty, it IS a good thing if you can anticipate problems and solve them before they become someone else's problems. Of course, if you are always fighting fires, then you have no time for this.
I don't know your exact situation, so maybe none of this will help, but here's what I did:
- check each lab every day.. check paper levels in printers; tap the spacebar on each machine to make sure it comes out of hybernation, etc.
- do a quick check (I made a script to e-mail me this) of the file server and space left.
For the first one, I actually had the student labaides do that at the beginning of each shift - and I would leave little "problems" for to make sure they were doing their job.
Anyway, with some luck, you CAN get ahead of the problems and solve them before people notice. That leaves more time for the priorities, like reading slashdot.
not to be condescending, but thats the same point DeepFreeze accomplishes./I.
Except that my solution did it for $0 licensing per computer...
We were in a tight budget situation (see my reply below), having laid off IT staff and teachers. I had no money to spend on "frills" like DeepFreeze. But I was also tired of a couple middle-school labs requiring constant attention. I added menu items to lilo so that the computer didn't rebuild on every reboot - but instead as a lilo option. That way, the librarian who "ran" the lab could just reboot and hit "rebuild" to fix the damage caused by the cretins/students.
I agree with you about the updates and such. It was best to just turn off all automatic updates in all the software. Otherwise, it nags the user everytime it reboots.
Let's see... 3000 computers x $14 = 45,000. This was at the same time we laid off two IT people, in addition to several teachers.
I wasn't going to get anywhere by asking to spend $45,000 on this software. So, I made due with what I had and could afford.
Deepfreeze is great, but I couldn't afford to use it. I also didn't want to waste all my time re-installing machines when I came up with a solution that took care of the problem.