Mega Thread The Random Thoughts Thread Part 1

[I Dont Care]

Nah this HR manager is a hell of a chick. Works her ass off restructuring organisations, handling the unions, managing massive cultural and reformational change. The shit she has to deal with is top tier rubbish. Every business unit she gets deployed to hates her to begin with because she is a harbinger of change, then everyone loves her after its all done. I don't envy her job, she cops it. Fiercely battles lawyers on the phone regularly with aplomb.

Sounds like you have a bit of a crush?

 

[JimmyBeerCans]

Fallout of favour 4 huh

 

[Doctor Feel]

Sounds like you have a bit of a crush?

Absolutely. She even lifts.

 

[Doctor Feel]

 

[Portia]

I understand why there needs to be a HR division in large companies to look after staffing levels and movement etc, but interviewing should really, really be done by people who will actually manage the staff member they are hiring where possible.

Actually there are good reasons why its done the way it is, and Machiavelli agrees with it, so you know its the smart play.

In Chapter IV of The Prince, "Why The Kingdom Of Darius, Conquered By Alexander, Did Not Rebel Against The Successors Of Alexander At His Death", there is a comparison made between the power structures of the Turks and French.

The entire monarchy of the Turk is governed by one lord, the others are his servants; and, dividing his kingdom into sanjaks, he sends there different administrators, and shifts and changes them as he chooses.

This is the sort of corporate structure big companies like; flexible, and under central control.

But the King of France is placed in the midst of an ancient body of lords, acknowledged by their own subjects, and beloved by them; they have their own prerogatives, nor can the king take these away except at his peril.

This is the sort of corporate structure that tears companies apart; little fiefdoms of staff more loyal to their direct manager than the structure as a whole, because their direct manager has too much control over their fates. It becomes harder to enact change through the organisation because you deal with so many little sections with little loyalties, and these little fiefdoms do everything possible to contain power within themselves even at the expense of the larger organisation.

For a corporation that is in effect constantly at war, the French governance model is hugely inefficient, and is most commonly seen as a result of acquisitions and mergers - the differing corporate culture causes conflict, and sees clumps of staff stick to old loyalties.

A `good' company is united and unassailable until it is taken over, at which point it is fluid and adaptive to new needs...the exact description Machiavelli gives of the Turks in The Prince.

So the way that all of this relates to central HR needing to be the primary hirers and firers (and bonus-givers) is that it discourages fiefdoms that are detrimental to the organisation as a whole. It enables hiring in line with corporate goals (and legal requirements), not just the likes of an individual manager.

And as a side note, in this model the situation Chrizzt mentions is also a negative because its allowing an arseh*le his own fiefdom - Brother In Law should report this incident to that company's board/CEO because that sort of hiring policy will **** their corporate culture.

 

[Doctor Feel]

Trading halt on my shares pending a major announcement.

Hold me Portia the end is nigh.

 

[Byrons Firen]

Vale Jonah and thanks for the memories. NZ and Rugby fans around the world will never forget you
http://www.theage.com.au/rugby-unio...nd-jonah-lomu-dead-at-40-20151118-gl1mjy.html

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Vale Johah Lomu. Was lucky enough to see him play 3 times against the Wallabies at the Olympic Stadium in Sydney. To early at 40 despite getting a new kidney 7 or 8 years ago.

 

[JimmyBeerCans]

Vale Jonah and thanks for the memories. NZ and Rugby fans around the world will never forget you
http://www.theage.com.au/rugby-unio...nd-jonah-lomu-dead-at-40-20151118-gl1mjy.html

That's awful, RIP big man

 

[Byrons Firen]

Just found this too.

 

[edgie]

Battlefront getting panned....

Disappointing

One reviewer says it has more in common with GoldenEye than modern shooters. Sounds good to me.

 

[edgie]

The percentage of those who know less than nothing is staggering for people connected to the internet.

When Mitchell won the first 3km TT of the preseason someone was all, "umm how can this be? we delisted Mitchell" and it had a stack of likes.

How even why?

That was probably me.

 

[tribey]

Vale Johah Lomu. Was lucky enough to see him play 3 times against the Wallabies at the Olympic Stadium in Sydney. To early at 40 despite getting a new kidney 7 or 8 years ago.

He really cashed in on the transitional period between amateurism and professionalism, he was built like a turbo-charged battering ram while his opponents, specifically the English, looked every bit the white collar Oxbridge spivs they were. Man versus boys.

 

[Byrons Firen]

My wife is a Kiwi and like all of NZ their hearts are heavy. They loved him with a passion.
A mesmerising player and from all accounts a humble man who took many painful steps to play for as long as he did.
Revered around the rugby world as a colossus of the beautiful game.

 

[diegodcg]

Can't believe Lomu is gone - so young! Does anyone know the cause of his death? RIP Jonah.

 

[LukeSA]

Trading halt on my shares pending a major announcement.

Hold me Portia the end is nigh.

Thanks to you, they are now being investigated for insider trading.

 

[tribey]

With everyone going on about how great it is, I thought "Maybe I'm wrong and it's not going to be a buggy, weak game with no story and be really engaging."

I've played for a couple of hours but nothing has made me think this isn't Fallout 3 with a new hat. You'd have to be a Fallout fanboy to think it's worth the hype.

Sadly I agree.

I've logged some hours. Thoughts herein. (Slight gameplay spoilers, no mission spoilers)

- Dialogue/animations and therefore character immersion are bogstandard compared to New Vegas let alone TLOU

- Dialogue wheel is way to simplistic and will limit replay value. Gone are the [INTELLIGENCE], [CHARISMA], [LUCK], [SCIENCE], options that made you really listen and consider your choices. If in doubt press X.

- No skill points! Gone is the thrill of levelling up and carefully spreading your points across your character build/needs. There have been a couple of times when I've levelled up and have forgotten to assign a perk for awhile because for where I am at in the game it's largely pointless

- Remember how good it felt to finally have the XP and skills required to operate energy weapons and power armour? Despite being a FOV (fresh out the vault) you're pretty much a Brother of Steel Paladin-level human tankman immediately. I literally have 3 suits of PA sitting in me shed and I can barely hack a cruskit box

- The base system goes from really interesting to super f***ing annoying real quick. You find yourself collecting every random piece of shit in order to build beds and turrets for NPC's you literally couldn't give a capital-F about

I'm hooked and will obviously continue playing it, but this doesn't feel like an improvement you'd expect on a next-gen console 3 or 4 years after Fallout New Vegas. It seems like a parallel reboot with largely inferior "improvements" that have been dumbed down for the COD generation.

Combat has improved, I find myself having to rely on VATS far less than 3/NV, but that's precisely the point. The game is targeted squarely at your FPS-fanboi rather than your Fallout fanboi.

Maybe DLC down the track will flesh out some shit, but all in all its not the THRILLHO I expected.

 

[LukeSA]

*SNIP

I find the game boring, no doubt it's a good game but there's something about it i just can't put my finger on. Maybe it's a result of fans overhyping the game but the end result will never meet fans expectations, it was the same with Duke Nukem Forever and it'll be the same if and when Half Life 3 ever comes out.

 

[Portology]

I understand why there needs to be a HR division in large companies to look after staffing levels and movement etc, but interviewing should really, really be done by people who will actually manage the staff member they are hiring where possible.

It should be both, but in large corporates HR (and their mercenary proxies, employment agencies, and their idiot IT robots like %^&*ing Oracle's Taleo) tend to go beyond just filtering out people who are not up to the job, they actively eliminate a lot of 'possibly the best' candidates who come with a perception of 'risk', be it flight risk or some odd match to selection criteria (perfect fit on some criteria, behind on others), presenting mostly vanilla 'good enough, safe choice' candidates up to the next rounds of hiring manager interviews. Hiring managers and HR in a tight loop rather than a serialized set of processes is optimal but takes more effort. Taking personal responsibility for a hiring decision is significantly harder than going with the flow of a "process", especially if your life in corporate is mostly about following process anyway.

 

[Portia]

Yep, thats true too. You can miss out on different thinkers and unusual matches, but thats down to a lot of things.

1) Expectations/payscale of recruiters are low
2) The costs of resolving issues with employees that are a poor culture fit (mediation, firing, workcover claims for bullying etc)
3) The costs of getting rid of employees that aren't good at their job (which is why we're seeing more `12 month then permanent' style contracts now)

Companies hate all risks that don't make them money.

 

[Dylan8]

Sadly I agree.

I've logged some hours. Thoughts herein. (Slight gameplay spoilers, no mission spoilers)

- Dialogue/animations and therefore character immersion are bogstandard compared to New Vegas let alone TLOU

- Dialogue wheel is way to simplistic and will limit replay value. Gone are the [INTELLIGENCE], [CHARISMA], [LUCK], [SCIENCE], options that made you really listen and consider your choices. If in doubt press X.

- No skill points! Gone is the thrill of levelling up and carefully spreading your points across your character build/needs. There have been a couple of times when I've levelled up and have forgotten to assign a perk for awhile because for where I am at in the game it's largely pointless

- Remember how good it felt to finally have the XP and skills required to operate energy weapons and power armour? Despite being a FOV (fresh out the vault) you're pretty much a Brother of Steel Paladin-level human tankman immediately. I literally have 3 suits of PA sitting in me shed and I can barely hack a cruskit box

- The base system goes from really interesting to super f***ing annoying real quick. You find yourself collecting every random piece of shit in order to build beds and turrets for NPC's you literally couldn't give a capital-F about

I'm hooked and will obviously continue playing it, but this doesn't feel like an improvement you'd expect on a next-gen console 3 or 4 years after Fallout New Vegas. It seems like a parallel reboot with largely inferior "improvements" that have been dumbed down for the COD generation.

Combat has improved, I find myself having to rely on VATS far less than 3/NV, but that's precisely the point. The game is targeted squarely at your FPS-fanboi rather than your Fallout fanboi.

Maybe DLC down the track will flesh out some shit, but all in all its not the THRILLHO I expected.

I got this feel playing for about 4 hours but I'm willing to try to give it the benefit of the doubt (waiting for RAM to arrive). I actually was dumbfounded when I realised there was no skills, only perks. What the piss is that? And the dialogue... Awful. Again, small sample size for me, but...

 

[tribey]

This was probably covered days ago but Charlie Sheen is HIV Positive? Wow it's always the last ones you expect right? Who'd have thought a lifestyle of drugs and pr0n stars would put you at risk?

Turns out he actually said 'Niger blood'



I'll get me bright-coloured coat

 

[Portology]

Yep, thats true too. You can miss out on different thinkers and unusual matches, but thats down to a lot of things.

1) Expectations/payscale of recruiters are low
2) The costs of resolving issues with employees that are a poor culture fit (mediation, firing, workcover claims for bullying etc)
3) The costs of getting rid of employees that aren't good at their job (which is why we're seeing more `12 month then permanent' style contracts now)

Companies hate all risks that don't make them money.

True, it's what companies exist for, they are not people (except possibly in the US post Citizens United) nor are they necessarily benevolent entities.

4WIW in IT, I'm seeing a lot of offers of 12 month contracts at full time pay rates, ie significantly less than typical 3-6 month contract rates, with no need to dangle permanency as anything more than a "possibility". Best of all worlds for the hiring company as the term is false 'security' anyway - all the IT contracts I've done were terminable by either side at a months notice anyway. The permanent gig I've just taken has a 6-month 'probationary' period written in.

This might matter somewhat less if we could walk from our mortgages as quickly and as relatively cheaply as our employers can walk away from us, but that's a tl;dr for another day. I have some actual work to do

 

[Dylan8]

Oh, and I reckon the player's character having a voice is bad. It feels more like you're playing someone else's character. If the guy takes a different tone to what I'm expecting, it totally breaks immersion.

 

[Lagooner]

Turns out he actually said 'Niger blood'

View attachment 193897

I'll get me bright-coloured coat

This gets my vote for "Most Essential Picture in a Post" of the year.