Computer geek, windows-based: When in doubt, reboot.
Publishing
-If your deadline is Jan. 30, then tell the writer you ABSOLUTELY must have it by Jan. 15.
Systems Administrator
- If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
- First thing to check: does it light up? Green lights are good.
- Never say “Uh-oh” in front of your customers.
- Do not allow programmers to compile in a no-compiling zone (i.e. Production)
- When you engage your customers, do it at your pace. If you rush once, they’ll expect immediate results every time.
- Document everything you do.
- Get it in writing.
- Stay out of my cube.
If only this was true at half my bleedin’ clients (IT auditor).
Oil & Gas Exploration contracts:
Proof-read. Then proof-read again. Then check what the terms were supposed to be. Then proof-read some more.
Corporate Finance
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When analyzing a business case, Revenue is always too high, Costs are always too low.
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If a case looks really, really profitable, someone made a mistake.
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A monkey can sell our product if the price is low enough.
Manager for computer-based training development company: not really rules of thumb, so much as lessons learned the hard way.
If a good employee is acting edgy, lessen their load. It is amazing how often this works.
If they didn’t know it was crap the first time, they won’t know the second time. (This applies both to employees who design something bad, and to customers.) If you want it to change, change one of the inputs, don’t just say, they should know better.
Don’t trust the designers over your own instincts. You are looking at it from a user viewpoint, so you are an expert, too.
Pay attention to details. A misspelled word makes the user lose trust.
Patience, patience, patience. Respect people. And more patience. If they don’t understand, keep trying different ways to tell them.
And, as to the previous post over never hiring those who say they really need the job, I agree. They tend to be desperate because they cannot keep jobs. It is not my place to use the company resources for charity work, but it may cost my job if deadlines get missed.
Higher ed administration, student affairs
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Quality, cost, time: pick two.
–We can get high quality orientation packets made overnight, but it will cost us big time.
–We can get inexpensive orientation packets made overnight, but they will be piss poor quality.
–We can get high quality orientation packets for a bargain price, but we need to order them six months ago. -
If you tell me your problem, I will do <i>something</i> to help you.
– You have to actually, honestly, tell me what your problem is. If you really forgot to register for next semester, don’t tell me that the computer lost your registration.
– I will do <i>something</i>, although that thing may not be exactly what you what. Compromise is key. Waiving 75% of the late registration fee is a very good deal, and you would do well not to press it further.
Accountant/Budget Analyst
- If it’s under $5,000 it’s not worth the time
- Sales forecasts are always too high
- All budgeted expenses will be spent - but probably a quarter later than they were budgeted
- Capital money is NEVER fully used - there’s always plenty left over at year-end
Er -
I should add that #4 is particular to where I work now. Probably not a general rule of thumb for the world in general. The first 3 are still probably okay most of the time.
Along the same lines as Raisinbread, do not dip your pen in the company ink or fish off of the company peir.
Carrier (trucking company) safety auditor:
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The harder they allege it is to find the documents, the likelier it is those documents contain information you absolutely have to see.
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A clean and tidy workplace = safe trucks.
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If there’s fewer than one administrative worker for every ten drivers, they don’t have enough labor to get everything done.
Well, if no-one else is going to do it, it’s up to me.
Credit Card Fraud Analyst
On a new application, atm transactions usually indicate it’s fraud.
If the store keyed the account number after swiping the card, there may be a counterfeit card.
Everyone should know who they have their mortage with, the state they were born in, and their previous address. Miss one, everyone’s human. Miss two and you’re talking to a fraudster.
If there’s internet porn on the account, ask if they have a son.
If it ain’t dirty, don’t clean it.
Often, it’s easier to do it yourself than find the guy whose job it is.
Always take care of plant security.
Always take care of your boss’s boss.
Never pick up an Oreo cookie with a vacuum sweeper.
–Nott, whose broom says “Nick Sondatt”
Ok, False_God I was wrong. :smack: Dangit.
Statistics:
Someone just wrote a great book about this for my field:
Statistical Rules of Thumb. G. van Belle; Wiley 2002.
My favorite in general statistics: It’s Normal enough.
My favorite in academia:
The first 90% of the paper takes 10% of the time. The last 10% takes 90%.
I work in broadcasting.
When a client calls up and starts rattling on about a commercial I’ve never heard of, I pretend I know when they’re talking about. Then, after I hang up, I go hunting through the sales dept to see where the broadcast order is.
When someone asks what our deadline is, I tell them. Then I shut up. I make them decide if it’s important enough to beg me to make an exception for them.
If I don’t know, I say so. Then I check and get back to them as quick as I can.
Database Solutions Designer (FileMaker)
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Modular is better. Make versatile routines that you can reuse and call as steps within other routines instead of writing essentially the whole procedure over and over again with case-specific variations.
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If you’ve got more than a dozen If/Then clauses nested, there’s probably an elegant way of making the system march through the possibilities in a Looping routine instead.
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Repeating fields don’t play nice with other fields; their superficial simplicity and ease of use disguises horridly cumbersome and unweildy complexity that will come back to haunt you later.
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If the end users have to change an otherwise sensible work flow to accomodate the needs of the database, you wrote it wrong and you need to fix it.
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It’s quicker to write it on a Mac and then tweak the visuals and Windows-specific features than to write it in Windows in the first place, even when you positive that it wouldn’t be.
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If it ain’t your computer, the idiot’s got “add newly defined fields to current layout”, count on it. Do your Field Defs on a blank layout.
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Multiply timing estimates by 10 for projects I’ve never done before. (Custom work)
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Multiply timing estimates by 3 for projects that I’ve done before. (Off the shelf programming.)
Anything less than that and I’m late on my deadline more often than not.