# Secrets and Tips from Your Jobs, Past and Present **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 26, 2013, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secrets-and-tips-from-your-jobs-past-and-present/669756 "2013-09-26T22:12:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![minor7flat5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minor7flat5/32/258_2.png) [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2013, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secrets-and-tips-from-your-jobs-past-and-present/669756/81 "2013-09-29T23:09:01Z")
> [@Green\_Bean](#): > > Non-descriptive email titles are a big problem, as are non-descriptive file names. My tip from the trenches–give your emails and files reasonably descriptive titles and you will make everyone’s life easier. > > If you’re sending an email about the renewal of the Jones lease at 123 Fake St, then put a title on it that indicates that. “123 Fake St - Jones Lease Renewal” is good. “123 Fake St - Jones Lease” is fine. “123 Fake St” is not fine because there are a thousand emails out there about 123 Fake St. “Jones lease” by itself is pretty bad, but better than “Lease” or “question” or some dumb thing like that. > > Same goes for document titles. If you’re sending me a copy of the Jones lease, you need to give it a better title than “lease.” Or worse, “scan document” or whatever your scanner automatically titles things. How about calling it, say, “123 Fake St - Jones Lease” or something like that? > > How is it not common sense to do these things? One problem I have had in the past is people in an email chain hijacking the chain for some other subject. So you get something like this: Subject: **RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: Friday lunch plans** …blah blah blah… **FYI, here is the new holiday schedule for the coming year** …blah blah blah… When someone does this there is just no way that anyone will ever find the secret embedded content when they need it. At best, it is read once and lost. At worst, it is never read because the recipient wasn’t going to the Friday lunch anyway, so they just delete the correspondence without opening it. ---
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2013, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secrets-and-tips-from-your-jobs-past-and-present/669756/82 "2013-09-29T23:09:08Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Something I finally learned about holding a class vote: caucus. > > I’ve known for a long time that votes are a pain in the butt with kids. Ask them to raise their hands, and it’ll look like half the class is doing yoyo tricks. Hands go up, hands go down, kids look around and see who else is raising their hands, back up in the air, down again, jazz hands! It’ll drive you crazy. > > For years I’ve done the hands-on-the-head trick: for your vote to count, you must put both hands on top of your head and hold them there. That works a bit better, but they still freak out with raising and lowering hands, or just spacing out and forgetting to vote entirely. > > But a couple of weeks ago I tried caucus-style voting, by which I mean, I assigned different choices to different sections of the classroom, and I told students to move to the section of the room corresponding to their vote. Works like a charm: it’s easy to see who’s voted and who hasn’t, and it’s too much effort to change their choices once they’ve committed. I’ll do it this way for the rest of my career. Democracy has no place in our classrooms. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2013, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secrets-and-tips-from-your-jobs-past-and-present/669756/83 "2013-09-29T23:10:14Z")
> [@Macca26](#): > > A long note of advice from the design and print world, to you, the people not in this world: > > Word is not a proper way to transfer pictures and is not a proper file format for design. So it’s not helpful to use word to mock-up a file you’re sending out for print, because I’ll just tell you to just send the pictures my way as separate files. I’d have to totally redo the design anyway due to proportions and it’s not like you have all the graphics and font capabilities I do so you’re just limiting your result by trying to do it first without any design software. > > Also, any image below a thousand pixels wide in any dimension will be pretty much useless to print as anything but a postage stamp. So don’t bother sending them. 3000px or bigger is much more preferred. This is because of DPI - dots per inch. You can think of this as meaning 300 pixels per square inch. That’s the amount of pixels you have to cram into each square inch of printed paper to get a picture that isn’t blurry or pixelated. So what does 1000 pixels get you? About 3 and a third inches of photo printed out. Maybe 4 if I push it. That’s why you can’t send little website pictures for your poster. Things pulled from your website are almost guaranteed to be awful for print. Find the original camera photo. > (for big signs the dpi requirement goes down but seriously, please try and aim for 3000px or more) > > If a designer sends you a design, logo, or other very important thing as a PDF, keep it. The PDF is the only one any good for printing. Do not send JPGs of your logo for print. It is usually way too small and also twice as difficult to work with. Your logo will print awfully. JPGs are the worst possible format for a logo. EPS is ok but it’s an inefficient format and outdated. > > If someone tells you to send a vector PDF, do not take your file.jpg and rename it file.pdf. It does not work. Raster and vector are totally different formats that can’t be converted that way. I’ll also know immediately upon opening it and judge you negatively for doing that. > > Do not stretch fonts. They look awful that way and they were designed to be visually perfect the way they are. Fonts come with extended and condensed widths for a reason, and if the font you’re using doesn’t have that and you need it, find a different font. If a font doesn’t come in bold or italic, do not use your program to force bold or italic. That also looks awful. so much this. +1. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2013, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secrets-and-tips-from-your-jobs-past-and-present/669756/84 "2013-09-29T23:50:47Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > I don’t know how I managed to get through my days without this information, thank you! Well, the rabbit/GP thing can be important for pet owners to identify if their vet knows anything outside of dogs and cats. A friend had a rabbit and was told to fast the rabbit before coming in. Um, no. Not only can they not puke so there’s no need, but that can lead to GI stasis and potentially death if you keep a rabbit from eating. Fortunately he knew this info and found another vet instead. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secrets-and-tips-from-your-jobs-past-and-present/669756/85 "2013-09-30T02:30:36Z")
> [@lisiate](#): > > Democracy has no place in our classrooms. Every candidate is the Party candidate. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secrets-and-tips-from-your-jobs-past-and-present/669756/86 "2013-09-30T05:13:02Z")
At a Party School. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secrets-and-tips-from-your-jobs-past-and-present/669756/87 "2013-09-30T05:28:09Z")
If you work in fast foods, or something with a bunch of P/T teenagers, DO NOT try to empower them, or give them good feelings about themselves working there. That’s what a paycheck is for. ---
**Author:** ![Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/bc8723/32.png) [@Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unauthorized_Cinnamon)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secrets-and-tips-from-your-jobs-past-and-present/669756/88 "2013-09-30T15:05:28Z")
If you want a letter of reference or suchlike from someone, write it for them, and say, “Here’s something to give you an idea, if you want to draft your own, or you can just sign this one and hand it back.” It’s the difference between getting it instantly and being on someone else’s back burner (understandable, because they have their own crap to get done) for weeks. It never would have occurred to me, but my husband told me this. Unfortunately, he told me after I had gotten promises from various people to get letters from \*other \*people (double procrastination potential!), and of course one of them didn’t come in until the very last second. And more generally: if you want help from people, make it as ridiculously easy as possible for them to help you. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secrets-and-tips-from-your-jobs-past-and-present/669756/89 "2013-09-30T15:40:36Z")
nm ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secrets-and-tips-from-your-jobs-past-and-present/669756/90 "2013-09-30T20:06:58Z")
When trying unsuccessfully to balance a string of numbers and the difference is 9 or a number divisible by 9, check for a number transposition error - 98 instead of 89, for instance (98-89=9). Works for any transposed number. This tricked saved lots of time when balancing a teller cash drawers at the end of the day! ---
**Author:** ![aNewLeaf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@aNewLeaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aNewLeaf)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secrets-and-tips-from-your-jobs-past-and-present/669756/91 "2013-09-30T20:21:09Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > If you work in fast foods, or something with a bunch of P/T teenagers, DO NOT try to empower them . Agreed about ‘them’ but I do like to find one young padawan at any job. Empower them to get promoted so I’ve got a friendly boss. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Goob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c77e96/32.png) [@Mr.Goob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Goob)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secrets-and-tips-from-your-jobs-past-and-present/669756/92 "2013-09-30T22:11:11Z")
I do custom fabrication, repair and restoration work. My prices are subjective, I pull them out of my head on a case by case basis. I have a pretty good internal meter and am fairly consistant. But I will freely add asshole tax on the estimate if you deserve it. I don’t need my ass kissed, but don’t treat me like an idiot either. Please say I have this and I want X and Y done to it and we are in great shape. When the sweet little old lady comes toddering in and wants me to restore her Grandmothers antique so it can be passed to a granddaughter I think it’s great. Real job satisfaction and validates why I quit my corporate job on the manufacturing floor. When I look at the item and find the auctioneers tag and you are feeding me a line of BS, well sorry the price just went up. Tell me you got it at an auction, want it fixed and hope sell for a profit, I’ll say good for you and the normal rate applies. Don’t treat me like a moron. ---
**Author:** ![carlb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carlb/32/5930_2.png) [@carlb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carlb)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secrets-and-tips-from-your-jobs-past-and-present/669756/93 "2013-10-01T16:56:32Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > Walk away from the computer and get a cup of coffee, sip it until it’s finished, THEN go back; and if you still really want to send that irate or inappropriate email, delete it and call the person instead. …and then follow up with a matter-of-fact, unemotional summary of your conversation with any decisions made, matters tabled, etc. If the situation was charged enough to make you want to send an angry e-mail, there’s every chance in the world that the matter will not be completely resolved by one conversation, and may come back around in the near future. If you need your superior’s expertise or guidance on some matter, don’t walk into their office and say, “I’ve got this problem; what do I do?” Propose the solution you think is best, and ask if they concur. If you are honestly and truly completely undecided, at least lay out the pros and cons (as you see them) of each option, and explain what you think you’re missing that prevents you from being able to decide. This will establish that you actually have a brain in your head, and you know how to use it. Your boss has their own job, they generally don’t want to do yours in addition to theirs. If you’re looking for a promotion, you need to be performing at least some of the functions of the job you want before you ask for the promotion. Employees who only “do their job” can only realistically be evaluated on the job they’re doing. Take on a little extra responsibility and show some initiative, and it’ll be much easier to show the decision-maker that you’re capable of the new position. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secrets-and-tips-from-your-jobs-past-and-present/669756/94 "2013-10-01T18:57:33Z")
If there are instructions, you should read them. Admitting you don’t know about a certain subject will NOT make you look like an idiot. Pretending that you know what to do and then trying to fix things yourself WILL generally make you look like an idiot. (We once had a doctor jam a 3.5" disk into a 5.25" drive. Had he just asked for help, he would have saved himself a lot of money and trouble) When submitting a piece of writing to somebody, ALWAYS read the submission guidelines. If your work is not in the proper format, it will be disposed of unread. According to George Scithers (pal of Isaac Asimov and editor extraordinaire) Never describe your story in your cover letter. This just gives an editor a chance to read and reject the summary rather than the actual work. The best cover letter provides ONLY the required information (name, address etc) and “Here’s my story. Hope you like it.” ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secrets-and-tips-from-your-jobs-past-and-present/669756/95 "2013-10-01T20:22:54Z")
> [@Mr.Goob](#): > > When I look at the item and find the auctioneers tag and you are feeding me a line of BS, well sorry the price just went up. Tell me you got it at an auction, want it fixed and hope sell for a profit, I’ll say good for you and the normal rate applies. Don’t treat me like a moron. When sorting out my aunt’s estate I found stuff with auction tags from 100 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![aNewLeaf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@aNewLeaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aNewLeaf)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secrets-and-tips-from-your-jobs-past-and-present/669756/96 "2013-10-01T20:27:58Z")
If a job isn’t worth doing well, it might not be worth doing. If there’s a task that gets ignored or pencil whipped, consider restructuring the task so it means something. Or assign it to management. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secrets-and-tips-from-your-jobs-past-and-present/669756/97 "2013-10-01T20:46:17Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > Add the two, you have the blast and steel ball bearings bouncing around, you have a fire that just won’t be put out to deal with. Wouldn’t it be more that all sorts of shit downrange would be enthusiastically burning as well as perforated with ball bearings? Like you say, probably not a good day for the enemy. ---
**Author:** ![StGermain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stgermain/32/2868_2.png) [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secrets-and-tips-from-your-jobs-past-and-present/669756/98 "2013-10-01T20:52:15Z")
When you go to work, work. Sit down, do the job first, then schmooze, wander, etc. I’m always amazed at people who claim to be slammed with work who spend hours at a time chatting with their neighbor until their deadline is looming and suddenly they feel ultra-pressured. If you do the work first, you’ll still have time to schmooze or surf the web, but you won’t have that pressure and people will always be amazed at how quickly you turn things around. You appear more productive then you really are, and you are more productive then you feel. If someone shows you a shortcut, try it for a couple weeks before deciding it’s not for you. Just because you’ve always done something one way doesn’t mean that your neighbor hasn’t found an easier way. If you’ve found an easier way to do something, share it. Your boss and co-workers will think you’re smart. If you need help, ask for it. People are flattered when they feel perceived as an expert. StG ---
**Author:** ![AnthonyElite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b487fb/32.png) [@AnthonyElite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AnthonyElite)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secrets-and-tips-from-your-jobs-past-and-present/669756/99 "2013-10-01T21:10:12Z")
> [@PacifistPorcupine](#): > > If you get into trouble because you went the extra mile to figure out and fix a mistake somebody else made that popped up in a report you’re tasked with running every day, get the fuck out because that company is going to collapse under the weight of sheer idiocy and office politics. You must work in government. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Goob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c77e96/32.png) [@Mr.Goob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Goob)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secrets-and-tips-from-your-jobs-past-and-present/669756/100 "2013-10-01T21:53:36Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > When sorting out my aunt’s estate I found stuff with auction tags from 100 years ago. Exception to prove the rule?🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secrets-and-tips-from-your-jobs-past-and-present/669756.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secrets-and-tips-from-your-jobs-past-and-present/669756.md?page=6)