Casual Conversation

Automation is so incredibly resource intensive and generates so much waste. I can't see how letting ourselves become more dependant on automation is as beneficial as businesses and mislead common people make it out to be.

As demand increases, so does maintenance, upgrades and power consumption. Everything electronic requires plastic. Which is shipped in more plastic. Which is shipped on skids wrapped in more plastic. And when those electronics fail, then that is just more waste plastic because it's easier, quicker and cheaper to replace rather than fix.

Electronics and automation are so fun and interesting. It's amazing watching a line run at full speed in production. But it's so painfully depressing how awful it is for our environment. The dust and oils are awful for the living beings that work in those environments. The repetitive jobs that it creates is absolutely awful for the mental wellbeing for the people who work there.

The mental damage of being there was so bad to me that when it came time to discuss severance pay at the labour board meeting after my wrongful termination, I purposely let the lawyers keep in a part in the contract/paperwork saying I could no longer work at any company under that international organization. They thought I would fight that so they would have reason to lower my severance pay. Nah. I took my winnings, which included getting the HR manager fired, and fucked right off.

Years later and I still feel a deep shame and regret for the time I spent in the automation industry and for all the damage and waste I caused while being in there.

Along with eliminating wealth hoarders who generate extreme amounts of waste, lessening our dependence on technology and automation are things I personally believe will be key to a liveable future. It's a bit shocking to me how often I receive negative or angry criticism when I share these thoughts though.

I feel like this should be common sense, but goddamn does it come up often as fuck. If you're going to a built-in bakery, like in a grocery store or Starbucks little bakery display, we don't fully make 90% of that shit. It comes in pre-made. The shit we do put in the oven is mostly to warm it or just finish it off.

We most likely don't even have the box to tell you exactly when the supplier baked it. We sell them that quickly. We just slap icing on.

We have to put out so much product in a day, on such tight timing, that if we had to mix and bake our own cakes and bread, we'd be constantly out. That is part of why our shit is cheaper than a high-end independent establishment.

The last tech job I worked marketing for had a security product (you probably have used it without knowing it). They had a group in-house they called the "Tiger Team": people who were supposedly tasked with testing the security of the product. You got into the "Tiger Team" by finding a flaw in the security.

The "Tiger Team" did nothing. At all. Didn't even meet. Hell, half of them didn't know who the other members were. The job of the "Tiger Team" was to sign the NDA that had dire consequences if you spoke to anybody else about the "Tiger Team" and/or the security flaws in the product.

So basically the "Tiger Team" existed only to conceal flaws in the product. Not to fix them or find more.

80-90% of the entire cybersecurity business is because Windows is still being used.

The codebase was held together by pritt-stick

No one really cares if you have a nice day.

Many SQL servers use scripts that run as domain administrator. With the password hard coded in.

Several of the various servers are very old. W2K, 2003, 2008. SQL server, too.

Several of the users run reports via rdp to the SQL server - logging in as domain admin.

Codebase is a mashup of various dev tools: .net, asp, Java, etc.

Fax server software vendor has been out of business for a decade. Server hardware is 20 years old. Telecom for fax is a channelized PRI carrying POTS - and multiport modem cards. Fax is used for processing checks.

About a 3rd of the ethernet runs in the office have failed.

Office pcs are static IP. Boss says that's more secure.

They were hacked about a year ago. They changed the domain admin password and restored the backups. That's it.

They processed money to/from the Fed.

A lot of municipal and county work is pay to play. The well run counties will still fire poorly performing contractors and consultants, but it will typically require getting a foot in the door.

That doesn't work at my state's level, but that means you have to have a very good working relationship with the project managers running the various projects. I've seen some project managers make contractors do parts of their job; the contractors that do will maintain a better working relationship with their project managers.

Shell has caused a lot more oil spills, both big and small, than they'd ever admit. I didn't work there, but I've been on ships around their oil rigs.

They patent ways to generate green energy so nobody else can use them and they can continue to make obscene profits selling oil and gas.

Privileged cunts get paid $300K+/year to do fuck all. But that is coming to an end, we just summarily cut one cunt’s salary in half and it’ll go lower if that cunt doesn’t actually produce. For complicated reasons, the cunt can’t be fired.

The physical infrastructure of the internet (fibre and copper cables) is held together with string and 'temporary' fixes. Not a metaphor in any way.

We used to routinely disable safety interlocks on production machines. A guy almost got decapitated once while performing maintenance.

YMMV:

• Dollar General: nobody watches the cameras unless someone reports something
• USPS: exploitative. Has the ability to manipulate politics (political ads are not guaranteed to be delivered)
• Amazon Warehouse: exploitative
• Amazon DSP: exploitative. DSPs were created to bypass labor laws
• Restaurants: most fried foods, and many not fried, are frozen. This is not just fast food, think steaks.

Locally owned and operated retirement home that got new management after og owner retirement.

They changed the logo to a cross when they changed all their old company practices to a more for profit approach. All during covid when they cut everything too.

Hired on with the expectation of a 3 month raise. Lol no. First job and first lesson that if it's not in writing it doesn't exist.

One time I found molded beans in bulk storage. Was instructed to scrape off the top layer and use the rest since truck wasn't coming and we needed it.

Hardies would routinely ship molded product. Options were pick around the refuse or have nothing. Sometimes a dishwasher or line cook would go to the store with a list when it was too bad.

The actual secret? You can do a lot to food and still be ok. Honestly got me over my food pickyness. Don't fuck with the danger zone and you're good.

They paid for the CEO to have an expensive townhouse downtown even though they only visited the area like 2 weeks total per year and lived on the opposite coast.

I've worked for the government. However chaotic, beaurocratic and badly managed it is, it's 1000 times worse. Laziness is endemic and so many people just won't work

Not sure how much of a secret or how unique this is to this industry but in sign writing, they'll charge customers bloated prices that includes the cost of all materials, then use offcut and leftover materials from previous jobs anyway.

Some of the cameras are fake.