Happy Days in Random Chatter 10

[Amity]

Life insurance doesn't function like what? As far as I know there's no COBRA equivalent for life insurance.

[Portia]

http://www.ted.com/talks/reshma_saujani ... perfection

Loved this message.

[Violet]

With my last day of my old job this past Friday and my first day of my new job tomorrow, the thought that has been floating in the back of my mind all weekend was What if a car ran me down while I don't have life or health insurance?

This is irrelevant now, but if you paid premiums for this month, you should be covered still. My two experiences with this on the health insurance side both continued coverage through the end of the month.

[Shrinky Dink]

I just started watching Superstore on Hulu and it's absolutely hilarious

[Portia]

I just started watching Superstore on Hulu and it's absolutely hilarious :)

I think I pay for Hulu. Don't want to be cooped up too much, but maybe I'll check it out. What's it about?

[Shrinky Dink]

I just started watching Superstore on Hulu and it's absolutely hilarious

I think I pay for Hulu. Don't want to be cooped up too much, but maybe I'll check it out. What's it about?

I actually watched it without a Hulu subscription, so it should be available to anyone to watch. It's a sitcom about working in a superstore similar to Walmart called Cloud 9 and the employees who work there. Each episode is only 22minutes and the first season only has 11 episodes so I watched them all in one day. It's just great. If you have time to watch the first episode, you'll see what I mean

[Giovanni Schwartz]

I have been employed at my employer for nearly 6 months. In that time, I have regularly been praised by team members, boss, CEO, and clients regarding basically everything. About two weeks ago, I was "Side-moted" to be "Head of Support."

The back story is that we implemented a new online support portal (well, it's not really for support. I dunno if you've been on T-Mobile's forums, but they're based on a framework called Jive, which is the framework we're using). I was on the original implementation team for this project, and because I'm the most tech savvy I was the quickest to grab onto it. I started using it to answer the questions for the people that were actually using the portal--basically using it as it was intended. However, no one else appeared to be getting what they were supposed to do with it, so it was me and my boss answering questions in it and that's it. As a result, about a week and a half after this system went live, they side-moted me.

Now, I would normally call this a promotion, but there was no increased compensation, even though 1) my responsibilities have increased and 2) I now have minions that I'm in charge of telling what to do (they're college students that were interns at our company last summer that are coming on full time after graduation, so they work remotely. However, at this point their primary responsibilities are to do whatever I tell them).

Last week, the CEO (to be fair, we're a small company of about 30 people) sent me a personal email and cc'ed all of our C-level executives praising me personally for my attitude, professionalism, talent, etc. Also last week, the CEO of one of our most hard-to-please customers said on the phone with me and my boss "I don't care what you do over there at (my company), as long as you don't take (me) away from us."





ANYWAYS... Under what circumstances am I entitled to ask for a raise? (This is my first big-boy job, so I don't know these kinds of things). How long do I wait, and who do I approach? Do I approach the CEO directly? (It wouldn't be out of line, I don't think, because of the way our office is organized). Do I approach my direct boss? Am I even entitled in my situation?

I have only been there 5 months. If I should ask, how long do I wait? The CEO was out of the office all of March so far (when I was side-moted to now, basically), so it may still be on the table and I just wouldn't know.

Help I'm just lost and confused, and trust your opinions more than I trust the opinions of all of my unemployed video game friends. I also don't want to ask real life friends, because I a) don't want to be a braggart and b) I don't want it to get back to my boss, because I'm certainly not dissatisfied with what I'm doing, but... yeah.

tl;dr I'm basically ranting about wanting a raise, but don't know how someone decides if they (I) deserve it.

[Giovanni Schwartz]

Also, I just noticed that my picture is STILL the picture of Hillary I took from the newspaper when I was a sophomore in high school.

[Whistler]

Sure, ask! The worst thing they could do is say no (it sounds like they're unlikely to let you go). If it were me I'd probably see if a more senior coworker knew about how raises work---maybe raises are usually given at the end of the year, or maybe only if someone asks for one. It certainly sounds like you're doing well enough to find out.

I think there's some formal way of asking for a raise, but basically focus on how you're helping the company and not that you want more money? Try to think about how you'd react to one of your once-interns asking for a raise, and then go from there.

[Cognoscente]

I met Yayfulness at the Sanders Rally today. Nice guy.

[yayfulness]

The feeling's mutual.

[Marduk]

File this under "Life in Academia":

While most workplaces are doing march madness brackets, my department is doing "Middlemarch Madness." What exactly does that mean? Well, according to the email I just got: "Enter the Department of English’s 2016 “Middlemarch” Madness Literary Bracket Pick’em! We've seeded some of the greatest world literary figures into an NCAA Tournament-style bracket. Do you have what it takes to determine who our faculty will select as champion and win a share of a $150 Campus Store gift card (and all of the bragging rights that go with it)? Let's find out!"

[Portia]

File this under "Life in Academia":

While most workplaces are doing march madness brackets, my department is doing "Middlemarch Madness." What exactly does that mean? Well, according to the email I just got: "Enter the Department of English’s 2016 “Middlemarch” Madness Literary Bracket Pick’em! We've seeded some of the greatest world literary figures into an NCAA Tournament-style bracket. Do you have what it takes to determine who our faculty will select as champion and win a share of a $150 Campus Store gift card (and all of the bragging rights that go with it)? Let's find out!"

I entered that. You can as a community member. Had Shakespeare trumping Scott Fitzgerald in the final. It was fun to bump my hated authors early!

[Whistler]

I trying to learn how to play guitar with the videogame Rocksmith and I'm really liking it. I have a lot more respect for all those rock n' roll guitarists now

[Digit]

Re: My new job insurance story, it was funny to me what happened. Years ago at my previous job I had Aetna then switched to United. Now at this new job I chose Aetna because with this company it was a better deal than United. When I went to Aetna to see if I could register for an online account like I had before, they still knew about me AND they knew my new employer was my new employer. So my old account is reused.

[Portia]

Re: My new job insurance story, it was funny to me what happened. Years ago at my previous job I had Aetna then switched to United. Now at this new job I chose Aetna because with this company it was a better deal than United. When I went to Aetna to see if I could register for an online account like I had before, they still knew about me AND they knew my new employer was my new employer. So my old account is reused.

Yeah, similar deal with my 401(K) and three jobs. But it's still branded under the first job.

[Digit]

Compared to United where when my old company merged with another our insurance group id changed I had to get a new United account and register a new online account when essentially at the same company.

[Whistler]

this website is super cute http://positiveundertale.tumblr.com/

[Digit]

Seems like Diet Coke Lime is disappearing, if only in my area Used to be seen by me in 2L, 20 oz, and lots in 12 packs of cans in all the stores. Now just three 12 packs at Walmart. No I didn't hoard those

[Zedability]

I NEED a sausage roll and apparently they're not even a thing in America?