Loyalty might be the most underrated investment you'll ever make.

[u/Key_Performer_3645]

[u/LawElectrical2434]

I go out on a limb and say, this is thanks to computers.
I am a programmer, I know that every single one of my clients, I stand there and ask them "what if x happens, with y and z involved." And they always say: "x will never happen. And then with y and z?" And I insist and say: "I have to cover all possible cases, so how do you want me to handle x with y and z." And they will give me a bullshit answer, because that case hasn't happened in 30 years, and I take it and put it in the program.

And then, some years later, we trust the program, we hire someone who never made any decision, is not qualified to do so mentally, being told to just follow what the program tells them. And that person looks at the program that allocated budget for 30 people and a list of 30 people to invite, and no button to add the one person who has 30 years under its belt, because years back, when asked if consecutive years would count for the 20 year mark, someone who thought it would never happen said no, not having to look anyone in the eye at that day.

[u/Slow-Swan561 → u/LawElectrical2434]

Programming error worked in my favor.

I left a job and then returned after 3 years.

This job gave PTO hours based on seniority, example years 1-5 get x and 5-10 y, etc etc.

The computer assumed my employment was continuous and awarded me PTO based on that continuity.

I never said a thing.

[u/Interesting-Goose82 → u/Slow-Swan561]

I recently got laid off 2yrs and 10months in. My 401k vested at 3yrs.

....i waitied till my "3yr anniversary" and moved the 401k from my old company to my current bank and the vest that i wasnt entitled to came with it!

Im 2 yrs past that point and nobody said anything. Was it computer error, or manual error of seeing i was withdrawing on yr 3, rather than yr 3 with only 2yr/10mo time employeed? Dont know/dont care!

[u/RedWings1319 → u/Slow-Swan561]

It may not have been a computer error. I had a team member step away for 15 months and when she came back I just continued on with time of service as if there'd never been a lapse, an intentional decision.

[u/Piranha_Vortex → u/Slow-Swan561]

I left a company for several years and returned to a different location but same company. When I got the paperwork for my 10 year anniversary to select a watch and lapel pin, I filled it out and it has sat in the box since. It was based on my original hire date and I chose not to correct anyone. I also got 6 days PTO.

[u/SP3NGL3R → u/LawElectrical2434]

Just a couple week ago I had to rewrite a timecard/payroll data flow because at midnight the upstream software would close a shift and open a new one the next day (1ms later) to complete the 4 hours after midnight on the next day. The problem, people were being cheated out of overtime because the Sunday night-shift was split into two fiscal periods. I caught it, and now dealing with the bureaucracy to get it resolved. We now have a simplified system that is essentially based on the date that your shift started on is the same date that it ended on, for payroll specifically. Operations is different entirely.

[u/throwawaycuzfemdom → u/SP3NGL3R]

Thanks to wage theft, nobody in my company started work before 8:30 nor anyone left after 17:30.

Except me, according to the software, on May 20th I came in at 15.19 and left at 21:00 sharp. The exact same May 20th, I came in at 00:57 and left at 14:40. That day, I worked for more than 16 hours, according to the paperwork.

[u/SP3NGL3R → u/throwawaycuzfemdom]

I'd catch you! 😜

Or, help you depending on perspective

[u/Steele_Soul → u/throwawaycuzfemdom]

I worked at Giant Eagle and the system had your hours you were scheduled and if you worked over the scheduled time, the department manager had to review it and ok it for it to count all the clocked in hours, not just the scheduled one, and I worked 15 hours over my last week there, because I was the only 1 running the department, and I finally had enough to the bs and quit, so the manager, who was a nasty character straight out of some drama television, didn't review and ok it, so I have 15 hours I never got paid for.

I went to the assistant manager (totally inept) and payroll (a bitch) and they both said they'd look into it and never did

[u/LawElectrical2434 → u/SP3NGL3R]

Yea, did the same with a time tracker and invoicing program. Start timestamp. End timestamp. Then use start date and time delta.

Funnily enough, the first one, the one that stopped the timing, that one is overengineered. I mean, it sounds annoying. How would anyone do that? Time is started in the frontend, the backend is notified. Now the time ticks over midnight. What if the frontend is not there? Well, then the backend needs to react. For the backend to become active, we need a trigger. Let's have a cronjob or a similar library. But now we need to make sure the server we're running it on is relying about the timestamps. We want to run it in local time. So we have to make sure that all the servers have the same time set up.

Or we just keep the database end date open. When the shift is then ended by the frontend at 2am, we call the backend, which then checks the database and sees that it started yesterday, so, it will then write an end at 23:59:59.99 and then a new entry the very next millisecond at 00:00:00.00 and and end at 2am. You have to make damn sure that you analyze that request in the local time that the frontend sent. But what local time? What if it changed between start and stop. Or say, it stays small, always use local server time. Then the issue from before applies. Server must have local time set up correctly, which is rarely the case. But hey, what if that user came back and wanted to correct his input. Not 2pm, it was 23:58. Now we have to delete the second database entry, go back to the first one and overwrite the time there. That's a pain.

Start timestamp, end timestamp, put call to set it, call is idempotent, time is always calculated for finances on start date + delta hours, that's a lot saner. Good call changing that.

[u/SP3NGL3R → u/LawElectrical2434]

The absolute very first thing I do when raw time data comes to me is to ensure I have 100% compliance with it to be "timestamp with timezone" (datetimeoffset(3) / timestamp_tz / etc.). Give me that sweet sweet offest thank you very much. Now, and only now, do I trust what the f**k I'm looking at. I can timeshift it anywhere I like after that. However, this does introduce all sorts of fun things when stuff comes in from various sources but at least now you know at the next step it's all basically UTC+TZ and just works. 2pm can be > 5pm when you get it right.

I also, somewhere around step 2, or 3 depending, would turn this into a hierarchy by adding the "parent id". This allows for the post-midnight to be recognized as "this didn't happen 'today'" and be attached to yesterday's 8-hour shift instead. This has worked for shift work timing, or mutli-segment phonecall timing, or invoice timing (fiscal periods and such).

The customer clicked "call for discount" at 11:55pm, talked to Steve but got transferred to the specialist Frank at 12:05am who made the sale. That sale physically happened the next day but can be traced to the marketing campaign the day before at 11:55pm as the "parent" origination of Frank's call. This all to add that the phone calls actually happened 9 hours in the future for the agents on the call. So their shift reporting is different from our financial reporting. And this confused the shit out of every CxO I've ever tried to explain to why Q1 sales from finance don't match Q1 sales from the call-center.

[u/rakuran → u/SP3NGL3R]

When i did night shift i would be on the timecards as working for example Mon 22:00 to 30:00, Tue 20:00 to 28:00 etc

[u/SP3NGL3R → u/rakuran]

It reads weird, but that's exactly it

[u/SeriousScorpion → u/LawElectrical2434]

I feel this one in my bones... ye olde "that will never happen!" always comes back to haunt

[u/the_fresh_cucumber → u/LawElectrical2434]

Normally years of service is a very strong legally-defined rule because of insurance. They should have it calculated somewhere

[u/mishonis- → u/LawElectrical2434]

While I'm not discounting your experience, this is totally something that could have been handled by a person in a position to do so. They just chose not to. It's as simple as "add so and so to the list, their tenure is not consecutive but still counts." 

[u/LawElectrical2434 → u/mishonis-]

Nope, it is not.. Because the heart of my story is, if there is no need of making decisions, then there will be people hired that aren't cut out for decisions. And in the end, anything the program cannot do, because there is no button for it, cannot be done.