Per Baxter - the good things thread

[jadziadax8]

Good thing: the Falcon rocket did NOT explode on the pad at Kennedy today. The launch went safely so far and Bob and Doug are on the way to the ISS.

[Bounce]

Good thing: the Falcon rocket did NOT explode on the pad at Kennedy today. The launch went safely so far and Bob and Doug are on the way to the ISS.

Testing manual maneuvering right now. Once done, they resume docking procedures.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21X5lGlDOfg&feature=emb_logo

[stevent]

That was really cool, we watched the whole thing from launch to docking, Awesome..

[Baxter]

As much as I gripe about the roads in and around Milwaukee, I should say something good.

Yesterday, Friday, was a day off for most government workers for Independence Day, and some concrete pavement heaved up during the afternoon.  It hadn't heaved when I went by at 2.  By 5 it had heaved and there was a city worker marking it with cones and flashing lights, directing traffic around the mess.  And by 8 there was a temporary asphalt patch in place already.

I expected the cones to have been there until Monday, or even Tuesday, given the long holiday weekend.  It was refreshing to see the road being made passable in such a short time, with city workers getting the job done on a holiday weekend.

[Vulcanbill]

For what...double time and a half?  I’d volunteer for that too. 😎

[Bounce]

For what...double time and a half?  I’d volunteer for that too. 😎

States can be different than the Fed. That above can't happen in a fed job. You get the "higher of" the different options of pay for undesirable duty. If you are working an overtime, holiday, night shift, each has pay incentives.

Overtime is time-and-a-half up to a max. Once you progress far enough in your career, that cap can mean taking home less "per hour" than straight time. Holiday pay is x2. Night shift is +10% from 6pm to 6am so each of Swing and Grave shifts only get +10% for 5 hours of their 8 hour shift. If you stack all of that into one shift (can happen), you end up with only x2 for the Holiday (when everyone else is getting full pay for being off, you're only getting straight time for the work you did).

Night shift + overtime means either losing the +10% or getting it because your overtime pay is less than straight pay.

So, again, another myth about the wonderful benefits of fed jobs.

[Baxter]

For what...double time and a half?  I’d volunteer for that too. 😎

Yep, I was expecting that the crew would get paid extra for holiday or evening work.  People should get paid for doing the work.  After all, I'm paying for it and I want it done both well and quickly.  And I recognize that there's a cost to this.

What I like is that the city got the job done in a timely manner.  I had expected that this wouldn't get fixed quickly and everyone would have to slow down for a bottleneck over an undetermined length of time.  I could easily imagine some manager deciding to save the budget and inconvenience the entire roadgoing public instead of fixing the road right away.

Not to get political, but one problem with governments is that legislators/council members/etc. create a bunch of government programs to make people happy, but then budget the programs very low to also make people happy, with the result being that our government attempts to do a lot but does it all in a slipshod manner.  I would like to see all governmental levels attempt to do less things overall, but also to do the things that remain very well.  That is, lets have good roads and good schools, but cut the fluff and put the money that was going to fluff toward the good roads and schools.

[Bounce]

Yep, I was expecting that the crew would get paid extra for holiday or evening work.  People should get paid for doing the work.  After all, I'm paying for it and I want it done both well and quickly.  And I recognize that there's a cost to this.

The 3-legged stool of all project. Time, Cost, and Quality.  You get any 2 at a time.

If money is a concern, then you can extend time or cut quality. If time is an issue, you can throw more Costs at it (resources in staffing, etc.) or again cut quality to meet your time targets.