Re:Working from Home: Why It Sucks
by ojbyrne on Monday January 26, 2009 @10:37AM
(#450496)
Much as it's probably true, I absolutely hate that. Somebody once showed me a diagram demonstrating the increased efficiency gained by using a wiki instead of email - but the entire gain would have been nullified if they assumed that rather than entering stuff directly into the wiki, people would upload word documents to the wiki (which the pointy-hairs invariably do).
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Re:Working from Home: Why It Sucks
by jcromartie on Monday January 26, 2009 @03:32PM
(#450986)
> rather than entering stuff directly into the wiki, people would upload word documents
This is precisely why both of my last two employers actively forbade real Wikis in favor of dumbed-down Word document repositories.
Re:Working from Home: Why It Sucks
by Xichekolas on Monday January 26, 2009 @11:24AM
(#450579)
Just need to write something that automatically converts word docs into new wiki pages. Then the pointy-hairs can upload all they want and everyone else gets some sanity.
Don't even try to make the conversion full featured, just rip it plain text. When the boss asks why his charts and headers don't convert over, show him how easy it is to fix that in the wiki. By getting his feet wet this way, eventually he might not even bother uploading word docs at all.
Or maybe I have too much faith in pointy-haired bosses.
> When the boss asks why his charts and headers don't convert over, show him how easy it is to fix that in the wiki.
The rational response to that from the PHB's point of view is to ban wikis.
Re:Working from Home: Why It Sucks
by giles_bowkett on Monday January 26, 2009 @12:26PM
(#450685)
no, just fire the pointy-hairs. if somebody is uploading word docs to a wiki then they're not qualified to work with you. don't waste your time.
I wish it actually worked that way in the real world, but it doesn't. Yes, you can quit and do a startup, but then you end up with pointy-haired VCs instead of pointy-haired bosses.
Re:Working from Home: Why It Sucks
by helveticaman on Tuesday January 27, 2009 @01:41PM
(#452506)
It may be difficult to believe this while in US, but in other countries industries are dominated by engineers...I know of one bank in Chile where all the business guys were being replaced with civil engineers (in Chile, that means a guy with an extensive math + science background).
Pick your battles.
Re:Working from Home: Why It Sucks
by Xichekolas on Monday January 26, 2009 @01:55PM
(#450814)
A fine solution in a start-up or when you are in charge, but not so easy to accomplish in a large organization, where the pointy-hairs tend to accumulate.