Yes, we're using all the modern office tools

[capt bullshot]

Desktop with workspace, graphical editor, cut'n'paste and entertainment


Recycle bin with undo capability


Mailbox


external backup tool

[Brumby]

How very 80's....

[Vtile]

Looks relaxing. 

[bd139]

Good for you. Less distractions, better display contrast. Everything is good.

As a software engineer, I got laughed out of the office when I turned up to a meeting the first time with a few sheets of A4 and a pencil whereas everyone else had iPads, surfaces and laptops on hand. Now I'm charge of the software team and still use pencil and paper. Who's laughing now?

[tszaboo]

You should have put the texts on the images with a typewriter, and then scan them.
BTW, sometimes I miss all these low tech tools. Last time I really needed the paste tool.

[xrunner]

Additional storage capability -

[bd139]

Oh just remembered. Inevitable Bob Pease:

[kalel]

Good for you. Less distractions, better display contrast. Everything is good.

As a software engineer, I got laughed out of the office when I turned up to a meeting the first time with a few sheets of A4 and a pencil whereas everyone else had iPads, surfaces and laptops on hand. Now I'm charge of the software team and still use pencil and paper. Who's laughing now?

The suitable equipment should depends on how those meetings go. Whether or not you need to access the internet or local network, scroll through some pre-written information, or if all information you need to see is displayed on some slides (or handed out to you in some shape). It would be nice for the company to provide necessary equipment as well, if they don't. Especially if someone is working for free (getting some practice), which might not be as frequent in software companies, but there might be some where it does happen.

[capt bullshot]

Last time I really needed the paste tool.

It was really hard to find that. Only one was available for our whole department ...

[Vtile]

I can see this becoming a massive new way of doing work while the VR kicks in for good. 

[DimitriP]

a few sheets of A4 and a pencil

Spiral notebooks never need charging and pencil doesn't "run" when wet.
You can also tear a page or two to fix a wobbly table at starbucks.
Try doing that with an iPad.

[DG41WV]

the included search function is really slow sometimes.

[BrianHG]

Empty trash/permanent delete function:

[Cerebus]

You call that a paste function?

THIS is a paste function:

[BrianHG]

Workstation turbo power boost/recharger:

[Brumby]

A guy I know manages an electronics store - has done for decades.  He has a little black book for all his contact information.  After years of badgering by his family, he finally gave in and got himself a mobile phone ... but it is only turned on when he wants to make a phone call.

[Alex Eisenhut]

A guy I know manages an electronics store - has done for decades.  He has a little black book for all his contact information.  After years of badgering by his family, he finally gave in and got himself a mobile phone ... but it is only turned on when he wants to make a phone call.

[Brumby]

LOL.

The dialling technique would annoy him, though.

[Halcyon]

Sometimes simpler is better. No point in spending money, time and effort on creating needless systems, processes, policies and Standard Operating Procedures when it's not required.

This is why WH&S is the way it is in some organisations. They spend more time being risk-averse, coming up with useless policies which only inhibit performance and economy and wasting time in useless meetings for something that should be common sense.

I know someone who worked for a large food company *coughNESTLEcough* and literally got "red carded" by some moron in the corridor for the following "offences":
- Talking on a mobile phone while walking
- Not holding onto the hand rail while walking down stairs

 

I know we have to appeal to the lowest common denominator, but this kind of shit is just ludicrous.

By the way OP: Those left-hand side trays are too high and pose a fall risk/trip hazard. You'll need to conduct a risk assessment, have a meeting about it and come up with strategies to mitigate the risk. Then, you need to have a compliance check monthly to make sure the new standard is being adhered to. While you're at it, every form needs to have at least 3 signatures from various levels of management on it, just because. Then scan, archive and retain for 10 years.

[Cerebus]

I know someone who worked for a large food company *coughNESTLEcough* and literally got "red carded" by some moron in the corridor for the following "offences":
- Talking on a mobile phone while walking
- Not holding onto the hand rail while walking down stairs

 

Well, I hope the 'red carder' himself did a proper risk assessment before waving a, presumably laminated, red card around in a corridor. For a  start "you could have someone's eye out with that", and the natural consequences of an act like that are wince inducing. I mean, the risk of anal lacerations as the red card goes in - ouch, I don't want to imagine any more.

[Halcyon]

I know someone who worked for a large food company *coughNESTLEcough* and literally got "red carded" by some moron in the corridor for the following "offences":
- Talking on a mobile phone while walking
- Not holding onto the hand rail while walking down stairs

 

Well, I hope the 'red carder' himself did a proper risk assessment before waving a, presumably laminated, red card around in a corridor. For a  start "you could have someone's eye out with that", and the natural consequences of an act like that are wince inducing. I mean, the risk of anal lacerations as the red card goes in - ouch, I don't want to imagine any more.

I'm very sure that actual cards wouldn't have been allowed due to their pointy edges or perhaps a softer alternative was used, such as pieces of felt. No doubt an incident report was filed and tabled at the next WH&S meeting.

[rollatorwieltje]

I know the handrail thing from maritime related companies (holding the handrail on a ship is generally a good idea), but Nestlé? Those assholes are still involved in slavery and child labor, they have some more important things to look at.

[woody]

Same goes for Shell. Hold the handrail at all times. Not only on an oil rig, but also in head office. God forbid an employee sprains an ankle. Meanwhile their products drive us ever faster to extinction.

[IanMacdonald]

I heard of a case where an installation job at Shell had to be abandoned because it was a two-man lift and the item could not be carried whilst holding the handrail. Madness, but that's what happens when penpushers get in charge.

Commonsense would say that trying to hold a handrail whilst carrying a heavy item in a lopsided manner places you at risk of a back injury, anyway.

Other thing used to happen was that there were idiots going round locking doors at random. In one case, expensive test gear was locked in a room by an unknown person while the engineer's back was turned, and it took a couple of days to get it out. I think I'd have used a crowbar and told them the damage was their own fault. 

[Cyberdragon]

I know the handrail thing from maritime related companies (holding the handrail on a ship is generally a good idea), but Nestlé? Those assholes are still involved in slavery and child labor, they have some more important things to look at.

[CopperCone]

man what if bob peaces office had a spider. what do you do gas the whole building?

I try to stay digital if its accepted.... its also dusty.

best way to do it is to take some time every 2 weeks or so to digitize stuff you need and throw the rest out.

[bd139]

My office has lots of spiders. They're my friends, until they get large, at which point the paper is useful rolled up

It's expensive squashing spiders with laptops.

[Cyberdragon]

My office has lots of spiders. They're my friends, until they get large, at which point the paper is useful rolled up

It's expensive squashing spiders with laptops.

Donate some of your spider filled laptops to Rossmann, tell him it's from 4chan. Shhh, don't let him see this

"But, my computers aren't full of spiders."

ARE YOU SURE?

[Brumby]

I try to stay digital if its accepted.... its also dusty.

best way to do it is to take some time every 2 weeks or so to digitize stuff you need and throw the rest out.

You would think that's a good idea, wouldn't you?

I saw a mammoth fail with a cutting edge system that had that as a feature.

Documents that were lodged at branches of this organisation were faxed to head office - and were received by an automated system that stored the fax images directly on disk.  These images were then presented to data entry staff who would have the image on one side of their monitor and the input fields on the other.  They then scrolled through the images and the data entry screens keying in the information.

So - the information ended up on a database for subsequent processing, without a single scrap of paper having been used.

That was until someone pointed out an entry in the 3 volume "Procedures Manual".  It quite clearly stated that all faxes were to be photocopied.

A junior was then sat down on a terminal and given the task of printing out all the faxes - literally thousands of pages - and then photocopying them.

I thought though this and realised the procedure was put in place when faxes were received on thermal paper.  Photocopying was essential to ensure longevity of the image.  Nobody even questioned this action - even though the images were backed up - not only locally, but to a DR site as well.

Someone should have revisited this procedure when plain paper faxes became the norm - but, no, the sacred book was there to be followed, not questioned.

[Vtile]

Same goes for Shell. Hold the handrail at all times. Not only on an oil rig, but also in head office. God forbid an employee sprains an ankle. Meanwhile their products drive us ever faster to extinction.

wtf. is wrong in this world.

[Towger]

Back in the days of text based software, menus would have a letter/number beside each option to run it.  If you added an extra option in the middle of a menu or changed the letters/numbers in anyway, you were guaranteed to get support calls.  99% of these were from large companies or government type organisations.   The staff in these types of places just followed their pre-written scripts blindly.  Often without any idea of what they were actually doing.  Just the mindless meatware glueing systems together.

[bd139]

This still happens now. We have a large financial product on the market and we changed the site header and it crashed our PBX.

[Cerebus]

[snip]
I thought though this and realised the procedure was put in place when faxes were received on thermal paper.  Photocopying was essential to ensure longevity of the image.  Nobody even questioned this action - even though the images were backed up - not only locally, but to a DR site as well.

Someone should have revisited this procedure when plain paper faxes became the norm - but, no, the sacred book was there to be followed, not questioned.

Back when I was a lad and at university, the student union had a highly sensible, if time consuming, policy. The student union had a "policy file", containing a record of all policy that had been passed by the student union. Once a year, an open policy review meeting was held where each item of policy was reviewed and a simple vote taken for either "still relevant - retain the policy" or "outdated - discard the policy", with an option to table the motion if it needed more than a few minutes review.

At one of the companies I helped start-up and run we had the usual ad-hoc problems come up, and ad-hoc procedures and policies started to develop. We stole the "policy file" idea lock stock and barrel, putting a reason to each policy and a review date on any policy that went in the file when it would be checked if it was still relevant. People were told to not blindly follow a policy in the file but check that the 'reason' criteria were met before 'following policy'. By and large it worked well.

[b_force]

Sometimes simpler is better.

Of course that's all matter of perspective.
I personally don't like wasting paper (trees) to start with plus I think it's very messy/unorganized.
A couple of years I decided to go all digital (as much as possible), and discovered you really don't need fancy expensive time consuming (software) tools at all.
In fact, it saves me a ton of time, costs and mostly space.
I even do most of my sketches digital.

It's also matter of culture/country.
In some parts of the world they still do everything the 'analog way', other parts people do everything digital.
It can both work fine, but yes, some companies go way overboard.

The only really big face-palm moment I had was with a company in NZ.
They used both (digital and paperwork) on a very inefficient way.
It took each worker 2 hours (!!!!!!!!!) a day to write down their work/hours for administration.
After that the ladies at the administration put it manually in a digital database system.
DOH!! 

speaking of wasting time (= money)..........