New Zealand - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

[davetapson]

Have they also banned the sale of Alcohol and Cigarettes in NZ?

Bottle stores closed, but supermarket booze still available - wine and beer etc.

 

My current office. Computer stuff belongs to previous company I was contacting at.

 

Will be replacing with my own way less flash stuff for starting new permanent job on Monday until I can get in to office and get the stuff they will issue to me. Not sure if will be as nice as this.

 

80% of previous income and no tax breaks - which were huge. The pinch is going to be noticeable, but better then no income.

 

[hayleyearth]

So I started 2 weeks ago at a new company, my 1st job was to tell my team of 11 engineers that their salary will be cut to 80%...

 

We have plenty of projects still lined up to keep us all working from home but the top management is estimating that this whole thing will last a few months and hence want to secure cash flow. We have no assets, the people are the main expenses.

 

It's quite a difficult time to start leading a team in a completely new industry for me too. Working hours are long!

[DawieO]

Have they also banned the sale of Alcohol and Cigarettes in NZ?

 

Can do alcohol online for delivery, but only 3 bottles at a time. Also found a biltong supplier online!

[davetapson]

So I started 2 weeks ago at a new company, my 1st job was to tell my team of 11 engineers that their salary will be cut to 80%...

 

 

Harsh way to start, but well done.  Maybe they needed a saffa to do that! 

Good luck.

Edited April 5, 2020 by davetapson

[davetapson]

Buddy of mine is an analytical type.  Reckons that the number of new cases per day in NZ is effectively constant (compared to exponential growth) and that where lockdown has been instituted, the daily number of new cases starts dropping from about day 9 to 14.

 

Given that we are effectively there, all things being equal, we may be not far off the peak.

 

If that is the case, it's been a bloody good job by NZ. 

 

The effect of basically being a rule following nation.

 

We, of course, may well revisit this post and laugh.  Or whatever.

[patches]

So I started 2 weeks ago at a new company, my 1st job was to tell my team of 11 engineers that their salary will be cut to 80%...

 

We have plenty of projects still lined up to keep us all working from home but the top management is estimating that this whole thing will last a few months and hence want to secure cash flow. We have no assets, the people are the main expenses.

 

It's quite a difficult time to start leading a team in a completely new industry for me too. Working hours are long!

 

It's a challenging time in the industry indeed.

 

We're seeing similar waves ripple through some of the large NZ engineering consultancies we work with.

 

Things like:

• If an employees utilization/billable hours drop below 80%, they need to take forced leave to cut down the week by 1 day,
• forced leave regardless of utilization,
• pay cuts,
• and ultimately redundancies

As grim as that sounds, we see the design consultants weathering this better than the construction contractors and sub-contractors. Work-from-home isn't really an option for many of them and it's it's the small guys, the subbies, that will get hit so hard they possibly won't recover.

 

That has a knock on effect and the main contractors will struggle with both their own issues, and the fact that they have no subbies to lean on.

 

Hopefully the planned $12bn government infrastructure spend (announced earlier this year) and the strategy for boosting the construction industry at the tail end of the pandemic are enough to carry many businesses through.

[davetapson]

How are we all doing peeps?

[Wayne Potgieter]

How are we all doing peeps?

 

 

Ups and downs..

 

Downs:

 

• Feeling caged in
• Miss Travelling
• Miss being able to just run to the store to pick up random things and bake or cook
• Miss my mates and talking nonsense
• Worried about job security
• Working longer hours than  I did before to try and protect job and help keep the company in the best possible position
• University has stopped,  so cant even keep the brain working on that as a distraction
• Worried about  the  country/world/economy etc

Ups:

 

• spending some really good time with the family
• Going for long skateboard sessions and enjoying the empty roads
• a lot less laundry now that i have stopped wearing pants
• saving money without  buying stupid ****

 

How is everyone else?

[patham]

Ups and downs..

 

 

• spending some really good time with the family
• Going for long skateboard sessions and enjoying the empty roads
• a lot less laundry now that i have stopped wearing pants
• saving money without  buying stupid ****

 

How is everyone else?

 

TMI ! Just be careful you don't get up to fetch your tea cup when you are on that company video call.

 

But yes, I am working harder than ever, just at home. The library book stockpile is not even dented - no time for reading.

[Wayne Potgieter]

TMI ! Just be careful you don't get up to fetch your tea cup when you are on that company video call.

 

But yes, I am working harder than ever, just at home. The library book stockpile is not even dented - no time for reading.

I was invited to be a panelist on a webinar series broadcast in AU and my MRS took a picture of me sitting at the table in a dress shirt and shorts.

[patches]

How are we all doing peeps?

 

Good as gold!

 

But yeah nah, not too bad.

 

As Wayne mentioned, there are definitely downs.

 

Funny enough a big one for me is Bunnings. I just want Bunnings to be open!

 

Did some home-reno/DIY this long weekend. LOTS of painting!

 

But I also got side-tracked and decided to try some AV wizardry which resulted in 2 big patches of gib cut out the wall (to run aerial & data cable invisibly to a wall mounted TV). Now I have to live with it until bunnings/Mitre10 open again 

 

On the other hand, my friends and I have been playing a lot of Catan (boardgame) online, whilst chatting over Zoom. That's been pretty fun and keeps that social element going.

[intern]

Not for an age, but for all time, they said, and so it has come to be. This lockdown bollocks is grating my carrot big time, so much so that we have to resort to a dose of Hamlet: I have of late—but wherefore

I know not—lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of

exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my

disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to

me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy,

the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament,

this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why,

it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent

congregation of vapors. What a piece of work is a man!

How noble in reason, how infinite in faculties,

in form and moving how express and admirable,

in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like

a god! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals!

And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man

delights not me—no, nor woman neither, though by

your smiling you seem to say so.

[hayleyearth]

Any of you folk know anything about creating virtual rooms? 

Something that can maybe drag a CAD drawing into a virtual room etc?

[patches]

Any of you folk know anything about creating virtual rooms? 

Something that can maybe drag a CAD drawing into a virtual room etc?

 

Unity and Unreal are the 2 most popular engines for converting CAD/BIM models into VR environments. It takes a bit of know-how though.

 

Other tools like Revizto (very popular design & construction issue tracking tool) have VR capability. Great tool for multi-disciplinary collaboration.

 

If it's purely for visualisation though, Enscape is one of simplest to use, and produces pretty decent results in real-time (depending on PC performance).

 

Are those the sorts of tools you were referring to, or are you talking more about a virtual meeting room type setup?

 

Also, is the CAD 2D or 3D?

[hayleyearth]

Unity and Unreal are the 2 most popular engines for converting CAD/BIM models into VR environments. It takes a bit of know-how though.

 

Other tools like Revizto (very popular design & construction issue tracking tool) have VR capability. Great tool for multi-disciplinary collaboration.

 

If it's purely for visualisation though, Enscape is one of simplest to use, and produces pretty decent results in real-time (depending on PC performance).

 

Are those the sorts of tools you were referring to, or are you talking more about a virtual meeting room type setup?

 

Also, is the CAD 2D or 3D?

 

No, not meeting room type setups. It will be to set up a construction site and to do designs or inspections layouts etc

[patches]

No, not meeting room type setups. It will be to set up a construction site and to do designs or inspections layouts etc

 

In that case Revizto is great, and what I'd recommend (and what we and our consultants & contractrors use on projects). Your former employer also used it to manage the design and construction issues on the Building 4 project.

 

The basic idea is that models get exported to Navisworks. Clash detection is run. Those issues, models, and drawings get loaded into Revizto.

 

Issues can then be assigned, managed, tracked, and visualized by various stake-holders. It runs on iPads too, allowing contractors on site to have access to all models & documentation, and raise issues as they come across them.

 

It has a reporting function, which can be tied into a Power BI dashboard so that progress can be monitored.

 

It also allows the overlay of point-clouds, so actual site information can be compared to the modelled design, and changes made where necessary.

 

All in all it's really powerful.

 

That said, Autodesk is upping their game with their BIM360 applications, and tools like BIM360 Design (the most popular) are being complimented with BIM360 Coordinate, Build, etc. Ultimately they will probably surpass Revizto, but for now they're still trying to catch up.

 

Hope that helps. PM me if you need more info. Sorry to all others for the hijack.