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

[patham]

Just a side note, you know someone is a meneer when they have 2+ monitors 

 

I prefer the alternative KZN term of a "larney" !

[patham]

 

In that case, my former colleague must have been an undercover-CEO 

 

IMG-20190909-WA0020.jpg

 

2x 23" HP Monitors rotated vertically and 1x 40" Philips 4K monitor (which he brought from home).

 

We all think he was "compensating"

 

Phillips do really nice IPS monitors that have great, rich colours. The youngster has one as his secondary screen, for a primary screen he went over to Samsung 144 Hz LED as the IPS refresh rate is crummy for gaming.

[intern]

I prefer the alternative KZN term of a "larney" !

 

Had a road racing mate back in the day complete his masters in science,laughed my ass off when he jokingly said 'yeah man now I'm a flippin HUGE larney'.

[intern]

Just looked him up, he's a COO at a fairly large organisation. Masters and 20 years does wonders for the career ;-)

[Hairy]

This is where I spend most of my waking hours in "isolation".

 

20200403_094948.jpg

 

I usually work out of our project office, which is a lot more modern and flash, and only spend 1-day a week in my little office in the 1918, no aircon, asbestos ridden, possibly haunted, old nurses building. But because the project office is open plan and a 10min walk from the hospital, our core team has been called back to the hospital for Covid response, and the rest of the project team is working from home.

Awesome, good to see you are working on Revit!

[rad006]

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

[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.