Boardroom Miscellaneous Thread

[waveterrain]

The house didn't sell in the timeline I wanted without dropping the price below the number we set as the floor so we listed them back up to rent.

After that experience, I was gun shy on raising the rents to what I thought was closer to current market rates. Listed and both sides rented within a week, with a double digit interest waitlist. I generally prefer to leave a bit on the table in hope for stable and long term tenants. Also housing is expensive and I dislike the maximalist approach to all transactions. That said, I still wish I would have stuck to my original thinking on the rent as that is a $5k per year difference. I usually don't raise the rent much or even at all on renewals, but I may push for a bit more over the next few cycles. More in this case being 4-5%. We'll see what remote management overhead adds as well both in costs and in general headaches.

 

[Diabolical]

I do my best to come under inflation when it comes to any rent increases. And I don't do it every year. I also have tenants who have been there for ten years, so keeping them in place and paying is more important to me than chasing overall profit margins. Since the house is paid off? They are effectively (almost) paying my rent in SoCal. It's more complicated than that, but that is what is happening at the end of the chain.

I raised the rent this year for the first time in several years, kept it just under 3.7%. Not planning on a rent increase for next year either.

Of that extra $50 per month? Property management company is eating about $4.50. And that 9% the property management company takes is more than worth it for me - plus I get to write it off as a deduction.

---

On a related note, re-inspection by the city is tomorrow - had to have some emergency work done to correct some code deficiencies they discovered during the annual inspection in June. All the work is done, so I should be good to go. The city of Spokane was very understanding that I can't correct things like deck stairs over the weekend from Southern California, and instead of 72 hours they gave me a month. Kept them in the loop (bid accepted, estimated timelines, and completion status of the two issues), and otherwise had nothing besides, "Thank you for keeping us informed." back from them.

It's a new law that is designed to make landlords fix their shit (as this has been a problem in the area country in general for a while), and this is the first year they've been going about it. As an owner? I find it annoying to deal with (but then again, I should have heard about these problems FROM THE PROPERTY MANAGEMENT COMPANY AND THE TENANT long before this!).

As someone who rents in another part of the country, I wish more municipalities would do this.

---

I still maintain that every time I think about selling that house? Even if It's a pain sometimes, dealing with the property management company, things like this, I don't even like it that much, etc? I come back to the conclusion that it is my ultimate fall back. I own that property. And if the worst comes to pass in SoCal and I need to relocate/what-have-you? Having that house gives me more peace of mind than almost any amount of savings can.

 

[Drizzt321]

Heh, I WISH my landlord used a property management company. Shit would get done in a timely fashion without having to bug him incessantly. Probably at least.

 

[Scotttheking]

Heh, I WISH my landlord used a property management company. Shit would get done in a timely fashion without having to bug him incessantly. Probably at least.

Having rented through a property management company - that’s a solid maybe!

 

[Drizzt321]

Having rented through a property management company - that’s a solid maybe!

Can't be much worse than my landlord. Although it helps that my city has quite good renter protections, and my unit/building is old enough it's covered under the rent control. So I have a REALLY good leg to stand on with real issues by threatening/going to the rent control board. Which, according to one of my neighbors who has been in one unit or the other, raised her kids there even, for decades knows his name. "Oh yeah, that guy." kind of knowing him.

 

[w00key]

Having rented through a property management company - that’s a solid maybe!

We just went from hands on landlord + one man "property management company" to a bigger management company on a commercial property. Hopefully shit gets fixed now instead of us getting pissed off enough that we just said, nevermind, we'll fix it ourselves if you give us permission to do the work in the common area.

We spammed the new guys with requests and it seems like they are picking them up. These people get the rent first, deduct expenses and send on the rest, instead of landlord getting the rent directly and everyone bugging him to cough up cash for repairs. That last part is hell, big stuff always go "here's the quote. we'll deduct it from next few months rent".

 

[waveterrain]

I tried to inquire to about a dozen property management companies, all who were highly rated or recommended. Only 1 returned multiple calls and emails. So not a good sign for any tenants, much less me.

I got the sense in talking to realtors and some other property owners that most of the better firms don’t want to deal with smaller properties, like single family or duplex, and have pivoted to AirBnB, larger multi unit, or only their own properties after exiting 3rd party properties. I got the sense that many hate dealing with current crop of out of town investors who seem to care nothing of the property or neighborhood and just interested in squeezing margins and come with unreasonable expectations and an unwillingness to invest which then cascades to terrible tenant experiences so the management company gets a bad rap.

Some I cross off the list are only doing listings and rent collection and you still have to have roster of service people, though they may recommend some. They may provide first line call support but at $75-150 per incident dealing on whether a site visit is needed. Which why bother with that as collecting rent is easy nowadays with digital platforms (Venmo, PayPal, wise, IBAN, etc)? If I am going to have to deal with it anyway, I’ll save that first level support and just have the tenants contact me.

There were others I researched and the reviews and feedback from both tenants and owners was awful.

The only reason I looked for a company after managing myself was I was moving out of the country and timezones. But I’d only do it if I can find someone who will treat the property and tenants to my level of expectations.

I want to be told of things and I fix stuff asap and often proactively if I know about it. I don’t cheap out with the worst appliances or the band-aid solution. I have a good roster of service people at this point, with the exception of an electrician after my last one retired. The plumbing guy is great once you can get him on the phone as he won’t text or email.

I view this as a home for someone and try to solve the problems as if I was living in there. It works out as our tenants have averaged 4 years per stay and only move when they buy a house in the area. The shortest has been a year and that was because he was a professor commuting up to Waco from Austin (about 90 minutes) and then they ask him to be on campus more than 1 day a week, the longest has stayed 7 years.

 

[wallinbl]

Started developing an overhaul to a core process about two months ago. Been working with all the key players, including the L&D leader on it the whole time. Beta in two weeks, fully rolled out two weeks after that. Learned today that last week, the L&D leader conducted a company wide retraining on the old way to do it, the one that's about to be gone for good.

When confronted, she has zero awareness that wasn't a good thing to do. None.

 

[hanser]

I wonder if there are compliance requirements that training occur at specific intervals, and she has a box to check?

Even so, though, she could swap the old content for the new content and still check the box.

 

[wallinbl]

I wonder if there are compliance requirements that training occur at specific intervals, and she has a box to check?

Even so, though, she could swap the old content for the new content and still check the box.

Nope. This industry is founded on the Peter Principle. "Directors" are almost uniformly former clerks with no management, strategic, formal, or other training. They can usually execute a given task well, but can't replicate that to others and can't figure out what tasks should be prioritized or how tasks could be improved. They just go really good at one way of making a widget, got promoted for it, and really just want their one way of making a widget to be constant and universal.

 

[hanser]

RIP in peace.

 

[hanser]

My favorite thing is having to write emails that are the equivalent of "No, our platform is not impacted by the Crowdstrike problem, but your users may not be able to access it if your online banking is impaired. When your shit is unfucked, everything will be fine."

I'm anticipating a bunch of emails that say they can't access our platform. Well yes... because you can't access anything at all right now. When that clears up, everything will be fine. IOW I'm anticipating headless chickens.

Let's see what pans out.

--

Related: hugops to everyone involved in cleaning up this mess at their org. Right now the workaround involves physical access to every single affected machine if Crowdstrike is paired with BitLocker.

 

[wallinbl]

I did enjoy the morning round of questions around whether we're impacted. Not directly, but we have vendors, who have vendors, who have vendors, etc. We are largely taking it by report at this point. For example, our payments vendor is up, but Visa was down for a bit.

 

[SandyTech]

I've had to send a couple of those out this morning. Fortunately none of our services are impacted, but all three of our banks and our payroll provider have issues. Which gave me a slight panic attack because I couldn't validate that everyone's direct deposit went out, but it looks like that part of their system stayed up at least.

Getting lots of staff-aug/remote hands calls to help get people back online. Nobody is questioning emergency rates, that's for sure.

 

[hanser]

I've had to send a couple of those out this morning. Fortunately none of our services are impacted, but all three of our banks and our payroll provider have issues. Which gave me a slight panic attack because I couldn't validate that everyone's direct deposit went out, but it looks like that part of their system stayed up at least.

Getting lots of staff-aug/remote hands calls to help get people back online. Nobody is questioning emergency rates, that's for sure.

Yuuuuuuup.

 

[moosemaimer]

Lot of our customers/vendors are .gov or defense types, so it won't surprise me if today is slow. But we don't run Clownstrike, and we don't have anything in the cloud! Paranoia is always the right answer!

 

[ramases]

My favorite thing is having to write emails that are the equivalent of "No, our platform is not impacted by the Crowdstrike problem, but your users may not be able to access it if your online banking is impaired. When your shit is unfucked, everything will be fine."

I'm anticipating a bunch of emails that say they can't access our platform. Well yes... because you can't access anything at all right now. When that clears up, everything will be fine. IOW I'm anticipating headless chickens.

Let's see what pans out.

I come from your relative workday future (UTC+2), to tell you that your expectations for your own future may well come to pass, and that we had, uh, a "certain number" of such requests we answered roughly the same (modulo wording because different industry than banking) fashion.

 

[MilleniX]

L&D leader

Even though you're in the medical billing space, I assume this isn't "Labor and Delivery". What is it?

Regardless, it seems like the sort of mis-step that this person's management should be aware of, at least for the sake of "don't promote them further"

 

[hanser]

Learning and Development. The teams that builds training content for internal consumption. Primary audience is usually customer service reps and/or other groups (cashiers, e.g.) with low skill + high turnover when you want everything as cookie cutter as possible.

 

[MilleniX]

Learning and Development. The teams that builds training content for internal consumption. Primary audience is usually customer service reps and/or other groups (cashiers, e.g.) with low skill + high turnover when you want everything as cookie cutter as possible.

Thanks. At least with high turnover, the impact of that recent retraining on the old way will be limited

 

[Shavano]

Nope:

Spoiler

But filtering the appropriate inbox shows an almost 300% growth in LinkedIn spam since April, salespeople want to eat too.

maybe branching out?

Wind Turbine Technicians

Wind turbine service technicians maintain and repair wind turbines.

www.bls.gov

Jesus they don't pay those guys enough.

 

[Drizzt321]

Even with wind usually being in lower CoL areas, yeah, they should be paid better for experienced folks. Getting up that high, etc. Yikes.

 

[Tom the Melaniephile]

Even with wind usually being in lower CoL areas, yeah, they should be paid better for experienced folks. Getting up that high, etc. Yikes.

Hm? They're climbing inside a tower on fixed, well designed ladders - usually with a sliding fall protection system that goes along with them all the way up.

Try climbing the outside of a large truss bridge sometime.

That said, yes - pay should be higher.

 

[wallinbl]

Even with wind usually being in lower CoL areas, yeah, they should be paid better for experienced folks. Getting up that high, etc. Yikes.

Looks like fun, but I climb cliffs for fun?

 

[Tom the Melaniephile]

Looks like fun, but I climb cliffs for fun?

I mean, yeah - I'd totally climb up and out on a wind tower given the opportunity and normal safety gear. Bridges are also fun.

 

[MilleniX]

I mean, yeah - I'd totally climb up and out on a wind tower given the opportunity and normal safety gear. Bridges are also fun.

Which bridge is that? I see horrible perspective-skewed shots of that in spammy (Taboola/Outbrain-ish) ads all the time.

 

[daldrich]

Reverse image search says Rainbow Bridge in Texas. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Rainbow_Bridge_(Texas)

 

[Tom the Melaniephile]

Which bridge is that? I see horrible perspective-skewed shots of that in spammy (Taboola/Outbrain-ish) ads all the time.

On the right (the truss) is the Rainbow Bridge and on the left (the cable stay) is Veteran's Memorial Bridge.

East Texas, near the coast.

 

[SandyTech]

No, I'm not canning you because you are sick. I am canning you because you ignored policy, came in while you were sick (WITH TWO FUCKING POSITIVE COVID TESTS) and made the rest of the fucking office sick you absolute fucking clown.

 

[moosemaimer]

Hm? They're climbing inside a tower on fixed, well designed ladders - usually with a sliding fall protection system that goes along with them all the way up.

Try climbing the outside of a large truss bridge sometime.

Ostensibly, yes. But...


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWSckm8zTc8

 

[Tom the Melaniephile]

Ostensibly, yes. But...


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWSckm8zTc8

Safer than bridge work. You typically cannot self-rescue if your fall protection is needed. You dangle until someone recovers you, and the safe time to remain dangling is measured in minutes.

If given the opportunity, I would definitely rappel down from the top of a wind turbine.

 

[wallinbl]

Safer than bridge work. You typically cannot self-rescue if your fall protection is needed. You dangle until someone recovers you, and the safe time to remain dangling is measured in minutes.

If given the opportunity, I would definitely rappel down from the top of a wind turbine.

No jumars?

(Ok, ok, Skoop, we're way off topic here; we'll stop.)

 

[Skoop]

I was about to put a on this thread.

 

[spacekobra]

How do you deal with an equal who runs to upper management whenever you ask them to do something? We're both managers, I will flag e.g. their team needs to do something for the benefit of the company.

They will complain it affects their metrics and run to upper management to complain.

Thing is... I don't think uppermanagement is siding with them. I've sat in on one of the conversations and they always leave it feeling vindicated but the last one uppermanagement said "do it unless there's a really good reason you can't" which "my metrics" is not a good one.

They're with upper management right now after my team and the PM flagged the customers request isn't per our internal standards. The other manager wants to keep the product as is because it would be a lot of work to redraw at this point. (its more work to build this way)

Do I just wait it out until they're sick of the whining?

 

[wallinbl]

You share the same boss? Ask boss if there's a way to coordinate work without having to run everything up the chain.

 

[spacekobra]

Yes, and clever. I'll definitely try that.

 

[hanser]

How do you deal with an equal who runs to upper management whenever you ask them to do something? We're both managers, I will flag e.g. their team needs to do something for the benefit of the company.

They will complain it affects their metrics and run to upper management to complain.

Thing is... I don't think uppermanagement is siding with them. I've sat in on one of the conversations and they always leave it feeling vindicated but the last one uppermanagement said "do it unless there's a really good reason you can't" which "my metrics" is not a good one.

They're with upper management right now after my team and the PM flagged the customers request isn't per our internal standards. The other manager wants to keep the product as is because it would be a lot of work to redraw at this point. (its more work to build this way)

Do I just wait it out until they're sick of the whining?

The thing they're complaining about (metrics) could indicate a process problem. If their metrics are otherwise measuring reasonable things, then this work is being injected after the metrics get "decided" (for lack of a better word) and represent additional work they won't get "credit" for. So maybe the coordination has to happen further upstream?

If the metrics are stupid, then that's probably a problem above that manager's head. I would approach it with the more senior leaders from the process perspective, and see what shakes out.

There's also the possibility that this person is just a blockhead, but I've seen enough process (and metrics!) fails to suspect that before shirking, especially in environments where the culture is pretty solid and not full of dipshits.

Metrics are hard, news at 11.

 

[spacekobra]

Our only metric is "on time" something I've been fighting since day one. My team is currently poor metrics due to poor planning from PMs and because said manager refuses to use our new software that integrates with our ERP and shop floor and they're complaining whenever I ask. So when they complained about this, it just feels like incessant whining instead of wanting to manage the team for the company.

Rant over.

I did talk to them yesterday. This one was a misunderstanding (they didn't see an email about this) which means it was brought up the chain for literally no reason. Sitting down with my boss today to gather their thoughts and come up with a proper plan so we don't need to escalate every minor thing.

 

[DrWebster]

I recently remembered that I agreed to be the executor of my aunt's will. She's still alive and well, but this is the sort of thing I probably don't want to learn on the fly. Are there any resources anyone can recommend for learning about this stuff? Does it vary greatly between states (she's in California but I'm not)?

 

[brainchasm]

Contacted my current mortgage holder lender, told them to pre-approve me up.

Reached out to the agent that helped me buy in 2011, but he's out of the racket, so I am a free agent as far as housebuying goes.

Hopefully, that's enticing enough to get a rockstar agent to take care of my sale and help with the new buy, without graping me in the mouth.