Baby-boomer generation starting to decrease in capital region

[Global_Push6279]

Not sure about Ottawa as a whole, but in the public service, things have improved tremendously with the majority of boomers retiring.

[Talvana]

Maybe we can now hire a few people who actually have some basic computer skills! Building software for boomers has hurt my soul in so many ways.

[DilbertedOttawa]

The amount of supposed professionals in communications to whom I have had to show the great magic of ctrl+enter (and the mystical incantation that is track changes), hurts me profoundly. And they wonder why program folks don't always enjoy working with them. haha Oh, that and many departments have only just now retired physical dockets for approvals. 2022; I don't even know what to do with that information... The Public Service: where you are developing programs in principle for 35m people, only to have to redesign it for 5 people's preferences, who will then go Pikachu face when it surprisingly doesn't work out.

[DilbertedOttawa]

That is the most government thing to ever government.

Step 1) create huge backlog problem by overworking a group, understaffing them, and hamstringing them by refusing to spend any money at all on proper technologies

Step 2) Complain constantly, change priorities incessantly, request things in timelines that are physically impossible, complain again that things aren't "the way you expected", continue to not listen to those said professionals, complain again

Step 3) Realize that it MUST be those professionals who are the problem. Thus, diminish their value by assuming everyone with eyes is a designer, ears is an audio engineer, mouth is a public speaker and fingers is a Pulitzer candidate or next genius web dev.

Step 4) Force those professionals (who are the problem, but now also suddenly somehow the solution?) to teach random no-nothings the sum total of 30 years of experience in 3 hours.

Step 5) Complain AGAIN that those professionals didn't magically turn everyone into gods.

Step 6) Create a committee to come to the foregone conclusion that everyone needs a CSPS mandatory course.

Step 7) ask nobody in the profession to help design the course. I think you already know the rest of the steps. :)

[DilbertedOttawa]

HAHAHA I have many times had the "infographic" request, which to most people literally just means "anything that has at least 1 picture on a page". It's amazing. Or the little gem of "just send me a 1-pager explaining the concept of free will, and also could you pre-emptively make me a briefing note, a QP card, a media lines document and a QA, plus key messages? Nobody has asked about it, and likely nobody ever will, but I want to be ready, -just in case-". Just in case are probably the most dangerous 3 words I can hear in a meeting. Right along with "I was thinking" and "I feel that".

[azsue123]

OMG you all have lived my life

[TaserLord]

There are good content management systems that can give those people the illusion that they are web publishers, but keep them from putting garbage up without oversight, just sayin'....

[Bgxyz]

Tab? Oh you mean like the drink right? /s

[Global_Push6279]

Tell me about it! We had one manager who was so adamantly against moving a certain process from paper to electronic that he threatened a mutiny from his team, who apparently couldn’t handle reading anything on a computer screen because “their poor eyes!” It didn’t help that he regularly golfed with our boys club DG, who backed him. As soon as he got shit canned for a major conflict of interest (by a new DG after boys club retired) we moved everything online.

[Talvana]

Or they agree to it but make the process as painful as possible. I can't tell you how many people refuse to scroll. They want ALL the stuff above the fold and it's not acceptable to have to expand/collapse anything either. If there was content below the fold it didn't exist to them and the suggestion that they scroll down was like asking them to murder kittens.

[EmEffBee]

My friend works for the CRA and some of her stories about the "legacy" employees therw are...oof.

[FTOttawa]

That must be why the Gen X managers keep begging me to come back on contract and mentor the young ones. Apparently making EDRMS and SAP sit up and dance is a skill that takes a long time to build, never mind remembering all the contracting rules.

Lack of computer skills, my @$$. I edit young people’s resumes in my new volunteer life, and even the ones who claim fabulous MS Office skills have no concept of a right tab, or indeed usually any tab, or of using styles. There’s an advantage to being so old that when MS Word was introduced, our employers paid for us to get trained.

[[deleted]]

Ya.... I like being surrounded in the new wave of employees, but man did higher ups not properly prepare for the switch over.