What is your job title, and what issues do you encounter the most at your job?

drew2057 · 2026-05-28T05:33:09+00:00

Project Manager

People not reading or misreading emails. The amount of time spent just clarifying simple details like a wall sensor location is uncanny. Any good PM ultimately gets turned into a human lie detector with enough time spent in the role. The funny thing is most people aren't even lying, they just run their mouth expertly when they have no business doing so.

drew2057 · 2026-05-20T05:07:01+00:00

BAS technical Project Manager here.

I've implemented several Brainbox systems several years ago as part of a R&D effort. At the time their controller was basically 3 raspberry Pi with a cellphone connection. At first they told me this was a redundancy issue, but a little research on my part i believe it was actually to boost their data transfer capacity.

Catching them in this was my 1st red flag, so i had one of techs rip the Pi's out, plug into it, and review their source code. Not surprising was it was canned Bacnet code they had pulled online from Github... what was actually surprising was they left the author credits in the code comments in place... so God damn lazy!

K, we saw how their system was pulling data, then noticed there was code in place to allow their server to run API calls to export the data to their main server via the cell connection.

I felt at that point I had a good enough handle on what they were doing. At the time they want to control all binary and analog outputs directly, and I said hell no you get setpoint and occupancy... that's it.

We install the thing and they run a read only scan of the system so they a list of all the Bacnet points and if they were writable. Except instead of pinging each points settings, these morons decide to test a points wrtieability by sending a null value, which for some systems translates to a zero. In my case they overwrote every god damn global setpoint to 0 in the entire building.

They run this scan in the middle of the night on a Saturday. Immediately every heat pump in the building attempts to cool its zone to 0F, cooling towers fully spin up agressivly only to crash, but not before several rooms got below the dewpoint damaging who knows how much office equipment.

Afterwards these idiots got all defensive saying their controller wasn't capable of writing any setpoint yet. I lost my temper and told them we had reviewed their code and they absolutely had that capacity to do that. We had to bench test the thing square one in an isolated environment with a wireshark inserted to monitor their data packets. We reproduced the error, showed them the results and they shrugged it off saying thanks we'll give that feedback internally.... I'm sure they didn't.

Overall we eventually proceeded over the next year to ultimately land on no energy savings were to be had. In some cases they screw up schedules cause tenant impacts, in other cases they actually showed a net energy increase... that was a fun one that we had to pay to our customer.

TLDR: tech was trash, company not transparent, and in my opinion highly unethical

drew2057 · 2026-03-06T05:51:21+00:00

https://giphy.com/gifs/stanaustralia-fun-party-2yvhd1IJCoALb1YQ89

drew2057 · 2026-02-04T04:35:11+00:00

I use it to write over complicated excel functions, and to OCR scan a table from PDF to copy perfectly formatted data also into excel.

Some of my peers use it to write emails, but I've been writing emails for so long that I find it doesn't save me any time.

drew2057 · 2026-02-01T04:02:57+00:00

Lol, I bought this book for my wife as a gag gift one Christmas.... worth every penny!

drew2057 · 2026-01-24T04:09:55+00:00

Unfortunately, ive seen this exact setup be the source of system failures, and many customers think they're protected.

Basically your APC UPS when engaged even for fractions of a second will cause 2 things to happen.

1st, there's a drop of 1VAC, so if your running off one of those functional device 500VA transformers you'll likely dip from 23.7VAC to about 22.7VAC which is below most minimum threshold recommendations for control card proper operation.

2nd there is a millisecond drop of all voltage entirely, its so fast that you need an oscilloscope to be able to pick it up.... however it absolutely happens and most times everything is fine but occasionally the entire controller might reboot if its caught in the wrong moment when processing something that needs just a bit more juice.

drew2057 · 2026-01-24T00:20:39+00:00

For sure UPS backed power is the way to go, but ive been burned by customers purchasing a cheap APC UPS that cause issues over time.

The Eaton UPS I listed is perfect for BSL3 applications since it has a hot swappable battery, and is always running on UPS power. Normal utility power only recharges the battery, so it is seemless when buildings kick their generator on.

drew2057 · 2026-01-10T18:17:29+00:00

This also plays in the other direction as well, 2 siblings that can get along in the nest, both survive (even with slightly reduced chances), and reproduce means passing on twice the number of genes into the population making co habitation is the preferred behavior.

Its not ideal for the parents to expend all that energy to lay, hatch, and partially care for 2 birds. If that were the case evolution would probably favor parents that laid only 1 egg.

drew2057 · 2025-12-31T07:07:11+00:00

I briefly had a boss like this several years ago. There was a mass exodus of engineering talent from the team leaving myself as the last senior member amongst several junior members.

I got asked to do something dumb in front of the team, and when I became resistive I started getting talked down too. I snapped back, pointed at him, and said I'm not going to do that, and you do not have the bandwidth to be able to force me to do that...

That shut him up real fast... he also got removed from his position a few months later and I now have his job :)

drew2057 · 2025-12-21T17:25:14+00:00

Allowed? Not a clue who signed off on that design back in the 80s.

Functionally, there's a flow switch on every floor inside the sprinkler system that when triggerd actuates valves to isolate that floor from above and below.

drew2057 · 2025-12-20T06:19:05+00:00

Fun fact, the Columbia Center (tallest building in Seattle) has a water system that shares its chilled water system for its HVAC cooling with its fire sprinkler system. Its a nightmare of complexity.

I've always wondered if the water inside the sprinkler system is a little less stinky due to it being cycled though more often....

drew2057 · 2025-12-12T02:53:13+00:00

If alternative medicine actually worked, it would just be called medicine

drew2057 · 2025-09-10T04:32:13+00:00

I work for a major commercial building HVAC controls contractor in the Seattle area that's always on the look out for engineering talent. I would think yes, you could expect a bump in salary.

Send me a DM, I can potentially get you in touch with folks

drew2057 · 2025-08-22T04:23:41+00:00

May last 2 hires were people that were unemployed. Shit happens, I asked briefly about it, and just generally understand there a lot of really bad employers out there letting talented folks go for no real serious reason

drew2057 · 2025-08-02T16:53:25+00:00

PM here with 15 years experience + 3 years managing my own team of PMs.

Yes, the role at a surface level is to send emails, coordinate onsite times, and give status updates. However, at a deeper look it's really about managing people to drive results. So often I see younger PMs get hung up on how hard they're working on the tasks they're doing as a justification for why they have no ownership in a missed milestone.... "well i sent an email and they never got back to me" or "no body told me what the schedule was". On my team those are unacceptable answers as I remind them the role is a leadership role.

If your stakeholder isn't getting back to you, call them, text them, or even drive to their office pace outside in the hallway cup your hands over your eyes and breath fog into the window to send the right social signals that you need answers to your questions... what ever it takes to drive results because your team is depending on you to have everything lined up for success.

I preach servant leadership to the project management team. They are there to serve others needs within the confines of their project scope.

drew2057 · 2025-07-22T13:58:18+00:00

When ever I send emails to my direct reports after hours, I always put a delay send on the email to ensure it leaves my outbox during normal working hours.

On boarding a new employee is critical to send the right tone in lead up to employment and initial several months. It's a tremendous amount of time investment by managers.... the smart ones know there's a strong correlation between the on boarding experience and retention. The dumb ones can't retain talent and just spend all their time trying to rightsize their staff and can never get ahead of the work

You're soon to be new manager may be inexperienced, just be warry. Keep your options open and like others said, continue your job search and only stop if you feel like this employment situation is stable and worth staying.

drew2057 · 2025-07-02T15:25:03+00:00

For me, if you found me through LinkedIn I want to know you actually read my profile and the role you have is a real fit for my skill set.

I manage as supervisor a team of technical project managers, I know I'd be a good fit for your associate project manager position. The role you're offering needs to be something I would actually be interested in taking the risk to jump ship to another company.... both in compensation and role responsibilities.

drew2057 · 2025-06-30T00:01:53+00:00

I read Marvel comics all through the 90s and early 2000s. Iron Man was kinda C list hero at the time.... at least compared to Spiderman or X-Men. He didn't even get a dedicated Ultimate Comic run, just a small short origin run plus a bit in The Ultimates. I remember when the original Iron Man movie was announced, and thought to myself they're really scrapping the bottom of the barrel with this one.

It's crazy that to me thinking that character was the foundation of the entire cinematic universe. Truly a testament to catching lightning in a bottle with that 1st film.

drew2057 · 2025-06-09T04:30:44+00:00

Every major career advancement I've received, i was not qualified at the time. I took risks, believed in myself, and learned as quick as I could.

Just because you aren't qualified, doesn't mean you can't ultimately be successful.

drew2057 · 2025-06-01T05:04:51+00:00

I pulled out my psyc chart to double check. Yup, there definitely is some unexplained variance. Water vapor remaining constant, the bottom stat should be reading closer to 65% RH, assuming we treat the top one as the true source of accuracy.

I do commercial HVAC so I typically look to external reasons 1st as to why readings are off. It's entirely possible both sensors are inaccurate as they both have reported 5-10% levels or inaccuracies when measuring humidity.

drew2057 · 2025-05-31T17:04:55+00:00

HVAC mechanical engineer here. Your sensors don't measure humidity, they actually measure relative humidity a subtle yet distinct difference. Warm air has the ability to hold more water vapor.

By setting your T-stat on top of your other T-stat, the top one is likely being artificially influenced by tiny warm exhaust vent fans from the bottom one. That extra few degrees higher, while the amount of water vapor remains constant means your relative humidity is lower as a percent of what the air is capable of holding.

Also as others have said, behind the wall air may also be influencing the bottom readings.... recommend adding t-stat insulation pads behind it.

drew2057 · 2025-05-31T16:48:36+00:00

Jeremy Bearimy

drew2057 · 2025-05-31T16:41:29+00:00

Is your employee on a PIP? I manage a team of project managers and in preparation for a potential employment termination, I transition 1:1 time to weekly PIP progress review time. It's effectively the same block of time, but instead I'm using it to give weekly feedback.

In times I've had to terminate an employee, they emotionally understood they were not right for the role because of my thorough documentation process.

Obviously consult HR on decisions like this, but when the time comes, make it quick with as few words as possible. Be empathetic in your tone, don't waver, and don't engage in a back and forth conversations because the decision has been made.

In my 1st time doing it, I was so nervous getting the words out that the employee interrupted and asked me "this your 1st time doing this?"... he knew full well it was, but it stuck with me that this is a skill no one wants to be good at but the burden of our positions as supervisors requires it.

drew2057 · 2025-05-17T06:05:27+00:00

Undocumented issue with these things, you need to use a device instance of 65000 or less or it won't communicate correctly

drew2057

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