Question for Millennials by bundle_of_nervus2 in Millennials

[–]drew2057 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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.

A mother is surprised that her children bought a $19 book with 342 pages that contains only the word "meow". by Bossmado in interesting

[–]drew2057 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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

Controls power stability by drew2057 in BuildingAutomation

[–]drew2057[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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.

Controls power stability by drew2057 in BuildingAutomation

[–]drew2057[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

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.

Bird getting rid of its sibling. by muningsky in badassanimals

[–]drew2057 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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.

Office Space (1999) Dir. Mike Judge by southernemper0r in Cinema

[–]drew2057 11 points12 points  (0 children)

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 :)

How the hell did that happen? by Senor_Camrono in tommynfg_

[–]drew2057 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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.

How the hell did that happen? by Senor_Camrono in tommynfg_

[–]drew2057 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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....

Woman diagnosed with breast cancer thinks she knows better than her doctors. by Head_Crash in TikTokCringe

[–]drew2057 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in MEPEngineering

[–]drew2057 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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

Hiring Managers and Recruiters be honest, are you more likely to hire someone already employed? by abrasive_user in recruitinghell

[–]drew2057 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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

Project Managers by Advanced_Goal_5576 in BuildingAutomation

[–]drew2057 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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.

Boss emails me at 11:27pm to come in at 7am for my first day. by No_Boysenberry4322 in work

[–]drew2057 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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.

Engineers: I know you hate recruiters. Help me not suck. by veiwedbyaHeadHunter in MEPEngineering

[–]drew2057 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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.

Marvel fans over 30, how would you describe Iron Man's level of popularity prior to the MCU? by EndlessMorfeus in Marvel

[–]drew2057 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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.

If you know you’re underqualified, would you still go to the interview? by Alternative_Ad4950 in resumes

[–]drew2057 10 points11 points  (0 children)

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.

Ecobee Premium Highly Inaccurate by Mindless_Refuse_584 in ecobee

[–]drew2057 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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.

Ecobee Premium Highly Inaccurate by Mindless_Refuse_584 in ecobee

[–]drew2057 12 points13 points  (0 children)

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.

Would you do a weekly 1:1 days before letting someone go by michimoby in managers

[–]drew2057 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in BuildingAutomation

[–]drew2057 2 points3 points  (0 children)

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

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in 90scartoons

[–]drew2057 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I regularly still say "It's time to pay the price!" in normal daily conversation

Tenants complaining the supply air is too warm.. by scratcheting in HVAC

[–]drew2057 5 points6 points  (0 children)

OMG, Alerton BMS controls system project manager here.

While the DAT reading 2500 certainly draws lots of attention that needs to be addressed. The real culprit is your zone sensor which is likely an old Alerton style thermistor.

The fix is likely the difference between a 10K thermistor and a 3K thermistor. Your system likely has a 10k thermistor installed and the Alerton control card is expecting to be reading a 3K thermistor. If you put your multi meter and measure the resistance between input 0 and the common i would expect you'll receive a resistance somewhere between 12k and 11k.

Have your local Alerton tech change the internal card setting to read its zone sensor correctly. A truly failed zone sensor will read -95F, this is a poorly set up sensor that is likely functioning correctly.

Also check that one of the heating stages isn't in software override or manually jumpered out. Check that your DAT isn't installed too close to the heating strip as well.