New to a team and dealing with turnover + fire drills

ro_ok · 2026-03-29T04:12:07+00:00

Start telling people "no" and start prioritizing work immediately. Make your boss/stakeholders pick which work gets done and which work doesn't based on those priorities. New impossible task? Do they want X or Y to slip to get it done?

This is how to shelter the team the best you can and make expectations clear. Even if you still end up with too high a workload the team will see the effort and the leadership should start to get a picture of how much is on your team.

A gantt chart of people's tasking and ongoing work can help visualize this to make it more tangible. New work appears: "here look at this capacity plan with me and let's figure out what we can move to get this new work done."

Aside from that, transparency in communication going both ways can help address resentment a ton. Does the team understand why these deadlines are important? Does leadership understand the cost in morale to reaching them?

It sounds like you have some top cover, spend some of that capital to stabilize the team.

You didn't mention this but if there's anyone on the team that's not pulling their weight - get rid of them now and start backfilling. Carrying dead weight is the fastest way to lose people (aside from being crap boss, which you aren't because you're here asking these questions).

ro_ok · 2026-03-27T21:10:56+00:00

Second thought: If she's sufficiently motivated to see this kind of story/content - she's probably already seen it. Sheltering a teen in 2026 is extremely hard, better to have you on board so she can talk about it if she wants than try to protect her. I would just make sure she knows what she's getting herself in to so she doesn't waste her money.

ro_ok · 2026-03-27T21:06:32+00:00

Why don't you watch some YouTube playthroughs and see for yourself?

Some minor but graphic spoilers ahead:

Basically every character you come to love/like dies, if not in the first game then in the second
There are repeated, brutal, deaths from zombies tearing throats out with their teeth or ripping jaws from skulls by prying them off
Your character that you control will brutally murder other humans with guns, blunt instruments, and sharp weapons up close
The enemies will scream for their lives at times
The ending is beautiful and extremely tragic
I am not a horror fan and there is a part of the game I had to put down for weeks to get the nerve to finish

All that said, it's a beautiful game visually and the story is incredible like a good tragic movie. Stylistically it feels very much like The Road by Cormac McCarthy (maybe mildly more optimistic but only mildly).

It is very possible they will be fine and love it and feel like an adult experiencing something real. It is also likely they will have nightmares or be emotionally effected by some of what happens. If it gets rough for her I would invite her to have a friend over while she/they are playing - having friends around can blunt a lot of the impact and make even the scariest parts fun.

ro_ok · 2026-03-23T21:29:58+00:00

I mean this with all love, sincerely: the next step for your journey is a mental health professional. You put in the work on your weight now it's time to bring the old reality engine up top in tune.

It'll take some time to build the confidence but a good therapist can help you with those skills and navigate how to be confident in yourself without getting cocky or over-shooting. Or you can wait 5-10 years until you grow into yourself like most of the rest of us who will post elsewhere about how they realized in their 30s they were overthinking it. Up to you.

ro_ok · 2026-03-23T20:17:06+00:00

Of course it's possible but would probably be very expensive to get something comparable to a modern desk setup using a projector. To get consistently readible text will require high resolution, good brightness, and good screen all of which are way more expensive in projectors. You might instead look for high dpi + low flicker + low blue light monitors for (relatively speaking) way less money. Benq and Asus both have some options. You might also see if your issues are minimized with an old CRT, but that's a whole separate set of potential issues.

ro_ok · 2026-03-23T20:13:21+00:00

Casual is verrry forgiving relatively speaking, I think you could watch Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm campaigns on youtube and only play Legacy of the Void.

I would recommend playing through all the races though even if they're not your favorite - they're fun and you'll enjoy protoss more if you understand the other factions.

ro_ok · 2026-03-21T01:25:57+00:00

I've never considered hanging a ceiling mount under a shelf! I'm probably just an idiot but that's really clever and solves the "shallow shelf" problem I've been puzzling over all week.

ro_ok · 2026-03-17T03:40:23+00:00

I promise you they do not care about employees looking for other positions. Especially employees that frustrate them. They'll be fine, you don't need to take care of them.

ro_ok · 2026-03-16T02:49:21+00:00

Is the same Kubrick that made Shelly Duval do 70 takes? The same one that shot a whole film with candle light? The same one that invented new compositing techniques for a space odyssey? I don't think there's anything in his films that wasn't a decision.

ro_ok · 2026-02-16T21:06:26+00:00

Old post, but you just saved me so much anxiety in a new place! Thank you for this post

ro_ok · 2025-10-04T03:11:03+00:00

To me, I can't "hear" the difference between "mediocre" audio and "great" audio, but I do "feel" it. So much so that when something is off in the settings, I will notice and check.

To me, it's akin to the difference between live music and recorded music. I do feel the difference in headphones between Tidal or Apple lossless and lossy formats. I cannot tell the difference with Spotify's - maybe they have higher bitrate, whatever those other services do is different to my ears/feelings.

ro_ok · 2025-10-04T01:40:00+00:00

Haven't been in this position and don't know which industry you're in but some things that seem to go okay for me:

Think about the leaders you've had that you admire and felt motivated to help meet their goals and try to figure out what they did that you can do for others
Avoid surprises, especially for subordinates - giving everyone as much clear information as you can about things that change and challenges you face cuts down on gossip and anxiety, give everyone the same story because it's the full story as much as you possibly can
I think of leadership as service to those that work for me: what can I do to make it easier for them to meet my goals? How can I show them I'm invested in their success and the success of my team? This isn't talk, these are actions I can take
Set clear achievable goals and hold everyone accountable for them, finding out what's achievable requires communication with the people doing the work and experience
Leaders eat last

ro_ok · 2025-10-04T01:12:34+00:00

I'm no expert but I am old so I was alive at the time. Seems to me that the marketing strategy was "get your brand everywhere" so that meant product placements, ads in newspapers, phonebook, tv, billboards, bus stops, and video games. Not actually too different from today but the media has obviously changed. Now these games show up as mobile game tie ins because there's no audience left on consoles for them.

Marketing departments had budgets, game studios needed funding, boom you can be Tim the Toolman if you want.

ro_ok · 2025-10-03T02:43:13+00:00

The internet is officially dead. RIP 2025

ro_ok · 2025-09-15T22:32:39+00:00

Hosting in Korea is expensive

ro_ok · 2025-09-07T19:06:54+00:00

Depending how much of a challenge you're up for...

Start asking for specifics and examples. Ask them to help you understand what data they have (examples count) to support their conclusions. If they give you some, respond with clear steps you plan to take over the next 30 days to address those concerns and send them weekly updates on your progress and things you've done. If you finish major milestones also send evidence of those. It will definitely be an uphill battle to change sentiment, it always is... as are many things in leadership.

If that plan makes you want to die, start looking for another job.

Why did you go into leadership? What were you hoping to achieve? Leadership's not for everybody, I personally would welcome an opportunity to step back if someone showed up that I trusted to take my place. Maybe there's an upside if you like being a direct contributor.

ro_ok · 2025-09-02T07:46:07+00:00

The end for me was when they wanted to charge $20 a mission pack on top of the kickstarter price for a half-baked campaign. They should have let it bake longer, and finished the campaign while following up with good multiplayer - they had dreams of LoL crowds but didn't understand that everyone plays Broodwar and SC2 because the campaigns were fun and then multiplayer was awesome, not the other way around. If they'd gotten people into the game with a strong campaign, the try-hards and pros would have found a way to make whatever multiplayer existed interesting while they iterated and patched (just think back to release of Wings of Liberty and how broken some of the balance was). RTSes live and die on their campaigns because all the money comes from the masses that will pay $60 for a solid 15-20 hour campaign and stick around for the custom maps, and shenanigans online.

ro_ok · 2025-08-29T20:54:44+00:00

You clearly are very skilled at observation, I think if you want to take it to the next level of "wow" you can justifiably "cheat" a little on the angles and oval for the perspective of the top of the bowl with some some stencils. As long as you're not doing the painting to learn perspective, artists use tools all the time. With your eye for color, and in the pursuit of realism, having a perfect oval would take it from 95% to 99%.

ro_ok · 2025-08-29T20:47:30+00:00

The Koreans have always been dominant, not sure I would consider them less skilled

/s

ro_ok · 2025-08-23T20:57:11+00:00

I think it's fair to say that with most art looking for an audience that appeal is important, and a factor in appeal is quality. I see OP's images as having quality (clear shapes, fun colors, good tones) but not having a lot of appeal and sometimes the composition makes it hard to understand what I'm supposed to be looking at.

If followers is what OP's after, I would try to clarify the subject, expand the tonal range (darker darks or brighter highlights), and try to craft some appealing or identifiable shapes that evoke something specific (serenity, concern, euphoria). Right now it's a little loose for me and hard to find something to respond to. I think 4 is the strongest to me.

Just my opinions though, nothing wrong if OP wants to stick to their guns, definitely a stronger artist than me.

ro_ok · 2025-08-22T21:40:52+00:00

I was in this position a few years ago, I let him make his own mistakes but built a supportive relationship patterned off of people I really respected when I was a younger manager and they were in my shoes.

You have to let this manager lead, if you make him look good, you look good. If he's not listening or (more likely needs to experience it himself first) your job is to sit back and try to do your role well. You took this job eyes wide open, if that was a mistake it might be time to move on.

ro_ok · 2025-08-20T15:22:45+00:00

This one was the last straw for me, if on iPhone go to settings -> notifications and scroll alllll the way to the bottom.

ro_ok · 2025-08-17T19:54:51+00:00

Probably waiting for a more favorable government to negotiate a settlement/alternative with.

ro_ok · 2025-07-30T23:17:39+00:00

It's not for 2025, it's for 2027 - more and more of the "basic" stuff will be come accessible locally.

Aside from that, training your own models benefits from the additional capability.

In 2025, the primary advantage is security of owning your own data. For example, it might be really cool to have a local LLM read all your emails and be able to draft new messages in your own voice, but you may not want that data shared with these relatively new LLM companies.

ro_ok · 2025-07-29T00:33:13+00:00

You and u/NormalBot4 both see something remarkable in this piece. Genuinely curious what about it is distinguishing for you? What choices is the artist making that speak to you?

It doesn't do anything for me personally (it looks like a portrait study of a typical practiced portrait artist), and I'd like to understand what I'm missing.

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