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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 9th, 2023

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  • An office is usually divided in different departments that have different functions.

    In no particular order, not exhaustive, and skipping management and IT, typical functions could be:

    Customer service. Pick up the main phone line and check the official mail box, talk to customers, redirect calls to other departments.

    Sales coordinators. Receive orders from customers, through sales representatives or by web etc. They basically ensure that all incoming orders have the proper data to be processed. Keeps track of order confirmations and maybe send data back to the customers.

    Logistics. Arrange shipments from suppliers, to customers and between stock locations. Files all documents for toll and tariffs.

    Debtor controllers. Keeps track of customer payments, outgoing invoices, payment plans, sending reminders and debt collection.

    Creditor controllers. Register incoming invoices. Get approvals from whoever ordered it and pays the bills on time or whenever it makes most sense for discounts and such.

    Finance controllers. Keeps track of the entire balance sheet. Bank reconciliations, cash flow, investments, files and pays taxes. General bookkeeping that doesn’t fit in the other departments. Does the financial statements, reporting, monthly, quarterly or annually.

    Purchasing, HR/Payroll and PR/marketing are self-explanatory I think.

    All of these administrative functions are necessary in most companies, but in smaller companies it all could very well be done by a single person, while in large companies they might have several people in each department.

    Many companies have several subsidiaries or other constructions, so tasks or functions can also be spread out like that. For instance, I can be the creditor department in one company while also doing finance in another or payroll in a third. So while the functions are somewhat strictly defined by the tasks, it’s only in very large companies that someone does just one function.

    All office functions are constantly being made more efficient. A lot of it is truly boring, so it’s in everyone’s interest to automate as much as possible. I don’t feel sorry for someone losing their office job to an algorithm, no, I’m happy for them not having to do it anymore.

    It’s not a stupid question. When I was interviewing for my first office job back in 2001, I literally asked if they could show me what I had to do.

    Seing someone who entered data into a program, I asked if that’s it? You really want me to just enter data into that program? OK, I can do that. And so I was hired to put numbers into boxes on the screen and have been doing that ever since. Not the same program of course. I’ve been around all departments by now and spend most of my work time working on avoiding typing numbers into boxes.












  • Unpredictable things happen at that speed.

    Forget about braking distance. The reaction time is the difference between life and dying before you even know it.

    I know of one example where a motorcyclist killed himself that way. Nobody knows how fast he was going but it’s assumed above 250 km/h, on a regular highway. Down the road is a cross section. A lorry was fully stopped at the crossing and preparing to turn right onto the highway in the same direction as the motorcycle. The lorry driver checked both directions and saw that the road was completely clear as far as the eye could see, hundreds of meters.

    A split second later he heard a bump and pulled over to check if he had hit an animal or something. He found a massive hole in the back and the debris from a motorcycle. There was no brake marks or anything indicating that the motorcycle had even attempted to brake or steer around. The theory is that the motorcyclist might have glimpsed at the speedometer or something for long enough that he drove the entire visible distance before being able to even react.

    Obviously he was a fault himself, but the point is that at speeds like this, you no longer have any capability to predict what happens next.

    If your friend thinks that cool, he might as well play Russian roulette. At least that doesn’t put innocent people in danger.









  • It’s always going to be more difficult challenging the “winning” strategy.

    Democrats seem to be more open to change and internal democracy.

    Whatever shed of ideology is left in either party is also pointed in different directions. Roughly described, the ideologies are (supposed to be) that left wing is taking ideas from the masses and sending them upwards through democratic elections, while right wing only accepts top down decision making. Seeing the many “Trump regret” clips, it’s pretty clear that his policies did not originate from his voter base.

    Another case of point is when politicians flip flop and change party. Democrats allow right wing politicians to infiltrate their party dragging them to the right, whereas you don’t see someone like Bernie Sanders joining GOP to drag them towards social democracy.