Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with corporate

Creative Ideas to get my money's worth post facto-

priested — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 07:08:07 -0800

I might have to pay money for a service I basically never used. Any creative ideas on how to get my money's worth post situation? I requested new home phone and Internet service from Verizon approximately 7/30/09, after which I was told a phone number was issued to two homes simultaneously.

My phone service did not get connected until 8/4/09 and my Internet service was never connected. By 8/7/09, I requested the entire plan be discontinued as a result of Verizon’s unprofessional handling of the situation (spent about 7 hours on hold or speaking with supervisors that couldn't do anything but give me the run-around, and not even politely at that).

Upon original receipt of requested payment, I contacted Verizon’s credit department and was told I would be issued a credit for the amount owed, essentially nullifying the amount owed.

I requested this in writing but did not receive this. Now I got a letter from a collections agency (which I've in-turn disputed after getting no where on the second round of calls).

I am being asked to pay for a service I did not use for anything outside of contacting Verizon to fix the problems they created (can they charge me a whole month's worth for 3 to 4 days use?).

Additionally, they are saying I had the service longer than I did (4 days of it the phone didn't work, although their system says it did because the number was duplicated and worked elsewhere).

Here's the real question... Assuming I do have to pay the amount (it's under 100 bucks, but it is the principal!), any suggestions on how I can get my money's worth out of them? I've considered printing up thousands of flyers and posting them around town, etc...

The more creative, the better.

How can I find out the chain of corporate ownership starting from a company name or product name?

freecellwizard — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 08:05:11 -0800

How can I find out the chain of corporate ownership starting from a company name or product name? I would love to be able to take a product like "Snickers bar" or a company like "ABC Corp." and be shown a visual tree of ownership and relationships. I've seen magazine articles in the past that discuss this for specific cases, such as showing that various brands of soap all have the same owner, but I haven't been able to find a general way to figure this out.

NOTE: I'm guessing that the difficulty of getting this info varies by country due to public disclosure laws. In my case I'm specifically interested in US-owned corporations. Thanks!

What have they done to become a corporate executive?

neworder7 — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:32:34 -0800

What have they done to become a corporate executive? I am aware that there is no exact path to follow like a cookbook recipe to achieve the results , but I always wondered what some of the executives have done to get there? Any formal or informal qualifications that helps to get there? Real life examples/stories would be good too, trying to get the feel of how one can increase their potential.

I always thought most people at that level have very good articulation and writing skills. People skills, networking are also obvious ones that I can think of. I know getting a Business degree helps but not every MBA degree holder gets to be successful.

Any comments welcome even if you don't have real life experience.

Thank you.

Theories/discussions about corporate inertia

runkelfinker — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 09:43:27 -0800

I'm looking for interesting theories/discussions around the phenomenon of corporate inertia I'm trying to find out as much as I can online about corporate inertia - in other words, how companies and management get bogged down, fail to innovate, make stupid decisions etc, because of internal issues which may be organisational, cultural, attitudinal or similar.

So far I've found a few things - e.g. Warren Buffett's "Institutional imperative", as well as the Peter Principle and Parkinson's Law, but am eager to hear of more!

Corporate backup is big and complicated.

gregr — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 11:58:33 -0800

I'm going to upgrade the corporate backup environment where I work in 2010, and I need help sorting through all of the backup hardware/software providers. I've had DataDomain, FalconStor, ExaGrid, and a bunch of other companies give presentations about their backup solutions, but they are all running together in my head. Does anyone have hands on experience or suggestions about which company to go with (your suggestion doesn't have to be one of the companies listed above)? Price is important, but I know this is going to be expensive. Details about the environment and the desired feature set inside. I would like the following things in the new backup environment:

Disk to Disk Backup

Deduplication

Site to Site Data Replication (probably replicate the small sites backups to two main sites then replicate the two main sites between each other.)

Easy Addition of More Storage

Easy to add Another Site

NO TAPES

Detailed information about our current environment:

We have a total of 6 sites spread across the USA. Three small sites each have a file server, a domain controller, a backup server, and and a tape library. The remaining three sites each have 20-80 servers. There are a mix of SQL servers, Exchange email servers, websites, domain controllers, etc. We use Symantec Backup Exec, and all of the tape hardware is LTO-3. All of the sites have VPN tunnels connecting back to the main sites. The three small sites have business cable internet, the two biggest sites have symmetric 10 megabit internet, and the third biggest site has 2x T1s.

Please no suggestions to use open source software/hardware unless I can get a support SLA of ~4 hours.

Eco-friendly mugs that can be personalized for each employee

Talulah — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 06:23:07 -0800

Help! I've wandered through the promotional mug wasteland and I need some assistance. My organization is moving to a LEED certified building in a few months. In efforts to welcome the 60+ employees to the new space, we're putting together a welcome package for each person and the hardest part seems to be locating just the right kind of mugs. In my dream world the mugs would all:
- Be recycled or green (although in just being permanent mugs they are way greener than the current styrofoam cups)
- Be personalized. And this doesn't mean having the company logo on it. They want to get each employees name printed right on the front.

Ideas?

How do I start a poetry group at work?

zooropa — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:25:37 -0800

How do I start a poetry circle at my company? I just purchased a new book called Leading from Within: Poetry That Sustains the Courage to Lead. Originally, I bought it to read and inspire myself at work. Now, as I go deeper into it, I'm thinking this would be a terrific thing to do with other people at work.

Does anyone have ideas or thoughts on how to start a poetry reading group? Obviously, I would perfer thoughts on how to start one at work, but I'll take general poetry circles at this point. Do multiple read a poem or does one person? Do you ask people to share their own? Do you ask them to read it aloud or to themselves? What kind of questions are good to start conversation?

Please bear in mind, I'm not trying to start a prayer or meditation circle. I work for a media agency and it's difficult to keep the bigger picture in mind as we rush from project to project. My goal is to bring people together for 45 minutes one day a month where we read poetry together as a way of recharging our creative batteries.

Your thoughts and recommendations are more than welcome.

Should we stay or should we go?

hamandcheese — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 18:33:45 -0800

Life choices-filter: What should my wife and I do next? Hi all,

My wife and I are both well-employed and relatively successful mid to late twenty-somethings. We're currently in a mid-size Canadian city, but have aspirations to a lot more travel and work internationally. We'd like that to be soon, but could also pursue some pretty good opportunities here...

My wife works as the education manager at a decent size museum, and loves her work, but is not liking her job. The museum is owned by the government but largely operated by a non-profit society that does all of the fundraising, marketing, volunteer coordination, events, and education programs. Her society is in the midst of a major power struggle with the museum itself and her entire organization may quit or be kicked out before its all over, so she has no job security at all, and the work environement itself has turned into a rumor mongering, us vs. them, hellhole. Things are in arbitration right now, without the possibility for resolution until September (although they keep pushing the dates back, so there is no guarantee).

I work for an engineering company doing editing and graphic design, but find the soulless money-making focus and ridiculous stipulations put on my work by my corporate masters takes all joy and sense of purpose out my job. I want out pretty bad, but have managed to pay 3/4 of my student debt off in the past year, and know that I could get the last $6,500 paid within another 3 months. That would mean we'd be debt free, which of course would be awesome. On the side, I also have my own freelance editing, graphic design and photography business that has been growing fairly well without a whole lot of effort on my part. That said, it's still a pretty small-scale affair, but I feel confident I could do well with it if I had time to throw myself at it. I really enjoy this work because it is for myself and my clients, and because the projects are all very diverse. Photography has become my major passion, and my emotional side is telling me to quit my job tomorrow and throw myself into my own business to see if I can really grow it. I'm pretty sure I could make a go of wedding photography as well, and with all of these diverse things, could make enough of a living to get do reasonably well within a few months, and quite well within 1-2 years.

Now here's the complicated part: we've been talking about going overseas to work since we finished university 1-2 years ago. We don't really care where. If our debt was paid, we could take jo-jobs anywhere we could get work visas (such as British Commonwealth countries), and have a great time. With no debt, we could also look into volunteer opportunities in places like Africa. If we still carry some of this debt, we would probably be better off teaching english as a second language somewhere in Asia, but this would be cool too. I think we'd be happy to do pretty much any of these things.

Soooooo, with all of that as background, here's the dilemma: If my wife's society survives the museum meltdown, her job will be something worth sticking with a while longer. She's quite young to have a position like this and it is a really great opportunity for her if she sticks with museum or interpretation work, or if she gets her teaching degree (long-term goal). If this is the case, and we're going to stay here longer, then my choice would be to quit my job tomorrow (I dislike it that much), debt or no debt, and try to do the work I like doing. But we have no certainty that her job will last, and if I do quit my job to focus on the freelance work, and then she loses hers, we'll be a lot worse off financially than if I stick it out until they resolve it. (but I hate it!)

Should we stick it out, or should we start selling our belongings and looking into work visas?

Should I quit my job? Or would that be stupid? Should I throw myself into my own business, or would that be extra stupid since we plan to leave the country and travel within a year? (I really want to do both!)

Should we go teach english? Or do something else?

I'm not looking for definitive answers; I know we need to answer these questions ourselves. I'd just love some opinions. So lay it on me Mefites. Don't be shy.

Should we stay or should we go?

Who's in charge?

bookmammal — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 19:04:41 -0800

Can you clarify the differences between a director, a manager and a coordinator in the typical corporate hierarchy? Which title is considered to have the most responsibility/power, etc?

Is it okay to give the name of a hiring manager as a reference, too?

Anonymous — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 09:48:53 -0800

Someone who is one of my best professional references wants to hire me! But now how do I offer good references to his large, corporate HR department? Mr. Men Tor was a supervisor and professional mentor to me a few places of employment ago. I have, since those days, used him as one of my best professional references. We had a terrific working relationship and remain in touch today, well over a decade later.

Recently he mentioned that there's a position under him that he would like me to fill. While I'm not entirely sure the position would work for me due to it requiring a vicious multi-hour commute, he has encouraged me to go through the process in any case and I'm game.

But I've reached a minor sticking point in how to proceed. Mr. Tor's company's HR department is sure to ask me for my professional references, however I have no idea if it's kosher to put his name down. Is giving the name of the hiring manager something that will look dodgy to your typical HR person? Or would I be viewed more favorably in that case? I have other professional references I can use but Mr. Tor is definitely the strongest of them and if it makes sense to offer his name I certainly would prefer to.

I know the obvious answer would be to ask him, but he has left the decision up to me as he doesn't know what his HR people would think, either.

For context: While we're both located on the west coast of the U.S., this company is a large national corporation with more of a midwestern/east coast culture. Both of us are web people, but the overall company is in the retail industry. The position is one of system engineering and administration, where generally I've found good references to be critical to landing the best work. I never faced this issue as a hiring manager in the past, but also wasn't subject to a tremendous quantity of HR involvement in my hiring process, so can't draw on my prior experience in the corporate world.

Our company's website sucks. Let me fix it.

SansPoint — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 19:18:07 -0800

I want to redesign my company's website. How do I make a move to do it? Okay, I'm working for a small technology marketing company (name withheld for obvious reasons) and their website is in dire need of updating. It refers to a location that has been shut down, doesn't have any information about their recent acquisition, new clients, etc. I've got the chops, so I just need to figure out how to make the move and propose my services. If it helps, it's a rather small company (<100 employees), and the three partners are very close with the employees. So, how should I, and who should I propose to redo their website?

Job Opportunity Gut Check

thinkpiece — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:37:38 -0800

What questions should I ask myself in order to decide if I should take a new job in this economic environment? It's basically giant corporation vs. boutique consultancy. I have a stable middle-management job in a large corporation which, although while not exactly exciting, is secure and gives me a certain degree of responsibility and creative control in an area I'm not particularly interested in. The salary, benefits and growth opportunities are all average to good. The soulless bureaucracy, fizzled initiatives, office politics and general no-fun atmosphere leave my entrepreneurial, adventurous side cold. I've been there 18 months, like my boss, feel appreciated. I have recently been approached by a well-established, boutique UK consulting firm committed to building out the NY office. Their core competencies are much more closely aligned with mine, they seem to be on the move, they are well connected and have a dynamic client list with several projects on deck that would immediately fall into my area. Not to mention, more money, more freedom, better title, great events and projects, travel.

My question is: now that we have gone to the next level in discussions, what kinds of economy-related questions should I be asking about their business model? It's obviously a tough climate for strategy consultants -- I want to ask cogent, meaningful questions in order to surface their thinking about the economy and to find out what they're doing to stay strong during this recession.

Corporate Connections Web App?

tomierna — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 20:55:15 -0800

I've searched high and low, on Google and MeFi, and I can't find the site that shows, graphically, connections of corporate board members, CEOs, and politicians. I promise to bookmark the darn thing if it can be re-discovered for me.

Astroturfing: take action against or stay quiet?

Brocktoon — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 13:25:31 -0800

What should I do, if anything, about my former company's astroturfing? In October, I left the manufacturing company I had been working for over the past ten years.

About 3-4 years ago, the CEO of this company began astroturfing at several high traffic, consumer level, industry specific web forums (many of them are for-profit websites, if that matters). He is also using so-called customers ("so-called" as they never paid above wholesale for any product they received) to support this "campaign". More recently, he expanded the deception by baiting his competition under false identities through email. I'm certain he is still currently doing these things.

Would I be a scumbag if I did something about it, and if not, what should I do about it?

I'm looking for this Dadaist poster I saw awhile ago.

parkbench — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 11:42:18 -0800

I'm looking for this Dadaist poster I saw awhile ago. Google is failing me. I'm looking for this Dadaist poster that parodied corporate lingo/jargon in a few pages of PDFs--at the beginning it's intelligible but it quickly breaks down into utter nonsense; entire sentences comprised of non-existent newspeak and graphs that contradict themselves.

It's pretty great. But it's nowhere to be found! Anyone have a clue?

Thanks!

Office Wizard

jasondigitized — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 07:35:31 -0800

What's your favorite technique for getting things done in the office. Answers to this question can span the topics of communication, psychology, politics, organization, time management, technology, etc. For example, I read a technique employed by a famous someone ( can't remember who ), who, without reviewing someone's work, would immediately fire back the question "Is this your best work?", saving his time, and motivating his staff to do better. I stay organized by using Gmail to tag project emails by sending them to 'jasondigitized+projectname@gmail.com'. I have seen a project manager use sticky notes to organize projects with great success. My boss will purposely posit incorrect assumptions in emails which tend to increase response rates. A coworker usually follows up his emails with phone calls to ensure the message was received and understood. What means have you seen, or employ, that make things happen in your cubicle, office, or corner suite?

They're totally watching you... right?

smalls — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 17:20:53 -0800

I am having a debate with someone about privacy whilst using a work laptop at home, using your own internet connection. Help settle this! Excuse me if I sound a little dumb about this but my understanding of computer networking is limited to one undergraduate MIS course (which I hated).

The scenario: User is browsing the internet via a work laptop at home, using his own internet connection (no VPN). In this particular situation, web pages that would normally be blocked from work are not blocked. However, google chat in gmail is not functional at work or at home. I'm super paranoid so I think this is indicative of something. But I'm not sure what. He thinks this is irrelevant, and that it is highly unlikely the company will find out what you are doing if you are not connected to their network.

So, am I right? Please give me specific scenarios that would give evidence to the employer being able to monitor or review activities at some point. For the purposes of the debate, let's assume that cookies/cache/internet history are getting cleared, and also that there is no spyware installed locally on the machine.

What is the most common aptitude/job suitabilty test, or battery of tests, given to upper-level executives in Canada?

OlivesAndTurkishCoffee — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 21:21:23 -0800

What is the most common aptitude/job suitabilty test, or battery of tests, given to upper-level executives in Canada? I don't know any upper-level executives that I can ask, but I have heard numerous times that for many senior positions at Fortune 500-type companies new candidates are put through tests to ensure they are right for the job.
Does anyone have any experience with this in Canada? If so, what companies administer the tests? Has anyone found any to be particularly helpful (either as a genuine measure of employability or as a means to self-understanding)?
I have looked into aptitude testing in general, and have gathered info about Myers-Briggs/ Johnson O'Connor/MBII, but I was wondering if there are others I have overlooked.
I am only interested in tests I can take here in Canada, and only the ones used seriously by employers.

FDIC and Corporate accounts

readery — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 05:24:57 -0800

How do corporations deal with the FDIC insurance guidelines? Do corporations with large payrolls keep a payroll account at a different bank? Are businesses holding large amounts of cash moving accounts around now, looking for good stable banks? How are escrow accounts dealt with?

Come to Campus Now and Receive this Handsome Tote Bag!

Andy's Gross Wart — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 15:10:41 -0800

I have volunteered to help my university procure gifts for speakers and alumni who come to campus to recruit students. What are some good commemorative gifts you have received? The recipients of these gifts will range from billionaire CEOs to middle managers. Due to budgetary constraints, I am imagining gifts under $25. However, I would like to find gifts that are useful and appreciated, so t-shirts and ceramic mugs are not what I had in mind. I was thinking of products along the lines of mini-Leatherman, LL Bean tote bags, or travel mugs.

What are some good gifts you have received and enjoyed that fit this criteria?

How to get corporate sponsors?

Perihelion — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 12:02:10 -0800

In a nutshell: I'm an artist who got trapped in a day job and I no longer have enough available time to create new work. I'd like to raise money from corporate sponsors to help fund a 10 month period where I would paint some new work and then have it exhibited at my local museum. I am not interested in applying for grants because I already know it would be a waste of time for the type art I do. I guess what I need is guidance, tips, or at least a success story to give me some encouragement. Thanks.

How to complain like a polite human.

1f2frfbf — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:03:59 -0800

How do I complain to a corporation without coming off as a prude? Full explanation: I bought my brother-in-law a gift certificate to Timbuk2 for Christmas so he could get a new computer bag, when it arrived it contained a tag like this one. I personally would not have had an issue with this, but he is using the bag in a professional environment and was embarrassed enough by the language to cut the tag out of the bag. I'm embarrassed about the situation myself, since I initially gave him the gift and had no idea they would include a tag like this. I would like to express my displeasure to Timbuk2, but how can I do this and actually get results without being treated as a random nutcase?

Fun, easy and cheap ways for contestants to "buzz in" to answer quiz questions?

VeniceGlass — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 06:28:51 -0800

Our corporate outing next week is going to include a few trivia questions, and we need a good way for people to answer. There will be 10 teams and a captain on each team. Money's a little tight, so those cool electronic buzzers are out. I'd prefer not to suffer the chaos of shouting out answers and figuring who is quickest. So I'd like a method that's fun and accurate. Any ideas?

Joining the corporate blog crowd

O9scar — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:28:57 -0800

I work for a small company. The idea of having a blog (outward-facing, not internal) has come up a couple of times. I'd like to a) find some good examples of existing company blogs as a model, b) figure out issues of upkeep/best practices/etc. The company I work for is small - about a dozen employees, plus a few contractors. A few people said they're willing to write for it, but to me the biggest fear is it dying after only a few posts - so how do I make sure we at least have one weekly post, if not more?

Other people have concerns about giving away trade secrets. I don't want to complicate posting to the blog, but do we need to have someone OK things before they get posted? Do we need blog guidelines/ a blog czar? If so, I have a feeling it'll probably be me.

The main objective for the blog as I understand it is to have a non-press release way of putting news/updates/insights out there. And also to establish our expertise in our area of work (rich media/online product demos). You can mefimail me if you're dying to know the exact company in question.

Running to stand still - resource management in IT

ajp — Fri, 02 May 2008 07:57:46 -0800

Scheduling and work-request software for an IT team. Imagine a team of 6 programmers, within a large organisation. The organisation raises a variety of work-types for the programmers:

Project tasks
Project bugs
Work-requests (up to 10 days' work)
Bugs within live software
Other support tasks

These work-types are raised in a variety of ways:

Bug report within tracking software
Project bug within separate tracking software
Tasks in project plans
Change requests (any change to a test or production system)
Email
Phone call
In person

Already this is messy. It seems to be almost ungovernable for anyone trying to manage resource. Certain procedural changes need to be enforced (i.e. "don't phone direct, raise a bug with the Help Desk") but one major problem is keeping the workload of the programmers up-to-date, so people can request programming resource.

MS Project is too heavy for this. Each programmer may get through one to five or so tasks per day. A spreadsheet is okay, but cumbersome, and requires one person to keep it up to date. (Unless someone has a nifty template to share).

Ideally, software that could help this situation would:

(a) Present a graphical illustration of the available resource -- i.e. a list of who is working on what. Preferably with red/amber/green colours and that sort of stuff.
(b) Have a web-based GUI.
(c) Allow people with relevant permissions to request resource (although not named individuals) and provide details on work required.
(d) Provide some simple workflow, allowing certain individuals to accept or reject work requests.
(d) Do nothing else -- email, forums, calendars, blah blah blah, totally not needed. Maybe it could generate fancy reports, that might be nice.

I'm sure something like this exists, but I haven't found it yet.

Thanks for any suggestions.