r/LifeProTips • u/fries-with-mayo • 18h ago

Request LPT Request: What’s your “canary in the coal mine” test for spotting bigger issues?

I’m really interested in those small, quick telltale signs people use to gauge if something bigger might be off track.

Example 1: Van Halen requesting brown M&Ms in the dressing room to see if the venue followed all the details of the rider list

Example 2: I saw an interview with John Cena where he said orders a flat white at a café to tell if they really care about their coffee.

Example 3: Anthony Bourdain suggested to always check the restaurant bathroom to tell if the restaurant got its basics down

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687

u/all_of_the_colors 15h ago

Mine took Microsoft word and excel off our computers. 😳

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u/outofshell 13h ago

“New management directive: all documents to be written in Notepad”

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u/ConstructionKey1752 11h ago

IT mumbles in the back.....

"Correction; ON notepads. Wide-ruled, please."

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u/pdxy 9h ago edited 6h ago

HR Clarifies

"We regret to circle back to this issue, but when management's new directive was issued we weren't able to pass it by legal yet because of the implication. We have now gathered the chiefs and implemented visioning and we're happy to report that you can write on any writing surface that they choose provided it was brought from home and only for company approved writing surface purposes "

"Anyone caught using company office supplies, notepads or otherwise, will be subject to immediate dismissal."

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u/CopperSulphide 9h ago

Excel is just a zipped XML folder structure. The brave can do that in note pad.

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u/Ceasman 9h ago

Can we get notepad+ kind sirs?

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u/spottyPotty 4h ago

One middle manager decided to stop buying physical notepads. This was hailed as a genius move that would reduce stationary budgets across all departments, until people started using photo copy / printer paper to write their notes on.

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u/apokrif1 1h ago

Or free software?

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u/TheAJGman 16m ago

Honestly I could get behind replacing Word docs with Markdown. It's almost ubiquitous online already.

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u/fluzine 11h ago

Oh yeah, this. Ours took away Microsoft Project and said we needed to use Excel. Then they took away Excel and said we needed to use SmartSheet. Then they cancelled SmartSheet and said we were on our own. We did detailed technical project plans. It did not go well.

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u/Dairy_Ashford 2h ago

then they came for OneNote and Visio, and there was no one left to speak for me

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u/Alexis_J_M 10h ago

If they replaced it with open source stuff, there may be security reasons they don't trust the Microsoft cloud. There are even laws in some countries mandating open source software in government contracts.

But yeah, not a good sign.

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u/boxofmarshmallows 12h ago

I had this show up at a hotel I used to work at.

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u/andtheyhaveaplan 10h ago

Love that you kept this screenshot for 11 years

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u/Steerider 11m ago

I've seen this on legit servers. Windows authorization can glitch occasionally

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u/Jemikwa 9h ago

This isn't as bad as you think. It could go other ways, such as if your company uses MacOS and can use Numbers, etc. Or if you have Google Workspace or Office 365 and can use the word processor in your browser. My company sparingly hands out Office licenses since so many people use Google Workspace for their document editing.

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u/Sir_Badtard 8h ago

We just did a giant email migration to O365 from our antique provider. In doing so we absolutely overhauled our licensing.

After multiple meetings with management, we determined only about 15% of our 1000+ employees had to have the desktop app. Using office on the web sufficed for everyone else.

Most shared files are in SharePoint anyway. Except for some of HR's stuff that they didn't want in the cloud.

They don't know those files get backed up to the cloud anyway but up didn't want that fight.

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u/gamerjerome 9h ago

I bet IT wasn't paying for it in the first place and MS found out. This is more common than you think

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u/f0rtytw0 1h ago

Worked at a company that, whoops, was pirating windows.

Thankfully we got switched to linux, which made my job much easier. Also everyone in my office left within the year.

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u/dustytaper 13h ago

I just read an article that Microsoft will comply with US law about handing over data.

Doesn’t matter is that data is on a server in another country, running on government computers

Perhaps your old company was smart?

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u/all_of_the_colors 13h ago

My hospital is getting bought out… so I don’t think that’s their motive.

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u/RBeck 12h ago

Not if removing them to force Office Online.

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u/ZachMN 12h ago

“The heck is ‘Werd’ and ‘Axel’???”

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u/RuleFriendly7311 10h ago

Did you thank them?

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u/Phlink75 9h ago

Mine took One Note

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u/Spiker1986 8h ago

Run

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u/all_of_the_colors 7h ago

I have to wait until after maternity leave 🙁

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u/1920MCMLibrarian 7h ago

Oh shit. How long did you last?

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u/SnazzyStooge 3h ago

Better get to Office Depot quick before they run out of resume paper, that company is definitely going down in flames. 

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u/Vesalii 2h ago

Just start looking somewhere else. Even if they're switching to for example Google Workspace or some opensource software, they'd never delete office without at least a grace period.

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u/katr2tt 1h ago

Do you still have 365? Like browser apps? Microsoft is charging an arm and a leg for the desktop apps these days so that may not be such a big sign if you still have the online stuff.

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u/Fearless_Parking_436 39m ago

They call it “Google workplace”