Somebody called our facilities department about a burned out light bulb in my work area. That’s 1.
The facilities secretary despatched 2 engineers to change the bulb. That’s 2, 3 & 4.
The engineers came to my desk to ask me (5)where the bulb was. This was the first I heard of it so I asked the other 2 people who who work in the same area (6 & 7). None of us had made the call.
Then one of the engineers pops out the name “Chris” – no clue why that hadn’t come out first thing as the name was on the work order, but anyway… “Hey, I’ll bet that was Chris L”, I say, because she was here earlier checking out a setup for a special event.
So they decide to stroll over to Chris’s office. A few minutes later we hear an overhead page, “Chris L, please dial 6210”, which is her own phone number. These guys clearly had gone there, talked to someone else (8) because Chris wasn’t there, who called the hospital operator (9) to page Chris.
I don’t know if they actually hooked up and got the light bulb changed.
I wish. Afterward someone made a joke about how many of us it took to change a light bulb, and we counted, and giggled like schoolgirls over the result. Sometimes there is just too much time available.
I (1) called Engineering (2) and they said I needed to send a request through Lotus Notes. So I called IT (3) to get the correct link. After sending one request, I sent a second which someone (4) finally responded to by sending an engineer (5) to my office. While there, he has to call another engineer (6) to see if they have the particular bulb in stock.
This was all two weeks ago, and I haven’t heard back since.
In the past, back when life was good and things were normal, all I’d have to do is call my guy in facilities and ask him to come up and change it. Total time elapsed maybe ten minutes. Now, since we’ve outsourced facilities, when I have a blown light bulb in my office, I have to call an 800 number, report it, have a project manager assigned to it, who will then find someone in facilities to change it. Total time elapsed ten days. :rolleyes:
I wanted an extended life battery for my laptop. I do a lot of presentations out of my office lately, and it’d be nice to not have to drag a cord around ALL the time.
I found the battery on line, I have a district tax-exempt credit card, it would have been a 2 minute transaction on line.
Stupid me, mentioned this to one of the IT geeks. I have to do an online ‘project request’. The request was routed to the IT head. He sent an invite for three people to meet and discuss parameters, and to determine my tech needs, and how the battery will support my mission. I managed to avoid the meeting with a pithy e-mail that essentially said “WTF?”
Quotes were obtained for 3 products to allow me to select what might meet my needs best: the f-ing battery I wanted in the first place, some sort of thing they would have had to replace my DVD slot with, or THE EXACT SAME DAMN BATTERY I HAVE NOW.
I made my selection, sent them an account # to bill, and have been waiting for 13 work days now since I made the original request.
No, I am not making this up; and Yes the next time I need something simple I’m just going to buy the thing myself.
I know I may be going out on a limb here, but … you could always change it yourself? I mean, that’s what I do. I could call building maintenance and they’d send someone down today, or tomorrow … Or they may forget and I’d have to call them again.
F it. I’ll stand on my cube wall and change it myself. If I fall, I can always use the paid time off.
Or, you know, you could do like I did, and decide you like it better without the overhead light on, and turn on a desk-lamp instead. Ahhhh, much better.
First, bulbs are locked away in a secret place. 2nd, there are a million different types of bulbs, and I’m not qualified to determine which is right. 3rd, I’d have a grievance filed against me by the union, as I would be doing a job only union members are supposed to do.
I have no idea what happens to me – but I was warned when I took this job that sooner or later it would happen. Part of my job involves making logistical arrangements for meetings and events – planning the physical setup, and usually doing anything smacking of technology myself. I’m not even supposed to move actual furniture, because that is a union job. So I give them scale drawings, and then I come in at 630 in the morning to find somebody’s apparently been doing acid while looking at them, as there is no discernable relation between the room and my drawing of it. As there’s no one else at that hour to do anything, I end up being a furniture mover quite often.
Still, after 6 years, no one has filed a grievance against me, and I think the real reason is that no one minds that I do their work for them, since I’m not in a position to punish them for not doing theirs. They’re in a different department, and years of complaints from me haven’t resulted in much of any improvement from the night crew.
There is the punch line right at the end. Just like all good jokes.
BTW Just how did you become the best of the worst? Around here that is high prase indeed.
Where I work, I can’t even put a nail or screw in the wall to hang a certificate - we have to call “engineering” (maintenance) and schedule an appointment.
Ooh, an update. After seeing an engineer (7) who happened to be around this morning, I asked him about my light, and just now that original engineer came with another engineer (8) to replace the bulb.
I wouldn’t know where the bulbs are and I bet there’s some sort of ballast issue with these long fluorescent bulbs. I used to do bookkeeping in Facilities and the guys gave me a joke union card because I would occasionally pick up a screwdriver to attach computer or copies components. Just skirting the line there.
I sincerely believe that there must be a Super-Top-Secret Facilities Manual somewhere, which has the following cardinal rule:
“There’s nothing in this world that a little red tape can’t fix.”
I’ve been waiting 2 weeks now for facilities to transfer my PC from one office to the other (my department was previously co-located, but has now consolidated to a single location).
The computer is completely boxed up and ready to go so the simplest answer would be for me to do it. However, I’ve been advised that no one but facilities has the ability to take company-owned computer equipment out of any company-owned building. More importantly, facilities only has this ability on Wednesdays… though perplexingly enough, the persons endowed with this ability weren’t present on the last TWO Wednesdays that have passed since the work order was put in.
I’m not sure how I’m expected to do my work in the meantime, but I’m sure that this will sort itself out somehow. I think that I may be able to jack my brain directly into the internet by the time it shows up, actually… sometime in 2035.
Finally, a thread about EXACTLY what I currently am employed to do.
I’m the facilities electrician at a rather large place, about a million square feet of space and about 800 or so employees.
It used to take one person (me) to change a light bulb but now it only takes four.
We used to get a phone call directly from the person in need and then jot down the request and get to it asap.
That all changed when we went to an automated center with a Help desk and everything. Now all the person has to do is call 3-HELP, go through the tree menu, describe the problem to someone who may or may not know what a light bulb is, then create a ticket for the regular maintenance guys. If the regular maintenance guys can’t or won’t take care of it (for various reasons, it’s too high, too hard, or the ballast is bad) then the ticket gets directed to me and I get to it within 14 days.
Piece of cake.