My job has gone past ridiculous all the way to ludicrous.
I have been talking to my boss about re-focusing my efforts on a few important things instead of half-assing all the crap I am tasked with.
This week the big boss said he wanted me to spearhead a section of our strategic plan that would realistically take me 40% of my time.
Then today we were on a webinar of another initiative that he wants me to cover. Afterward he said it could be a full time job.
He also brought me in on a conference call this morning the outcome of which could take up 25% of my time if I let it.
Also I am working on a special project that will have me traveling 9 weeks this year as well as a couple weeks of prep work.
Instead of doing a good job on any of it, it will take up a few more hours of my time and keep me from doing a good job on anything else.
The whole thing sucks my will to live so instead I come here to see what other people are bitching about.
I’ve been dawdling over a correction to a document for well over an hour, because I simply don’t give a damn about the project in question anymore. It should have been a really good one to work on, but my supervisor isn’t being consistent regarding my involvement – sometimes I’m clearly being assigned what is essentially grunt work while he works on the larger aspects of the project, other times he’ll attempt to hand those larger aspects off to me only to swoop back in and take over them again. I’ve been left out of two or three critical conference calls at this point; my name was actually put on the schedule as an attendee for one, even though I never received an invite or a number to call. The real kicker came yesterday when my supervisor just happened to mention that he ‘forgot’ to let me know that the customer’s requirements were based on a completely different type of system, and thus weren’t really meant to be used as a strict guide for this project. (This is the opposite of every other project I’ve been involved with – you are expected to follow every aspect of the customer’s specifications and requests, no matter how silly [who needs 6 hard copies of a document nowadays???]; objections and discussions must be settled prior to signing off the order.) And so I’m sitting here staring at the screen.
New hire has a nervous tick of some kind. He constantly makes this chirrupping sound like a cartoon dolphin, or chipmunk.
Like, all. the. time. Twenty times a minute or more.
{Note to self: prison food sucks.}
But I have heard that it is sometimes possible to have ratties as pets. There is that.
The new hire may have Tourette’s, in which case s/he can’t help it and it may become less intrusive as s/he becomes less nervous at work. Stress often exacerbates it. I have no idea if edibles samples might help in the short term.
Yeah, that sounds like someone I knew in college who had Tourettes. His tic was a beep. He beeped incessantly. Really annoying until you got so used to it you stopped hearing it.
Anyhow, my day:
An anti-masker who was, today, wearing a mask who asked me if, on April 6 when the state mandate for masks is supposed to lift, the store I work for would stop requiring masks. I told her I honestly did not know. She then heatedly told me that she had been talking to other customers while waiting in line and if we didn’t lift the mask requirement they’d all go to a different store and we’d be out of business so I had better tell the owners not to require masks anymore. I told her that if she really felt that way she was welcome to contact the corporate office and let them know how she felt. No, I was supposed to tell them on her behalf, me, I wasn’t allowed to foist it onto anyone else and, anyhow, this covid thing was all a hoax, rights, freedom… 
Father and son were doing two grocery orders. OK. The first one goes without a problem. On the second the father points to the son and says “he’s paying”. I say OK and ask the young man for ID. Oh, no no no - it was all a joke, hur hur, my son is obviously too young. I said that I’m not joking and refuse the sale. It was all a JOKE the father says. I remind him that he had said the young man was buying and sorry, but the law doesn’t allow us to joke (it really doesn’t). He wants to speak to a manger. I say OK and call a manger over, explaining there was an issue over alcohol sales and I had refused the sale. The manger took them over the customer service and dealt with the father and son. Look, I’m actually sorry about this but we are not allowed to cut you slack on this. That kind of a “joke” is a dick move. Don’t be a dick.
Five customers later I have a woman who is probably 30-50 buy groceries, which included one of those bottled cocktail things. No problem, she’s old enough. Next woman up is a young woman. She also have a bottle of the same mix. I ask her “Is this yours?”. She says “yes”. I said “Can I please see some ID?” The woman next her, who I assume was an aunt, says “She’s not old enough - I’ll buy it for her.”
I said sorry, no, You can not purchase alcohol for a minor.
Aunt: “Oh, it’s for her mom.”
Me: “She said it was for her.”
Young woman: “It’s for my mom.”
Aunt: “I’ll buy it for her.”
I said that if it’s for her mom then her mom is going to have come over here and buy it herself, out of her own pocket, and not send her underage daughter to do this.
Aunt: “I SAID I WOULD BUY IT FOR HER!”
Me: “You can’t buy alcohol for a minor.”
Young woman: “What’s the big deal anyway?”
Having had enough I said “If I sell you alcohol I lose my job. I could be given a $1000 fine. I could spend 180 days in jail. That’s for a first offense.”
Young woman: “I don’t believe you.”
Me: “Look it up when you get home.”
Mom eventually does arrive. Look, I get why mom sent her sister and daughter to buy the groceries while she had a seat - mom wasn’t moving well and didn’t look well. But she paid herself and then I got bitched out.
At the end of the day I found my manager on duty and let her know about the two incidents, in case there was any blow back.
Can’t wait for tomorrow - the schedule shows we’re understaffed and, oh yippie, it’s the fourth anniversary of my husband’s death so I’m going to start out in a really good and stable mood…! Why, yes, I probably should have asked for April 1 off, but oddly enough I’m not as functional as I usually am around this time of year due to various sorts of emotional overload.
My job does not require you to drink, but today was one of those days that serve as inspiration to imbibe.
I will be thinking of you tomorrow, @Broomstick. (I am retired and give thanks every day that I no longer have to deal with customers.) You are a very strong person and I know you’ll get through this time, but don’t think you have to be perfect either; it’s ok to have a drink or whatever might help.
Oh WAIT! Tonight gets better!
So, I’m winding down getting ready for bed, chilling out, when I smell smoke, hear thuds from the apartment downstairs, and the sound of a smoke alarm. Silly me, I throw a coat on over my pajamas and run downstairs to see what’s going on. My downstairs neighbor is drunk off her ass, frying chicken, has TWO burners on her stove on high for 1 frying pan, and there’s little sparks of grease fires on the stove. She’s bitching about the noise saying she can’t turn off the alarm, doesn’t know why it’s going off, banging the pan around and spattering more grease. Oh, and her place is full of smoke.
I call 911.
The fire and police guys show up.
The good news is that she did not mange to set a real, ongoing fire in her kitchen. She did not burn the place down.
I went upstairs like the police suggested and let the first responders respond firstly.
More yelling ensued downstairs. Well, I had warned the police she was drunk, stumbling, and a bit argumentative.
Looks like the ambulance that showed up with the rest of the emergency crew carted my downstairs neighbor away. Great. Looks like she will not actually be burning the place down tonight.
I don’t know if I’ll sleep tonight. And my apartment smells like burned chicken.
When I was just out of high school, I had a summer job at an air base. My desk was across the aisle from another desk, so I had to sit facing the person at that desk all summer. It was a very long summer, because she would stick her finger in her ear and wiggle it back and forth while making a clucking noise. I can imitate the cluck, but it actually hurts. I don’t know how she did it so often and so enthusiastically.
Someone at Hades Annex (the call center I work at) WHISTLES. That sound can be quite painful for me, and since when is this appropriate at a call center? I want to braid the offender’s lips.
Egad, you had Granny Weatherwax as a coworker!
(The reference is to Granny Weatherwax from the Terry Pratchett book Witches Abroad. One chapter had her playing the card game “Mr. Cripple Onion” while cleaning her ear - with a noise like a poolstick being chalked. Threw her opponents right off of their game.)
My son has transient tic disorder. It used to manifest itself in this odd, occasional breathing pattern that was half snort, half exhale. Then it migrated to a slight whistle coming out of his mouth occasionally, you know the kind you get with a sibilant S only he’s not speaking. It’ll go away and come back sometimes, or migrate to some other (more silent) part of his body like his neck or his hands. But the unpredictability is the frustrating part. It gets way worse when he’s tired, but it has started to reduce significantly as he gets older.
It’s hard to keep my mouth shut about it sometimes - it can be immensely distracting, but when he tries to suppress it, it’s like a pressure valve. It’s got to come out eventually, and if he forces himself not to do it, by the time when he gets to a point where he absolutely has to, he does it a LOT at once. I’ve learned to ignore it, otherwise it’s so much worse. The pediatrician says it’s common with boys (something to do with their neurological development) and it usually fades significantly or goes away in their late teens, especially if you leave it alone - I sure hope she’s right.
Broomstick, I’m thinking of you today.
We used to be able to purchase things on our own. I would go to a system called SRM, I would submit a shopping cart, attach all the necessary information and then it would be approved by my boss and the cost center manager and, bam, a PO would be issued. It worked.
But corporate decided that it didn’t work. So we have a new system where I put in a ticket with all the same information I would enter into SRM with another group, who happens to live in Brazil so that what we call them, and they put in a the same freaking shopping cart into SRM with the information I gave them and they it goes to the same people for approval and, finally, a PO is issued.
Why?!?!?! It’s literally double the work.
I needed a PO created for an emergency service call for some equipment that is critical to production. I put in all the information as I was supposed to. And Brazil sat on it for a week for no discernable reason, even though I marked it urgent. Why? What value does this add?
I forgot to mention that I can still put in my own shopping carts. I can bypass Brazil. I don’t because I’ll get yelled at. Why? Why do we run this way??
One of my super-powers is coming up with rationalizations for stupid shit (Trump is/was often beyond me). I’d guess that some yutz of a manager somewhere saw that slalexan spends X% of her time ordering stuff. Someone who makes less money can do that sort of work, so studies were pulled out of asses and a contract was created with the fine folks in Brazil. It didn’t occur to any of the yutzes in the chain of command that you would still need to document what you needed.
And of course, the original cost-benefit analysis for the SRM system included the money saved by getting rid of the people who you told what to order when it was more efficient for you to just do it yourself.
They also get to add additional requirements that slalexen has to fill out additional paperwork to justify in detail why they need to order the parts they could have ordered themselves and that will in turn need their managment to authorize the justification evenif its budgeted spend to place an order, which will then have a further review and they find some item that has some of the same words in the part description so they reject with requests for further justification as to why their substituted part cannot be used, except that request is in the usual place behind the ‘beware of the tiger’ sign so you never see it.
Once you have found it you then need to get management chain buyoff on not substituting the part but they are not keen because the person who wanted the Brazil team has some metrics tracking the rejection rate of substituted parts and presents that at monthly executive manager meeting as a demonstration of how they are helping but engineering is closed minded and not embracing an agile supply chain. In the interim the substituted part has made it into the BOM which then triggers a new variant of the part and any other parts that part is a part of, which leads to an explosion in the number of variants a location could order leading to increasing inventory as the min max levels get duplicated and company cash is consumed. Eventually a VP is fired for excess inventory and the person who set up the Brazil team becomes the main driver of company operations and the whole company is consumed by solely managing supply chain processes and not making anything.
Revenue suffers but SCM KPIs are off the charts good.
OK that didn’t happen but damn if it seems like it could in some places I have worked.
After months of insisting that the new payroll/vacation-tracking web app MUST be used in Chrome – despite the fact that all of the IT-required extensions in Chrome prevent such things from running – IT has suddenly stated that it will be rolling Edge out to all computers to replace Internet Explorer and ensure that everyone has continued access to the new payroll/vacation app. 
I was working as a cashier in a grocery store several years ago. (Worst job so far in my life.) A dad sent his 10 year old son through with the grocery order and cash in his hand as dad was somewhere else. When the kid loaded the case of beer on the belt, I put a stop to the whole sale. The dad came over and cussed at me. I told him I was not selling this beer to this family tonight. If he wanted to buy it, he should have been there for me to sell it to him instead of sending his minor child. He tried to go to the manager, but in Oregon, if a liquor sale is stopped, it’s stopped. It can’t be overridden by a manager. The guy threatened to never buy his beer there. Boo hoo. I am inconsolable.
I’m so sorry that you Profiles in Retail Courage can’t hear me doing a slow clap for you.
I do hope that someone will learn to not be a jerk from your behavior (if not the dad, then maybe the kid with the beer…).
Your sarcasm is not appreciated.
I’m sorry you don’t approve, but it is fact that not only could I lose my job over this bullshit, I could lose money and my freedom as well. I don’t write the laws, but like everyone else I have to live with them. Fuck anyone who doesn’t understand that and thinks it’s all a joke or an over-reaction.
Oh my gosh, @Broomstick, no!
ZERO sarcasm. Why would you think I was being sarcastic?
(In fact, I’ve congratulated you before on how you’ve dealt with customers)
I really WAS doing a clap for you and Ranch Dip. Did you read that second sentence? I really do think, even if you feel like the dads won’t learn from your taking a stand, there’s hope for the next generation. So do NOT feel like you’re not getting through to anyone. Even someone in the next line might learn from your good actions.
I’m so glad you stood up to these clueless jerks. And glad your manager had your back.
I’m glad, too. I’ve been in the same situation. Kids walks up to counter with a bottle of beer, I say, “I can’t sell you this.” Mom says, “I’m paying for it.” I say, “Oh no, you’re not.” Mom gets mad. Tough shit. Next time, you carry the beer to the counter. This time it’s no sale. Not only can you, as a cashier, get fined or arrested, the store can get fined, or it’s liquor license suspended, which affects the store’s bottom line.