New and Unimproved Workplace Rants

The BBQ Pit
2882

This is a story relayed by a colleague in a different university department, and is sort of the opposite of embezzling.

My friend and a helper were cleaning out an old storeroom in the basement. They came across a zipper money bag full of cash. My friend immediately sent the student helping to go get the department chair and accountant. Now with witnesses present, they counted out several thousand in cash. They also discovered thousands in 20 year old uncashed checks made out to the department.

The checks were enough of a clue to work out what had happened. At some point, 20 or so years ago, the department had hosted a conference. Attendees paid by check or cash (this would have been in the 90s), but making deposits was a pain, so the former accountant had just put everything in the back of a file cabinet, and forgot about it.

2883

Laziness? It’s apparently a common enough thing to pop up several times per season on game warden reality shows.

2884

I would like to buy via capital two computer kiosks for the operators to use to do HR functions. For example, change their banking information for direct deposit or enroll in benefits. You would think this is a regular event, right? Especially since most of the HR functions are now Self-Service. I cannot find ANY information about how to procure a computer that is connected to the company network without hiring a new employee. I get that that is much more common… But what I’m trying to do isn’t that crazy, right?

2885

This stooping to petty office politics, but…

Document control and engineering share part of the building. We recently had a senior engineer retire; his sizable office has been vacant ever since. I had suggested many times that it would be a nice thing if they moved our senior document control specialist into this nice office, since she has been working for decades out of a slightly enlarged cube. The resulting rearrangement would have the bonus of freeing up more space for file cabinets, something that document control has been requesting for some time.

So what do they do instead? They’re moving a “field engineer” (no clue if he’s actually an engineer or not) from his quiet little office in a little-used part of the facility into this nice big office. Document control can’t stand the guy because of his unreasonable demands (large document transfers at 4:45 PM on Fridays, etc.), and the other engineers can’t stand him because he’s annoying as fuck. As a bonus, he’s started trying to pick arguments with anyone wearing a mask; he tried it with me this afternoon. Great. :rage: I’m praying to the Xerox gods that he’ll pick the copier by the door as his primary machine instead of the one near my office.

2886

Also one of the reasons why it should be mandatory for people working in financial positions to take annual vacations.

2887

My dad was a banker, and like everyone else at his bank was required to take two weeks of vacation consecutively. Fourteen days with no access to any financials of the bank.

So every summer we’d take long road trips (long borrring trips… how many Civil War Historical Sites can one grade-schooler take?).

2888

Two full time cashiers out with covid, and five part-time cashiers. That’s just the Customer Service/Checklane department where I work. All other eras of the store are similarly affected.

No serious cases, thank Og. Some are breakthrough. Some are people who just haven’t gotten vaccinated.

Getting tired of customers bitching about lack of open checklanes. Sorry, lack of people power. Why don’t ya’ll get vaccinated and wear a fucking mask? Do your part to help rather than coughing all over us.

(It’s been a rough day and yes, I know most of the customers are decent people, most of them wear masks, probably a lot have had their shots, but I have goddamned tired of the bare-faced whiners who have drunk the Kool-Aid)

2889

I have heard (may be urban legend) that banks do that because if you are embezzling or otherwise up to no good, then they will catch you since you have two weeks you’re not covering your tracks.

2890

How do things like this happen? Does he have some really juicy blackmail material on people in high places?

2891

Yep, the way my dad explained it, if you’re fiddling with people’s money, you can’t stop fiddling for even a day or two without it all falling apart.

We loved the fact that he told us about this when we were really little, like he trusted us with grown-up secrets of the dark side of his job.

2892

They tend to treat the more senior employees with kid gloves for some reason. This is the same place that, when it was found that an older field service employee had been swiping valuable materials from the company scrap bin for his own use, was gently reminded that streaming is wrong. That was it…I don’t think he was even officially reprimanded.

2893

Where I work it happens because the HR manager makes sure all his people get the best offices before anyone else gets a shot at them. He also gives his people excellent reviews across the board on the theory that otherwise it would make him look bad. In truth most of his people are pretty good but there are a couple who just suck.

2894

I swear our expense reporting software hates me. Or maybe it hates everyone and I just haven’t heard everyone else griping.

Went to create the report for the last trip. Fill in the usual when/where/who to bill info and hit save. Same as I’ve done scores of times before. System is then supposed to go to details so I can do the receipts thing. Nope. Back to blank form. No errors. No messages. Just reset form. Fine. Lather, rinse, repeat. Blank form. Okay. Once more with gusto, triple check everything before hitting save.
{Middle Finger Icon}

Walking away now and I’ll try again later.

Later: Log into expense reporting to find three identical expense reports happily waiting for receipts.

2895

When we got bought by a big company a few years back, for our expenses we had to go from excel spreadsheets to Concur. It was a painful process to get an expense in. Now after some upgrades , I have to say with a corporate card and the phone app to take a picture of receipts, Concur is a really slick system. It generally reads the ammount correctly , does a good job at geussing the categories and 80% manages to link the credit card transaction to the right receipt. The app also does millage additions very quickly which is something I always forget.
So a rare case of a corporate system actually making life easier for the employees.

Their product development process on the other hand…

2896

We used Concur with my previous contract holder, and while I haven’t been thrilled with any system I’ve been subjected to, Concur was one of the better ones. The new system is one of their competitors and is an absolute steaming pile.

My biggest ongoing complaint is that if it doesn’t like something you’ve entered when you hit save, it just dumps you back into the form with no indication of why it doesn’t like it. Not even putting you on the offending entry. Just back at Field 1.

2897

A couple years ago I had a coworker on my team who was next to useless as a software engineer - she’d constantly ask me questions that were real beginner-level stuff that she should already know from her prior job experience, not-so-secretly try to steer me into doing her work for her, openly taking naps when we were supposed to at least put up a pretense of working, yadda yadda yadda.

Made my life a living hell for the several months we were working on a project together. So you can imagine my relief when my manager finally transferred her to another team.

She just got transferred back to my team. I still can’t understand why my manager would allow it.

:face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

The only bright side is that because my company is still permitting work-from-home, I can avoid her much more effectively and with more plausible deniability than the last time.

2898

So, our genius corporate overlords decided that all register transactions will be timed henceforth. The timer starts when you scan the first thing. It ends when the receipt prints out. Cashiers who can’t keep up the pace face disciplinary measures… Pretty straightforward, right?

Until someone disputes something - the entire exchange works against the cashier. Because of course someone in some department mis-pricing something is all our fault.

Until the computer stalls/slows down/glitches - you can’t do anything, but the timer keeps ticking.

Until the nice old lady insists on loading her cart. One bag at a time. Slowly. Before digging around in her purse for exact change. Yes, all that time counts against the cashier.

Until someone remembers something they forgot and simply runs off, leaving their order, to find said something in the cavernous depths of the store. Tick, tick, tick…

Disabled customers who truly need extra time and attention? Taking the required time counts against the cashier.

It’s all about speed, speed, speed. Faster, faster, faster. Fuck accuracy. Fuck actually helping customers who need it.

Oh, and of course we’re not supposed to mention any of this to the customers.

What we really want to tell people is let us ring your shit up as quickly as possible then pay - THEN we’ll be happy to help you bag, or sort, or load your cart. Don’t “help” us prior to making that payment, because you’re not helping us, you’re hurting us. But we can’t.

2899

I live in California, so I’m not your customer. I’m also not enjoined from telling your customers about this crap. I’d be glad to tell them, if you want.

2900

Someone’s been reading about Aldi’s success. Their cashiers must be on the same incentive plan.

2901

Reason #867 to say, “Fuck Kroger!”