One of my employees is irritating the bejeezus out of me. We have a Big Meeting again on Friday and Monday where we’re introducing a brand new product she wants to create - it’ll be her very first from start to finish, including presenting the product to the Very Important People, getting money for it, budgeting for it, creating it, rolling it out with clients and supporting it afterward. It’s a big deal and I’m excited for her. Or was, anyway.
This lady has been asking for a promotion forever and I figured that this would be an amazing opportunity to be seen by the muckity mucks. So, I socialized the product during my senior leadership discussions to smooth her path a bit, had her create slides and asked her to present idea. You know, the shit you’re supposed to do in corporate America as a manager.
And ever since she’s been fucking insufferable. I don’t expect unquestioning compliance, but lately she’s been pushing back on certain parts of her job saying they’re busywork, including emailing her damn presentation to our boss. She thought I should do it. Or the boss’s assistant. Or someone who “had time for it.”
So I had to waste an hour of my afternoon having a really irritating talk that equated to, “Please send your own emails on your own products on your own behalf. Oh, and don’t be an asshole and tell your boss that you don’t have time to hit the send button. Hugs and kisses, overly.”
This morning I received an email from a County Attorney asking me to put a chunk of an excel spreadsheet into a separate spreadsheet and email it to her.
While she had the spreadsheet open in front of her.
Yes, I asked if she was currently looking at it.
No, I did not reply how I really wanted to.
This is the third time she’s asked me to futz with the primary book, all things she could easily do herself. I know squat about excel, couldn’t create a formula if I had to, but copy/paste is basic.
But, she’s an attorney. I’m just line staff.
(I’m just the one who fine tooth combed through hundreds of cases, fixed countless data integrity problems, entered orders, decided which cases should move forward or be dismissed, provided tons of information to the legal secretaries, double checked the proposed orders…)
The other (bigger) reason I came back and asked my employee to do this herself was because if I send it, I get credit. She gets the kudos for work she sends, and I really want her to be the face of this product. No matter how I explain that, though, it’s busywork.
Dumb ass manager prints shit I assume he doesn’t need. If he needed it he might actually pick it up. A big pile of his crap sat on the printer output tray for 2 days. I eventually needed that printer only to find it was out of paper and once I refilled it out came the rest of his huge batch of crap. Mind you he walks by this printer a dozen times a day.
I see this kind of magical thinking all over the place.
He likely has some neurons firing in his lizard brain that tell him that when he prints something, it becomes real and tangible. It wasn’t a real thing on his screen, and only became real because he printed it. He does not need the printout, he just needed to print it to cause it to materialize into the world.
Likewise I have a theory about plastic garbage bags and why people dump garbage where they should not. It’s not just because they are lazy assholes. You see, the plastic garbage bag is a magic talisman, that converts it’s contents into invisible "Gar-B-age that just… goes away. Once it is in the magic bag, it no longer exists. It is transported to another dimension. Therefore, you can put the magic bag anywhere you like - no problem. It’s just … gone.
The same applies to bags of dog poop. This is why you see them strewn beside pathways. These are magic bags - once you put the poop inside, the whole thing is now … gone! You can toss it anywhere now, because it has been transformed into invisible garbage!
That’s similar to my theory, that printing something is the first step in working on it. If he prints it, then he’s started to work on it, even if he never picks it up, and never looks at it, he started, he just didn’t have time to finish.
“Can I get your comments on my draft?”
“I’ve started on it, but I haven’t read the whole thing yet. I’ll try to have a response by Tuesday.” Hmm, started, a copy has been sitting next to the printer for a week now.
New Owner: “There will now be a bonus program based on our net profit!”
Staff: “Yay!”
New Owner: “Yes, you’ll love me being the new owner.”
One year later:
New Owner: “Net profit doesn’t justify a bonus.”
Staff: “How could that be? Our billable hours are 25% higher than last year with no new personnel.”
New Owner: “Yes, but I leveraged the buy-out and the company has to pay me back. Plus, I decided to hire my wife and daughter, even they know nothing about what we do and don’t come to the office.”
The time has come , anyone with direct reports now has to be in the office Tue/Thur . So my boss and the big boss are in the office as am I, but none of my team are allowed in. So I am now sitting in my office on conference calls not seeing anyone , even my peers or boss etc as they are also sitting in their offices on conference calls not seeing anyone.
So I now have to spend an extra hour a day driving etc just to be in the same place I was before .
le sigh.
Yeah I think product company powers that be want us all back in the office , but the HSE team and other corporate powers don’t , so we end up with this weird half assed setup.
Most of my team dont really need to be in the office most of the time although face to face catch up and the general innovation you get from informal interaction is missing .
Most of my interactions with my higher ups is interminable spreadsheets and powerpoints and the most overly bureaucratic , poorly thought through, incoherent product development process I have ever seen, bequeathed on us by the remanants of GE mangement who are still here. Example ,one number , the 3 year new product revenue gets called NTR , NPR , Benefit plan, PRN, CIU ( company investment upside)
It’s entered into multiple spreadsheets and powerpoints, and an online system with different names and no sharing of that number and in one case on one tab, the same number is entered into two different cells with different names. The number is generated from a bunch of other numbers (engineering cost revenue etc) and there are multiple places to enter those into tables in the different workbooks, also in different formats so no cut past .
Today was the first time I’ve left my apartment in 2 days; I spent most of Thursday & Friday in bed. I was terminated, without warning, from my new job on Wednesday. I really liked that job too. It was in a credit union and I finally found a job that was both day shift and didn’t require me to work from home. Non-remote jobs seem to be getting scarce. And to top it all off I can’t even apply for unemployment right now because I don’t have a physical copy of my SSN card (or any other official document listing my full SSN on it) to upload to verify my identity. I haven’t needed a physical card to apply for actual jobs, just my US passport.
Someone who used to be my boss asked if I (as librarian) could buy 8 books out of MY budget for HER class. I said yes, but this is the last time. Books ordered, she pestered me every day about their ETA. Books have been on my desk since last week, awaiting her pickup. Yes, she knows they are here. Glad to know she needed them so badly.
We have a new division manager. She is a master of speaking for eons without actually saying anything, and has made it clear she wants to make our social service agency a data driven agency.
The effort into turning our agency towards data driving our work had been pathetically pushed for at least five years now. Instead of looking at the quality of work we’re providing, they want to count shit. Unfortunately (or fortunately), counting shit can easily be manipulated. At one point we were required to have a plan on every case, reviewed minimally every six months. We also have programmable keyboards, which allows the ability to pop on completely useless ditto scripts on all cases in less than 30 minutes. So good on those who did that, even if they hadn’t actually looked at the case in a year. They met the report, that’s all that matters.
Much of what I do is counsel people, giving solutions (file a motion, contact this other agency, &c.). I cannot force a person to file a motion requesting their order be modified, nor can I force the courts to modify an order. So when I’m being judged on collection percentages, I get dinged for that. Management says they understand, then add in other data driven reports supposedly to “help” us. Last report was basically “Hey, you haven’t spoken with this person in 60 days, we need you to call them”. And if we don’t have a phone number? If that person is on written communication only? Or if we know that person is unable to communicate by phone due to external reasons? Sure, ding me for it, I guess.
Anyways, we just had a meeting about coming back into office. A coworker asked a specific question regarding the logistics of coming back - whether it will be required for all or only those who volunteer. The manager spoke for 15 minutes, confirming the question, affirming their support for the worker asking the question, re-explaining what we’ve gone through since March 2020, expressed appreciation for those who want to come back in office and understanding for those who would rather not, and then thanked the worker for the question. That was it.
I’ve said this before - I like what I do, I dislike who I work for.
I think it’s pretty obvious, cases that can’t be phoned need to be disappeared. Find some technicality to send them to a different department, close them as completed, mark them as moved out of your jurisdiction, or whatever. Management’s goal isn’t to help these people, it’s to make up a metric, and then meet it, so they can congratulate themselves for a job well done.
The classic story (from WWII) is about the person who is hired because the Washington bureau is rapidly expanding, and put in charge of further hiring. One day he sends out a rejection letter, then realizes he is responding to HIS OWN application, filed weeks earlier.
II believe that it is from the book “Washington at War” by David Brinkley.)
I really liked that job too. It was in a credit union and I finally found a job that was both day shift and didn’t require me to work from home. Non-remote jobs seem to be getting scarce. 
And to top it all off I can’t even apply for unemployment right now because I don’t have a physical copy of my SSN card (or any other official document listing my full SSN on it) to upload to verify my identity. I haven’t needed a physical card to apply for actual jobs, just my US passport. 